This episode’s guest is Margaret McKeown, Ph.D., a retired professor from the University of Pittsburgh, decades-long researcher, and former elementary school teacher. In it, Margaret and Susan address why vocabulary is so important, particularly for knowledge building; talk about the various elements of effective vocabulary instruction; discuss the key role of informal instruction in vocabulary building; and share best practices for assessing vocabulary. Listeners will come away from this episode with a deeper understanding of the how and why of vocabulary instruction, as well as tips for bolstering vocabulary instruction in their own communities.

Show notes:

• Follow Margaret on X
• Listen: In Season 8 Episode 3, Gina Cervetti also spoke with Susan about vocabulary development 
• Book: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, Linda Kucan 
• Book: Creating Robust Vocabulary by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, Linda Kucan 
• Book: Vocabulary Assessment to Support Instruction by Margaret G. McKeown, Paul D. Deane, Judith A. Scott, Robert Krovetz, and René R. Lawless
• Website: Etymonline.com, for learning about etymology 

Quotes:

“Good instruction needs to be interactive. We're using words. Vocabulary pervades the day.” —Margaret McKeown

“Relax, because you're never going to be able to teach kids all the words that they really need to know, so just drop that.” —Margaret McKeown

“There is no perfect set of words, so don't worry about which words you're using, just sort of tune your mind to the kinds of words that turn up in texts a lot, ones that go across texts, not so much ones that are just, domain specific, but what words am I going to read in a novel, a social studies text, a newspaper article? Those are the kinds of words.” —Margaret McKeown

“If you do one thing, set up an attitude about words, this idea of reveling in words, and then just drop them in.” —Margaret McKeown

On this wide ranging episode, Susan finally gets the chance to speak with famed education thinker and author John Hattie, Ph.D. Hattie has authored dozens and dozens of books. He’s best known for his book, Visible Learning, which now has a sequel. In this episode, he discusses his career and shares with Susan some of the biggest takeaways from his work. He also explains what meta-analysis is and discusses some of the biggest takeaways from meta-analysis in the education field. They both also delve into the importance of successful implementation. And, finally, Hattie shares his thoughts on AI and the future of education. This episode offers many practical tips for educators to realign with their mission and dig into why they do what they do and how to best make an impact.

Show notes: 

• Book: Visible Learning: The Sequel by John Hattie 
• Book: Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn by John Hattie and Gregory C.R. Yates
• Book: Making Room for Impact by Arran Hamilton, John Hattie, and Dyland William
• Read: The Future of AI in Education: 13 Things We Can Do to Minimize the Damage

Quotes:

“Your job is not to get through the curriculum, your job is not to get kids engaged in authentic, real-world, exciting tasks. Your job is to have an impact across those many notions.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.

“We're very good at finding problems and fixing them but we're not as good—we're not having the courage—to study expertise and scale it up. And that's my mission. Scale up the expertise we have.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.

“I'm an evidence-based person. Sometimes I don't like the results, but that doesn't mean you get to deny it. Some people want to deny it. Some people want to get angry with it. And sometimes evidence does get in the way of a good opinion.” —John Hattie, Ph.D.

In this episode, Susan Lambert talks to Gina Cervetti, Ph.D., about literacy development, knowledge building, vocabulary expansion—and the deep connections between all three. Gina explains why she sees knowledge and vocabulary as two sides of the same coin. She also attempts to expand the listener's understanding of what knowledge really is; it’s not just subject-area knowledge, it’s also cultural knowledge. In this process, she introduces the idea of conceptual coherence, the benefits of this approach to knowledge building, and  avenues for implementing it in the classroom. Lastly, Gina offers strategies for how teachers can effectively build students’ vocabulary without relying on a vocabulary list which she notes is not backed by the research.

