Sensory Play & Structured Literacy: How Kids Learn to Read
- Your Friends at Superspace
- Nov 12
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 12
Discover how sensory play supports Structured Literacy to build strong readers. Explore Superspace's playful environments for decoding success.
Children learn through their senses long before they learn to read. They watch, listen, move, and touch to make sense of the world, and these sensory experiences lay the foundation for how they later connect letters, sounds, and meaning. The link between sensory play and literacy is powerful, and it becomes even more effective when paired with a reading model called Structured Literacy. This approach gives children the tools to decode written language with confidence and understanding.
At Superspace, we believe that reading should never feel abstract. When children can see, touch, and move through their learning, literacy comes alive. This blog explores how sensory play and Structured Literacy work together to strengthen reading development, and how Superspace environments make that connection tangible.
What Is Structured Literacy?
Structured Literacy is an evidence-based approach that teaches children the structure of written language. It is explicit, systematic, and cumulative, meaning that teachers directly instruct students on how sounds connect to letters, how words are built, and how meaning unfolds within sentences and stories. This model includes phonology, sound-symbol association, syllable structure, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
In other words, it gives children the map of language and shows them exactly how to navigate it. Each step is taught, practiced, and reinforced, building a strong foundation for fluent reading and comprehension.
A national-scale study by Gillon and colleagues (2024) in New Zealand demonstrated how effective this approach can be. When over 800 schools implemented the Better Start Literacy Approach, a Structured Literacy model, thousands of students showed measurable growth in phonemic awareness, spelling, and reading comprehension within the first ten weeks. Similarly, Potier Watkins and Dehaene (2023) found that kindergarteners who received explicit phonics instruction through structured tablet games improved letter-sound recognition and reading fluency faster than their peers who focused only on meaning or memorization.
These findings confirm what educators have long suspected: reading success begins with understanding the code.
How Structured Literacy Differs from Other Approaches
Before Structured Literacy gained attention, several other models dominated classrooms. The Whole Language approach emphasized immersion in text, assuming that reading develops naturally through exposure to stories and print. Balanced Literacy attempted to merge phonics and whole-language strategies, often encouraging students to guess words based on context. The Three-Cueing System asked children to use picture, syntax, and context clues instead of decoding each word directly.
These models share one limitation: they often skip or dilute the systematic teaching of the written code. Students learn what words mean, but not how they work. For children with dyslexia or other reading challenges, this gap becomes a wall.
Imagine four classrooms. In the first, a Whole Language teacher invites students to read a story about a cat. When a child stumbles on the word “climb,” she says, “Look at the picture. What is the cat doing?” The child guesses and moves on, never learning how the letter patterns c-l-i-m-b represent specific sounds. In the second classroom, a Balanced Literacy teacher gives a short phonics reminder, then tells the child to check the first letter, look at nearby words, and think about what would fit; decoding is mixed with context guessing. A Three-Cueing teacher explicitly prompts the child to use meaning, structure, and visual cues in that order, for example “Look at the picture of the cat, does a word like climb fit the sentence, do the first letters c and l look right,” which again steers the child toward guessing rather than fully decoding. In the fourth classroom, a Structured Literacy teacher isolates the word “climb,” breaks it into phonemes, connects each sound to its graphemes, and then uses it in multiple sentences for practice. The student learns to decode and can apply that knowledge independently the next time.
Lindström-Sandahl et al. (2023) conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing explicit phonics instruction with traditional reading methods. After nine weeks, students who received direct code-based instruction showed significantly stronger decoding and comprehension skills. Structured Literacy gives every student access to that same clarity and confidence. It turns reading from a guessing game into a logical, learnable system.
What Is Sensory Input and Why It Matters
If Structured Literacy gives children the map, sensory input gives them the landmarks that make the journey meaningful. Sensory input refers to the way our brains receive and process information through sight, sound, touch, movement, and balance. In early learning, these sensory systems work together to help children build memory, attention, and language.
A growing body of research shows that sensory engagement amplifies learning outcomes. Kucirkova (2024) described this as “sensory reading,” a process where children connect meaning to text through multiple sensory channels. When children trace letters, hear sounds, or move their bodies while learning, they create stronger neural connections and deeper comprehension.
