In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert welcomes back researcher and author Daniel Willingham, Ph.D., to discuss reading comprehension. With only so much instruction time in the day and research supporting both comprehension strategies and knowledge building, it can be tough to know what to prioritize in the classroom. Daniel holds nothing back in outlining exactly where educators should focus their time. Together, he and Susan explore the limitations of comprehension strategies, the place for critical thinking skills in relationship to knowledge, and recognizing when messaging around knowledge has gone too far.

Show notes:

• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning  
• Resources:
  • Read: Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking: The Knowledge Revival, multiple authors
  • Read: Raising Kids Who Read, Daniel Willingham
  • Read: The Reading Mind, Daniel Willingham
  • Listen: The basic science in reading instruction, with Daniel Willingham
  • Listen: Background knowledge, with Susan Neuman 
  • Listen: ​​Research, comprehension, and content-rich literacy instruction: Sonia Cabell
• Join our community Facebook group
• Connect with Susan Lambert

Quotes:

“Your brain is really good at only bringing out the information from long-term memory that is relevant for the context. All of that's happening outside of awareness.”  —Daniel Willingham, Ph.D.

“When reading is really humming, when it's really working well, it's like visual perception. You're just enjoying the view and you're oblivious to all of the cognitive machinery in the background that's letting you see.”  —Daniel Willingham, Ph.D.

“Expecting that knowledge-rich curriculum is going to solve all problems… that's [not] what a reading program is. No, a reading program is multifaceted and needs to have lots of components.”  —Daniel Willingham, Ph.D.

“Knowledge accrues slowly and it's going to take a while. You need to be patient.”  —Daniel Willingham, Ph.D.

Episode timestamps*
2:00 Introduction: Who is Daniel Willingham?
05:00 Knowledge and reading comprehension
08:00 What it takes to be comfortable reading
10:00 Academic or disciplinary knowledge
11:00 Comprehension strategies
20:00 Applications of knowledge that can be difficult to appreciate
25:00 Inferences can be automatic
26:00 Taking the “knowledge is important” message too far
31:00 Critical thinking and knowledge building
32:00 How to decide what knowledge is important to teach
36:00 Book: Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking
39:00 Final thoughts and advice
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D. He’s a teacher, instructional coach, and author of the recent book Harnessing the Science of Learning: Success Stories to Help Kickstart Your School Improvement.  Emphasizing the science of learning as an ever-growing resource for updating instruction practices, he provides a comprehensive look at how knowledge powers learning, how to identify knowledge-rich curricula, how cognitive load affects learning, and how to understand several common learning misconceptions. 

Show notes:

• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand-new companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning  
• Connect with Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.: 
  • Website: nathanielswain.com
• Resources:
  • Book: Harnessing the Science of Learning
  • Think Forward Educators
  • Deans for Impact
  • Listen: Chalk Dust 
• Join our community Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-edd-b1512761/

Quotes:

“The greatest thing about the science of learning is that it's never really gonna be finished. Much like the science of reading, it's constantly being updated and it's something that we should be constantly turning to.” –Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.

“When we have knowledge at our fingertips—or in this case, in our synapses—ready to be used, we can overcome all these limitations that cognitive load theory talks about.” –Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.

“We're kidding ourselves a little bit if we think that we can replace that rich content knowledge with generic skills and generic competencies.” –Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Nathaniel Swain?
03:00 Science of learning book
11:00 Knowledge powers all learning
15:00 Addressing common learning myths
18:00 Knowledge retrieval
21:00 Misconception: Productive struggle
22:00 Misconception: “Preparing students for the 21st century”
26:00 Enriching schema
29:00 Background knowledge and confirmation bias
30:00 Knowledge rich curriculum
32:00 Knowledge that is manageable and achievable
37:00 Skills AND knowledge
44:00 Chalk Dust podcast
45:00 Final thoughts and advice
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this special Science of Reading Essentials episode, Susan Lambert pulls from past episodes of the podcast to give you everything you need to know about science-based writing instruction. Experts include Steve Graham, Ed.D.; Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.; Natalie Wexler; and Judith Hochman, Ed.D. Listeners will walk away from this episode with a solid foundation for creating a classroom of confident and capable writers, and gain a better understanding of the connection between reading and writing, the role of handwriting and spelling, the power of sentences, and the importance of applying cognitive load theory to writing.

Show notes:

• Resources
  • Access the listening guide—and other free, high-quality resources—at our brand new professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning 
• Join our community Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading

Quotes:

“This is not learned by osmosis. And it's not learned by vague feedback, like, ‘make it better’ or ‘add more details.’ You've got to be very granular.” —Judith Hochman, Ed.D. 