Show notes:

• Faculty Page: Gina N. Cervetti
• Website: Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading
• Read: “Research-Based Principles for Improving the Reading Achievement of America’s Children” by the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement

Quotes:

“Above all other things in education, literacy is a gateway to so many of the things that are essential for human flourishing and human choice.” —Dr. Gina Cervetti

“I like to think about vocabulary, not as individual words, right, but as a set of labels for ideas that we want kids to be able to read about and talk about and write about.” —Dr. Gina Cervetti

“It's really hard to teach individual words in ways where that learning is durable…Because it's not connected to something.” —Dr. Gina Cervetti

“When you can see yourself or connect to the experiences you bring to a text it’s great for your comprehension.” —Dr. Gina Cervetti

“Knowledge is so complex that it actually offers a number of different benefits. And different kinds of knowledge actually benefit literacy development in different ways.” —Dr. Gina Cervetti

Many educators understand the value of reading aloud to students, but may not yet have unlocked the full power of these tools as an intentional, consistent, and joyful instructional approach. In this episode, we welcome Molly Ness, author of the recent book, Read Alouds for All Learners: A Comprehensive Plan for Every Subject, Every Day, Grades PreK–8. Molly—a former classroom teacher who also spent 16 years as a teacher educator—gives us an overview of the research on read-alouds, detailing the myriad benefits (linguistic, socioemotional, motivational, and physiological) they provide students. Molly also lays out strategies for effective read-alouds, instructions on how to properly plan and implement them, and specific examples of the pre-work process for texts like Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems.

Show notes:

• Book: “Read Alouds for All Learners: A Comprehensive Plan for Every Subject, Every Day, Grades PreK–8” by Molly Ness
  *Use promo code “AmplifyPodcast20” from Oct. 24, 2023–Dec. 15, 2023, for a 20% discount on the paperback version. 
• Read: “What are Teachers Reading and Why?: An analysis of elementary read aloud titles and the rationales underlying teachers’ selections” by Kristin Conradi Smith, Craig A. Young, and Jane Core Yatzeck
• Website: www.drmollyness.com
• X account: @drmollyness

*Terms and conditions:
Discount valid on SolutionTree.com only. Enter promo code AmplifyPodcast20 at checkout to receive a 20% discount on the paperback version of Read Alouds for All Learners. Offer expires December 15, 2023. Not valid for bookstores, distributors, or resellers. Continental U.S. only. Cannot be combined with other offers. For customers submitting a purchase order, payment must be received by December 15, 2023, to qualify for this offer.

Quotes:

"A read-aloud is an interactive language experience...where a teacher reads something, elicits a conversation from students. Those conversational turns are so essential in [a] read-aloud. It's a shared literacy experience around a text." —Molly Ness

"What I don't think teachers understand, and I say this having been one of those teachers, is the intentionality that needs to happen in planning the read-aloud." —Molly Ness

"When we add things like think-alouds and being explicit in our vocabulary, we are building [students'] metacognition and [their] abiliy to understand text." —Molly Ness

"We all have those gaps in knowledge and life experiences, regardless of where we come from and regardless of our zip code and regardless of our personal or family situation." —Molly Ness

In the premiere episode of Season 8 of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by guests Reid Smith and Pamela Snow to lay the groundwork for a season entirely centered on knowledge and knowledge-building. Reid and Pamela—of the SOLAR Lab at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia—recently co-authored (along with many others) a review of the literature on background knowledge and literacy. In this discussion, they share what they learned, including some surprising takeaways. This episode examines the  complexity of building background knowledge, the important role it plays in literacy, and the reasons we’ve decided to spend a whole season exploring it!

Show notes:

• Read: "The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A critical review"
• Read: "Elementary Teachers' Perspectives on Teaching Reading Comprehension"
• Blog: The Snow Report 
• Website: The SOLAR Lab

Quotes:
“We decided we'd embark on a knowledge-rich curriculum where we would make deliberate decisions about what it is that we would like our students to know about the world in which we live and thinking carefully about the coherence and sequencing of that knowledge.”  —Reid Smith

“This idea of having a coherent curriculum that systematically builds knowledge and skills over time is something that we think is really important for our kids.” —Reid Smith

“There's a group of students who, even when they know they have the background knowledge that's required to make inferences in a text, they find that really difficult, that they have difficulty identifying the pieces of knowledge that they actually have that are going to enable them to make inferences with a particular text.” —Reid Smith

“Explicit teaching is an important way of building accurate background knowledge, building schema about a topic that, of course, is an important social equity lever for us to pull because not all students have equal opportunities.” —Pamela Snow

“Background knowledge has a particularly strong effect for those students who don't have other compensatory mechanisms to be able to pick up the ball when they don't have that background knowledge.” —Reid Smith

“The long-term memory makes no distinction between information that's correct or incorrect…so, of course, the incorrect knowledge would impact on our understanding." —Reid Smith

