Ep. 213: Evidence-Based Writing Instruction for Young Learners with Karen Harris & Young Suk Grace Kim

So we're wondering if you could start off by just telling us what's the connection between reading and writing and why should it be a part of this conversation of the science of reading ?

I know that you know many of you are listening and may not have access to a visual , but , just in case you are interested , we actually have visuals or figures or an article that includes a figure .

So there's a roof , there's a beam right underneath it and then there are two pillars that support the beam and the roof and then there are foundations that support the pillars . So now think about where you're going to place reading and writing and the skills that contribute to reading and writing into these different parts of the house structure .

So on the roof place reading , comprehension and written composition . We're going to place them right at the very top because they are going to rely on all the other things below it , and we're going to place reading , comprehension and written composition together because they're related right and then right underneath in the beam .

Think about text reading fluency and text writing fluency . It's right underneath reading , comprehension and written composition , because they support reading , comprehension and written composition . Now I imagine two pillars that support the beam and roof . One pillar is what I call lexical literacy skills .

By lexical , that means word size , so word size literacy skills , and that includes word reading and word writing . Word writing is really spelling , right ? So word reading and spelling is one pillar and the other pillar is oral discourse . Oral discourse it may sound a little difficult and technical but it is really oral language at the discourse or text level .

So that includes listening , comprehension Many of you listening , you're engaged in listening comprehension and oral composition that's your oral language . Production of text right , not just vocabulary words but the text size . So that's the other pillar .

So these two pillars lexical literacy and the oral discourse pillars support the B and the oral discourse pillars support the B , which is reading fluency and text-writing fluency , and reading comprehension and written composition . So that means without them there's no reading comprehension or written composition .

Right Now let's think about what supports the lexical literacy pillar , and so , if you think about the foundational stone that supports lexical literacy , think about a triangle , and there are three elements right , and they are phonological awareness and orthographic awareness and morphological awareness . I call these three together code-related , immersion literacy skills .

These are code-related because these are , you know , code , like decoding and encoding , which is word reading and spelling . Some of you may ask you know what is orthographic awareness ?

Orthographic awareness includes knowledge and awareness of letters , in other words , their shapes , their names and their sounds , as well as , you know letter patterns that are allowed in a specific language , like digraphs in English , right triagraphs or syllable types , right , those things . So those three pieces , the triangle supports word reading and spelling .

And then we move on to the oral discourse side of the pillar . What skills support oral discourse ? And they include what I call higher order cognitions and regulations .

And they include our ability to make inferences , reasoning , perspective taking which is really understanding different perspectives and comprehension , monitoring and monitoring comprehension in our own performance . And right underneath we have foundational oral language skills such as vocabulary and grammatical knowledge . And at the very bottom of everything there's executive function .

Executive function here includes working memory , inhibitory control , attentional control and cognitive flexibility . And these are right at the very bottom because these support everything above right .

And then , if you imagine two window-looking ones right next to the oral discourse pillar , there's background knowledge , and they include content knowledge , world knowledge , cultural knowledge and discourse knowledge .

And on the window that's near the lexical literacy side is social-emotional aspects such as motivation , attitude , interest or anxiety , or a self-efficacy , self-concept towards reading and writing . So imagine that right . So that's the whole structure .

Now the big idea here in our conversation is that reading and writing are related because they rely on essentially the same skills , right , the reason why reading , comprehension and written composition are together is because they rely on the same skills that are underneath all right .

Also , if you think about text reading fluency and text writing fluency , they also they're together because they're related . They also share . They're related because they share or they rely on shared skills that are underneath it . The other reading skill and writing skill is word reading and spelling . They're also together because they're related .

The reason why they're related is because they share , they're developed or they're supported by the same skill , which is really code related , immersion literacy skills .

I don't know if you did it on purpose or you thought of it on purpose that way , but I love that You're like oh , what do they know ? What's their prior knowledge ? How can I build on that prior knowledge ? What's their background knowledge ? I'm trying to look into the window of their brain and , oh , so neat .

