Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope
Dr. Hollis Scarborough’s Reading Rope provides a powerful illustration of the multiple strands of proficient reading and is central to AIM's Integrated Literacy Model. The rope model unravels the critical skills of word recognition and language comprehension. It directly informs our understanding of why some students succeed and some struggle and provides necessary direction for effective instruction. When we created lessons for the Pathways to Proficient Reading course in our AIM Pathways™ digital training platform, we included the Reading Rope of course, but brought the diagram to life with input from Reading Rope creator Dr. Hollis Scarborough herself.
In 2019, Dr. Hollis Scarborough was the inaugural recipient of AIM's Hollis Scarborough Award, which honors a researcher whose work has been instrumental in literacy and inspired others. Her presentation, A Case History of a Twisty Metaphor, is a must see video for anyone who cares about structured literacy.