"What we see with exceptional teachers is they have their kids write." —Steve Graham, Ed.D.

“The Science of Reading encapsulates decades of research about both reading and writing—because if writing was never invented, we would not have to teach kids how to read.” —Susan Lambert

In this special episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Jackie Relyea, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at North Carolina State University, who’ll give you a comprehensive guide to integrating background knowledge into your teaching as, you create a content-rich classroom. Jackie offers insights on why time-tested classroom staples such as read-alouds and word walls are effective tools for building background knowledge … and how to make them even better. She also digs into why vocabulary is just one facet of conceptual knowledge and what the research says about background knowledge for multilingual learners.

Show notes:

• Connect with Jackie Eunjung Relyea, Ph.D:
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-e-relyea-82953242/ 
  • NC State University: https://ced.ncsu.edu/people/jrelyea/ 
• Resources
  • The CLICK Lab
  • Effects of Tier 1 Content Literacy Intervention on Early-Grade English Learners’ Reading and Writing. 
  • Transactional Development of Science and Mathematics Knowledge and Reading Proficiency for Multilingual Students Across Languages of Instruction
  • Listen: The joy of reading aloud, with Molly Ness
  • Listen: Supporting multilingual/English learners with the Science of Reading
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-ed-d-b1512761/

Quotes:

“Literacy for my students meant more than just reading and writing;  it was about access, access to the world, and access to knowledge and opportunities, and even independence—finding their voices.” –Jackie Eunjung Relyea, Ph.D.

“You can think of a schema like… mental maps or the frameworks that help us store and organize new information and knowledge. The richer and the more detailed your schema about a particular topic, the easier it is to understand and remember new information about it.” –Jackie Eunjung Relyea, Ph.D.

“Vocabulary oftentimes is the tip of the iceberg of the whole: the conceptual knowledge. It's not a simple definition of the single word; it's really conceptual knowledge and understanding that is represented by the word.” –Jackie Eunjung Relyea, Ph.D.

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Dr. Jackie Relyea?
10:00 Importance of knowledge building
14:00 Reciprocal relationship between reading and knowledge building
18:00 Reading comprehension strategies as scaffolding
21:00 Using interactive read-alouds
24:00 Concept mapping and word walls
26:00 Vocabulary is the tip of the iceberg
28:00 Multilingual learners
37:00 Research on knowledge building
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this special episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Assistant Professor of Literacy and Coordinator of Reading Science Programs at Marian University Karen Betz, Ed.D., to discuss a key topic in the Science of Reading movement: higher education. Betz describes how we can better prepare new teachers to provide evidence-based instruction, and her tool to help teachers in higher education assess whether their courses align to reading research. Betz also offers advice for current practitioners on how they can support change at the university level.

Show notes:

• Connect with Karen Betz:
  • Connect via Facebook: Klipsch College
• Resources
  • Website: Marian University’s M.S. in reading science
  • Website: Higher Education Community of Practice for Professors of Literacy
  • Download: Course Alignment Planning Tool
  • The Center for Reading Science: Implementing the Science of Reading in Higher Education
  • The Reading League Compass: Educator Preparation Programs 
  • Map: The Reading League Compass: Policymakers and State Education Agencies
  • Read: Teaching Reading Sourcebook
  • Read: Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties
  • Website: Stronger Together: The Alliance for Reading Science in Higher Education
  • Listen: What I should have learned in college, with Donna Hejtmanek
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/

Quotes:

“Don't be afraid to say ‘I don't know.’ I think people respect that, that you say, ‘I just don't know’ and ‘how can you help me learn more?’”—Karen Betz, Ed.D.

And it ultimately always is going to come down to the children, and we can never lose sight of that. It's about the kids.” —Karen Betz, Ed.D.

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Karen Betz
07:00 First lightbulb moment
09:00 Why is higher education teacher education a hot topic right now?
12:00 Relationship between schools and universities
14:00 Partnering with reading science aligned grade schools
17:00 Legislation for teacher development
20:00 Collaboration between universities
23:00 Professional development for higher education
25:00 Creating a tool to help higher education teachers
32:00 Key takeaways for Dr. Karen Betz
35:00 Final thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this special episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Claude Goldenberg, Ph.D., professor of education at Stanford University, to answer questions from our listener mailbag. Together they address a wide range of topics facing today’s educators, such as what to do when your school implements conflicting materials, how to support students that are two or three grade levels behind, best practices for teaching multilingual learners, and more!

