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Webinar Slides: How to Help Struggling Readers Access Complex Text, Natalie Wexler

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Webinar Slides: How to Help Struggling Readers Access Complex Text, Natalie Wexler

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Lower average reading score in 2024 reflected in score declines for lower- and middle-performing students

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Lower average reading score in 2024 reflected in score declines for lower- and middle-performing students

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NAEP Reading: National Trends and Student Skills

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Results from the 2024 NAEP reading assessment at grades 4 and 8

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What's Missing from Teachers' Toolkits to Support Student Reading in Grades 3–8

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What's Missing from Teachers' Toolkits to Support Student Reading in Grades 3–8

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Findings from the RAND American Teacher Panel

Anna Shapiro, Rebecca Sutherland, Julia H. Kaufman

ResearchPublished Aug 29, 2024

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Virtual Conference | June 4-5, 2025

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Spotlight On Dyslexia Conference - Learning Ally

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Spotlight on Dyslexia is a premier virtual event that combines theoretical insights, practical strategies, and inspirational examples.Thousands of literacy and education advocates around the world attend for a unique experience providing tools to identify signs of dyslexia, utilize evidence-based literacy instruction, and implement support systems to ensure all students learn to read.REGISTER NOW

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning _ Reading Rockets saved 3.28.25

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning _ Reading Rockets saved 3.28.25

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Link to original page: https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/comprehension/articles/speaking-and-listening-content-area-learning

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning _ Reading Rockets saved 3.28.25

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We are growing a community of educators dedicated to literacy leadership. Our mission is simple: to smash the literacy gap by applying the Science of Reading to all grades and all stages of a student’s reading journey, effectively influencing up, down, and sideways to drive the best outcomes for all. This is a place where educators empower each other through relationship building, storytelling, vulnerability, and intentionality. We believe that when educators are empowered, students succeed.

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[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:08
He had acquired that knowledge not through his own reading, but through read-alouds class discussion and that knowledge is now in his long-term memory ready to be activated when he needs it in the future.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:15
So here are a couple of resources for read alouds that I would recommend. Again, they're geared to younger children, but they have valuable information that could be applied at any grade level about doing effective read alouds about having interactive dialogue

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:32
Drive for five, meaning five back and forth between an adult and a student conversations.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:42
So some tips for planning read alouds and for class discussion. First of all, you want to choose obviously an engaging complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:50
Or a series of texts and It is important to spend if you're having kids learn about particular topic, let's say sea mammals or something You want to spend two or three weeks maybe more learning about that topic through oral language and ultimately

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:08
Independent reading because kids need to hear the same vocabulary, the same concepts repeatedly in slightly different contexts over a period of time for those things to really stick in long-term memory.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:20
And then before reading it aloud to the class, you want to become familiar with that text and practice reading it aloud so that you are reading it with the appropriate expression, you're conveying what's happening through your voice, maybe excitement, suspense, all of those things are going to help

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:37
Kids understand the meaning and draw them into whatever you're reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:41
And it doesn't even if you're reading informational text. You can do a lot with your voice to help convey the meaning.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:48
And if you see that there's some vocabulary, some concepts that students may not be familiar with.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:54
Do provide that upfront so that they won't be thrown off by that.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:00
Lack of knowledge. And then discussion questions, you want to plan them, discussion questions that focus on content. In that previous slide, we saw that question, it said predict. What is Daedalus's plan? So it wasn't just saying, can you make a prediction? But asking a question about the content, what is Daedalus's plan that

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:17
Implicitly requires students to make a prediction. And as I mentioned, reading with expression and enthusiasm.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:23
And of course, pausing at appropriate points, maybe not too often because you do want kids to get wrapped up in whatever the text is But you also want to pause at appropriate points to ensure that they're following it and have some opportunity

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:37
For brief discussion. In an engaging read aloud can get kids excited about reading. We really have a problem now.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:45
Data showing that kids are just not reading as much as they used to for fun.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:50
And we know that reading for pleasure is correlated with all sorts of good academic outcomes. So what can we do about it? Well, reading aloud can really help because again.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:58
It's an expert reader, an adult reader who is doing all that work of decoding and figuring out the emphasis and all of those things so this is a teacher, she was a third grade teacher in Tennessee, Dolores Fowler, who I interviewed for the podcast I hosted.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:13
And Dolores told me she looked at this curriculum that her district has asked her to pilot and she was very skeptical because she saw the topics covered in third grade were things like the Vikings ancient rome and she thought

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:27
My kids are never going to be interested in that stuff.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:29
But she gave it her best shot. She told me she read, even if she didn't think the text was the most fascinating thing in the world, she read it as though it was.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:37
Lo and behold, her students thought it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:42
And then what happened was the librarian came to her and said.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:46
What are the topics you're teaching in CKLA? That was the name of the curriculum.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:49
Because I want to order more books because the kids are asking for these books on these topics. And I've heard this over and over again from teachers, from school librarians. If you introduce kids to and engaging to a topic or a new author in an engaging way

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:04
If you want to read more about that topic. They want to read more books by that author.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:09
Reader Labs also have the ability to boost reading comprehension even if they're not nonfiction topics. I came across a really interesting study that was done in England With about 400 students in the equivalent of seventh grade. And these were a mix of average and struggling

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:25
Readers. The teachers in these classrooms were asked to read two challenging novels one contemporary, one classic into 12 weeks, so three months. And the teachers did most of the reading aloud.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:42
The poor readers at the end of that three-month period had made 16 months of progress in reading comprehension as measured by a standardized test.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:51
Researchers could not really explain. I mean, the standardized test had nothing to do with the novels that they had read.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:58
But I have my own theory about why that happened. And also students were eager. These were reluctant readers, but they could not for the next chapter. They didn't want the teacher to stop. Couldn't you just go on to the next chapter today? We have to wait till tomorrow.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:13
So this is, again, a way to spark a love of reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:15
Now, my theory about why they made so much progress as measured by these standardized tests is that when we When we are emotionally engaged, we remember things better.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:26
And when we read a novel and we get swept up in the story, we are emotionally engaged so I can't prove this, but I suspect that that's why these readers made so much progress. They were actually remembering this vocabulary, maybe the syntax that they were listening to.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:42
And this study has sparked a center at the University of Sussex called the Faster Read.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:50
Which is working with lots of schools in the UK, to implement this kind of approach.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:56
And one of the teachers, you could find this on their website, one of the teachers that's been using it said one of the greatest benefits of the Faster Read program is that you get to do expressive reading with your class.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:07
The most important thing is that in reading, I can use my voice as a way to aid comprehension. So that's what I was talking about.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:15
Audiobooks, of course, can be helpful as well. I mean, teachers, you're only one of you usually in the classroom. You may have 25 or 30 students Audiobooks can serve a really important purpose here.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:28
The idea is an expert reader who can shoulder that cognitive burden of reading and enable students to enjoy reading, to discover that it's a pleasurable experience, and also to expand their vocabulary, their knowledge, and boost their comprehension. But remember that

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:44
Whether it's an audio book, whether it's a teacher, that these should not be oral language. It's not an end in itself it is a bridge, a stepping stone to independent reading by students themselves of complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:01
Going further into that, that read alouds and discussion can and should be a springboard for reading and writing rather than stopping point because students can follow along in the text to build fluency and they may use a finger or a pencil to follow along. I've seen it done with a