Karen , I want to make sure , too , you have a moment to kind of add to what Young said , if you'd like to Sure .

Meta-analyses now and a really growing but already good-sized body of research make it really clear Reading improves writing and writing improves reading , and one of the things we'll get into in our work with first and second graders was increases in comprehension , and we'll untangle why and how later .

But I think that we still across this country and actually it's quite common in European countries and other countries as well we still think that if kids can read , they should be able to write . There's still a lot of that belief going on . They should be able to write . There's still a lot of that belief going on .

For anyone who wants it , I have a 12-page resource list on SRSD for free . You guys can have my email after this . I have samples of kid before and after work and other stuff I'd be happy to share with you .

But I also have a little video done by Dr Deborah McCowan that beautifully explains what it's like trying to write , and for years I've compared it to conducting an orchestra . And it is so hard . There's so much you have to manage , get more fluency and more knowledge the vocabulary knowledge , the handwriting , the spelling .

We know from large bodies of research that writing improves , and then that means there's more impact on reading , so I'll leave it there for now .

Meta-analysis goes and then looks at what studies are available on a given topic very comprehensively and systematically , and then do some statistical analysis . And you know , dr Steve Graham and colleagues and other people also have really found that , you know , reading instruction improves writing , writing instruction improves reading .

And also another piece reading and writing . Meta-analysis has also shown that reading and writing are related . So , but then the strength of relation is not the same for word reading and spelling versus reading comprehension and written composition .

So word reading and spelling are very strongly related and there's a reason why and I'm not going to go into details today , but if we have time perhaps we will Reading comprehension and written composition are moderately related . So they are related , but not as strongly . So there's really comprehensive evidence .

And another , I guess , consequence that we have to think about is if reading and writing are related , students who do what that means is students who do well in reading , they also likely do well in writing , and vice versa .

Right , if you flip the coin , students who do not do well or have difficulty , you know , developing kind of acquiring reading skills , they'll also likely experience difficulties in writing skills and the other way around . And studies have shown that about three-fourths of individuals with writing difficulties have reading difficulties .

And students with reading difficulties have lower performance in writing , and you know so . If you look at their written composition , the quality is lower , the organization , the structure is not as solid or strong . You know vocabulary , use , word and spelling , all those things right .

So altogether theoretically and evidence-wise reading in my mind it's undeniable that reading and writing are related . In my mind it's undeniable that reading and writing are related .

You had your , like , phonics time , you had your spelling time , you had your writing time , you had your reading time , vocabulary time , vocabulary time . Yeah , everything was different .

There might have been different programs for different things , and you just have me all thinking I hope it's changing now , but these are all so related that we should be teaching them together .

If I'm a uh , you know , I just remember when I taught second grade , like my , it was my third year of teaching , I think and being like , and we're going to write , you know about this topic ? Well , they had seven years old , had no knowledge about the topic , and I'm trying to teach them writing , but they don't have anything to write about .

And you know , if I could go back and be like , oh , just give them some knowledge on the top , you know , help them learn about it , or or just have them write about what we're doing already in reading . Um , so , yeah , melissa , that's such like that's so practical , to kind of point out .

Um , and I know , you know we get emails a lot from listeners like what do you recommend for this program ? What do you recommend for that program ? And I'm like , more than a program , we just really recommend this idea of an integrated approach to reading and writing , like that's .

I think , you know , if you're really thinking about building knowledge on topics , teaching explicitly and then really having our students write about what they're reading , read about what they're writing and connecting it all together . That's , that's like the biggest idea of them all .

So we're so glad to hear you all say that it's supported with meta-analysis and just so much , so many great visuals . We have an orchestra , we have a house there's we're rocking and rolling Love it .

And I think it's important to understand the notion of evidence-based practices , which is only what Young and I use . However , doing instruction the way we've been doing it does not mean giving up what works in your own classroom . There are plenty of practices that teachers have found work and we want them to integrate those as well .

