In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by educational consultant Nancy Chapel Eberhardt, who explains why focusing on syntax at the sentence level is just as important for comprehension as word-level decoding. Together, Nancy and Susan also discuss how syntax helps students process meaning while reading, why we should start early and teach syntax to students from the beginning, and a more functional approach to syntax.

Show notes:

• Register to join our Science of Comprehension Symposium.
• Submit your questions on comprehension!
• Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn. 
• Read Nancy’s article “Syntax: Somewhere Between the Words and Text.”
• Learn more about Nancy’s book Syntax: Knowledge to Practice.
• Learn more about the Syntax online course. 
• Listen to last week’s syntax-focused episode, with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
• Listen to the podcast the episode with Nancy Hennessy, M.Ed.
• Read Maryellen MacDonald’s article “Book Language: What It Is, How Children Can ‘Get It’.”
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"Syntax is somewhere between the individual words and the meaning of the text. It's the processing piece that's going on there." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt

"Syntax isn't just for older kids anymore. Syntax is really something that we can start promoting, developing, encouraging, embracing from the beginning." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt

"I actually think that as teachers embrace this idea of syntax, they're going to have a lot of fun with it. It's way more fun to talk about the meanings of words than to just decode them." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Diving deeper into syntax, with Nancy Chapel Eberhardt
08:00 Comprehension is lifting the meaning out of text
11:00 Sentence-level abilities make as large a contribution as word reading for comprehension
14:00 The difference between syntax and grammar
20:00 Why syntactical knowledge is so helpful in the  comprehension process
24:00 Prosody helps us with our fluency with reading
30:00 Syntax is somewhere between the individual words and the meaning of the text
33:00 We've gone through several generations of students who aren't being taught syntax
37:00 It's  more fun to talk about the meanings of words
39:00 Start teaching syntax by thinking about the most essential build block
45:00 Connecting words are meaningless in the absence of other words
53:00 By spending more time instructing on syntax, we will reach more of our students.
56:00 Closing: Syntax is something we can start promoting, developing, encouraging, and embracing from the beginning.
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by research scientist and professor Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D., who explains why syntax instruction may be the missing piece in our mission to improve comprehension outcomes for all students. Together, Julie and Susan discuss why syntax is the part of the language system that matters for comprehension, how the same systematicity and rule governance that you find in teaching phonics also exists in syntax, and how explicit syntax instruction could be the next breakthrough in evidence-based literacy education.

Show notes:

• Register to join our Science of Comprehension Symposium: amplify.com/comprehensionsymposium
• Submit your questions on comprehension!
• Connect with Julie Van Dyke on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Julie Van Dyke's research on her website.
• Watch an interview about Syntax Comes First: Understanding How Syntax Is the Backbone of Comprehension
• Watch Dr. Van Dyke's webinar: Finding the Missing Link in Reading Comprehension. 
• Access recent Perspectives issues via the IDA. 
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"In English, syntax is word order. Syntax is the relationship between the entities in a sentence." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.

"If you want to increase comprehension, you need to be explicit in syntax because that's the part of the language system that matters for comprehension." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.

"Comprehension is the glue between the words. It's the process of gluing the words together, each word as you go." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.

Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Syntax and comprehension with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
06:00 Nervousness around syntax instruction
11:00 Comprehension is the glue between words
15:00 The difference between grammar and syntax
19:00 How the brain learns language and how syntax is related to that learning
24:00 Oral language is much less complicated than written language
30:00 Explaining regressions
33:00 The need to be explicit in syntax instruction
36:00 How we develop fluency as syntax
44:00 Closing thoughts: Syntax can move the needle on the nation's report card

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Affiliated Scholar at the Stern Center for Language and Learning, Melissa Farrall, Ph.D., to discuss understanding assessment. Melissa explains why it's beneficial for every educator to understand the fundamentals of assessment, especially comprehension assessment. Together, Melissa and Susan discuss the relationship between reading comprehension and language comprehension, why reading comprehension can be challenging to assess, and how, in a perfect world, educators would be trained both in the Science of Reading and assessment.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension!
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page.
• Connect with Melissa Farrall on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Chall's Stages of Reading Development.
• Read Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition
• Read The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert. 