Show notes: 

• Connect with Claude Goldenberg:
  • Substack: https://claudegoldenberg.substack.com/ 
• Resources
  • Literacy Foundations for English Learners, A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction by Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan, Ed.D.
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/
• Have a burning question? Submit at amplify.com/sormailbag

Quotes:

“Incrementalism is just not going to serve our purpose unless you want to keep things as they are. And I hate to say this, Susan…some people wouldn't mind leaving things as they are. And we can't do that, and we can't do it incrementally. We've got to really move, like last year.” —Claude Goldenberg

“You’ve got to understand how [two programs] fit together and what the purpose is. Giving teachers materials that are literally incoherent and don't fit with each other is not the answer.” —Claude Goldenberg

“We need to have a system ... using the best knowledge that we have systematically throughout the state, throughout the country, with systems that pick up kids who are at risk and don't let them fail.” —Claude Goldenberg

Episode timestamps*
02:00 The latest from Claude Goldenberg
04:00 Literacy and the urgency of now
7:00 Question 1: What about the pendulum swing?
15:00 Question 2: What to do when your school implements conflicting materials?
21:00 Question 3: Why are running records and leveled texts discouraged?
22:00 Decoding v.s. Word recognition
29:00 Question 4: How do we support kids that are two or three grade levels behind?
30:00 Dyslexia and the importance of universal screening
35:00 Question 5: How would you increase reading proficiency in a school in which nearly every student is a multilingual learner?
45:00 Question 6: How do you apply the science of reading to an ELL student in middle school that doesn’t yet know the language?
48:00 Question 7: Is it best practice for bilingual students who are being taught to decode and encode in English and Spanish to be screened in English and Spanish?
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Young-Suk Grace Kim, a professor at University of California at Irvine's School of Education. Dr. Kim begins by defining a theoretical model, outlining its value to teachers as it pertains to literacy instruction. She describes her own interactive dynamic literacy (IDL) model, which seeks to more fully explain reading and writing connections. Dr. Kim emphasizes how reading and writing function as a powerful and closely related system, and examines how this system interacts with developmental phases, linguistic grain size, and reading and writing difficulties, including dyslexia. After navigating the complexities of this conversation, Susan ends the episode by sharing her unique insights and takeaways from her time with Dr. Kim.

Show notes:

• Connect with Young-Suk Grace Kim:
  • X: @YoungSukKim19
• Resources
  • Read: Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills through Systematically Integrated Instruction
  • Read: Reading and Writing Relations Are Not Uniform: They Differ by the Linguistic Grain Size, Developmental Phase, and Measurement
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/
• Want to hear more of Dr. Kim? Join us for our upcoming Spring Science of Reading Summit where she’ll be giving the keynote address on the relationship between reading, writing, and language. Save your spot: amplify.com/springsorsummit

Quotes:

“Lower order skills are necessary for higher order skills; that means skills and knowledge have a series of causal effects. So if you flip it the other way, any challenges or weaknesses in lower order skills, it's going to have a series of impacts on higher order skills.” —Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“Theory is an explanation about how things work. …It's a structured framework, a mental framework, that helps us explain, and predict, and understand phenomena.” —Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“If an educator goes to a professional development and learns about something like phoneme awareness…but you don't have a framework in which to attach it, you can sort of go down a rabbit trail on one thing instead of thinking about how it relates to the whole.” —Susan Lambert

Episode timestamps*
03:00 Introduction: Who is Young-Suk Grace Kim?
05:00: Defining a theoretical model
07:00 Origins of Young-Suk’s model
08:00 Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model Overview
14:00 Why interactive and why dynamic
15:00 Hierarchical relations between low order skills and high order skills
18:00 Breaking down “Interactive”
19:00 Young-Suk’s ideal classroom
20:00 Breaking down “Dynamic”
21:00 Linguistic grain size
22:00 Why linguistic grain size matters for teachers
26:00 Why word reading and spelling are more strongly related than reading comprehension and writing composition
29:00 Dynamic relationship of developmental phases
30:00 Measuring reading and writing
33:00 Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model summarized
35:00 Understanding reading and writing difficulty, including dyslexia
42:00 Dr. Kim’s Final Thoughts
44:00 Susan’s takeaways from the conversation
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Adrea Truckenmiller, Ph.D., associate professor of special education and school psychology at Michigan State University. Their conversation starts with defining academic language and breaking it down on the level of the word, the sentence, and full text. Adrea then touches on topics such as informational vs. narrative text structure, morphological complexity, and effective writing assessment. She also gives advice on how to implement explicit instruction on informational text and academic language, and details a few examples of what it can look like in the classroom. Adrea ends by discussing her passion for special education and encouraging educators to get involved.

