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This is Dec. 2020 but the work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad needed to be represented here, particularly as we work towards equity-focused literacy instruction.

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Rethinking Intervention with Dr.  Gholdy Muhammad

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#1 (Jan 30) Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast: Rethinking the Reading Rope with Nell Duke

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#1 (Jan 30) Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast: Rethinking the Reading Rope with Nell Duke

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This conversation with Nell Duke dives into the science of reading as well as her article on reading comprehension.

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#2 (Feb 13) Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast: Decodable Texts, Sound Walls and More…

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#2 (Feb 13) Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast: Decodable Texts, Sound Walls and More…

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This podcast episode discusses Beyond Decodables, the free, diverse decodable text collection created by Nell Duke’s former doctoral student, Dr. Julia Lindsey.

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In this NCTE blog post, teacher and Stenhouse author Cristina Nosek discusses how to rethink and reframe at-home reading. Her small shifts are actionable and impactful.

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Winter break is just around the corner in many of our schools nationwide. It is a time when students and teachers alike can hopefully relax a bit and focus on the valued aspects of life away from school, whether they crave much-needed family time or a bit of overdue reflective solitude. Just before winter break each year, my students and I reflect on our reading habits developed over the course of the past few months and then make plans for future reading both inside and outside of school.

Over the years, I've learned quite a bit about what motivates students to begin and continue reading when they are away from the classroom. I've also learned quite a bit about what hinders their reading during non-school hours.

Required book lists, time requirements, and reading logs have actually damaged students' reading habits outside of school. However, many teachers still turn to these methods for various reasons. The most common reason I hear is that they just aren't sure what else to do instead. Good news! There are many things teachers can do to positively support reading habits outside of the classroom.

Here are three small instructional shifts that have made a positive change in my teaching practice and my students' reading habits over the years.

1. Instead of creating a list of books for students to read away from school, try supporting students in choosing their own reading material for their time away from school.

Students have known for quite some time now that when they choose their own reading material, they are more engaged in reading. Ample research has found this to be true as well ( Allington & Gabriel, 2012; Guthrie & Humenick, 2004; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000). When students are more engaged in reading, they are likely to spend more time reading away from school.

One way to support this in the classroom is by creating daily time for free-choice reading. Additionally, introducing students to different forms of reading material such as audiobooks, online articles, and even newspapers shows students that their choices are not limited to print books. This also opens up a world of new reading and accessibility for many.

By introducing and sharing different formats for reading inside the classroom, students will see that the choices and options for reading outside of the classroom have the potential to be unlimited. My fifth graders absolutely love the monthly kids' edition of the New York Times, online articles based on their individual interests, and audiobooks.

2. Instead of giving students and families a reading time requirement, try inviting students and families to consider times of the day when reading might fit into their already full lives outside of school.

Very few readers in life outside of school set a timer for a number of minutes, sit down, and read without interruptions or distractions for the determined time frame. It's just not realistic for many families. Instead, my students and I think about our lives outside of school. We consider family commitments, extracurricular activities, commutes, and other events and situations. Then we determine where reading will fit in. It often fits into 10-, 15-, or 20-minute chunks after and before school hours. When we recently went through this discussion in the classroom, my students' offered the following thoughts about when and they typically read outside of school:

I try to read a chapter in my book on the bus home. It makes the ride go faster.

I like to listen to an audiobook when I'm doing my chores. Vacuuming is more fun that way!

When I'm waiting for my little brother to finish his swimming lessons, I read a book or comic book.

My cousin and I found a Lego blog that's so good! There's a new post a few times a week. We always read it together.

Before bed used to be the only time I read at home, but now I also read for a few minutes when I'm eating my breakfast before school.

3. Instead of requiring students and families to complete a reading log, try creating a time and space in class for daily discussions about books and reading outside of school.

Celebrate the reading that was done and come together as a community to support students who may need a bit of advice or encouragement to build a reading habit away from the classroom. Students and families have known for a long time now that reading logs do not support their habits as readers or their love of reading. Research also backs this up ( Pak & Wesley, 2012).