Quotes:

• "My view of reading comprehension is that it is thinking guided by print." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
• "If we supplement our evaluation with measures of listening comprehension, we can then get a sense of an individual's ability to make meaning." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
• "In a perfect world, we would have not just evaluators, but educators who are trained both in the Science of Reading and in assessment so that we can all sit at the same table and participate." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.

Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Exploring comprehension assessment, with Melissa Farrall
07:00 The legacy of Jean Chall's research on the developmental stages of reading
10:00 "Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition"
17:00 Comprehension is thinking guided by print
21:00 Different ways of assessing reading comprehension
27:00 Kintsch's construction-integration model
30:00 Word recognition
33:00 Reading comprehension is not easily quantified
38:00 How background knowledge affect the meaning-making process
41:00 The two modalities of language comprehension
45:00 How today's educators might think differently about comprehension instruction
48:00 Closing thoughts

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by University of Oregon College of Education Professor and Ann Swindells Chair in Education Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D., to explore how best to assess for comprehension. Gina elaborates on her extensive work developing more precise and informative measurements of reading comprehension and discusses think-aloud research, demonstrating how to infer for coherence, and examining how students who are struggling with comprehension tend to rely too heavily on making inferences or paraphrasing.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension!
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page.  
• Connect with Gina on LinkedIn.
• Read “Diagnostic and Instructionally Relevant Measurement of Reading Comprehension”
• Watch Dr. Biancarosa's recent Amplify webinar appearance: Where and How to Measure Comprehension to Drive Improvement
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"A lot of what we know about reading comprehension comes from think-alouds where you ask someone to tell you what they're thinking as they read." —Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D

"To model reading comprehension, [try] thinking aloud in front of a classroom of students in a way that is instructive for them, and also authentic to the reading process." —Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D.

"Students are making causal inferences in their daily lives, when they watch movies, and when they're hearing stories. And so what we're really trying to do is get them to generalize these behaviors that they engage in outside of the task of reading, during reading." —Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D.

Episode Timestamps:
02:00 Introduction: Gina Biancarosa, Ed.D. and comprehension assessment
08:00 How do we assess comprehension?
14:00 Think-aloud research
21:00 MOCCA (Multiple-Choice Online Causal Comprehension Assessment)
24:00 Causal coherence
30:00 Paraphrasers and elaborators
33:00 Comprehension assessment research
39:00 Professional development and comprehension assessment
42:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Northwestern University Professor of Education, Social Policy, and Psychology David Rapp. David’s research focuses on language and memory, and his conversation with Susan gives insight into how memory is connected to comprehension. The first half of the episode is spent defining comprehension as a process, a product, and a higher-order cognitive process. David then digs into how that definition informs the ways in which educators assess comprehension and where they can look for potential failure points. One of these failure points includes misinformation. David addresses what happens when misinformation is stored in long-term memory. He details the issues this can cause for student comprehension, and he gives guidance on how to prevent and correct them.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension! 
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page.  
• Check out David Rapp's lab.
• Resources:
  • Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes: 

“Once the information is in memory, you can't really get rid of it. What you can try to do is make other memories more powerful, more likely to resonate to things.” —David Rapp, Ph.D.

“Sometimes our most effective processes actually lead us to misunderstand. For example, you're really good at encoding information to memory, that's great, except if you're exposed to inaccurate ideas, that's a problem.” —David Rapp, Ph.D.

“It feels easy for us to comprehend texts if we're well practiced at it, it feels easy, but it's actually a lot of cognitive operations going on behind the scenes and a lot of years of practice.” —David Rapp, Ph.D.

“In terms of being exposed to misinformation, we see even if people have been exposed to inaccurate ideas, even once, it's encoded into memory, it's potentially gonna be there to influence you.” —David Rapp, Ph.D.

Episode Timestamps
02:00 Introduction: Who is David Rapp?
04:00 Defining reading comprehension
05:00 Comprehension as a process vs a product
08:00 Comprehension as a higher order cognitive process
12:00 Coherence
18:00 Memory activation and misinformation
21:00 Consequences of misinformation
25:00 Correcting misinformation
28:00 Preventing misinformation
36:00 The evolution of thinking on comprehension
40:00 Current research
45:00 Closing thoughts and encouragement to dig into research
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Doug Lemov,  former teacher and school principal, to discuss how teachers can identify when disfluency is actually the root cause for students’ struggles with comprehension—and what they can do about it. Using his new book, The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading, to guide the discussion, Susan and Doug address building attention stamina, the argument for reading whole books, and the value of expressive read-alouds. Finally, Doug ends the episode asserting that humans are meant to live in community, and that a deeper level of comprehension is unlocked through deep empathic connection to text and the experience of reading with others.