Show notes:

• Resources
  • Read: “Academic language use in middle school informational writing”
  • Read: “Academic language and the challenge of reading for learning about science”
  • Read: “Writing to read: Parallel and independent contributions of writing research to the Science of Reading”
  • Read: “What is important to measure in sentence-level language comprehension?
  • Read: Making the Writing Process Work: Strategies for Composition and Self-Regulation
• Join our Facebook community group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading.
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/.

Quotes:

“ Academic language is really a new language for everyone to learn.” —Adrea Truckenmiller, Ph.D.

"When we're thinking about teaching academic vocabulary, it's not just one time around. Sometimes we have to layer that instruction for deeper and deeper and deeper meaning.” —Susan Lambert

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Adrea Truckenmiller?
07:00 Defining academic language
11:00 Differences in academic language at different levels: word, sentence, text.
12:00 Word level: morphological complexity
17:00 Sentence level
18:00 Connectives
21:00 Text level: Informational text structure vs narrative text structure
24:00 Reading research for middle schoolers
26:00 Writing assessment structure for middle school
32:00 What does this type of instruction look like in the classroom?
34:00 Importance of grades 4 & 5 to the development of informational reading and writing skills
35:00 Advice for teachers on teaching information reading and writing
39:00 Get involved in special education
*Timestamps are approximate

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Judith Hochman, Ed.D., co-author of “The Writing Revolution.” Their conversation begins as Dr. Hochman recalls the early days of writing instruction and research, then delves into the connection between better writing and better reading. Dr. Hochman touches upon topics such as writing comprehension, her experience implementing writing instruction as a classroom teacher and as an administrator, and how the writing revolution came to be. She also answers a question from our listener mailbag, providing a detailed overview of the scope and sequence for transitioning student writing from sentence composition to paragraphs to whole texts.

Show notes:

• Resources
  • Read: The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades 
  • Website: The Writing Revolution
  • Read: “The Writing Revolution” in The Atlantic 
• Join our community Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/

Quotes:

“I had an epiphany that our students really had to learn writing as a second language.” —Judith Hochman

“Having students write a lot is not teaching writing. It's just like if you put a lot of books in a classroom, students don't magically begin to read.” —Judith Hochman

“This is not learned by osmosis, and it's not learned by vague feedback like, ‘Make it better,’ or, ‘Add more details.’ You've got to be very granular. This is not a naturally occurring skill in human development for any of us.” —Judith Hochman

Episode timestamps*
03:00 Introduction: Who is Judith Hochman?
06:00 Time as an administrator
09:00 Judith’s early days of teaching writing
11:00 Classroom activities for teaching students to write
12:00 Atlantic article and NYC high school case
15:00 The writing revolution
16:00 How kids learn to write based on the research
20:00 Listener mailbag question
21:00 Writing and comprehension
27:00 Transitioning from writing sentences to writing paragraphs
34:00 Final thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Jane Ashby, professor in the Reading Science doctoral program at Mount St. Joseph University. They define the concept of “settled science” as a jumping-off point before digging into phonology and the argument for not always basing your teaching practice on the newest research. Dr. Ashby touches on the impact of phonology on comprehension, the Matthew Effect, and why the term “instant words” is more accurate than “sight words.” You’ll walk away from this episode with two practical exercises Dr. Ashby recommends for teaching students to transfer oral segmenting and blending to reading and writing tasks.

Show notes

• Connect with Jane Ashby: 
  • Mt. St. Joseph University
• Resources
  • Teaching Phonemic Awareness in 2024: A Guide for Educators
  • Read: Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition
  • More: The Four-Part Processing Model for Word Recognition
  • Read: Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy.
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/
• Want to hear more of Dr. Ashby? Listen to the bonus episode! 

Quotes

“To store a vocabulary word, it's not enough to have the meaning. You have to have the entry for it, and the entry for it is the sound form of the word.” —Jane Ashby

“The greatest gift you can give a kid is letting them know that you see that they're special and that they have something unique that they bring to the world. But the second piece is really, can you help them become a confident, independent reader?” —Jane Ashby

Episode timestamps*

2:00 Introduction: Who is Jane Ashby?
6:00 Defining and contextualizing “settled science”
13:00 Phonology as settled science
17:00 Instant words vs sight words
20:00 How phonology impacts comprehension
26:00 Connection to the Matthew Effect
31:00 Listener mailbag question: How do you suggest teachers teach students to transfer oral segmenting and blending to reading and writing tasks?
37:00 Teaching phonemic awareness guide
39:00 Research that should influence teacher practice
41:00 The greatest gift you can give a child

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute