There’s several popular models of reading comprehension that are frequently talked about, such as Gough and Turner’s Simple View of Reading or Scarborough’s Rope. I enjoy these models and think they have a lot to tell us about reading comprehension. However, my favorite model of reading comprehension, and the one that I think has the most implications for reading instruction is Kintsch’s Construction Integration model. In this episode I explain why I prefer the CI model, describe how it suggests...
Apr 16, 2021•32 min
Hello! After a 7 month hiatus, the Teaching Literacy Podcast is back! Thanks for sticking with me. More to come!
Apr 02, 2021•4 min
How do you teach reading comprehension? Perhaps that is question you, or your colleagues, have asked. It’s a legitimate question; reading comprehension is very complex, with a lot of moving pieces. Further, there’s a lot of ongoing conversation about how reading comprehension instruction should (or should not) look like. But, what does research say about reading comprehension instruction? The next three episodes will explore reading comprehension research, and what it means for your instruction....
Dec 26, 2020•36 min
Welcome! I’m still busily working on a dissertation and supporting new teachers. Questions have been on my mind a lot this school year! How are they being used in classrooms? Is it effective? How can we enhance the use of questions in our classrooms? Two peer-reviewed articles that addressed these questions caught my eye recently. In this episode I chat about each article and provide my two cents. Below you will find the references to those articles, as well as other posted resources. I hope all...
Nov 20, 2020•26 min
Hi! I’m busy writing a dissertation and coaching new teachers, but I wanted to drop a quick line and talk about what our previous guests on the show have been up to- and there’s been quite a bit. Check out this quick, 6 minute show to find out! ~Jake Articles Referenced in the Show: ILA Timothy And Cynthia Shanahan Outstanding Dissertation Award For 2020 Strong, J.Z. (2020). Investigating a Text Structure Intervention for Reading and Writing in Grades 4 and 5. Reading Research Quarterly , 55(4),...
Nov 08, 2020•6 min
Welcome to Episode 21 of the teaching literacy podcast! I am very excited for today’s guest Today Dr. Pamela Snow joins us to talk about a new framework she’s developed called SOLAR- Science of Language and Reading. Our discussion outlines the important relationship between reading and language. Dr. Snow is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology and head of the newly-developed Science of Language and Reading Lab at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. We discuss her new paper, SOLAR: the Sci...
Aug 19, 2020•55 min
Welcome to Episode 20 of the Teaching Literacy Podcast! I titled today’s Episode 20 Years of NRP 2000, which seemed fitting for Epsiode 20. I didn’t plan it that way, it’s just how the cookie crumbled. Before we get to that though, a few announcements. -Teaching Literacy Podcast is now available on Spotify, which is something I’m super excited about. If Spotify is a platform that you use for music and/or podcasts go check it out. -A heartfelt thanks to the listeners and guests of the podcast. I’...
Aug 05, 2020•1 hr 16 min
Welcome to Episode 19 of the Teaching Literacy Podcast. Partner reading is a common practice in many classrooms, but how does one form of partner reading, dyad reading, influence the academic and attitude outcomes of students? Today my guest Dr. Kathleen Mohr and I address this very question. This show is an exciting one for me, because Dr. Mohr has been my mentor during my doctoral program at USU and we are discussing a study that we conducted and published together. Dr. Mohr is a professor of ...
Jul 27, 2020•56 min
Welcome to episode 18 of the teaching literacy podcast. Read alouds are a common practice in elementary classrooms, but do students benefit from this practice and how can teachers become better at implementing read alouds in their classroom? My guests today have researched these and similar questions for over a decade. Their names are Dr. Doris Baker and Dr. Lana Santoro. In this episode we discuss a recent study they published in the journal Reading and Writing about at read aloud technique the...
Jul 20, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Homogeneous grouping is a very popular practice, especially in younger grades, but how effective is homogeneous grouping? Do different students benefit more from it? My guest today recently published a study investigating these very questions. Her name is Dr. Susan Patrick and she is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include school improvement and school-based mechanisms that shape student outcomes. ...