Show notes: 

• Listen to Season 2 of the Beyond My Years podcast for solutions to common teaching challenges directly from seasoned educators.
• Connect with Doug Lemov:
  • X: @Doug_Lemov 
• Resources:
  • Read: The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading
  • Watch: Gabby Woolf’s Dr. Jekyll Lesson and the Power of Reading Fluency
  • Listen: ”Phonology as a settled science”
  • Listen: ”The plea to preserve deep reading, with Maryanne Wolf, Ed.D.”
  • Listen: ”Writing the way to better reading, with Judith Hochman, Ed.D.”
  • Listen: ”The joy of reading aloud, with Molly Ness”
  • Download: cComprehension 101 Bundle
• Submit your questions on comprehension! 
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/

Quotes: 

 “If you're not a fluent reader, you can't be a deep reader.”—Doug Lemov

“The research is clear that when you start to read expressively externally, then your internal reading voice while reading silently is much more expressive and therefore infused with more meaning.”—Doug Lemov 

Episode Timestamps
03:00 Introduction: Doug Lemov
05:00 The importance of the middle grades
07:00 Book: The Teach like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading
13:00 How to build attention stamina
16:00 Background knowledge and vocabulary
19:00 Writing’s impact on memory and reading
22:00 The value in reading whole books
25:00 Embracing smaller writing assignments
27:00 Fluency deep dive
30:00 Working memory
35:00 Troubleshooting fluency
39:00 Expressive reading
41:00 Read-alouds
44:00 Reading as a social act
52:00 The argument for books
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this special dyslexia-focused Essentials episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert pulls from past episodes to summarize everything you need to know about dyslexia, from experts Emily Lutrick, Ed.D.; Nadine Gaab, Ph.D.; Tim Odegard, Ph.D.; Sally Shaywitz, M.D.; and Francisco Usero-González, Ph.D. You'll also hear first-hand accounts from young people about their personal experiences with dyslexia, reading, and the education system. Even if you have little prior knowledge of dyslexia, you’ll walk away from this episode with a foundational understanding of the condition, including what it is, what causes it, how to identify it, the importance of early screening, how it is a continuum, methods for intervention, and more.

Show notes:

• Resources
  • Access free high-quality resources at our brand new professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning 
  • Download your Dyslexia Support Power Pack
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading

Episode Timestamps
00:27 Introduction to SoR: Essentials
01:02 Susan’s personal connection with dyslexia
02:53 Accounts from young people on their experience of dyslexia
05:09 Defining dyslexia with Dr. Emily Lutrick
06:53 Dyslexia as a reading disability with Dr. Nadine Gaab
07:39 Three key characteristics of people with dyslexia with Dr. Tim Odegard
09:42 Longitudinal study with Dr. Sally Shaywitz
11:54 The causes of dyslexia
13:09 Early identification and effective intervention
15:22 Discrepancy model/Waiting to fail model
16:35 How early is too early to screen for dyslexia
18:37 How to know when a student is at risk for dyslexia
21:54 Identifying risk factors in older students
22:54 Decoding nonsense words
24:27 The power of naming a struggle
25:28 The importance of having a cohesive system in place
26:43 Screening students in their home language with Dr. Francisco Paco Usero Gonzalez
29:45 Dyslexia as a continuum
33:41 Final thoughts from young people on dyslexia
36:12 Preview of upcoming episode
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Katie Pace Miles, Ph.D., founder of The Reading Institute and director of the Advanced Certificates in Reading Science, Brooklyn College. An expert in orthographic mapping, Pace Miles explains why it’s a cognitive process, why that means it can’t be “taught,” and how we can instead leverage an understanding of it to inform instructional practices across reading, writing, and spelling to improve comprehension. Pace Miles outlines what it takes to develop good word-reading habits in emergent readers, and offers step-by-step advice on how to implement quick intervention when needed.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension! 
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand-new companion professional learning page.  
• Connect with Katie Pace Miles:
  • Website: https://www.katiepacemilesphd.com/
  • Instagram: @thereadinginstitutenyc 
• Resources:
  • Book: Making Words Stick: A Four-Step Instructional Routine to Power Up Orthographic Mapping 
  • Article: ”Phases of Development in Learning to Read and Spell Words” by Linnea C. Ehri
  • Podcast episode: The joy of reading aloud, with Molly Ness
• Join our community Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-edd-b1512761/  

Quotes: 

 "You don't teach orthographic mapping, 'cause, again, that's a cognitive process, but you can facilitate support for long-term storage of words." —Katie Pace Miles, Ph.D.

"Never acquiesce to illiteracy. We all, as a community that supports all readers, have to figure out what instruction needs to be provided and what dosage over what duration of time … and it will happen." —Katie Pace Miles, Ph.D.

"If you're focused only on phonics and not on spelling, you are going to miss a whole bunch of decoding instruction, word analysis work." —Katie Pace Miles, Ph.D.

"You don't need a Ph.D. to have that knowledge. That should come in all teacher training. The complexity of the English language—every teacher I've ever met can handle it once we teach it."—Katie Pace Miles, Ph.D.

Episode timestamps*
03:00 Introduction: Who is Katie Pace Miles?
04:00 Beginnings as a teacher
07:00 Book: Making Words Stick: A four step instructional routine to power up orthographic mapping
10:00 The motivation behind the book
13:00 Orthographic mapping as a cognitive process
17:00 Can you teach orthographic mapping?
19:00 Research behind the theory of orthographic mapping
24:00 Developing good word reading habits with emergent readers
28:00 Reading-spelling connection
32:00 Rubberband analogy: Developing speaking and reading skills in tandem
34:00 Orthographic mapping can support or impede comprehension
39:00 Intervention
43:00 Activities and strategies from the book
44:00 Final thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Wesley Hoover, a psycholinguist at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss the Simple View of Reading and how it can serve as the basis for our understanding of comprehension. Wesley digs into all the complexities of this model—which is only simple at a high level—including the meaning of language comprehension vs. reading comprehension, the impact of word recognition, and using the simple view to identify struggling students. He’ll even address the limitations of the simple view of reading, untangle common misconceptions, and give you tools for assessing the value of any model for reading that you might encounter.

Show notes: 

• Submit your questions on comprehension! 
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand-new, companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning  
• Resources:
  • Listen: Science of Reading Essentials: Comprehension
  • Read: The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-edd-b1512761/
• Check out Season 2 of the Beyond My Years podcast at.amplify.com/bmy 

Quotes:

"Language comprehension is unbounded… the knowledge of the world and being able to express the knowledge of the world in language—that's always a key difficulty you work on for your entire life.” —Wesley Hoover, Ph.D. 

“If you're a teacher thinking about language comprehension, whatever time you devote to helping people understand language, if you can be effective in doing that, you'll never waste a kid's time.” —Wesley Hoover, Ph.D. 

"To be a reader, you have to be good at two things: word recognition and language comprehension. Both of them are necessary components of reading, but neither one of them is sufficient on its own.”—Wesley Hoover, Ph.D. 

Episode timestamps*
03:00 Introduction: Wesley Hoover and the simple view of reading
06:00 What is the simple view of reading?
08:00 What is language comprehension?
10:00 What is word recognition?
11:00 Defining reading comprehension
12:00 Dr. Gough’s big A-Ha! Moment
15:00 Reading competency
16:00 Misconceptions of the simple view of reading
21:00 Changing the size of the boxes
23:00 Extension of the simple view
26:00 Using the simple view to identify kids that are struggling
29:00 What the simple view does or does not address
33:00 Navigating models of reading comprehension
35:00 Is the simple view outdated?
38:00 Why is comprehension worth exploring?
41:00 Final advice
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Podcast host Susan Lambert gives you a first look at Season 10 of Science of Reading: The Podcast. This season will focus on reading comprehension, taking a deep dive into what is ultimately the goal of every classroom: breaking down why comprehension matters and how to achieve it. Get a glimpse into the season’s different angles on comprehension, as well as the expert guests you can look forward to hearing from.

Show notes:

• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning  
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/
• Trailer: Beyond My Years is back for Season 2!