This week, Melanie sits down with Storyshares Chief Academic Officer Shira Engel to give you the PD you wish you'd had — breaking down the key terms, acronyms, and foundational concepts that come up again and again in the adolescent literacy world. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just clear, accessible definitions that will help you engage in these conversations with confidence.

We cover:

• What adolescent literacy actually means — and why the definition might surprise you
• The science of reading — and why it's not a curriculum
• Acronyms on acronyms: ORF, MTSS, HQIM, PLC
• Foundational literacy skills — phonics, phonemic awareness, morphology, fluency, and more
• The decoding threshold — and why it matters for older striving readers
• Assessments: universal screeners vs. secondary literacy diagnostics
• Interdisciplinary vs. disciplinary literacy
• Strategies you can use in your classroom tomorrow

Links:

• Decoding threshold research: https://www.ets.org/research/the-decoding-threshold-measuring-the-roots-of-older-students-reading-diffulties-new-evidence.html
• Reading Universe resources: https://readinguniverse.org/

• Information on MTSS: https://www.nwea.org/blog/2025/reimagining-mtss-4-ways-to-move-from-intervention-to-empowerment/
• Adolescent literacy definition: https://www.unr.edu/education/research/centers-and-student-resources/initiatives/naln
• 
  
  
  

Questions or want to connect? Reach out to [email protected]

This week, we sit down with Dr. Julia Yi, adolescent literacy researcher and assistant professor at MGH Institute of Health Professions, whose team has been doing groundbreaking research on the language and literacy gap for adolescent learners.

We dig into:

• What the research actually tells us about what older striving readers need — and what the language and literacy gap looks like for secondary students
• The dosage question — how many sessions, how long, how intensive — and why it matters more than most educators realize
• System-wide recommendations for school leaders and concrete strategies educators can use tomorrow
• How to fit any of this into an already packed secondary school schedule

Link to Julia's research here

Questions or want to connect? Reach out to [email protected]

This week, we sit down with three former students of Storyshares CEO Louise Baigelman and Chief Academic Officer Shira Engel — young people who came to them as older students with gaps in their literacy skills and who, with the right support and the right books, transformed into readers.

Three moments from this episode you won't forget:

• Ruth arrived in fifth grade from Haiti reading at a second grade level. Today she's a mom who reads to her sixteen-month-old every single night.
• Zaire spent years joking his way out of being called on to read. The first book he ever finished on his own — The Crossover by Kwame Alexander — made him cry. He's now pursuing social work because he wants to make the impact on others that his teacher made on him.
• Lenn Darla went from fifth grade reading intervention to AP Literature to registered nurse — and uses the comprehension skills she learned in fifth grade to advocate for her patients every single day.

Three students. Two teachers. One through-line: it is never too late.

To learn more about our work transforming adolescent literacy, visit storyshares.org or reach out to [email protected]

Malcolm Mitchell won a Super Bowl. But he'll tell you that learning to read was the harder — and more important — victory.

This week, Malcolm joins us to talk about growing up running away from books, feeling bamboozled by a system that never told him the whole truth about what literacy makes possible, and the moment in a college English class that changed everything. Three things you won't forget:

• He was more nervous reading aloud in class than playing in the Super Bowl
• He credits reading — not athletics — with getting drafted by the Patriots
• "I wish someone would've told me the truth. Not the 'pass your class, get an A' motivation — just the hardcore facts."

🔗 Share the Magic Foundation: sharethemagicfoundation.org

To learn more about our work transforming adolescent literacy, visit storyshares.org or reach out to [email protected]

This week, Lynni Nordheim, District Dyslexia Specialist and Director of Adolescent Literacy for The Reading League Colorado, joins us to talk about the social emotional experience of adolescent readers — how shame and avoidance show up in intervention work, what schools unintentionally communicate about who is and isn't a reader, and what it actually takes to build the safety and trust that makes learning possible.

*Plus* practical strategies you can bring back to your classroom literally tomorrow.

Because these students deserve educators who believe it's not too late — it isn't.

To learn more about our work transforming adolescent literacy, visit storyshares.org or reach out to [email protected]

No guest this week, just Louise and Melanie!

After 10 episodes of eye-opening conversations with literacy experts, we're taking a moment to reflect on all that we've learned — both on this journey of building Storyshares, but also, just for fun, some things we have discovered along the way in our personal lives as well.

We talk about:

-how much we value sleep

-what we wished we had done differently in college

-the ways our thinking has shifted re: best practices to support adolescent readers

-how not knowing it all can actually be a superpower

-and more!!

To learn more about Storyshares and our adolescent literacy solutions, visit storyshares.org

We talk a lot about how children and teens learn reading skills. We talk less about whether they have anything to read. In Episode 10, Larry Abrams, founder of the nonprofit BookSmiles, joins us to make the case that book access is one of the most overlooked — and solvable — pieces of the literacy crisis, and that for underserved kids, a book in hand can change everything.

Visit booksmiles.org to learn more.

We're off this week, but Melanie pops in to say hello and give a quick book recommendation. Hope everyone is getting a moment to rest and recharge!

See you next week.

"Schools were not built to optimize learning." This week, Michael Horn, creator of podcast and Substack The Future of Education, joins us to unpack what it would take to rethink education for the students actually sitting in classrooms today. From mastery-based learning to the false binary around small group instruction, Michael and Louise dig into what it would really take to rebuild a system around how kids actually learn — starting with the most foundational skill of all: reading.

Resources: https://michaelbhorn.substack.com/

What does a student's day actually feel like when everything around them is disconnected? Different teachers, different routines, different language, different expectations — class after class after class. For older striving readers already carrying years of compounding gaps, that disconnection isn't just frustrating… it's a barrier.

This week, we're joined by Kate Crist, founder of Education 4500 and member of the steering committee for the Project for Adolescent Literacy. In this episode, Kate and Louise discuss concrete strategies to transform literacy instruction for middle and high school students. We dig into:

• What coherence really means for secondary literacy

• How to connect intervention with core instruction so the two are actually working together

• What disciplinary literacy looks like across every content area

• What it means to graduate every student literate

• School culture vs. structure – and which to prioritize to see real change

Resources: Education 4500, IES Practice Guide for grades 4-9, Project for Adolescent Literacy (PAL)