Jun 28, 2020•45 min
Welcome to Episode 16 of the teaching literacy podcast. I hope the end of your school year went well, and that you get a well earned break this summer Many teachers use the summer to think about how to improve their literacy instruction for the upcoming school year. You are probably like that, (maybe not quite yet!) but you might be thinking of ways to make the content more engaging, integrate standards across content areas, and raise the bar on reading performance within your classroom. Today’s...
Jun 09, 2020•30 min•Ep. 15
Welcome to the Teaching Literacy Podcast! I hope this episode finds you healthy and that your teaching has thrived in spite of current events. I’m very excited for today’s episode. It’s becoming clear that we are in middle of a landmark event for education, worldwide. COVID-19 forced us all to turn on a dime and migrate all of our instruction online, in a very short amount of time.. If that describes you- in any capacity you deserve a pat on the back. That was a monumental task, and you were abl...
May 16, 2020•37 min
Welcome to another episode of the Teaching Literacy Podcast. It is great to have you with us for another great episode. I hope you and your families are well and healthy, and that your work is as productive and influential as ever. I’m very excited for today’s episode, today I have a great discussion with Dr. Derrik Tollefson and his wife, Cassie about building resiliency in students. Dr. Dr. Derrik Tollefson is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology at U...
Apr 26, 2020•47 min
Developing readers will likely encounter thousands of unfamiliar words over the course of a school year. How will you teach those words to your students? My guest today is Dr. Freddy Hiebert and she has some excellent insight to this conundrum in her new book ”Teaching Words and How They Work” We have an excellent conversation about how the digital revolution has changed what we know about effective vocabulary instruction, why words should be taught it networks, differences in word types between...
Apr 10, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Welcome to this special supplemental episode of the Teaching Literacy Podcast. Due to current events, eLearning seems to be at the front of everyone’s mind. Yesterday, schools in my state of Utah were cancelled for 14 days due to Coronovirus, and I know there are thousands of schools nationwide where this is occurring. Naturally, eLearning seems to be the obvious alternative. We have the technology- let’s just have students learn at home. but how theory and research influence this mass migration...
Mar 15, 2020•32 min
Does what we do in oral reading fluency transfer to silent reading? That may not be a question you’ve thought much about- I know I certainly didn’t before I was introduced to today’s topic. Oral reading fluency is a major milestone on the way to building a successful reader, but most authentic reading in the world is done silently. So how does oral reading fluency relate to silent reading fluency, and what do each of those mean for comprehension? My guest today recently completed a today that in...
Mar 14, 2020•46 min
When a student is required to write about a text, what contributes to writing a successful summary? The first answer that may come to your mind is ‘reading comprehension’ did they understand the text the read in the first place? And you would be correct! Reading comprehension matters a whole lot when writing summaries. But what matters beyond reading comprehension. My guest today is here to talk about why Core Academic Skills matter in crafting quality summaries. Her name is Dr. Emily Phillips G...
Feb 29, 2020•44 min•Ep. 11
There’s a lot research out there, and more continues to be published every day. Each quality study on reading has it’s importance- but what are the trends in the field of research? That’s exactly of what my guests in this episode set out to do. Drs. Emily Brown Hoffman and Colleen Whittingham sifted through nearly 6,500 journal articles to understand the trends in early literacy research between the years of 2005 and 2015. The three of us cover a lot of ground in this one- phonological awareness...
Feb 04, 2020•56 min
How do your readers view themselves as readers? How do they view their own persistence? Their opportunity to make decisions within your classroom? What their perceptions of their own persistence? These questions are all aspects of student agency, and in this episode I talk with Dr. Margaret Vaughn about the Student Agency Profile (StAP) that she developed to help understand how students view their own agency within their classroom. In this episode we talk about the 6 aspects of agency, why it ma...
Jan 15, 2020•25 min
When was the last time you veered from your lesson plan? Why did you do it? Did your adaptation turn out better than your original plan? This episode, I discuss the adaptations teachers make during literacy, instruction with Dr. Margaret Vaughn of University of Idaho. We discuss how often teachers adapt instruction, what types of adaptations they make, and why teachers make these adaptations. Dr. Vaughn specializes in adaptive teaching, teacher visioning, and issues of agency. I walked away from...
Dec 12, 2019•29 min
Join me for an excellent conversation with Dr. Chenyi Zhang of Georgia State University. We discuss how to think about writing with preschoolers and six best practices for integrating writing during morning meeting. This is a very pragmatic episode for anyone who teaches pre-K! Practices Discussed: Have writing materials on hand Write the routines Share the pen Scaffold writing attempts Build community Keep writing explicit and brief Link to Urban Child Study Center Referenced Article: Zhang, C....
Nov 30, 2019•34 min
Join us for part 2 of an excellent conversation with Dr. D Ray Reutzel Reading Hall of Fame Inductee Dr. D Ray Reutzel joins us this week to discuss his coauthored book Young Meaning Makers: Reading Comprehension in Grades K-2 We discuss how oral language can be used to support comprehension in the classroom, strategies for close reading, and how teach a comprehension lesson with CI Thoery mind. The book says K-2, but this epiosde is full of takeaways for anyone wanting to leverage comprehension...
Nov 24, 2019•37 min
Reading Hall of Fame Inductee Dr. D Ray Reutzel joins us this week to discuss his coauthored book Young Meaning Makers: Reading Comprehension in Grades K-2 We discuss the Construction Integration model of reading, how it relates to the CCSS, and how to use both to leverage student comprehension. The book says K-2, but this epiosde is full of takeaways for anyone wanting to leverage comprehension better in the classroom. See the vision of TLP? Leave us a review wherever you listen to us! Link to ...
Nov 16, 2019•34 min
Join us for part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Chase Young on strategies for supporting student fluency using the RTI framework. It’s great conversation on Tier 2 and Tier 3 strategies. Dr. Young is an associate professor at Sam Houston State University and the author of Tiered Fluency Instruction: Supporting Diverse Learners in Grade 2-5 . His website is thebestclass.org where you can access dozens of readers theater scripts and other resources. Dr. Young is associated with two Facebook pages ...
Nov 09, 2019•26 min
Join me this episode in an excellent discussion on reading fluency with Dr. Chase Young. Dr. Young is an associate professor at Sam Houston State University, and author of the recent book Tiered Fluency Instruction: Supporting Diverse Learners in Grades 2-5. In this two-part interview we discuss the components of fluency and how readers theater can be used to support fluency development. Dr. Young has a wealth of knowledge on fluency he shares with this. This episode has plenty of takeaways for ...
Nov 02, 2019•30 min
Join me for a great conversation with Dr. John Z Strong from the University at Buffalo on how to support students in reading difficult texts. Highlights include: -A discussion on the difference between text complexity and text difficulty (and why it matters) -Suggestions for how to group students in reading difficult texts -A sample walk through of what supporting students in difficult texts could look like. This is a great episode with a lot of takeaways for your classroom! Link to Coh-Metrix T...
Oct 26, 2019•39 min
Dr. Lindsey Moses from ASU joins us to talk about an observational study of first graders during independent reading time. We have a great conversation about the history of independent reading, findings from her study, and what it means for the classroom. Connect with Dr. Moses- Website: LindseyMoses.weebly.com Twitter: @DrLindseyMoses Moses, L., & Beth Kelly, L. (2019). Are they really reading? A descriptive study of first graders during independent reading. Reading & Writing Quarterly ...
Oct 16, 2019•32 min
Hey everyone, I’m Jake! I started this podcast as a common space for literacy teachers and researchers. In this first episode I outline why I think this podcast is needed and ideas for how to approach the content.
Sep 28, 2019•11 min