Um , we can talk more about what was the srsd instruction a little later , but that is , I think , thematic through all of our work , that , whether it's transcription , spelling , handwriting , discourse , knowledge , we do want to use practices that have an evidence base , and that's not the same as a research base , and that confuses a lot of teachers , and a lot of

products are out there touting it's research-based , but in fact there's a study or two perhaps , but there's no study of doing this that they're selling you , whether it's in a book or so forth . So that's all .

But if you're using a book and a set of materials and you go to these meetings and they show how you use it , there might be some very good things to learn in there that you can integrate into your approach or that maybe you find oh , I'm already doing that one , but that one sounds good . But as a package , this program itself has not been researched .

They're leaning on research that says you know , in writing , you should have more handwriting practice . Okay , in writing , you should have more handwriting practice . Okay , in writing , you should do X , you should learn how to write sentences proficiently .

But , for example , if the program focuses only on certain aspects that have a research base , they're missing a lot of the rest of the research base . Furthermore , when studies have been done of some of these programs , the programs aren't doing very well . Effect sizes are small or sometimes the kids are not learning much at all .

So if it's an evidence-based practice , the standards are set by the Institute of Education Sciences in our government and in order to be termed evidence-based . There has to be a substantial number of studies done on that program , not on you know . Okay , we'll take part of the program and see if that's working . We do break it down to see what impacts what .

But that means , for example , with SRSD . There are now over 100 studies directly of SRSD using it , how it's intended to be used . Based on that , you can have meta-analyses , and the same is true in the areas that Young's presenting on .

There are lots of studies that we can integrate and look at in meta-analysis , and meta-analysis is simply a tool that tells us this works better than that by putting all I like to say squashing all the data together , but it doesn't sound very scientific but putting all that data together and analyzing it in appropriate ways .

So , thinking about this integrated idea , what does this mean for instruction , and what should teachers be thinking about as they're teaching both reading and writing ?

So what that means is , if you teach the component skills that contribute both reading and writing , when you teach them , both reading and writing will improve . If you don't teach them either , reading or writing right will not improve .

So , for example , if you teach phonological awareness , morphological awareness , or you know letter names and sounds , it will improve both right . When you teach vocabulary , it will improve both reading comprehension and written composition . So , teaching the component skills , share the component skills , including knowledge that you know . You mentioned the window part .

It's really important , right , as a foundation for improving reading and writing . The other piece is that , the one that we've been talking about already , which is integrated instruction of reading and writing .

So that does not mean that there should not be reading-specific or writing-specific instruction , but there should be , in addition to reading-specific , writing-specific instruction , an overall approach that will be supportive of reading and writing development is explicitly and systematically integrated instruction , right .

So , and one of the things that I would like to highlight is when you do teach you know . I recommend teachers to make the reading-writing connections visible and explicit and do not expect that children or students will see the connections without direct instruction .

So , thinking about word reading and spelling , children may not recognize the benefit of word reading practice on spelling and practicing spelling . You know its benefit on word reading or when they read something right and understand that material deeply and its contribution for their own writing and expressing ideas or the other way around .

So I think it's an important job for teachers to make the connections very visible . The last piece that I think we should think about in terms of reading writing connections is for assessment . So if they are related , right word reading , no , reading and writing are related . What that means is how I do in reading .

Can I can learn about how I do in reading or how I will do in reading in the future ? I can actually have information from them , not only from my current , current reading skill , but also my writing skills . So what we found in our study ?

For example , we found that when we use students' spelling information in addition to their word reading information , that improves precision of identifying students who are likely to experience reading word reading difficulties or reading comprehension difficulties in the future . So I think that we have implications .

We should think about implications of reading and writing relations on assessment practice as well .

We're making what's invisible in our brain and you know , kind of from our brain traveling down to our fingertips as we're writing or out our pencil or on our computer , that that that happens in this process of this integrated approach .

Not it teaches John a general skills as well . John is specific , right so . So , for example , when we teach text structure as part of reading comprehension , right .