“I think we respect teacher autonomy when we give them the knowledge that they need about how the English writing system works, right across the Reading Rope, and how the English language works, right across the Reading Rope.” —Pamela Snow

In this episode, in honor of Dyslexia Awareness Month, we highlight Kareem Weaver's daughter Margaret "Margo" and nephew Elijah—both of whom learned they had dyslexia later in their young lives. After many struggles in school, Margo was diagnosed with dyslexia in high school. Meanwhile, Elijah was diagnosed with dyslexia only while he was incarcerated. Margo and Elijah discuss the impact of their diagnoses. Meanwhile, Kareem reflects on their stories and shares lessons learned for families and caregivers. Margo and Elijah also share their advice for educators and other young people about types of dyslexia.

Show notes:

• Listen: Kareem Weaver’s first interview with Susan: What it takes to be a literacy education changemaker.
• Listen: Kareem Weaver’s most recent podcast appearance: The Right to Read: live from Plain Talk
• Much more on dyslexia: Listen to S7E7 with Dr. Tim Odegard and S7E9 with Dr. Sally Shaywitz
• Documentary: The Right to Read 
• Website: FULCRUM (Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate) 
• Read: How dyslexia diagnosis changed a Bay Area high school softball player’s life

Quotes:

"It made me realize I wasn't the problem; something was wrong with me. I just had a little bump in the road that was making it just a little bit harder for me." —Margo Weaver

"It shouldn't take having to go to jail to get what you need to learn how to read. That's the bottom of it." —Kareem Weaver

"Just try to take a deep breath in and ask questions." —Elijah Valencia

"Even when they were trying to help me ... it's like they were expecting me to be learning at everybody else's pace." —Elijah Valencia

"Real talk as a parent: We got to own up to stuff." —Kareem Weaver

"When a kid can't read and life gets a hold of you, it's a life cycle. Next thing you know, you find yourself in situatins that you never would have imagined." —Kareem Weaver

"Most parents are overwhelmed and they need an ally in the building." —Kareem Weaver

"I just wish somebody kind of sat with me and told me that I wasn't stupid and that I was okay." —Margo Weaver

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Reid Lyon, one of the leading experts in reading research. After years working for and with the highest levels of the U.S. government, Dr. Lyon stepped away from working on reading research. However, in May 2023, he released his "Ten Maxims: What We've Learned So Far About How Children Learn to Read." Picking up where we left off last episode, Dr. Lyon continues to expand on what we know about how children learn—and explains how much of this information was known two decades ago when he was testifying before Congress. He also goes into what he sees in the current Science of Reading landscape, and what he hopes for the future, and how both of those things led to the creation of his "Ten Maxims."

Show notes:

• Listen to: Embracing the complexity of learning to read (Part 1)
• Dr. Reid Lyon: “Ten Maxims: What We've Learned So Far About How Children Learn to Read”
• Keith Rayner’s research: “Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research”
• Marilyn Adams: Beginning to Read
• Susan Brady:  Phonological Processes in Literacy 
• Emily Hanford: “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong”

Quotes:
“The Science of Reading is cumulative and we’re learning all kinds of new things.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“A more realistic look at reading is in fact to understand the complexity, but not be intimidated by it.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“When you’re working on something that’s so critical to a life—to a child’s life—belief systems don’t cut it. Evidence cuts it.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

Dr. Reid Lyon is one of the leading experts in reading research. After years working for and with the highest levels of the U.S. government, Dr. Lyon stepped away from his reading research. But in May 2023, Dr. Lyon released his "Ten Maxims: What We've Learned So Far About How Children Learn to Read." And of course Susan jumped at the chance to invite him onto the podcast. In a wide-reaching interview, Dr. Lyon traces his life story from the Vietnam War to the National Institute of Health. He also offers an expansive overview of what we know about teaching reading, how children learn—including a discussion of whole language vs. phonics—and his response to educators wondering what reading actually is and what methodology of teaching students to read is most effective.

Be on the lookout for Part 2 of our interview with Dr. Reid Lyon, being released next week.