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:16
Ruler and go down the page Then after they've listened, read that same text on their own or text on the same or a similar topic, but now they've got that background knowledge that they've acquired through listening.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:31
Maybe discussion and writing about what they've read and or listened to in a manageable way. And I am going to take a few minutes to talk about how writing can really help with comprehension and enabling students to read more complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:46
So let's plunge into that. And we know we have evidence that when you connect reading and writing, it really is helpful to students.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:56
The evidence is clear. Having students write about a text they are reading enhances how well they comprehend it. So rather than having separate writing block separate from a reading block It's really helpful to combine reading and writing. And sometimes we have kids writing about completely different topics from what they've been

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:15
Learning about through reading. That really is kind of shooting ourselves in the foot we need to have them writing about things that they've actually acquired some knowledge about, for one thing, and also about a text that we want them to understand and to gain knowledge from.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:34
And cognitive load theory helps explain why writing has this effect. Because, well, remember, working memory is very limited.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:41
And remember that for transfer and retrieval, what really helps for both of those things is explaining information to someone else in your own words.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:49
And that's what we do when we write. So that is part of the secret.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:53
Of its power. It also helps with something cognitive scientists call elaborative interrogation. What does that mean? It means asking and answering questions like.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:03
How, why, what's an example? These are all things that we should be doing when we're writing. So it's really and this really helps with comprehension. Multiple studies have found And another benefit of writing is that it can really, in a very powerful way, familiarize students with that complex syntax of written language.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:26
Remember the boy who thought there were four different people in this sentence. Well, what can we do about that?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:31
Well, first of all, we want to teach students what an a positive is.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:36
Phrase describing a noun. And we want to do that orally and using familiar content in order to modulate cognitive load. But then once kids have the idea of what a positive is.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:47
Then we can embed it in content they're learning about. Let's say they've learned something about rachel carson can give them a sentence like this to complete where they need to supply the a positive. And this accomplishes two objectives. One is it familiarizes them with this syntax, boosting their reading comprehension.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:04
It also requires them to retrieve some information from long-term memory and put it in their own words. So it's reinforcing their knowledge of this content or whatever content they're writing about.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:16
The problem is that writing is really hard. It's much harder than reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:20
And yet we kind of expect kids to just pick it up. We spend much more time trying to teach reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:27
Why is it so hard? Well, again, it has to do with that burden on working memory, cognitive load. If you're an inexperienced writer, you may be juggling way more than four or five items.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:37
Trying to simultaneously, everything from letter formation, if you're young or come from a different alphabetic system spelling, what words to use, how to organize your thoughts.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:47
That peculiar syntax and vocabulary of written language, trying to use that And then understanding the content you're writing about. Now, if it's unfamiliar content, that is going to be a crushing cognitive load. And all of this creates not only cognitive load, but also stress, which is itself a burden.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:04
Memory. So the bottom line is When we ask kids to write.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:08
Especially if we ask them to write at length, it can really be so cognitively overwhelming they don't get the potential cognitive benefits of writing.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:17
So remember that that study, I think, did I show this? Well, anyway, there is a study showing that on average writing about content enhances learning. Kids understand and retain information better.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:29
Across the curriculum, science, social studies, and math. But an interesting thing about this meta-analysis looking at 56 different studies was that they found 18% of them found a negative effect. In other words, when kids wrote about what they were learning.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:44
They actually learned less. So why would that be? Well, maybe because they were cognitively overwhelmed by the task of writing itself.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:53
So what can we do? We know that writing instruction has this enormous potential power, but we haven't unlocked it because we've underestimated how hard it is for many kids.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:02
And we also have tried to teach it in isolation from the content of the core curriculum.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:06
So what can we do? Well, three things. Modulate that heavy cognitive load, maybe by starting instruction at the sentence level.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:14
Embed writing activities in the content of the curriculum as much as possible and connect writing as well as reading to oral language so that kids are writing about stuff that they've already learned about through oral language and then it's going to also carry over to the oral language they can produce when they've learned how to write

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:33
Complex way. And this book, The Writing Revolution, I'm the co-author. It explains a method that embodies all three of those principles, but it is not my method.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:42
It's a method I developed by my co-author, Judith Hockman, who is a veteran educator.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:47
So I'd just like to show you a few things about how you might use some of the activities that are part of the writing revolution method.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:54
And before I get into that, I want to just make it clear the content should be grade level. But writing instruction itself needs to be tied to students individual ability levels, regardless of their grade level. And you may have different ability levels in a classroom. They could all be writing about the same content.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:11
Maybe some students will be writing a sentence, others will be writing a paragraph, others will be writing an essay.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:17
But the content will be in common. So let's talk about how to help students understand the concept of a complete sentence. What distinguishes a complete sentence from a sentence?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:28
Fragment. Basic concept, but not a simple one.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:34
Well, we might want to start this if kids are struggling with it as a whole class oral activity you might say as a teacher, ate a great meal.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:43
Does that tell us who ate a great meal? Or Ted and Lisa.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:47
Or does that tell us what they did and how can we make this into a complete sentence. This, again, is using familiar content doesn't require them to juggle new content along with the new grammatical concept.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:00
And then with older students or students that seem to be ready to handle it, you might introduce words like subject or predicate, but you don't necessarily need to do that to get across the idea of what makes a sentence a sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:14
And then once students have the basic idea, you want to engage them in practice in distinguishing sentences from fragments.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:21
The way to do that is to give them groups of words with no punctuation, no capitalization.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:28
And then require them to determine which is the fragment, which is the sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:34
Once they've got the basic idea, you might want to embed this in some curriculum content and maybe a complex text like this poem, The New Colossus, which is the one on the Statue of Liberty.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:44
Maybe students you have read through this and you want to reinforce their knowledge, get them to read this closely and understand it while also helping them understand the difference between sentences and fragments. So you could give them phrases like this and the first thing they need to do is put an effort if it's a fragment

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:01
And an S if it's a sentence. And if they do this often enough with feedback from a teacher, they get a sort of gut level sense of what makes a sentence a sentence but now they need to turn those fragments into complete sentences. And to do that, they really need to read this poem closely and understand it.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:17
So who's welcoming newcomers from faraway countries? The poem itself doesn't tell us. So they have to supply that information from memory. The mother of exiles, but how can we build a sentence around that? We really need to look at the poem. Okay, it says mother of exiles. What else does it tell us?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:32
She's got a torch. It's worldwide welcome. We could put all those things together within a positive.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:39
And this is a sentence, but we're going to capitalize and punctuate it appropriately.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:43
And then moving on to simple conjunctions, you could say orally to introduce these conjunctions.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:49
Something like the teacher was happy because, but so, and they need to finish these stems with appropriate language. Again, not introducing content yet, just getting them to understand that because means why, but indicates a change in direction. So indicates a cause and effect relationship.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:09
And these are some of the answers they could give. And then once they've got the idea.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:15
Translating transferring that to curriculum content. Let's say you're reading a classic short story the lottery you could give students the sentence stems, the same black box was used each year because but so there are different possible responses.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:31
Here are some that they could supply. These simple conjunctions lay the groundwork for later, more complex conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, but can lead to although.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:44
While SO leads to therefore as a result. And really these conjunctions, a conjunction like but ultimately leads to constructing an argumentative essay because it's about holding two contrasting thoughts in their mind at the same time.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:58
And you can use this method and should ideally use this method across the curriculum, including in math.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:04
Let's say you're teaching about fractions and decimals, and you're also teaching about subordinating conjunctions.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:10
You could give students a sentence stem like this. Math teachers might feel like.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:14
They're not writing teachers. They don't want to take time away from their math instruction to do something like this. But if they try it, they're likely to see that it's actually making their math instruction more powerful because it's really getting students to grapple with the concepts.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:28
And as I mentioned before, as I suggested, writing an oral language are really a two-way street. So what do I mean by that? Well, I was in a third grade classroom in a district In Monroe, Louisiana, that was using the writing revolution activities embedded in the content that they were teaching and this third grade class was

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:48
Reading Charlotte's Web the day I visited And the question for discussion at the beginning of class was, how is Wilbur different from other animals on the farm?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:57
Why is he different? So they had a discussion about that. Wilbur's the only pig on the farm? Is he the only runt? Is he the only animal who's been treated like a human baby And then the teacher said okay now keeping

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:09
That idea, these things we've discussed in mind, let's go into a because but so activity, which is something they they've been working with these conjunctions oh dear, this was the middle of the year. So they could draw on the ideas that they had

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:25
Verbalized and listened to during the discussion to fill out a worksheet of the cause but show worksheet like this. Wilbur is different from the other animals on the farm because And so. And one thing the teacher noticed walking around and I noticed is that a number of kids were having trouble with butt, even though they had been working with this conjunction for months.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:46
So this girl, for example, had written, Wilbur is different from the other animals on the farm.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:50
But he is a different animal. And so the teacher was able to catch this misconception and the a number of students were laboring under and say, well, wait a minute Oops. Oh, what did I just do?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:02
Let me go back. There we go. Sorry. Hit the wrong button. She was able to say, is that a change of direction? Remember, that's what but means. We want something opposite and so the students were able to come up with something that went in the other direction.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:17
And then those written answers became the basis for more discussion at a deeper level. Students could would write the answer they'd come up with on the board and then there was be discussion, well, what did you say do you agree just to go with that conjunction so this is what I mean by a two-way street.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:35
The oral language fed into the writing and then The writing contributed to this discussion and it all contributes to students learning and increasing their ability to understand complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:46
So when I visited Monroe, I visited a number of classrooms. I talked to a number of teachers.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:51
And I really, I wanted to see if My hypothesis was right. My hypothesis was that if you have a content rich curriculum and you combine it with an explicit method of writing instruction.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:02
You can see some amazing things happen. And Monroe has a challenging student population it's about 80% low income, 80% African American.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:13
But they're really seeing amazing things happening with their students. So I talked to some K through two teachers who do these activities primarily orally with their young students Which is again to modulate cognitive load.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:25
And they told me things like it improves their oral communication tenfold.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:30
At the beginning of the year, they would give one word answers. Now students will give me a complete sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:36
And then other kids will say, can I add a because? And they also told me, these kids really love language. They really enjoy knowing how to use language like this. And this is laying the groundwork for their ability to read and write at a higher level.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:50
In years to come and and that teachers are seeing changes at higher grade levels kids are coming in with better reading and writing skills before one teacher told me it was just a bunch of words. Now they enjoy reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:02
I think that has a lot to do with learning, familiarizing yourself with that complex syntax of written language.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:09
And I was told it's helped not just with reading comprehension, but comprehension of content across the board.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:16
So all of that is discussed and more in this book, Beyond the Science of Reading, which came out just a month or two ago. So if you're curious, you can find a lot more in there And I'd just like to leave you with the thought that if we want all students to reach their full potential.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:32
We need to stop thinking of all these things as separate. Reading is separate from writing.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:37
They're both separate from oral language. Instead, we need to be seeing it literacy, reading and writing, as really part of learning in general and connected to oral language. All of this is connected.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:52
Thank you very much. I will stop there and I'm happy to take whatever questions you might have.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:00
Thank you so much, Natalie. Wow. Processing that right now.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:07
You know. One of the things that is that we hear about from our participants and educators that go through our structured literacy in action program and get to get exposed to your work.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:21
Is syntax, right? You know, there are these areas or components of Scarborough's reading rope or reading instruction that we're like, okay, I get this one, I get this one and this one. But syntax, everybody's likeâ¦ And the way that youâ¦

[Natalie Wexler] 14:49:34
Yeah.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:36
Provide those concrete examples, the way that you speak about it really allows us to exhale and it really empowers us to support our students in identifying complex sentence structures. And if we don't understand cognitive load theory.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:52
Were not able to manage that cognitive load we put on our struggling readers.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:57
So now with all of this, we're seeing that connection. How do we build content knowledge? How do we address syntax and grammar? How do we bring in those short chunks, those opportunities to write. How do we get students to store

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:13
Vocabulary in their long-term memory so that it frees up that cognitive space for them to comprehend. So, so much incredible content. I know that I'll be reviewing it. We did provide the slide deck to everybody here today as well.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:28
You stay connected with Natalie with us and her publications. It's a great opportunity to review some of the work that we've seen today. So thank you. And thanks for just sticking around a couple more minutes so that we can get some of our

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:41
Questions. We have a couple of big questions. And connected to the work that you just presented Our first one is our first one What are some ways to incorporate oral language activities into a busy classroom schedule. And I know you spoke about this, so we might need to review some of that.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:50:42
Sure.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:02
Yeah, I know teachers are always pressed for time. It is a scarce resource. I think you know that that Repeated reading of a passage There's actually an article that I came across after I put these slides together by a woman named Kate Christ.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:17
Who is a former educator and she has some great ideas about how to help struggling older readers.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:23
And she said, you know, those first three steps like Reading a text aloud, having guests follow along, and then doing some repeated reading could take less than 10 minutes or less of class time.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:35
And she recommends doing that two to three times a week across content areas, ideally.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:41
Because this is reading and you know is not just about ELA. You know, a lot of kids are struggling with reading texts in science, social studies. And so those teachers also need to think of themselves as literacy teachers, just as literacy teachers need to also think of themselves as content teachers. But in addition to read alouds and

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:00
If you're pressed for time You know, I think obviously conversation, dialogue is hugely important.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:52:07
Right.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:09
If you have time to do something like Reader's Theatre, I think that can be very helpful with fluency.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:16
A way of having kids engage with the same text repeatedly, but it might be more fun than just reading the same paragraph over and over again and i've seen it being done in that second grade classroom I followed. Kids were really enjoying putting on a play about a Greek myth.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:32
And, you know, one thing that, again, this probably would take a little time, but one thing that we've really gotten away from that I have read can be really helpful is really helpful poetry and memorizing poetry And then reciting it for the class. I had to do that. I'm so old that I had to do that every Friday when I was in fourth grade. And I still remember some of those poems.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:52:56
Wow.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:57
I think it really gives you a feel for that more complex language, syntax, vocabulary, and maybe inspires a love of poetry. You never know.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:04
Yeah. Right. And do you feel like the same could be applied to like a song or a rap or something along those lines?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:14
Well, it could. But again, you know, like that poem, The New Colossus.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:20
The syntax is quite complex. The vocabulary is complex. And when you get closer with Wrap can be great but it's probably going to be closer to And yes, it's going to be closer to the kind of language that kids are familiar with from

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:27
It's breaking a lot of rules. Yeah.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:34
Yeah, got you. So we're not lifting their level. Got it. Yeah.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:34
Conversation and really

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:39
Exposing them to that content.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:40
Yeah.


# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:08
He had acquired that knowledge not through his own reading, but through read-alouds class discussion and that knowledge is now in his long-term memory ready to be activated when he needs it in the future.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:15
So here are a couple of resources for read alouds that I would recommend. Again, they're geared to younger children, but they have valuable information that could be applied at any grade level about doing effective read alouds about having interactive dialogue

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:32
Drive for five, meaning five back and forth between an adult and a student conversations.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:42
So some tips for planning read alouds and for class discussion. First of all, you want to choose obviously an engaging complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:27:50
Or a series of texts and It is important to spend if you're having kids learn about particular topic, let's say sea mammals or something You want to spend two or three weeks maybe more learning about that topic through oral language and ultimately

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:08
Independent reading because kids need to hear the same vocabulary, the same concepts repeatedly in slightly different contexts over a period of time for those things to really stick in long-term memory.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:20
And then before reading it aloud to the class, you want to become familiar with that text and practice reading it aloud so that you are reading it with the appropriate expression, you're conveying what's happening through your voice, maybe excitement, suspense, all of those things are going to help

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:37
Kids understand the meaning and draw them into whatever you're reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:41
And it doesn't even if you're reading informational text. You can do a lot with your voice to help convey the meaning.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:48
And if you see that there's some vocabulary, some concepts that students may not be familiar with.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:28:54
Do provide that upfront so that they won't be thrown off by that.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:00
Lack of knowledge. And then discussion questions, you want to plan them, discussion questions that focus on content. In that previous slide, we saw that question, it said predict. What is Daedalus's plan? So it wasn't just saying, can you make a prediction? But asking a question about the content, what is Daedalus's plan that

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:17
Implicitly requires students to make a prediction. And as I mentioned, reading with expression and enthusiasm.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:23
And of course, pausing at appropriate points, maybe not too often because you do want kids to get wrapped up in whatever the text is But you also want to pause at appropriate points to ensure that they're following it and have some opportunity

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:37
For brief discussion. In an engaging read aloud can get kids excited about reading. We really have a problem now.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:45
Data showing that kids are just not reading as much as they used to for fun.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:50
And we know that reading for pleasure is correlated with all sorts of good academic outcomes. So what can we do about it? Well, reading aloud can really help because again.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:29:58
It's an expert reader, an adult reader who is doing all that work of decoding and figuring out the emphasis and all of those things so this is a teacher, she was a third grade teacher in Tennessee, Dolores Fowler, who I interviewed for the podcast I hosted.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:13
And Dolores told me she looked at this curriculum that her district has asked her to pilot and she was very skeptical because she saw the topics covered in third grade were things like the Vikings ancient rome and she thought

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:27
My kids are never going to be interested in that stuff.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:29
But she gave it her best shot. She told me she read, even if she didn't think the text was the most fascinating thing in the world, she read it as though it was.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:37
Lo and behold, her students thought it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:42
And then what happened was the librarian came to her and said.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:46
What are the topics you're teaching in CKLA? That was the name of the curriculum.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:30:49
Because I want to order more books because the kids are asking for these books on these topics. And I've heard this over and over again from teachers, from school librarians. If you introduce kids to and engaging to a topic or a new author in an engaging way

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:04
If you want to read more about that topic. They want to read more books by that author.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:09
Reader Labs also have the ability to boost reading comprehension even if they're not nonfiction topics. I came across a really interesting study that was done in England With about 400 students in the equivalent of seventh grade. And these were a mix of average and struggling

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:25
Readers. The teachers in these classrooms were asked to read two challenging novels one contemporary, one classic into 12 weeks, so three months. And the teachers did most of the reading aloud.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:42
The poor readers at the end of that three-month period had made 16 months of progress in reading comprehension as measured by a standardized test.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:51
Researchers could not really explain. I mean, the standardized test had nothing to do with the novels that they had read.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:31:58
But I have my own theory about why that happened. And also students were eager. These were reluctant readers, but they could not for the next chapter. They didn't want the teacher to stop. Couldn't you just go on to the next chapter today? We have to wait till tomorrow.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:13
So this is, again, a way to spark a love of reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:15
Now, my theory about why they made so much progress as measured by these standardized tests is that when we When we are emotionally engaged, we remember things better.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:26
And when we read a novel and we get swept up in the story, we are emotionally engaged so I can't prove this, but I suspect that that's why these readers made so much progress. They were actually remembering this vocabulary, maybe the syntax that they were listening to.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:42
And this study has sparked a center at the University of Sussex called the Faster Read.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:50
Which is working with lots of schools in the UK, to implement this kind of approach.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:32:56
And one of the teachers, you could find this on their website, one of the teachers that's been using it said one of the greatest benefits of the Faster Read program is that you get to do expressive reading with your class.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:07
The most important thing is that in reading, I can use my voice as a way to aid comprehension. So that's what I was talking about.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:15
Audiobooks, of course, can be helpful as well. I mean, teachers, you're only one of you usually in the classroom. You may have 25 or 30 students Audiobooks can serve a really important purpose here.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:28
The idea is an expert reader who can shoulder that cognitive burden of reading and enable students to enjoy reading, to discover that it's a pleasurable experience, and also to expand their vocabulary, their knowledge, and boost their comprehension. But remember that

[Natalie Wexler] 14:33:44
Whether it's an audio book, whether it's a teacher, that these should not be oral language. It's not an end in itself it is a bridge, a stepping stone to independent reading by students themselves of complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:01
Going further into that, that read alouds and discussion can and should be a springboard for reading and writing rather than stopping point because students can follow along in the text to build fluency and they may use a finger or a pencil to follow along. I've seen it done with a

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:16
Ruler and go down the page Then after they've listened, read that same text on their own or text on the same or a similar topic, but now they've got that background knowledge that they've acquired through listening.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:31
Maybe discussion and writing about what they've read and or listened to in a manageable way. And I am going to take a few minutes to talk about how writing can really help with comprehension and enabling students to read more complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:46
So let's plunge into that. And we know we have evidence that when you connect reading and writing, it really is helpful to students.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:34:56
The evidence is clear. Having students write about a text they are reading enhances how well they comprehend it. So rather than having separate writing block separate from a reading block It's really helpful to combine reading and writing. And sometimes we have kids writing about completely different topics from what they've been

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:15
Learning about through reading. That really is kind of shooting ourselves in the foot we need to have them writing about things that they've actually acquired some knowledge about, for one thing, and also about a text that we want them to understand and to gain knowledge from.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:34
And cognitive load theory helps explain why writing has this effect. Because, well, remember, working memory is very limited.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:41
And remember that for transfer and retrieval, what really helps for both of those things is explaining information to someone else in your own words.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:49
And that's what we do when we write. So that is part of the secret.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:35:53
Of its power. It also helps with something cognitive scientists call elaborative interrogation. What does that mean? It means asking and answering questions like.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:03
How, why, what's an example? These are all things that we should be doing when we're writing. So it's really and this really helps with comprehension. Multiple studies have found And another benefit of writing is that it can really, in a very powerful way, familiarize students with that complex syntax of written language.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:26
Remember the boy who thought there were four different people in this sentence. Well, what can we do about that?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:31
Well, first of all, we want to teach students what an a positive is.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:36
Phrase describing a noun. And we want to do that orally and using familiar content in order to modulate cognitive load. But then once kids have the idea of what a positive is.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:36:47
Then we can embed it in content they're learning about. Let's say they've learned something about rachel carson can give them a sentence like this to complete where they need to supply the a positive. And this accomplishes two objectives. One is it familiarizes them with this syntax, boosting their reading comprehension.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:04
It also requires them to retrieve some information from long-term memory and put it in their own words. So it's reinforcing their knowledge of this content or whatever content they're writing about.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:16
The problem is that writing is really hard. It's much harder than reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:20
And yet we kind of expect kids to just pick it up. We spend much more time trying to teach reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:27
Why is it so hard? Well, again, it has to do with that burden on working memory, cognitive load. If you're an inexperienced writer, you may be juggling way more than four or five items.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:37
Trying to simultaneously, everything from letter formation, if you're young or come from a different alphabetic system spelling, what words to use, how to organize your thoughts.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:37:47
That peculiar syntax and vocabulary of written language, trying to use that And then understanding the content you're writing about. Now, if it's unfamiliar content, that is going to be a crushing cognitive load. And all of this creates not only cognitive load, but also stress, which is itself a burden.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:04
Memory. So the bottom line is When we ask kids to write.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:08
Especially if we ask them to write at length, it can really be so cognitively overwhelming they don't get the potential cognitive benefits of writing.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:17
So remember that that study, I think, did I show this? Well, anyway, there is a study showing that on average writing about content enhances learning. Kids understand and retain information better.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:29
Across the curriculum, science, social studies, and math. But an interesting thing about this meta-analysis looking at 56 different studies was that they found 18% of them found a negative effect. In other words, when kids wrote about what they were learning.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:44
They actually learned less. So why would that be? Well, maybe because they were cognitively overwhelmed by the task of writing itself.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:38:53
So what can we do? We know that writing instruction has this enormous potential power, but we haven't unlocked it because we've underestimated how hard it is for many kids.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:02
And we also have tried to teach it in isolation from the content of the core curriculum.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:06
So what can we do? Well, three things. Modulate that heavy cognitive load, maybe by starting instruction at the sentence level.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:14
Embed writing activities in the content of the curriculum as much as possible and connect writing as well as reading to oral language so that kids are writing about stuff that they've already learned about through oral language and then it's going to also carry over to the oral language they can produce when they've learned how to write

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:33
Complex way. And this book, The Writing Revolution, I'm the co-author. It explains a method that embodies all three of those principles, but it is not my method.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:42
It's a method I developed by my co-author, Judith Hockman, who is a veteran educator.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:47
So I'd just like to show you a few things about how you might use some of the activities that are part of the writing revolution method.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:39:54
And before I get into that, I want to just make it clear the content should be grade level. But writing instruction itself needs to be tied to students individual ability levels, regardless of their grade level. And you may have different ability levels in a classroom. They could all be writing about the same content.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:11
Maybe some students will be writing a sentence, others will be writing a paragraph, others will be writing an essay.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:17
But the content will be in common. So let's talk about how to help students understand the concept of a complete sentence. What distinguishes a complete sentence from a sentence?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:28
Fragment. Basic concept, but not a simple one.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:34
Well, we might want to start this if kids are struggling with it as a whole class oral activity you might say as a teacher, ate a great meal.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:43
Does that tell us who ate a great meal? Or Ted and Lisa.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:40:47
Or does that tell us what they did and how can we make this into a complete sentence. This, again, is using familiar content doesn't require them to juggle new content along with the new grammatical concept.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:00
And then with older students or students that seem to be ready to handle it, you might introduce words like subject or predicate, but you don't necessarily need to do that to get across the idea of what makes a sentence a sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:14
And then once students have the basic idea, you want to engage them in practice in distinguishing sentences from fragments.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:21
The way to do that is to give them groups of words with no punctuation, no capitalization.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:28
And then require them to determine which is the fragment, which is the sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:34
Once they've got the basic idea, you might want to embed this in some curriculum content and maybe a complex text like this poem, The New Colossus, which is the one on the Statue of Liberty.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:41:44
Maybe students you have read through this and you want to reinforce their knowledge, get them to read this closely and understand it while also helping them understand the difference between sentences and fragments. So you could give them phrases like this and the first thing they need to do is put an effort if it's a fragment

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:01
And an S if it's a sentence. And if they do this often enough with feedback from a teacher, they get a sort of gut level sense of what makes a sentence a sentence but now they need to turn those fragments into complete sentences. And to do that, they really need to read this poem closely and understand it.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:17
So who's welcoming newcomers from faraway countries? The poem itself doesn't tell us. So they have to supply that information from memory. The mother of exiles, but how can we build a sentence around that? We really need to look at the poem. Okay, it says mother of exiles. What else does it tell us?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:32
She's got a torch. It's worldwide welcome. We could put all those things together within a positive.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:39
And this is a sentence, but we're going to capitalize and punctuate it appropriately.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:43
And then moving on to simple conjunctions, you could say orally to introduce these conjunctions.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:42:49
Something like the teacher was happy because, but so, and they need to finish these stems with appropriate language. Again, not introducing content yet, just getting them to understand that because means why, but indicates a change in direction. So indicates a cause and effect relationship.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:09
And these are some of the answers they could give. And then once they've got the idea.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:15
Translating transferring that to curriculum content. Let's say you're reading a classic short story the lottery you could give students the sentence stems, the same black box was used each year because but so there are different possible responses.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:31
Here are some that they could supply. These simple conjunctions lay the groundwork for later, more complex conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, but can lead to although.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:44
While SO leads to therefore as a result. And really these conjunctions, a conjunction like but ultimately leads to constructing an argumentative essay because it's about holding two contrasting thoughts in their mind at the same time.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:43:58
And you can use this method and should ideally use this method across the curriculum, including in math.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:04
Let's say you're teaching about fractions and decimals, and you're also teaching about subordinating conjunctions.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:10
You could give students a sentence stem like this. Math teachers might feel like.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:14
They're not writing teachers. They don't want to take time away from their math instruction to do something like this. But if they try it, they're likely to see that it's actually making their math instruction more powerful because it's really getting students to grapple with the concepts.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:28
And as I mentioned before, as I suggested, writing an oral language are really a two-way street. So what do I mean by that? Well, I was in a third grade classroom in a district In Monroe, Louisiana, that was using the writing revolution activities embedded in the content that they were teaching and this third grade class was

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:48
Reading Charlotte's Web the day I visited And the question for discussion at the beginning of class was, how is Wilbur different from other animals on the farm?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:44:57
Why is he different? So they had a discussion about that. Wilbur's the only pig on the farm? Is he the only runt? Is he the only animal who's been treated like a human baby And then the teacher said okay now keeping

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:09
That idea, these things we've discussed in mind, let's go into a because but so activity, which is something they they've been working with these conjunctions oh dear, this was the middle of the year. So they could draw on the ideas that they had

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:25
Verbalized and listened to during the discussion to fill out a worksheet of the cause but show worksheet like this. Wilbur is different from the other animals on the farm because And so. And one thing the teacher noticed walking around and I noticed is that a number of kids were having trouble with butt, even though they had been working with this conjunction for months.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:46
So this girl, for example, had written, Wilbur is different from the other animals on the farm.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:45:50
But he is a different animal. And so the teacher was able to catch this misconception and the a number of students were laboring under and say, well, wait a minute Oops. Oh, what did I just do?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:02
Let me go back. There we go. Sorry. Hit the wrong button. She was able to say, is that a change of direction? Remember, that's what but means. We want something opposite and so the students were able to come up with something that went in the other direction.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:17
And then those written answers became the basis for more discussion at a deeper level. Students could would write the answer they'd come up with on the board and then there was be discussion, well, what did you say do you agree just to go with that conjunction so this is what I mean by a two-way street.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:35
The oral language fed into the writing and then The writing contributed to this discussion and it all contributes to students learning and increasing their ability to understand complex text.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:46
So when I visited Monroe, I visited a number of classrooms. I talked to a number of teachers.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:46:51
And I really, I wanted to see if My hypothesis was right. My hypothesis was that if you have a content rich curriculum and you combine it with an explicit method of writing instruction.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:02
You can see some amazing things happen. And Monroe has a challenging student population it's about 80% low income, 80% African American.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:13
But they're really seeing amazing things happening with their students. So I talked to some K through two teachers who do these activities primarily orally with their young students Which is again to modulate cognitive load.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:25
And they told me things like it improves their oral communication tenfold.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:30
At the beginning of the year, they would give one word answers. Now students will give me a complete sentence.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:36
And then other kids will say, can I add a because? And they also told me, these kids really love language. They really enjoy knowing how to use language like this. And this is laying the groundwork for their ability to read and write at a higher level.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:47:50
In years to come and and that teachers are seeing changes at higher grade levels kids are coming in with better reading and writing skills before one teacher told me it was just a bunch of words. Now they enjoy reading.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:02
I think that has a lot to do with learning, familiarizing yourself with that complex syntax of written language.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:09
And I was told it's helped not just with reading comprehension, but comprehension of content across the board.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:16
So all of that is discussed and more in this book, Beyond the Science of Reading, which came out just a month or two ago. So if you're curious, you can find a lot more in there And I'd just like to leave you with the thought that if we want all students to reach their full potential.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:32
We need to stop thinking of all these things as separate. Reading is separate from writing.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:37
They're both separate from oral language. Instead, we need to be seeing it literacy, reading and writing, as really part of learning in general and connected to oral language. All of this is connected.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:48:52
Thank you very much. I will stop there and I'm happy to take whatever questions you might have.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:00
Thank you so much, Natalie. Wow. Processing that right now.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:07
You know. One of the things that is that we hear about from our participants and educators that go through our structured literacy in action program and get to get exposed to your work.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:21
Is syntax, right? You know, there are these areas or components of Scarborough's reading rope or reading instruction that we're like, okay, I get this one, I get this one and this one. But syntax, everybody's likeâ¦ And the way that youâ¦

[Natalie Wexler] 14:49:34
Yeah.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:36
Provide those concrete examples, the way that you speak about it really allows us to exhale and it really empowers us to support our students in identifying complex sentence structures. And if we don't understand cognitive load theory.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:52
Were not able to manage that cognitive load we put on our struggling readers.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:49:57
So now with all of this, we're seeing that connection. How do we build content knowledge? How do we address syntax and grammar? How do we bring in those short chunks, those opportunities to write. How do we get students to store

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:13
Vocabulary in their long-term memory so that it frees up that cognitive space for them to comprehend. So, so much incredible content. I know that I'll be reviewing it. We did provide the slide deck to everybody here today as well.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:28
You stay connected with Natalie with us and her publications. It's a great opportunity to review some of the work that we've seen today. So thank you. And thanks for just sticking around a couple more minutes so that we can get some of our

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:50:41
Questions. We have a couple of big questions. And connected to the work that you just presented Our first one is our first one What are some ways to incorporate oral language activities into a busy classroom schedule. And I know you spoke about this, so we might need to review some of that.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:50:42
Sure.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:02
Yeah, I know teachers are always pressed for time. It is a scarce resource. I think you know that that Repeated reading of a passage There's actually an article that I came across after I put these slides together by a woman named Kate Christ.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:17
Who is a former educator and she has some great ideas about how to help struggling older readers.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:23
And she said, you know, those first three steps like Reading a text aloud, having guests follow along, and then doing some repeated reading could take less than 10 minutes or less of class time.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:35
And she recommends doing that two to three times a week across content areas, ideally.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:51:41
Because this is reading and you know is not just about ELA. You know, a lot of kids are struggling with reading texts in science, social studies. And so those teachers also need to think of themselves as literacy teachers, just as literacy teachers need to also think of themselves as content teachers. But in addition to read alouds and

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:00
If you're pressed for time You know, I think obviously conversation, dialogue is hugely important.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:52:07
Right.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:09
If you have time to do something like Reader's Theatre, I think that can be very helpful with fluency.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:16
A way of having kids engage with the same text repeatedly, but it might be more fun than just reading the same paragraph over and over again and i've seen it being done in that second grade classroom I followed. Kids were really enjoying putting on a play about a Greek myth.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:32
And, you know, one thing that, again, this probably would take a little time, but one thing that we've really gotten away from that I have read can be really helpful is really helpful poetry and memorizing poetry And then reciting it for the class. I had to do that. I'm so old that I had to do that every Friday when I was in fourth grade. And I still remember some of those poems.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:52:56
Wow.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:52:57
I think it really gives you a feel for that more complex language, syntax, vocabulary, and maybe inspires a love of poetry. You never know.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:04
Yeah. Right. And do you feel like the same could be applied to like a song or a rap or something along those lines?

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:14
Well, it could. But again, you know, like that poem, The New Colossus.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:20
The syntax is quite complex. The vocabulary is complex. And when you get closer with Wrap can be great but it's probably going to be closer to And yes, it's going to be closer to the kind of language that kids are familiar with from

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:27
It's breaking a lot of rules. Yeah.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:34
Yeah, got you. So we're not lifting their level. Got it. Yeah.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:34
Conversation and really

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:39
Exposing them to that content. Thank you. Thank you. It's very helpful. So looking for those opportunities to talk to write, to speak, to talk about what we're reading in every content area.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:53:40
Yeah.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:53:53
Thank you. So our next question is. How do you balance teaching content knowledge with teaching reading skills. You know, that's kind of a big one too.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:54:05
Well, I think when we're talking about kids who's reading foundational reading skills are still work in progress, the way to build content knowledge of new topics is through read alouds and discussion.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:54:18
Okay.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:54:19
And you can be also developing reading, you know, what we think of as reading comprehension abilities through oral language by asking questions that require kids to do things like find the main idea maybe. I mean, that might be a little

[Natalie Wexler] 14:54:34
Tricky in oral language because writing i think is a bit better suited for something like that's pretty complicated summarizing or finding the main idea of a text For things like making an inference about a text or comparing and contrasting

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:54:42
Yeah, yeah.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:54:48
A lot of that can be done orally and it's going you know that those I wouldn't call them skills because they're not generally applicable, but they're habits of thought that are really valuable for kids to get into. And you're cultivating those habits of thought we're not just

[Natalie Wexler] 14:55:04
Absorbing you know a bunch of random bits of information. We were making connections we're asking why.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:55:10
All of those things can be done orally that those habits of mine that information, that knowledge will be stored in long-term memory so that when kids foundational skills, their decoding ability, their fluency catches up to where their background knowledge is.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:55:29
Knowledge will be able to kick in. They'll be able to draw on it to read and write about a range of topics at a higher level.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:55:36
Thank you for that. So we're we're reallyâ¦ not only balancing that content knowledge where we're bringing in lots of opportunity again for oral language there as a pathway as a pathway Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you for your time. Thank you for this incredible content.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:55:52
And really thank you from the educator point of view here. Hopefully I can really speak for all of us in that making this critical content for us as educators digestible understandable and actionable for us because it really is teaching is

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:56:10
As we're learning here with all of this, that it's an art and that we're also continuing to learn and build our skills and show up for our students in a better way. So this is absolute gold. Thank you so very much.

[Natalie Wexler] 14:56:23
Thank you. Thanks so much to you and to Learning Ally for having me.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:56:27
Thank you. And for everybody who's with us, thank you so much for being here. Again, we have so many opportunities to continue our conversation together.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:56:37
One of the comments that we hear a lot from our community of educators and struggling readers is that, well, kids just don't want to learn to read. And what we say about that is there may be some healing that needs to happen around that.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:56:51
But they just haven't found the right book because they may think they don't want to read, but they still want to know things. They're still interested.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:56:59
And we can find a book for every single child. So did you all know that The top Learning Ally audiobook download across the country is the Dogman books.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:12
And it's interesting because there was a Dog Man movie that came out recently. And like, this is the kind of stuff that gets kids into reading. We want to ask them, well, what are you interested in? What are you interested in knowing?

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:25
And the audiobooks allow them to not only listen, but to follow along with the reading, as Natalie was talking about, to lift that cognitive load.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:34
And provide them the access to grade level and above complex material that they would not get.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:42
And Natalie also mentioned that that listening comprehension exceeds reading comprehension.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:47
So it's that really natural and effective pathway to building a skilled reader.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:54
We learned that that oral language piece is a crucial step.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:57:58
And the audiobook solution allows students to be able to have the speaking opportunities with their peers about a text that they wouldn't normally get.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:58:06
They have, they're able to take in that text and then show up in the classroom and speak about it because they've Listen to it, follow along and understand what's going on.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:58:20
So without further ado on there, we'd like to just take a moment to to listen to a student named ava She hasâ¦ been one of our readers that has used the audiobook solution to help her succeed. So we'll just take a quick moment to hear from her.

[Eleanor (staff)] 14:58:44
Students with dyslexia should never limit their learning because of their disability. Today, I use Learning Ally daily Learning Ally has helped me take English scholars and History Honors all four years of high school. It has also helped me download books we use in class like Great Gatsby and Becoming by Michelle Obama

[Eleanor (staff)] 14:59:02
I can express my thoughts into paragraphs and essays. Students with learning differences are faced with great challenges every day.

[Eleanor (staff)] 14:59:10
Learning Ally is a necessary tool to meet that challenge and overcome it.

[Eleanor (staff)] 14:59:14
I wouldn't be going to college without it.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:59:18
Thank you. Ooh, that one gets me every time. We have so many students like Ava and that are like have gained so much support from using the audiobook solution as a tool in their journey.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:59:34
And it's just, we know that kids with dyslexia need that multimodal approach to access knowledge. And this is a great way for them to be able to unlock that in textbooks.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:59:45
As well as stories they're interested in, nonfiction or fiction. If you would like to learn more about our human narrated audiobooks and the audiobook solution, there'll be a link in the chat.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 14:59:57
Stay connected with us. One last note about dyslexia.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:02
We are proud to be hosting, it's been mentioned in the chat.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:05
Our 10th year of the spotlight on dyslexia. We call it SPOD virtual conference this June 4th and 5th.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:13
I'm honored to be one of over 50 fantastic speakers in this premier conference.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:19
And I'm excited to see stellar keynotes from Dr. Marianne Wolf, from Dr. Hugh Katz. It's one of the largest conferences on dyslexia. We have thousands of attendees from all around the world We even do have a free ticket option. So we'll have links in the chat. We'll have opportunities.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:37
To stay connected on that, something that we don't want to miss.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:40
So thank you everybody for joining us today. This is going to stick with me a long time, hopefully with you as well. And we look forward to more opportunities like this.

[Bianca Dino (she I CA)] 15:00:51
And thank you again, Natalie Wexler, for being here. And to all of us who took time out of our busy schedules to be here and learn


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The Faster Read: Find out about the Faster Read project, which aims to develop the reading and engagement of students between the ages of 11 and 14 with culturally diverse young-adult novels.

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The Faster Read: Find out about the Faster Read project, which aims to develop the reading and engagement of students between the ages of 11 and 14 with culturally diverse young-adult novels.

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University of Sussex

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The 'Faster Read' (FR) innovative pedagogy aims to develop the reading comprehension, interpretation and engagement of students, including 'struggling readers'. It combines immersive, whole-text reading of culturally diverse, engaging novels, dialogic class and peer talk, and reading strategies, with teachers explicitly engaged with theories of reading. Post-Covid, its relevance has intensified, with 'lockdown' reading and learning losses widening for students from disadvantaged contexts.

The original, interdisciplinary research was conducted in Southern England in 2014-15 at the University of Sussex by colleagues in Education, Dr Julia Sutherland (PI), Prof. Jo Westbrook, and Prof. Jane Oakhill in Psychology (Sutherland et al, 2023; Westbrook et al, 2019) from CIE and CTLR Research Centres. The quasi-experimental, mixed-method study included 413 students of 12-13 years, primarily in 'low-attaining' classes and their 20 English teachers, in diverse schools, including areas of poverty. 'Struggling readers' (defined as having a reading age 1+ year lower than their chronological age) made, on average, 16 months' progress in reading comprehension in 12 weeks, measured by standardised tests. Qualitative data showed that students' reading engagement, use of reading strategies and quality of dialogic peer discussion of texts greatly improved, with some reported impacts on writing, school engagement and attendance.

Impact studies (2017 and 2022) show that over 200 schools in the UK are now using the Faster Read approach for Primary-aged children, typically 7-11 years; Secondary students - Key Stage 3 (11-14 years), GCSE (14-16 years) and A Level (16-19 years). There is also currently international interest in the Faster Read in Tonga, Australia and the USA.

Sussex Team

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The 'Faster Read' (FR) innovative pedagogy aims to develop the reading comprehension, interpretation and engagement of students, including 'struggling readers'. It combines immersive, whole-text reading of culturally diverse, engaging novels, dialogic class and peer talk, and reading strategies, with teachers explicitly engaged with theories of reading.

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Reading Programs for Struggling Readers | Learning Ally

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The Learning Ally Audiobook Solution is a multi-sensory reading program for struggling readers, providing them the opportunity to achieve.