One way to create the space and time in the classroom is to invite students to casually chat with friends about their away from school reading first thing in the morning. Casual student conversation around books and reading have done wonders in building reading excitement in my students! After the casual conversations, invite a few students to share with the entire group. My class typically does this during our morning meeting. All it takes is a few minutes each day.

These three small shifts can make a big and lasting difference in the lives of your readers both inside and outside of the classroom. If you try one out, consider sharing your small shifts with the NCTE community on Twitter using the hashtags #NCTEVillage or #NCTEChat.
Christina Nosek is a San Francisco Bay Area teacher, author, and NCTE Community Ambassador. Her work outside of her own teaching day centers around supporting her fellow teachers and their students in co-creating thriving reading and writing communities in their classrooms and schools. She's worked as a primary grade teacher, K-5 reading specialist, literacy coach, and staff developer, and currently spends her days with a great group of fifth graders. You can find her on Twitter at @ChristinaNosek. It is the policy of NCTE in all publications, including the Literacy & NCTE blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.

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Reframing At-Home Reading: Three Small Shifts to Make a Big Difference - NCTE

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Winter break is just around the corner in many of our schools nationwide. It is a time when students and teachers alike can hopefully relax a bit and focus on the valued aspects of life away from school, whether they crave much-needed family time or a bit of overdue reflective solitude.

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This webinar with Linda Farrell helps deconstruct decodable and leveled texts, their purposes, and how to use them instructionally.

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SoR-What I Should Have Learned in College

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#2 (Jan 30) Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension

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#2 (Jan 30) Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension

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Have we been thinking about reading comprehension all wrong? Have we been equating reading comprehension as a skill like swimming? Once you learn to swim, you can do it in any water. But is that true of the multidimensional nature of reading comprehension? Does strong comprehension of one text transfer to comprehension of another? This article by Dr. Hugh Catts discusses how to promote reading comprehension based on research.  It’s a great follow up or precursor to the article above.

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It is February 2015, and I am at a national conference listening to a panel present the results of their research on improving reading comprehension. Several members of the panel, like myself and a few others in the room, are funded by the Institute of Education Sciences as part of the Reading for Understanding Initiative. This $120 million program supported six interconnected research teams in their efforts to improve reading achievement in the United States. ¹ Educators and policymakers had for some time been concerned about the performance of American children on tests of reading achievement. Over the last 20 years, only about a third of students have scored at the proficient level on the reading subtest of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). ² This assessment is administered biennially to a representative sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students (and every four years to 12th-graders) from across the nation. Somewhat better, though still troubling, levels of performance have also been reported on state-based reading tests, administered annually starting in third grade. The Reading for Understanding Initiative was intended to jump-start instruction in reading comprehension and significantly improve reading achievement on state and national assessments. In fact, it was described by program officials as the "moonshot" for reading comprehension.

Unfortunately, the preliminary results that the panel presented fell short of these expectations. The reported studies found that students receiving a variety of comprehension interventions made gains, compared with control groups, on assessments closely tied to the interventions-but they showed limited or no significant gains on standardized measures of reading comprehension. Needless to say, conference attendees were surprised and discouraged by these results.

Sitting in the back of the room, I clearly remember not being particularly alarmed by what the panel reported. As part of my work on the Reading for Understanding Initiative and earlier related projects, I had spent many hours thinking, studying, and talking with teachers and colleagues about reading comprehension. Through these efforts, I had come to recognize that the field's general approach to reading comprehension was shortsighted. We were treating reading comprehension as if it were a single construct that could be measured with one or more general reading tests and improved with a short-term intervention. At a deeper conceptual level, most researchers (including those funded by the Reading for Understanding Initiative) recognized that reading comprehension was multidimensional, but it had been common practice in education and research for some time to study, assess, and provide instruction as if comprehension were a skill, rather like swimming. If we teach someone to swim, they can soon transfer that skill to any body of water, whether it be a pool, lake, or ocean. But reading comprehension is not a skill someone learns and can then apply in different reading contexts. It is one of the most complex activities that we engage in on a regular basis, and our ability to comprehend is dependent upon a wide range of knowledge and skills.

