Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ® | Science of Reading for Teachers

In this conversation, Becky Pallone and Michael Hart discuss how their phonemic awareness instruction  has evolved over time. They emphasize the importance of blending and segmenting as key skills in phonemic awareness and highlight the benefits of incorporating letters in phonemic awareness instruction. They will also provide practical tips for you! 

Takeaways

• Incorporating letters in phonemic awareness can strengthen letter-sound correspondence.
• Teachers should prioritize blending and segmenting in phonemic awareness instruction.
• Teacher knowledge and curriculum are both important in phonemic awareness instruction. 

Resources 

• Measured Mom CVC Word List
• Pam Kastner Wakelet Resources: The Literacy Collection
• Explicit Instruction, Anita Archer
• Continuous Phonation Webinar, Selina Gonzales Frye
• University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI)
• Goyen Foundation Twitter/X

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Melissa and Lori just returned from the Plain Talk About Literacy & Learning Conference in New Orleans and they will share their takeaways with YOU! Attendees called in while at the conference to share aha moments and key takeaways. You won't want to miss this one!

2024 Plain Talk Conference Presenters

Podcast Episodes We Mentioned

• Episode 44:  Elevating the Education Profession with The Right to Read Project
• Episode 116:  Sonia Cabell on the Importance of Content-Rich ELA Instruction
• Episode150: Science of Reading for ALL Students: Intervention for Secondary Students
• Episode158: Science of Reading Beyond Phonics: The Ultimate Goal of Reading with Doug Fisher
• Episode 170: All About Read-Alouds with Molly Ness

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Matt Burns discusses the importance of phonemic awareness in reading instruction. Phonemic awareness is an outcome of skilled reading, not a precursor, and it has a reciprocal relationship with reading. Matt also emphasizes the need to focus on decoding skills in second, third, and fourth grade, rather than solely on phonemic awareness. Matt provides practical takeaways for teachers and recommends additional resources for learning about phonemic awareness.

Takeaways

• Phonemic awareness is an outcome of skilled reading, not a precursor.
• Phonemic awareness and reading have a reciprocal relationship.
• Decoding skills are a strong predictor of reading success.
• Nonsense word fluency assessments can be beneficial for assessing decoding skills.
• Avoid teaching nonsense words and focus on decoding instead.

Resources

• Phonemic Awareness, Research, Misconceptions, and Fads with Dr. Matt Burns
• They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction “In the Dark”, But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training
• RIP to Advanced Phonemic Awareness | Shanahan on Literacy
• Phonemic Awareness with Letters YouTube video, Matt Burns
• Matt Burns YouTube Channel 
• National Reading Panel Report 
• Elkonin Boxes, Reading Rockets
• Florida Center for Reading Research 
• UFLI Foundations 
• Ep. 159: Back to School: Science of Reading or Snake Oil with Holly Lane 
• Road to the Code, Book 
• IES Practice Guides 
• Empirical Analysis of Drill Ratio Research: Refining the Instructional Level for Drill Tasks, Matt Burns (meta-analysis)

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Shayne Piasta discusses best practices for teaching alphabet knowledge. She tells us what the research suggests about teaching  letter names and sounds, why teaching a letter of the week may not be the most effective approach, and an order to teach letters. The best part? She shares concrete ideas and strategies for classroom practice. 

Takeaways

• Teach both letter names and sounds simultaneously.
• Consider the acrophonic principle, where the letter name gives clues to its sound.
• Avoid teaching letters of the week and consider a faster pacing for letter instruction.
• Be intentional about the order of teaching letters, considering children's names and frequency of letters in text.
• Use differentiated instruction and embedded mnemonics for effective alphabet instruction.

Resources

• Handbook on the Science of Early Literacy
• The Science of Early Alphabet Instruction, chapter 7
• Ohio State University Alphabet Learning and Instruction research and articles
• Ohio State University Early Literacy and Learning Lab
• Episode 164: Misconceptions About Learning to Read with Carolyn Strom 

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Summary
In this episode, the hosts discuss the RAND Model, a heuristic for thinking about reading comprehension. The model was developed in the late 1990s by the RAND Corporation in response to a need for more research on comprehension. The model considers three main components: the reader, the text, and the purpose or activity of reading. It emphasizes the active role of the reader in constructing meaning from the text and highlights the importance of text complexity, coherence, genre, and the context in which reading takes place. The hosts also explore the challenges of measuring reading comprehension and suggest a curriculum-based assessment approach.

Takeaways

• The RAND Model is a heuristic for thinking about reading comprehension that considers the reader, the text, and the purpose or activity of reading.
• Text complexity, coherence, genre, and the context in which reading takes place are important factors in comprehension.
• Measuring reading comprehension with standardized tests can be challenging due to the complexity of the construct.
• A curriculum-based assessment approach that measures comprehension within specific disciplines may provide a more accurate and fair assessment of reading ability.

Resources

• Ep. 177: The Five Pillars of Reading with Hugh Catts
• Ep. 178: The Simple View and Scarborough’s Reading Rope with Researcher Hugh Catts Five Pillars of Reading with Hugh Catts 
• Follow researcher Hugh Catts on Twitter (or X)
• A Heuristic for Thinking About Reading Comprehension, or the RAND Model 
• ICYMI: Ep. 118: Rethinking Reading Comprehension with Researcher Hugh Catts

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Summary
In this episode, Hugh Catts discusses two popular reading models: the Simple View of Reading and Scarborough's Reading Rope. The Simple View of Reading highlights the importance of word recognition and language comprehension in reading comprehension. It emphasizes that if a child struggles in one area, it will affect their overall reading comprehension. Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a more detailed breakdown of the components involved in reading, including background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, strategies, and literacy knowledge. Both models help educators understand the complexity of reading and the interaction between different components.

Takeaways

• The Simple View of Reading emphasizes the importance of word recognition and language comprehension in reading comprehension.
• Scarborough's Reading Rope provides a more detailed breakdown of the components involved in reading.
• Both models highlight the complexity of reading and the interaction between different components.
• Effective reading instruction should focus on developing both word recognition and language comprehension skills.

Resources

• Ep. 177: The Five Pillars of Reading with Hugh Catts
• Follow researcher Hugh Catts on Twitter (or X)
• The Simple View of Reading  
• Scarborough’s Reading Rope 
• ICYMI: Ep. 118: Rethinking Reading Comprehension with Researcher Hugh Catts

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Summary

In this episode, the hosts discuss the five pillars from the National Reading Panel and their history. They explore the confusion that can arise from viewing these pillars as a model of how reading works. The role of fluency and the importance of differentiating instruction for the five pillars are also discussed. The conversation concludes with a reevaluation of the five pillars and a key takeaway to look beyond them. The next episodes will cover three other reading models.

Takeaways

• The five pillars from the National Reading Panel are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
• The five pillars should be viewed as interconnected and treated differently in instruction.
• The actual chapters of the National Reading Panel focus on alphabetics, fluency, and comprehension.
• It is important to look beyond the five pillars and consider other reading models.

Resources

• Follow researcher Hugh Catts on Twitter (or X)
• The National Reading Panel Report 
• The Five Pillars of Reading Graphic 
• The Narrow View of Reading, Alan Kamhi 
• The Narrow View of Reading Promotes a Broad View of Comprehension, Hugh Catts 
• ICYMI: Ep. 118: Rethinking Reading Comprehension with Researcher Hugh Catts

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

FROM MARCH 10, 2023

Today we’ll be talking to a team of authors about a recent article they published on small group instruction, titled Maximizing Small-Group Reading Instruction. We ask and answer important questions about small group instructional time: What is the appeal of small group reading instruction? Why has it been popular? What does the research say? What do we need to know about effective small-group reading instruction? What are some best practices? 

Resources

• Maximizing Small-Group Reading Instruction 
• Dr. Neena Saha’s Reading Research Recap of this research 
• What Should Small Group Instruction Look Like? Tim Shanahan 
• Reinterpreting the development of reading skills Scott Paris 
• Applying New Visions of Reading Development in Today's Classrooms Kay Stahl 
• Text Project with Freddy Hiebert 
• Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Our Children’s Learning by Peter Johnston

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

Why shouldn’t we level students? 

Professor and researcher Kristin Conradi-Smith from episode 143 says, “We lack research for differentiation by text levels.There's simply no support for it.”  Teaching with a leveled reading, sometimes known as guided reading, approach isn’t the most effective way to teach or learn to read. 

Instead, we can 

• Support students’ access to complex texts through scaffolds and building knowledge using language comprehension. 
• Use students' prior knowledge and match that knowledge to text topic demands.
• Read text sets - a group of texts on the same topic - to build students’ knowledge and vocabulary. 
• Practice and model oral reading fluency, rearead, and use comprehension strategies.

Resources

• Episode 143: Maximizing Small Group Reading Instruction 
• Matt Burns F&P BAS and LLI Research
• Matt Burns Leveling Students: Why we do it, why we shouldn’t, and what we should do instead
• Tim Shanahan Should We Teach at Reading Level? 
• Tim Shanahan blogs What does the Easter bunny have in common with the independent reading level?
• Tim Shanahan presentation Science of Reading Levels
• Dr. Kristen Schrauben Science of Reading What I Should Have Learned in College Private Facebook Group Presentation Giving Up F&P

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].

FROM FEBRUARY 24, 2023

In today’s episode, we discuss the structure and content of the literacy block. How can we teach using structured literacy in small groups? Kinder teacher Casey Jergens and author Natalie Wexler join us to connect theory and practice. Casey previously taught using a guided (leveled) reading approach with lots of small group time. In recent years, he’s switched to focus on Tier 1 instruction aligned to structured literacy, which supports access for all students. 

Resources

• Elementary Classrooms Are Too Noisy For Kids To Learn by Natalie Wexler 
• Casey’s Twitter Handle
• Natalie Wexler’s Twitter Handle 

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.

Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at [email protected].