The Executive Functions Needed for Successful Reading

A strong executive function system is vital to for successful reading outcomes. Let’s take a look at what a successful reading looks like and the executive function skills they require to achieve that success. 

Let’s give our student a name.

Jake.

Jake has strong EF skills and is considered a skilled reader. His decoding abilities are at grade level, and his comprehension skills are superb.

Let’s walk through a reading assignment with Jake and how his executive functions support the various tasks involved.

BEFORE READING

Before Jake begins to read, activation needs to occur. Activation is task initiation, planning, organization. Jake needs to activate his background knowledge on the topic and think about what he already knows. How familiar is he with the topic? He then previews the passage to understand how it is organized. He establishes a purpose for reading. Jake makes predictions about what he will learn.

DURING READING

As he reads, Jake attends to the text. His attentional control skills are hard at work.

Jack also uses his working memory to juggle new information—he’s relating new information to his existing knowledge on the topic; he’s making inferences, and he’s able to identify the relationships between pronouns and their referents within sentences and paragraphs. If he comes across an unfamiliar word, he can use his syllabication strategies, holding the syllables in his working memory long enough to blend them into a word.

Metacognitive skills allow Jake to think about his own thinking to self-monitor for errors she makes or ambiguous information she comes across for which she needs further clarification. Smantha’s working memory and cognitive flexibility allow her to work with the sounds and meanings of words to navigate figurative language and words like homonyms, homophones, heteronyms in context, shift her attention as needed, and consider different types of information and perspectives.

Jake inhibition allows him to readjust her focus to avoid distractions that may otherwise interfere with his reading goal.

AFTER READING

After reading, Jake can organize the information he learned and use his working memory to provide a logical retelling of the text.