So when you read text and identify different elements , right Of you know , depending on the text structure I mean genre and then , instead of just forgetting about it and leaving it there , we link it to students on writing in the same genre . So we just read the same narrative . We identified these key pieces of information based on the story grammar .

Now let's think about writing our own narrative or story , and for that , how can we best tell our story ? Let's think about structure and bring in the text structure that was discussed in the as part of reading comprehension instruction , right ? So that's one example of connecting reading and writing , but also making that connection between reading and writing .

You know , with the focus on text structure , that when teachers do that the teacher is making that reading-writing connection very explicit and visual .

So I wanted to really dive in with you all about what you've been finding , because this is recent research that you've all been doing and it's really exciting . And you've been looking at you've mentioned it a few times SRSD , which honestly , is a little bit new to me and Lori . So we're still learning about it ourselves . We can't wait to hear about it .

But you've been looking specifically at SRSD instruction with first and second graders and we know those students are , I mean , they're just learning how to write . So it's we can't wait to hear about what you learned about . Well , we want to learn about SRSD instruction and specifically with that population .

But first I'm going to pass it off to Karen , because we know you know all about SRSD , so can you just give us kind of that overview of what's involved with SRSD writing instruction ?

So people often can't find their early work Again . I'll send a paper that has all the background in history if anybody wants it . But there are two really important underlying concepts in SRSD . The first I was a teacher . I taught kindergarten , fourth grade and then I taught in special education . The first thing is trust in teachers .

Nobody knows the students as well when it comes to being in the classroom and learning as teachers and you guys you already talked about you know , trying to get in their brain . They're really young . What do they know , what don't they know ? That is one of the big things that happens in SRSD .

We work on it , especially initially , but then it's ongoing and that leads to really useful formative assessment . So we trust teachers . We trust them that they are monitoring , paying attention to their students .

We help them with doing that with this more complex instruction that integrates learning about writing and genre-specific things that work , but also general things across writing that work , like a good opening or grab the reader , a good ending and so forth . So that's the first one great trust in teachers . Srsd is not inflexible , is not scripted over my dead body .

People have written that , said that it's totally not accurate . It is a structure of instruction that will guide you to integrate multiple components that we've talked about some and I'll add some more . And it is absolutely critical that you modify this instruction to meet your classroom , your context and your students and you as a teacher .

You have to make changes to it . On the other hand , you have to use all the components . Research on you know . Don't just say , well , I don't want to use that one Research on the components of SRSD although I would like it if there were more studies there are enough to make some general conclusion .

You drop a component , you lose power , you'll have less effect on your students and , for a quick example , the thing people most want to drop is the self-statement , self-talk , which keeps kids going . It applies to frustration , it applies to , creates motivation . It does all these good things we can get into later . So use all of it .

You spend more time or less time in each part of the instruction depending on your students , and not all students need to be at the same place at the same time .

When you all talk about , you know , getting into first and second grade , we know I mean even across the grades in elementary school there is a four to six year difference in most classrooms in where students are OK if first and second grade well , they're just beginning , as you said , and so you really have to know where they can start and that's critical .

And the second underlying aspect of SRSD is what we've already talked to . It's all based on evidence-based practices . So when we talk about teaching self-regulation and we teach four forms , all of that has a huge evidence base . The evidence base on self-regulation with children across stages is really large and we have chosen what we believe are the four cornerstones .

Well , not just us a lot , most of the self-regulation field . So we teach goal setting , we teach self-regulation through self-statements , we teach self-monitoring seeing how you're progressing , and we teach kids how to recognize what they've done well and self-reinforce for that . So those are all explicitly developed .

Developed , I could also say I would like to say that it has been effective SRSD across inclusive classrooms . Some people will tell you , srsd was developed for students with LD In the 70s and early 80s . That is where we started . However , when kids started writing better across grade levels never done .

First grade before First and second was a pretty new thing for me and I probably would have gotten there without Young . But when the special ed kids in resource rooms , they started hanging their writing on the hallways and stuff , and then the general ed teachers are like how are you teaching that and how are they getting there ?