Fan et al. (2024) found that children who played with multi-sensory educational toys showed greater engagement and retention than those using traditional toys. This finding supports what most teachers already notice in the classroom: children learn best when their senses are awake.
The environment itself matters too. Finders et al. (2023) highlighted how rich language environments filled with conversation, sound, and movement build stronger vocabulary and communication skills, forming the groundwork that Structured Literacy later builds upon.
Practical examples include:
Tracing textured letters or tiles while saying each sound aloud
Using rhythm or clapping games to strengthen phonemic awareness
Building words with magnetic tiles to connect sight, touch, and hearing
Encouraging movement breaks that regulate focus and attention before reading
These activities engage the whole body, giving reading instruction a sensory anchor that children can feel and remember.
How Sensory Environments Enhance Structured Literacy
Structured Literacy teaches the logic of language. Sensory experiences make that logic memorable. Together, they strengthen how children connect sounds to symbols and symbols to meaning.
When teachers integrate sensory play into reading instruction, several key benefits emerge:
Phonemic awareness improves through rhythmic and auditory games
Orthographic mapping (connecting letters to sounds) strengthens when children build or trace words
Comprehension deepens as sensory calm and movement help regulate attention
Incorporating sensory-rich elements does not replace Structured Literacy. It enhances it. A child who learns to decode through systematic instruction and then practices those skills in an environment filled with movement, sound, and tactile engagement gains both structure and connection.
Superspace as the Bridge Between Structure and Sensory Play
Superspace environments naturally blend the rigor of Structured Literacy with the joy of sensory learning. Every panel, curve, and corner is an invitation to move, touch, build, and imagine. Educators can turn Superspace into a dynamic literacy lab:
Create sound walls where letters and phonemes are physically displayed
Build three-dimensional words or story structures that children can walk into
Design reading corners that provide sensory calm for focus and comprehension
Create a vertical play station that brings standard desk work to life (see our previous post Beyond Worksheets: Creative Strategies to Boost Student Engagement)
When children use Superspace to explore literacy, they are not just reading about language, they are living it. They use their bodies to construct meaning, turning abstract code into a physical, memorable experience.
Connecting to Vertical Play
In our earlier post, The Power of Vertical Play, we explored how movement through space, especially upward, supports balance, spatial awareness, and executive function. Those same skills are essential for literacy. Spatial reasoning helps children differentiate between letters like “b” and “d,” plan the order of sounds, and track lines of text.
Vertical Play adds another layer to Structured Literacy and sensory learning by engaging the body in physical sequencing and motor planning. When a child climbs, builds, or reaches, they strengthen the same cognitive systems used for reading order, directionality, and focus. In Superspace environments, these connections happen naturally as children move through vertical builds that double as language-rich learning spaces.
Conclusion: Reading Is a Full-Body Experience
Learning to read is not just a mental exercise; it is a sensory and physical one. Structured Literacy gives children the structure they need to decode the written world. Sensory play gives them the context and connection to remember it. Together, they create lifelong readers who can not only understand words but truly feel their meaning.
Superspace is where these worlds meet, a place where structure and creativity combine, and where reading is built, touched, heard, and experienced from the ground up.
References
Fan, X., Zhang, H., & Li, Y. (2024). A comparative study of multi-sensory and traditional toys in child education. Frontiers in Education, 9, 1182660.
Finders, J., Rutz, C., & Rowe, D. W. (2023). Early childhood education language environments. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1202819.
Gillon, G. T., et al. (2024). Better Start Literacy Approach: Scaling up Structured Literacy across schools in New Zealand. Frontiers in Education, 9, 1356880.
Kucirkova, N. (2024). Sensory reading: The explanatory power of sensory reading for early reading and literacy. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy.
Lindström-Sandahl, B., et al. (2023). Effectiveness of explicit phonics intervention for early struggling readers: A randomized controlled trial. Dyslexia, 29(3), 330–348.
Potier Watkins, C., & Dehaene, S. (2023). Cross-over study of phonics-based reading games in kindergarten classrooms. The Journal of Experimental Education, 91(5), 981–1002.
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