Show notes:

• Dr. Reid Lyon: “Ten Maxims: What We've Learned So Far About How Children Learn to Read”
• Keith Rayner’s research: “Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research”
• Marilyn Adams: Beginning to Read
• Susan Brady:  Phonological Processes in Literacy 
• Emily Hanford: “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong”

Quotes:

“Phonics—that is, looking at letters, letter patterns, learning how to bring sound to associate to those letters—is absolutely essential, non-negotiable. It has to be learned. But it in no way is sufficient to be able to comprehend, which is the goal of reading.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“Reading is a complex behavior subserved by multiple systems in the brain that integrate and inform each other.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“It’s a symphony of neural activity that undergirds this very complex behavior of just learning how to read. So when people boil reading down into phonics or whole language, it’s just a false characterization.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“People somehow conflated this natural ability of oral language to develop—just expose kids, just shower them with language—to reading. And reading is by no means natural. It has to be taught. It does not reside in the brain systems.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

“We’re hampered by the teacher-knowledge issue. That’s not a teacher’s fault. That’s a college of education system that is bereft of responsibility. It operates on philosophical foundations. It operates on belief systems. It’s very politicized. It looks at reading as a right, which it is. But it doesn’t look at the instruction of reading as methodology—strategies, direct and comprehensive programs that can help most kids learn to read.” —Dr. Reid Lyon

With a background as a classroom teacher, a master's in educational neuroscience, and a doctorate in special education, Dr. Neena Saha has seen all facets of education. In her work, she noticed a gap in the research-to-practice workflow for early literacy and dedicated herself to streamlining the process of finding and disseminating the best educational research for educators. Together, Susan Lambert and Neena discuss the need for reading researchers to work together and collaborate in a more focused and concerted group effort, the challenges of implementation, and how educators can best keep up with research that often feels overwhelming.

Show notes:

• Listen: Our recent episode with Claude Goldenberg
• Read: Neena’s monthly reading research update
• Watch: Neena’s July video about a Bayesian network meta-analysis
• Watch: Celebrating the Legacy of Dr. Bud Rose
• Website: Center for Research Use in Education
• Read: “Survey of Evidence in Education for Schools Descriptive Report”
• Read: “The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect” by Judea Pearl
• Read: Reading Research Recap—If you want to start receiving monthly notifications for this series, please register or sign in to your Lexile & Quantile Hub account and join the Reading Research mailing list.

Quotes:

"What I did was focus really on dissemination, right? Getting rid of that hurdle of, you know, there's so many journals out there." —Dr. Neena Saha

"You have to look at the full body, you're like cherry picking stuff if you're going to social media and the person with the biggest megaphone wins or whoever has the most interesting way of presenting it." —Dr. Neena Saha

"We need a more concerted effort. There needs to be a bunch of researchers that come together and hash it out. It can't just be single ones here and there." —Dr. Neena Saha

"Teachers or educators out there right now, when you're feeling overwhelmed and you can't figure out how to find the evidence, or some evidence, guess what? We're affirming for you that there's no easy way to do it...this is more of a systemic problem." —Dr. Neena Saha

"It's not enough to do the science. You have to make sure it gets out there." —Dr. Neena Saha

Growing up, Malcolm Mitchell considered reading and academics as a bare minimum means to get to play football. While his journey with football led to playing in the NFL, the work he is most proud of today is his literacy work and his own journey of learning to love reading, advocating for literacy, and writing children's books. In this conversation with Susan Lambert at the 2023 Plain Talk Conference—where Malcolm was the keynote speaker—Malcolm dives into his own process of teaching himself to become a proficient reader at the age of 19. Through the lens of his own struggles and triumphs, Malcolm shares a powerful testimony to the importance of cultural connection, access to books, community building, and understanding the true "why" behind reading to get students motivated to read.

Show notes:

• Website: Share The Magic Foundation (ReadWithMalcolm.com)
• Watch: Malcolm’s 2019 TEDxUGA talk
• Read with Malcolm's Instagram
• Read with Malcolm's Twitter
• Read with Malcolm's LinkedIn

Quotes:

"I saw that [reading] as the thing that would allow me to become the best version of myself." —Malcolm Mitchell

"Reading is the most self empowering tool a person could possess." —Malcolm Mitchell

"I knew that I needed to surround myself with a group of readers to help foster an even greater love or deeper connection." —Malcolm Mitchell

"It's not whether people want to do something or not. It's whether they understand the value of it." —Malcolm Mitchell

"Our challenge is to create an atmosphere that hopefully makes students willing to learn. And that opens the door for a teacher to do what they do best." –Malcolm Mitchell

"High school is probably the most confusing place because the things that you need to do most to position yourself for a fruitful life are the things that are ridiculed" —Malcolm Mitchell