And so that's how it began to grow and it began to be used across districts in Maryland , where I was at the time , and then we realized we needed to be looking at SRSD across students with mild moderate disabilities , with students with emotional behavior disorders , students with LD , students with ADHD .

Those students do very well with SRSD , but so do the students who don't have any identified disabilities .

But you don't have to do that to begin with . Opinion essay is a good way to start because it's your opinion , and first and second graders , third and fourth graders they love opinion essay writing , and we then move on to things that can get more challenging . So it is indeed effective across socioeconomic standards .

Most of our research , over 90% of our research has been done in low SES schools , districts and classrooms . It's effective . Meta-analysis shows it's effective across racially diverse , inclusive classrooms . It's effective at tier one , that's when you're teaching the whole class . So that works . If you do SRSD well and integrate it well , that works .

And then it is effective across oh , I want to say across different entering abilities of students . When you do it long enough , you can get students who will move up a whole standard deviation , and that's big . That means and it's the data shows all students are improving , not equally , though , and students who start lower will need more support .

They may not get to the same goals as other students right away , so we can talk more about all that later , but those are some of the foundational things I think to know .

So what we did was so it's called , the studies that we conducted is called SRSD Plus because we added some things based on theoretical models in previous research . And the plus side of it includes explicit and systematic instruction on word reading and spelling and handwriting .

That's , if you recall back to the house structure , right , that's the lexical literacy pillar . That's , you know these are necessary for reading , comprehension and written composition , right . So that side . And then we also added oral language side , and oral language is a broad construct . It includes many different things .

In SRSD+ we focused on vocabulary and then sentence proficiency . Well , first off , srsd Plus targeted a very specific genre for students in grades one and two and that's informational text , the informational genre based comprehension activities .

And then , you know , they receive the plus side instruction and the necessity instruction , and then they write about the text they read , right . So that's informational genre . That we taught . The other aspect . I want to talk a little bit before I go over . You know the details about spelling and handwriting piece is an oral language piece .

Is that , um , the content that we taught was science content . So this is also important to note in my mind , because this is actually content area literacy , right ? So literacy instruction , um , of course , should include . Include , you know , it cannot be devoid of content , right ? So we chose science content .

Now , going back to the plus side , word reading , spelling , handwriting that one pillar side of instruction . The other side , the oral language instruction , for word reading and spelling , we taught using , focusing on phonological aspect letter sound , you know , graphing , phonem correspondence as well as morphological aspect .

So , based on all the evidence you know in the literature , we used a very systematic approach for that . The other piece was handwriting fluency . Evidence is robust about the importance of handwriting fluency for writing . It's not related to reading comprehension , but it's a necessary skill for written composition . So we explicitly taught handwriting and handwriting .

When you think of handwriting , many things may come up and come to your mind , but we focused on not only how well formed or accurate each letter is , but also speed . The fluency aspect is really important for writing process theoretically and therefore we focused on not only accuracy of letter writing and spelling , like a word writing right , but also speed .

That's really important to have students you know , their kind of working memory and attentional control and those pieces available for their thinking process . So we did have that piece . The other piece , vocabulary and sentence proficiency .

We chose vocabulary words that are also content related in the science area that we taught , as well as some procedure related words right , such as the word essay , and so we taught a vocabulary based on , you know , evidence that we know from literature . Sentence proficiency included sentence construction , also how to combine sentences .

All those pieces and those vocabulary words and sentence structures that we targeted were all included in our anchor informational text that students read .

I was presenting recently to a group of teachers and in the presentation I kind of paused and I said I forget what made me think of this , but I said how many of you type when you're writing versus write when you're writing ? And the majority of the room raised their hand . And then I said why ?

And the answer was because I'm so much faster at typing and the ideas get from essentially my brain out of my body a lot faster that way , and so I really think I'm so glad that you brought that up , because I really think that's something that does stop our youngest learners from being able to get it out of their body and they get so frustrated and then

they need that regulation and you know oh , it's okay , I can do this . You know I'm going to take a moment , I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to go back to it . It does take so much for them with their handwriting , and so I'm so glad that you brought that up .