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: Delivery of Explicit Instruction | High-Leverage Practices that Promote Engagement and Learning with Dr. Anita Archer webinar

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Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5_ A Practice Guide for Educators - behavioral-interventions-practice-guide_v3a_508a copy

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Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5_ A Practice Guide for Educators - behavioral-interventions-practice-guide_v3a_508a copy

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: The Missing Science…What About Behavioral Management?

Explicit instruction is an evidence-based, systematic methodology for teaching academic skills to students across grade levels. While the Science of Reading informs us on what to teach, 50 years of research on explicit instruction guides us on how to teach. In this session, Dr. Archer will present...

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

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“Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments with Professor John Hattie," — our latest webinar exploring how AI, assessments and teacher expertise can work together to improve student outcomes. World renowned education researcher, Professor John Hattie, will discuss why teachers are key to AI’s success i...Read More

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

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Thank you for attending The Ferguson Institute Presents_ Delivery of Explicit Instruction _ High-Leverage Practices that Promote Engagement and Learning with Dr. Anita Archer! - Bridgette W. Bell - Outlook

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Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading

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Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading

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December 2011Harvard Educational Review 81(4):710-744

DOI:10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566

Authors:

Steve Graham

Arizona State University

Michael Hebert

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Citation:

Graham, Steve & Hebert, Michael. (2011). Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading. Harvard Educational Review. 81. 710-744. 10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566.

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The Ferguson Institute Presents: Delivery of Explicit Instruction | High-Leverage Practices that Promote Engagement and Learning with Dr. Anita Archer webinar

# data[].attributes.headline
Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5_ A Practice Guide for Educators - behavioral-interventions-practice-guide_v3a_508a copy

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Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5_ A Practice Guide for Educators - behavioral-interventions-practice-guide_v3a_508a copy

# data[].attributes.headline
The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

# data[].attributes.subject
The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

# data[].attributes.body
“Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments with Professor John Hattie," — our latest webinar exploring how AI, assessments and teacher expertise can work together to improve student outcomes. World renowned education researcher, Professor John Hattie, will discuss why teachers are key to AI’s success i...Read More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Ferguson Institute Presents: Meaningful AI, Meaningful Assessments

# data[].attributes.body
The Ferguson Institute Presents: The Missing Science…What About Behavioral Management?

Explicit instruction is an evidence-based, systematic methodology for teaching academic skills to students across grade levels. While the Science of Reading informs us on what to teach, 50 years of research on explicit instruction guides us on how to teach. In this session, Dr. Archer will present...

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Author is one way communication- Author can't answer questions.

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Author is one way communication- Author can't answer questions.

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We've done unprecedented research with thousands of parents, teachers, students, and educators in 25+ states.

We share actionable insights broadly, so that collectively, we can unleash the power and potential of parents as learning heroes.

Stay Informed On the Go

Get monthly tips and information to help your child succeed inside and outside the classroom.

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We share actionable insights broadly, so that collectively, we can unleash the power and potential of parents as learning heroes.

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Structured Word Inquiry Is Not the Opposite of Explicit Teaching

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Structured Word Inquiry Is Not the Opposite of Explicit Teaching

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Explicit teaching belongs inside inquiry, not inside a behaviorist script.

Shawna Pope-Jefferson

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No, they are not the exact same thing, although they share the same goal of teaching how words work. [1, 2]

The key difference is that Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) is a specific, investigation-driven literacy framework, while Generative Vocabulary Instruction is a broad instructional strategy focused on word-learning. [1, 2, 3]

Here is how they compare at a glance:

Generative Vocabulary Instruction

Generative vocabulary instruction focuses on teaching students strategies to figure out the meanings of new, unknown words on their own. [1, 2]

Focus: Word-learning strategies. It relies heavily on teaching morphology (prefixes, suffixes, and roots), using context clues, and using dictionaries to figure out word families and word relations. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Goal: Equips students with a "toolkit" so when they encounter an unfamiliar word in complex text, they can generalize their knowledge (e.g., knowing spect means "to see" to help figure out spectacle). [1]

Structured Word Inquiry (SWI)

SWI is a structured, scientific approach to teaching reading, spelling, and vocabulary simultaneously. Developed by Dr. Peter Bowers, it treats spelling as an organized, logic-based system rather than a set of rules. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Focus: Deep, scientific investigations using four core questions: (1) What does the word mean? (2) How is it built? (3) What are its relatives? (4) How do phonemes connect to graphemes? [1, 2]

Mechanism: Students use visual tools like word sums (e.g., jump + ed → jumped) and morphological matrices to break words down into morphemes and analyze their meaning and history before studying their sounds. [1, 2]

Goal: Uncovers how English spelling actually works by connecting Morphology (meaning), Etymology (history), and Phonology (sounds). [1]

In short, while generative instruction teaches how to use morphemes to generate meaning, SWI is a complete scientific inquiry method that integrates vocabulary, reading, and spelling by investigating exactly how words are built and why they are spelled the way they are. [1, 2]

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Teaching and Learning Morphology: A Reflection on Generative Vocabulary Instruction

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Teaching and Learning Morphology: A Reflection on Generative Vocabulary Instruction

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Shane Templeton wst@unr.eduView all authors and affiliations

Volume 192, Issue 2-3

https://doi.org/10.1177/002205741219200

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Engaging Readers and Writers in 21st Century K-12 Classrooms

BY ERNEST MORRELL, PH.D. (1971–2026)

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

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White Paper- New Directions in Teaching Literacy by Ernest Morrell

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The Central Roles of Language Awareness and Literacy Engagement

in Accelerating Students’ Academic

Development

BY JIM CUMMINS, Ph.D.

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The Central Roles of Language Awareness and Literacy Engagement

in Accelerating Students’ Academic

Development

BY JIM CUMMINS, Ph.D.

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Awareness and Literacy Engagement

in Accelerating Students’ Academic

Development

BY JIM CUMMINS, Ph.D.

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White Paper- The Central Roles of Language Awareness and Literacy Engagement by Jim Cummins

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Readers and Writers

KELLY GALLAGHER, M.Ed

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White Paper- The Central Roles of Language Awareness and Literacy Engagement by Jim Cummins

# data[].attributes.headline
Text Complexity SystemsA Teacher’s Toolkit

BY ELFRIEDA “FREDDY” H. HIEBERT, Ph.D.

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Text Complexity SystemsA Teacher’s Toolkit

BY ELFRIEDA “FREDDY” H. HIEBERT, Ph.D.

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A Teacher’s Toolkit

BY ELFRIEDA “FREDDY” H. HIEBERT, Ph.D.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
White Paper- Text Complexity Systems- A Teacher’s Toolkit by Freddy Hiebert

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46. Essentials of Adolescent Literacy: Reading and Writing Instruction in Grades 5-12

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46. Essentials of Adolescent Literacy: Reading and Writing Instruction in Grades 5-12

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June 2026

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46. Essentials of Adolescent Literacy: Reading and Writing Instruction in Grades 5-12

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Explicit instruction is an evidence-based, systematic methodology for teaching academic skills to students across grade levels. While the Science of Reading informs us on what to teach, 50 years of research on explicit instruction guides us on how to teach. In this session, Dr. Archer will present high-leverage practices and procedures for the delivery of instruction that increase engagement, participation, and learning by: • Requesting frequent responses • Monitoring student performance carefully • Providing affirmative and corrective feedback • Maintaining an appropriate pace throughout the lesson