In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, returning guest, Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D., joins Susan Lambert to close out the season by answering thoughtful and thought-provoking comprehension questions submitted by listeners. Nathaniel and Susan answer questions about comprehension strategies, the relationship between comprehension and memorization, and how to shift the mindset amongst your teaching colleagues to help them understand comprehension.

Show notes:

• Submit your literacy questions!
• Bonus: Watch Dr. Hoover's complete responses to a listener guest.
• Learn more about Nathaniel Swain on his website
• Connect with Nathaniel Swain on LinkedIn.
• Access free, high-quality resources—including our recent Essentials episode on Science of Reading: The Podcast—at our companion professional learning page
• Download our free Comprension 101 bundle for comprehension resources, including ebooks, and on-demand professional learning
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast
• Join our community Facebook group
• Connect with Susan Lambert

Quotes:

"What we're trying to do is create meaningful text experiences. ... The strategies are background, the powerhouse behind the work we're doing, but the star of the show is the language and the text." —Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.

"If you ever feel like your comprehension work only allows students to produce or perform something on a particular day in which you've just read that text, then you may be missing the opportunity to weave meaningful text together." —Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.

"When we're teaching reading comprehension, really let the text be the center of what we're doing." —Susan Lambert

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction: Answering listeners' questions on comprehension
03:00 The difference between oral and written language as it relates to comprehension
06:00 Supporting students who read fluently but struggle with comprehension
16:00 The role of comprehension strategies
21:00 Oral language development and comprehension
28:00 The connection between memory and comprehension
36:00 How to help colleagues adjust their mindset on comprehension
42:00 Overall takeaways from this batch of mailbag questions
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Host Susan Lambert hits the home stretch of her comprehension-focused season of Science of Reading: The Podcast with a reflective episode based on her presentation at this year's Plain Talk About Literacy and Learning conference. Instead of being joined by a guest, Susan breaks down some of her biggest takeaways from this season—explaining how reading comprehension is far more intricate than the ability to decode words on a page, and detailing how the expert guests this season helped illustrate all of comprehension's amazing complexities. Whether you hear her Plain Talk conversation live or not, this episode captures those same insights in a format you can revisit anytime.

Show notes:

• Submit your literacy questions!
• Access free, high-quality resources—including our recent Science of Reading: The Podcast Essentials: “Comprehension” episode—at our companion professional learning page.
• Download our Comprehension 101 bundle: Access free comprehension resources, including ebooks and on-demand professional learning.
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"Comprehension is an active process. It usually requires active engagement and effect from the reader." —Susan Lambert

"Comprehension is an integration of knowledge and experience that requires the reader to connect new information from the text with their own knowledge and experiences." —Susan Lambert

"Comprehension is dynamic and ongoing. It requires the reader to update and revise their understanding as new information is encountered." —Susan Lambert

"What constitutes good comprehension is relative, and it depends on who is reading the text and why they're reading it." —Susan Lambert

"The components of comprehension don't develop in isolation. They bootstrap and support each other throughout a reader's development." —Susan Lambert

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction: Building blocks for deep comprehension
04:00 Common themes from guests' definitions of comprehension
07:00 The simple view of reading
10:00 Oral language, syntax and fluency
13:00 Syntax is the critical missing piece needed to improve reading comprehension outcomes
16:00 Fluency is a critical but often overlooked prerequisite to reading comprehension
21:00 The components of comprehension don't develop in isolation
22:00 Closing thoughts o our comprehension focused season
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Kristen McMaster, Ph.D., Guy Bond Chair in Reading and professor of special education in the Department of Educational Psychology at University of Minnesota. Together, they explore how reading comprehension isn't just about what's on the page—it's also about what's not there—and share practical insights on how to support students in developing inference skills. Susan and Kristen also discuss the dual processes of activation and integration when making inferences; the distinction between teaching students to process text actively versus teaching students to apply comprehension strategies; and different types of inferences, including causal, bridging, and elaborative.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions to our listener mailbag
• Access free, high-quality resources—including our recent Science of Reading: The Podcast Essentials "Comprehension" episode—at our companion professional learning page
•  Download our Comprehension 101 bundle: Access free comprehension resources, including e-books, and on-demand professional learning
• Connect with Kristen McMaster
• Learn more about Kristen McMaster
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast
• Join our community Facebook group
• Connect with Susan Lambert

Quotes:

"Inferencing is really central to comprehension. We wouldn't comprehend if we didn't make inferences." —Kristen McMaster

"I would encourage teachers not to underestimate the importance of supporting even the inferences that might seem obvious to us." —Kristen McMaster

"Good comprehenders are often making very automatic inferences that they don't even realize." —Kristen McMaster

"It helps to explicitly teach what an inference is in language that students will understand." —Kristen McMaster

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction: Filling in the gaps with inferences, with Kristen McMaster, Ph.D.
05:00 Comprehension is how we make sense of the world around us
09:00 The types of inferences: Causal, bridging, elaborative, and theory of mind
17:00 How teachers can help students develop inference skills
22:00 Creating an effective questioning strategy
27:00 How teachers can preview a text and think about the inferences that might need to be made
31:00 Supporting students who process texts in different ways
37:00 The timing of comprehension questions
40:00 The connection between oral language comprehension and text comprehension
45:00 Final thought: Teacher's shouldn't underestimate the importance of inferences that might seem obvious.
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D., distinguished professor emeritus from the University of Illinois at Chicago, joins Susan Lambert to distinguish between reading comprehension, learning from a text, and the process of learning to read. He compares learning to read with athletic training, explaining that just as athletes need to vary their workout intensities to maximize their strength, students need to vary their text difficulty to maximize their comprehension, reading skills, and overall learning. Together, Timothy and Susan also discuss why reading comprehension is an ethical act and the power of simply rereading to increase comprehension.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension! 
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand-new companion professional learning page  
• Connect with Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.
• Learn more about Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.
• Read the blog post "Don't Confuse Reading Comprehension and Learning to Read (and to Reread)"
• Listen to Leveled reading, leveled lives, with Tim Shanahan, Ph.D.
• Listen to Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D. on Beyond My Years 
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert

Quotes:

"We're trying to teach kids to read, and a text that is immediately comprehensible leaves you very little to learn." —Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.

"Reading comprehension is not just a psychological or cognitive action—it's an ethical action." —Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.

"Comprehension is not automatic. It isn't just, 'Oh, if you decode, you're going to comprehend.'" —Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.

"A good reader has to start out with a determination. 'My job here is to understand it, not just to read it.'" —Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction: Learning to read vs. reading to learn with Timothy Shanahan, Ph.D.
06:00 Reading comprehension is not just a psychological or cognitive action, it's an ethical action.
09:00 Authors know their readers and so they put in affordances aimed at the reader.
15:00 Timothy's motivation for writing his blog post, "Don't Confuse Reading Comprehension and Learning to Read."
17:00 A text that is immediately comprehensible, leaves you very little to learn.
19:00 You can increase the learning for most people if you increase the difficulty.
24:00 An argument for students to read more rigorous texts.
28:00 A good reader has to start out with determination.
35:00 The different between learning and understanding is an issue of remembering.
39:00 Teachers need to teach kids to be strategic.
42:00 Timothy Shanahan's new wrinkle in thinking about comprehension, understanding, and learning.
44:00 In conclusion: Kids should be reading texts with varying levels of difficulty.
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

We're excited to share a special episode from our friends at our sister podcast, Beyond My Years.

Host Ana Torres is joined by nationally recognized educational consultant and thought leader, Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D., to discuss what critical thinking is and how to help students develop it. He also explains why critical thinking is crucial for long-term academic success. Mitchell also gives gives educators four clear steps that they can implement to effectively nurture critical thinking skills in their classrooms. Ana is then joined by Beyond My Years Classroom Insider extraordinaire Eric Cross, who discusses how he encourages his students to hone their critical thinking skills in class.

Show notes:

• Binge all of Beyond My Years podcast Season 2 now: https://amplify.com/bmy
• Submit your questions on comprehension 
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand-new companion professional learning page  
• Visit Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D,’s website
• Connect with Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D., on LinkedIn
• Connect with Ana Torres
• Connect with Eric Cross
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert

Quotes:

"When you are a school administrator, you can't be confused as to what your identity is. People expect you to step in with voice, with passion, with vision, and direct the path." —Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D.

"That's how you know you're in a classroom with critical thinking: We're not rushing the conversation. We're enjoying it." —Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D. 

"There's an art and science to teaching, and I think that they're two different things." —Eric Cross

"The importance of modeling can’t be overstated." — Ana Torres

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Ana Torres & Eric Cross preview Ana's conversation about critical thinking
04:00 Introducing Mitchell Brookins, Ph.D.
10:00 Why should critical thinking be top of mind for educators?
15:00 Where should teachers begin when trying to help students develop critical thinking skills?
20:00 Questioning that reveals classrooms in which teachers honor students' thinking
24:00 You can't get to a higher level if you don't have the knowledge.
28:00 For a lot of us, this work is more than just a profession it's a calling
30:00 Classroom Insider conversation with Eric Cross
37:00 Recap of Classroom Insider takeaways
39:00 Closing thoughts from Susan Lambert
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Susan Lambert is joined by emeritus professor of psychology and education and the University of Oxford, Charles Hulme, D.Phil., and founder of Left Side Strong LLC, MaryKate DeSantis. They dive into the critial connection between oral language development and reading comprehension. They also explore exactly what oral language development is, how to screen children for deficits in oral language abilities, and the most effective strategies educators can use for intervention.

Show notes: 

• Submit your comprehension questions!
• Access free resources on our companion professional learning page. 
• Connect with Charles on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Charles.
• Connect with MaryKate on LinkedIn.
• Learn more about Left Side Strong LLC.
• Listen to our episode with Wesley Hoover, Ph.D.
• Listen to our episode with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
• Listen to our episode with Tiffany Hogan, Ph.D.
• Listen to Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
• Join our Facebook group.
• Read Book Language: What It Is, How Children Can “Get It”.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"Language comprehension is really what leads us to reading comprehension." —MaryKate DeSantis

"We talk about learning to read, but we also need to talk about reading to learn. A lot of what we learn in our lives is through reading, and reading is certainly a powerful drive of vocabulary and language development." —Charles Hulme, D.Phil.

"Language skills are unconstrained, meaning the sky's the limit. As long as you continue to engage in any sort of way, your language skills can continue to develop throughout your lifetime." —Susan Lambert

Timestamps*:
00:00 How language skills shape reading success
06:00 Defining reading comprehension
08:00 Reading is language. Without language, there would be no reading.
12:00 Importance of language skills for comprehension
16:00 Our main purpose in life is to communicate with others
21:00 Development of language skills
23:00 Moving the needle on literacy achievement
28:00 How students can help develop students' language capacity
31:00 Screening to assess oral language skills
35:00 Why early language instruction is effective and sustainable
39:00 Key takeaways
41:00 Focusing on language is worth the time
43:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Phil Capin, Ph.D., assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They explore why recommended reading comprehension practices aren't widely implemented in schools, and what educators can do to change that. Together, they also discuss how knowledge building is foundational to reading comprehension, how writing is a powerful tool in supporting reading comprehension, and why we should structure reading instruction based on what happens before, during, and after reading.

Show notes:

• Submit your questions on comprehension: http://www.amplify.com/sor-mailbag
• Access free resources at our professional learning page: https://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning/
• Connect with Phil Capin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-capin-02105550
• Read Hugh Catts' article, "Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension": https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1322088.pdf
• Read Catherine Snow's article, "Reading for Understanding": https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1465.html
• Learn more about Dolores Durkin's report, "What Classroom Observations Reveal about Reading Comprehension Instruction": https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED162259
• Read How People Learn: https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/9853/chapter/1
• Listen to the podcast episode with Nancy Hennessy: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s3-09-deconstructing-the-rope-vocabulary-with/id1483513974?i=1000520380191 
• Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast: http://at.amplify.com/bmy 
• Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading

Quotes:

"We've underestimated the value of writing in supporting reading comprehension." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.

"Reading and writing rely on a lot of the same language processes, and writing supports the consolidation of knowledge." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.

"Students should engage with meaningful problems, and they should have a reason for learning." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.

Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction
04:00 Phil Capin's career path
08:00 Reading comprehension is the byproduct of a constellation of competencies
11:00 The complexity of comprehension
16:00 Dolores Durkin's findings on comprehension testing vs. teaching
22:00 Students should engage with meaningful problems
24:00 Comprehension instruction is organized by before, during, and after reading.
27:00 The value of writing for comprehension
31:00 Where comprehension strategies could be helpful
39:00 How much time should teachers dedicate to strategy instruction?
41:00 The strongest predictor of whether you're going to understand the text is the knowledge you bring.
46:00 Every teacher is a reading teacher
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 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:

• 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:

• 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