You know primary grade instruction , but really I have not seen and also based on what I hear you know also classroom observations I really don't see a very explicit , you know , systematic handwriting instruction in primary grades . So there are two aspects that I want to say . One is sometimes I get this question so I want to address it here .

You know , should students start with handwriting or keyboarding ? Studies have shown that actually handwriting , writing something using your hand , you know that muscle memory is important for learning , right . So spelling , learning , right . So that's important . So , unless some students have some motor difficulties , right .

So handwriting , and then of course , move on to keyboard fluency . That is important , right . The other piece is that when you teach it , of course letters have to be legible , right . But again though , so in terms of fluency , what we do , what we , the way we taught was based on our previous literature was have students copy .

But also , you know , first look at it and copy , right , it could be letters , it could be a word , or it could be a series of words , it could be a series of sentences , right , have them look and copy . But also have them copy without looking at it , meaning like out of memory , right ?

So having that in our SRSD Plus , we did something called a race , one minute race . We gave them words and sentences and our students just practice writing how many words and letters they can write accurately , right , legibly , and so within a minute . And kids actually love it . Right , it doesn't take a lot of time .

And so X , kind of accidentally , in the grocery store one day I pushed , she was telling me how bad her handwriting is and why should she write ? This was a quote . Why should I write when nobody can read what I wrote ? Okay , I decided , you know , we're a couple of teachers , my husband and I previous teachers .

I decided it was time to get involved and he agreed . So I pushed the cart past the stand with all the school . It's so hard to find these anymore , but they used to be in every grocery store , All these little school books that , oh , learn to handwrite right and learn to make a sentence . So I'm going by there and I pause and she's looking .

She goes Mom , Mommy , can I have that , Can I have that ? And I said , oh , sure . And then I deliberately started practicing with her . I mean , really even self-talk helps with handwriting if it's not overdone Line down then around , that's an H . If you get into more than two to three quick things , it slows kids down , doesn't help them .

But the dotted lines that you trace over , making it in a pan of sand or flour , just . And then she got where her handwriting was readable . And then she was so proud of herself and we were having fun doing it . And that's a hallmark of SRSD is make it fun , let's make it joyous and celebratory .

And then when she was five , I got a keyboarding game , this ghost house , and her spelling was not good , they weren't teaching that . And that game did two things for her . She got keyboard fluency and she wanted to learn to spell . And I spelled words for her . Amazing how her computer just happened to be right near mine in my little office , you know .

And I spelled words for her . Amazing how her computer just happened to be right near mine in my little office , you know . And I just spelled word for her whenever she asked . And then we'd start working in word groups and spelling patterns . We did word wheels .

So she entered first grade when the kindergarten teacher had said she didn't belong at that school , because if a student wasn't learning in their school then there was something wrong with the student because the teachers were doing everything right . And sadly this is something I still hear . It's not , it's not . It's not teaching them . That's the problem .

And she entered first grade reading at a second grade level . So I think that's where I realized so deeply that we are abandoning teaching and not teaching these basic skills . And why is memorization suddenly awful ? Why is practice suddenly awful ? No , they're cornerstones of learning . You can make them fun .

You need to make it possible for the students to succeed . It needs to be individualized . Not every kid should get the same handwriting instruction . Not every kid should get the same list of spelling words . It can be hard for teachers to do that and most of our curriculums just give you the weekly list and they do the same for all kids .

We could go on more , but there's a lot of literature out there on how to individualize teaching handwriting and spelling to kids at different levels and I would recommend teachers look at that work . I also wanted to say that why use the hardest cursive writing programs or the hardest print programs or the hardest print ?

Use writing instruction that it results in legible letters without a lot of pain . Now some kids they want to get into the flourishing cursive . Great , Individualize . Okay to kids who want to spend a lot more time on cursive with lots more loops . Printing versus cursive , oh , that's a big one .

