How to Interpret Your Science of Reading Quiz Results

If you or your staff have completed the Science of Reading reflection quiz, now comes the part that actually helps leadership decisions: making sense of the patterns.

The goal isn’t to judge teachers or label classrooms.

It’s to understand where instruction may not yet be aligned with SoR (the Science of Reading), and where support will have the biggest impact.

This answer guide helps turn opinions into instructional insight.

What the Results Often Reveal

Across schools, similar themes appear again and again. 

Not because educators aren’t working hard, but because fully aligning with the Science of Reading takes dedicated learning, effort and time.  

When you compare staff responses to research-aligned practices, three gaps often emerge.

1. How Often Students Should Practice

One of the most surprising findings in early literacy research is how much practice it truly takes to attain mastery of a particular phonics concept.

Research shows students need frequent, repeated practice (about 1.8 opportunities per minute) to build strong reading and writing skills effectively (Fien et al., 2015).

What to watch for when teachers introduce a new concept:

• How often is the teacher asking students to read that concept out loud?

• How often is the teacher asking students to write that concept down?

• Does the teacher give students chance to try the new skill independently?

Key takeaways:

• If students practice less than around once every 30 seconds, the concept is not likely to stick.

• If "student practice" is simply students repeating after the teacher, the concept is not likely to stick.

Often, students simply don’t get enough meaningful practice as they learn a new skill.

And when practice opportunities are limited, the concept often doesn't stick.

2. Review Cycles Are Too Short

The curriculum is packed, and time is short. Teachers have to keep moving forward. But learning to read also depends heavily on cumulative review.

Learning new letter-sound relationships takes time and consistent repetition. While some students may learn quickly, many children need numerous guided practice opportunities across multiple sessions before they internalize these patterns and can apply them reliably in reading tasks (Wolf, 2015).

When introducing a new letter-sound pair (phonics pattern), teachers should aim for students to practice it many times across several days (minimum 70 times).

What to watch for in literacy blocks:

• Which concepts are being reviewed?

• How many times is each concept reviewed?

• Do teachers have a clear plan for reviewing each concept?

When previous patterns aren’t revisited enough:

• Students forget what they learned

• Confidence and engagement drop

• Intervention groups grow over time

The issue isn’t initial teaching quality. It’s retention of what students already learned.

3. Students Still Rely on Cues

This can be the biggest moment of clarity for some teams.

Students may appear fluent while actually relying heavily on strategies like:

• looking at pictures

• predicting from context

• guessing based on first letters

Some students look like really strong readers, until the cues are taken away. It is critical to ensure students' skills are monitored without any cues they can lean upon.

If teachers suspect a student is leaning on cues, here's what to do:

• hide all story pictures

• show only one word at a time

Hiding pictures and showing only one word at a time ensures that the child doesn't have any context available to "guess" the words.

Watching a child try to read individual words without any context provides excellent insight into the strength of their true decoding skills.

Why This Matters for Leadership

Poor SoR quiz results rarely mean teachers' instruction is “wrong.”

Instead, it means instruction is incomplete.

Most schools don’t need a dramatic shift overnight.

They need targeted support in specific areas:

• increasing student practice opportunities

• strengthening & systemizing cumulative review

• monitoring progress without students relying on context

Pinpointing precisely where individual teachers can improve means that small changes can lead to big improvements.

From Awareness to Action

The purpose of reviewing SoR quiz results isn’t immediate change. It’s prioritization. 

When leaders understand which pieces matter most, professional learning becomes clearer and staff conversations become more productive.

Small adjustments, consistently applied over time, can improve literacy education more reliably than sweeping initiatives.

If this was helpful, feel free to share: