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

Catlin Goodrow, consultant at Evidently Reading, addresses common assumptions teachers and leaders have about high-quality curricula. Why aren't more districts, schools, and teachers using high-quality curricula? We debunk these assumptions in this episode! 

1. A central curriculum is boring/irrelevant.
2. Providing a curriculum disrespects teacher expertise.
3. Common Core-aligned curricula are "too rigorous" for our struggling readers.

Find Catlin on Twitter @EvidentlyR & keep up with her blog posts here! Visit Tim

Shanahan’s blog for more information on so many topics related to this!

Follow Karen Vaites on Twitter @karenvaites and www.eduvaites.org. 

RAND studies show: 

• Only 7% of elementary ELA teachers are regularly using high-quality resources.
• Teachers spend 12 hours a week finding materials, 99% rely on materials they find or create themselves.

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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].

What happens when kids get to high school and are striving readers, struggling to fluently read grade-level text? We discuss the Libens' approach to addressing this issue, as well as share experiences of Baltimore City Schools Secondary Blueprint Literacy Coaches Zachary Jaffe & Tami James.

Read Know Better, Do Better by David & Meredith Liben, Chapter 7, to have a deeper understanding of the springboard for our conversation.

https://www.learningsciences.com/authors/meredith-liben/know-better-do-better 

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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].

TNTP's Kristen McQuillan and Regan Kelly share how important it is to adopt a high-quality curriculum. But... what happens after that? What should be considered as next steps? What's the bridge from adoption to implementation of a new curriculum? What does this mean for teachers? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS!!! LOTS of fabulous answers and ideas, grounded in research and experience. 

• EdReports

https://www.edreports.org/

• TNTP's Opportunity Myth: 

https://tntp.org/publications/view/student-experiences/the-opportunity-myth

• Summary of Learning by the Book: 

https://cepr.harvard.edu/curriculum-press-release

• Learning by the Book itself (conclusion on page 35):

https://cepr.harvard.edu/files/cepr/files/cepr-curriculum-report_learning-by-the-book.pdf 

• Kane and Steiner's reactions:

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/04/02/dont-give-up-on-curriculum-reform-just.html

• Emily Hanford's podcasts:

1. Hard Words: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read
2. At a Loss for Words: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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].

Learning from Liz Manolis' great mind (see what we did there?) on successful structures for implementation of Wit and Wisdom curriculum including the Spotlight Schools Visit Program to support leadership coaching, trends on implementation successes and challenges, and preparing for mindset shifts to trust the process. 

Liz-isms & Quotes: 

• "Go slow to go fast." 
• "Go back to go forward." 
• "The Content Stages framework provides the skeleton, the structure needed for coherency K-8."

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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 begin the conversation around equity and access with Bree-L Ukoha, a Blueprint Literacy Coach in Baltimore City Schools. Bree-L shares stories from the field and how adopting Wit and Wisdom curriculum was a step in the right direction of leveling the equity playing field for Baltimore students.

Unbound Ed - 5 charges: 

https://blog.unbounded.org/reflecting-on-the-5-charges/

1. Adopt aligned curriculum 
2. Attend to language of standards
3. Talk about race systematically 
4. Examine bias and its role in our work and learning 
5. Commit to adaptive change within the shifts

Unbound Ed Bias Toolkit
https://blog.unbounded.org/bias-toolkit/

TNTP - Opportunity Myth:
https://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_The-Opportunity-Myth_Web.pdf

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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].

Today we are live with Natalie Wexler, the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System–And How to Fix It (LISTENERS - IT’S AVAILABLE TODAY!). The book focuses on the lack of content in the elementary curriculum and its connection to what is commonly known as the achievement gap.

Natalie provides a snapshot of research on building knowledge, then tangibly deconstructs the why and how behind the research making explicit connections to education classrooms today. She provides clear steps to take to ‘fix’ the knowledge gap: adopting a content-focused curriculum to build knowledge, and providing teachers and leaders with ongoing professional development and coaching grounded in the curriculum. 

Pick up her book, The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System–And How to Fix It. In the meantime, find articles and say hi to Natalie at https://nataliewexler.com/ or on Twitter @natwexler.

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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].

Pun intended. This episode takes us into the world of Geodes - decodable readers that bridge foundational skills and Wit and Wisdom ELA - through building knowledge and accessible text. Melissa and Lori talk with Lorraine Griffith and Emily Gula, who share the research and insight behind the development of Geodes and how they can be used in classrooms, as well as (and most importantly) why Geodes are market disrupters. We can't wait for Baltimore City students to experience these special texts this year, to connect Wilson Language's Fundations foundational skills to the knowledge-building topics in Wit and Wisdom ELA core instruction. Quite simply, GEODES ROCK!

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Resources:

• Great Minds
• The Reading League
• NAEP scores
• Why We’re Teaching Reading Comprehension in a Way that Doesn’t Work by Natalie Wexler 
• Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong by Natalie Wexler

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].

A teacher's perspective on curriculum implementation is invaluable... and today, we have not ONE, but TWO teacher perspectives on Wit and Wisdom year one implementation!  Kyair and Katie are funny, smart, and have incredible learner-mindsets. They discuss the engagement of their students in texts and tasks, how Wit and Wisdom provides equity and opportunity, and their thoughts on teaching with an integrated (not isolated) curricula - a shift in mindset from the way 'school was done' previously. Lookout for some cheesy dad jokes along the way (thanks, Kyair), and so much insight and inspiration from these two incredible educators!

Connect with Kyair on Twitter @Kyairb
Connect with Katie on Twitter @Kstoryscotti

TNTP's The Opportunity Myth
https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/

The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar - Michelle Navarre Cleary
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/the-wrong-way-to-teach-grammar/284014/

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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].

We are thrilled to have Janise Lane, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, share how Baltimore City Schools used research and strategy to drive the high-quality curriculum implementation of Wit and Wisdom for K-8 schools district-wide. City schools drove structures for leaders and teachers by anchoring curriculum focused professional development, led by Wit and Wisdom experts, and taking the approach of learning together. Janise shares replicable strategies, structures, and insider tips... If you are in year one implementation of Wit and Wisdom, this podcast is a must-listen!

Resources referenced:

Strong Materials in the Hands of Great Teachers
https://learningforward.org/journal/december-2018-volume-39-no-6/strong-materials-in-the-hands-of-great-teachers/

Nell Duke - http://www.soe.umich.edu/people/profile/duke_nell/

The Opportunity Myth - https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/

The Baseball Study
https://www.literacyhow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Effect-of-Prior-Knowledge-on-Good-and-Poor-Readers-Memory-of-Text.pdf

Why A Structured Phonics Program is Effective
https://achievethecore.org/aligned/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Why-a-Structured-Phonics-Program-is-Effective.pdf

Ed Reports - https://www.edreports.org/

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

Connect with Melissa & Lori:

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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 was inspired by a quote in Brene Brown's book: Dare to Lead https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/.  Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics, who said, “In the past, jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains, but in the future they’ll be about the heart.” Listen to her insightful and relatable take on curriculum with heart. 

Visit OUR WEBSITE to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast! https://www.literacypodcast.com/

Connect with Melissa & Lori:

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Today is a great day to start your own podcast... If you’re thinking about it, we say GO FOR IT! We love Buzzsprout for so many reasons, but especially because it’s easy to use and their customer service rocks! Use our Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift card. 

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].