When parents ask me should my kids learn to print or should they learn cursive , and I say well , yeah , yes , Big one . I mean really the research base isn't that clear , but I would prefer that very young children start with print . I'd first give them some success , which is easier , with print , and then move to cursive .

So , and those are some research that backs that up .

I'm not trying to promote anything specific , but there are good ones that you can get and use at home , and we did a lot of instruction at home through first , second and into third grade through first , second and into third grade .

Now , my question was going to be can first and second graders do all of this ? But I feel like , after listening to you two , I'm going to go ahead and say yes , they can , but you have hit a huge argument in the field . Oh , it's an argument .

With little kids , and when we work with them or when the teachers now almost all the instruction is done by their teachers , not us they just explain this is new stuff , guys . And yeah , writing might have been hard , but now we're going to learn these tricks that are really going to help you . That's part of understanding . It's not .

You Kids have told me things like I'm born this way , you'll never teach me to write . And three months later they're like look at me . So I think that we really have to recognize this argument . In first and second grade , there's one side says you must teach skills first and you must teach them to a certain proficiency level before you teach writing .

Why don't we get together and why don't we address this controversy and let's put them together ? And we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt and these are kids in low-income and we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt and these are kids in low income , diverse classrooms that they can learn both .

You do not have to wait until second grade to introduce writing . When you do introduce writing at first and second , you need to teach it Like anything else , right ?

There are a lot of great teachers out there , but there I have worked with some teachers who actually literally explicitly told me that they don't believe the students could do . You know the things we're trying to do , right and you know , thankfully they saw a difference . But you know , you know what Karen says is really absolutely right .

Karen says is really absolutely right . So even primary grade students , when they're taught well , they can actually comprehend , you know source-based and comprehend content area materials very deeply and also they can write about it .

So we did maybe I can talk a little bit about two studies , two randomized control studies that we did specifically with SRSD+ , so SRSD , there's a huge body of evidence there . So the SRSD+ , the one with the plus part we did two randomized control studies .

One was small group instruction , so children were pulled out of their classroom and they were taught SRSD+ in one condition . Another , you know , it was business as usual , whatever instruction they were receiving , right . And another study it was a whole class instruction . It was a group of teachers delivering SRSD plus instruction .

Another group it's you know whatever they were were teaching . That's business as usual . In both conditions there were slight differences in terms of effects but overall together we found positive effects on different aspects of written composition . So their quality of writing improved . They wrote more . Students in the SRSD condition wrote more .

These students in SRSD who received SRSD plus instruction , they did a better job in planning before they wrote . You know they wrote composition and then their discourse knowledge about what to do , about writing right . That also improved their vocabulary knowledge , sentence proficiency and spelling , et cetera .

One other aspect , the positive result we found in our second study . In the first study the small group instruction , we didn't include it , but in the second study , whole class instruction context .

We wanted to examine , you know , teaching SRSD plus in the informational genre right , it's a more expository piece does that actually transfer or have a result in effect on another genre that was not taught directly , which was opinion genre . So we did assess children on their opinion genre writing and we did find meaningful and statistically significant impact on that .

So what that means is there isn't like really , when you teach these pieces well , it actually has spilled over positive effects on an untaught genre students were able to take what they learned .

So you might learn that topic was like the planet Earth and so what are the foundations of how the Earth is water ? I can't , I'm not going to do it out of memory , they're better than me at it . It first and second grade by the end of the study . So they what they are able to do . They marking the reading .

They find the topic sentence , they find the big ideas . The topic sentence , they find the big ideas and then they need to open with a sentence of what they're writing about and then tell the reader what the important things are . They need to know Now what we learned . Second graders had no problem with three big ideas or more .

First graders we went in knowing the first study . We went in knowing you know , we'll probably have to learn from this and modify the first graders clearly asking every first grader to find three big ideas was too much . Now we had told the teachers from the start you get to modify this . Three big ideas is not like you know absolutely what you have to do .

You have to change it if it's too much . But the teachers , they're so wonderful , they're like well , I don't want to ruin your study and I don't want to change it and I'm like okay , but let's change it right . So I want you to group your kids who's doing fine with three , who do you think could probably do two and who should start with one ?

And I often guide teachers to think about three to four groups in their classroom that way and then think about meeting the needs of each group . So the teachers switched it . Some of their kids started with a topic sentence and one big idea and others were doing two , and in first grade there were a couple who were doing three .

So we know now that we need to do a little more support for teachers with how to modify it first grade and also we need to add things like sentence starters for kids who are having difficulty . And we had not . That's an evidence-based practice , but we had not . And we are revising first grade now and I want to say our teachers have been so creative .

One of the things we teach our kids is POW , pick my idea , organize my notes , write and say more . And we have . We had one fourth grade classroom that was really into Power Rangers . So the teacher came in one day with a big cloak on , came in one day with a big cloak on .

She was a power rider and she told their students they could choose which Power Ranger they wanted to be and they could be a power rider . And that just took off in the classroom . Some of our teachers develop . We do use mnemonics . Oh my gosh , that has been something we're not supposed to do anymore . Why .

It creates a structure that students understand that . This is how I write to inform , and you should see there . Some of their opening sentences , catching the reader , are really fun . They have more trouble with the ending . Fine , that's okay . The gains they made , just to talk about a little bit of the size of these gains , they are not small .

These kids are making , on average , 1.0 , which is a full standard deviation of improvement up to 1.87 . Now , not all outcomes are one or greater , but many are and of course it varies across children . That's a classroom average .

But when you look at and a recent paper came out doing this look at and a recent paper came out doing this , looked at all of the research , oh my gosh , I think the past 30 years on writing instruction and SRSD came out as having the largest effect on kids learning to write of any other approach that's been tried and that's without the skills being taught

With it . It's even better .

You know you did have to make some modifications for the first graders , especially at the beginning , but they can still do a lot of the thinking and then just need the extra support to get to where the rest of the students are .

I also want to just say very quickly that we didn't try to teach the two at the same time , but we did integrate them across time . So the students had separate lessons in all the things that Young is talking about , you know , the handwriting , the spelling , the fluency , the discourse knowledge happens across the whole package .

So that is one reason we get such large effects on that , because kids are clearly able to tell us oh , if I had to teach my friend how to write , to inform , I would teach them this . And they know mark up your reading , figure it out right , and then you need to write down your mnemonic on scratch paper . And they can go on and on .

Their discourse knowledge really jumps , their discourse knowledge really jumps . And with these little children , these very young children , they had separate instruction in the plus parts and then they had the SRSD instruction , and usually on the same day but not always . It's whatever . Whatever works for organizing your classroom .

But in the SRSD instruction they were reminded to use everything that they'd been learning . They'd been using sentence combining in the instruction and we didn't do the instruction . Even in study one Former teachers did it . It was small groups but it wasn't us teaching it . So it's really clear that teachers can do this really well .

And then they did great and they had a lot higher self-efficacy in writing when they were done . You know , by grade three most students in this country report that they hate writing or they dislike it greatly . That's because they're failing at it . They can see other people can write and they don't know what to do .

So once you teach them and you tell them these are brand new tricks . You know we didn't have these before , but they're really going to help you . So you start breaking down those barriers and we teach . We literally work hard to develop self-efficacy .

We work very hard to change the self-talk that's going on in kids' heads about writing and we work very hard for them to see how much they've improved . And they know this is only a beginning . Each grade you're going to learn more and get better .

So if you go to the end of that article , there's a link and all the so we use the Google slide and other pieces and it's all available and this is the one lesson is available to give you a sense .

But it gives a teacher a feel , for oh , you don't expect every kid to be exactly the same . No , we don't , because they're not starting the same to begin with . We expect every kid to grow .

And then there is a detailed description of the SRSD instruction as a supplemental material , stage by stage , the process of building this knowledge and these attitudes and beliefs . So that is also available with study one .

We really appreciate your time .