The Comprehension as Skill Myth

How have we come to think of comprehension as a skill? I believe a major reason this has occurred is because we have talked and written about comprehension in the context of related skill-like abilities. Discussions about reading often include the topics of phonics, fluency, and related skills, such as phonemic awareness, together with comprehension. As an example, take the work of the National Reading Panel. ³ This panel of reading experts was convened by Congress to assess the effectiveness of different approaches to teaching reading. They examined a wide range of instructional approaches related to comprehension, but in overviews of their work, comprehension has been reduced to one of the "Big Five," along with phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary. As such, it is depicted alongside these skills as one of the "pillars" of reading. In another common graphic, the word comprehension is displayed within a box similar in design (actually smaller) to boxes for other skill-like components of reading. Whereas such a consideration and depiction are thought to form a useful heuristic, it can give the false impression that comprehension is comparable to these skills in terms of its complexity and the way it is best taught and measured.

Furthermore, widely used approaches to teaching reading comprehension reinforce this view. ⁴ Comprehension has typically been taught through the use of strategies such as "find the main idea," "make a prediction," or "monitor your comprehension." These strategies are taught and practiced in order to gain automaticity, much like what is done with other skill-like behaviors. This, in turn, can lead us to believe that comprehension can be thought of in a similar manner to these other skills.

A More Accurate and Complex Model

Despite this common view about comprehension, several lines of enquiry have recognized the true complexity of reading comprehension for some time. Nearly 20 years ago, this complexity was captured by the RAND Reading Study Group. ⁵ This federally funded group was charged with developing a research agenda to address pressing issues in literacy. As part of their 2002 report, they conceptualized reading comprehension as a combination of factors within three different categories: the reader, the text, and the activity of reading.

The reader brings a set of cognitive abilities (such as attention, memory, and reasoning), language knowledge and skills, motivations and interests, and background knowledge to the task of reading. Readers vary considerably in these factors, and this variability impacts their comprehension. Considerable research attention has been focused on reader variables, and their impact on comprehension is well documented.

The text includes such elements as genre, topic, and complexity. Students encounter texts with different genres-such as narrative, descriptive, expository, or persuasive-and these texts vary in their subject matter and level of complexity. Although not emphasized in the RAND report from 2002, texts also now vary in their form. They may be in a paper or digital form, and the latter can be displayed on a variety of devices, such as a phone, tablet, or computer. Each of these forms imposes its own set of constraints and challenges on comprehension. The notion of multiple texts can also be added to this category to account for the fact that skilled readers often rely on more than one text for comprehension.

The activity refers to the task or purpose of reading. It is often argued that the purpose of reading is comprehension. But we actually seek to comprehend for a specific reason, be it to prepare for a test, evaluate the strengths of an argument, learn the rules of a game, or enjoy a magazine article or book. Each purpose brings unique knowledge and skills that must be acquired to be successful.

Importantly, the RAND Reading Study Group viewed these various elements interacting within a sociocultural context that involves factors such as where the reading occurs (e.g., school or home), how much support there is (e.g., individual, teacher- or caregiver-led, or group activity), and what cultural value is placed on reading by students' families, peers, racial and ethnic groups, and other groups that are central to the students' identities.

Taken together, it is easy to see how any one individual may have multiple levels of comprehension ability depending upon what they are reading and why they are reading it. As a result, comprehension cannot be reduced to a single notion because it is not a single ability.

The Role of Knowledge

Chief among the factors influencing reading comprehension is background knowledge. Research clearly shows that how much readers understand about the text's topic before they read it is a major factor in how much they understand while and after they read it. ⁶ Unfortunately, much of the efforts directed toward improving reading comprehension have neglected building background knowledge. (As discussed later, there are widely used strategies for "activating" background knowledge, but they do not necessarily develop new knowledge.) It was this neglect that first alerted me to the problems with the way we were thinking about reading comprehension.

In my graduate training, many years ago, I was introduced to the role of knowledge in reading comprehension. At that time, schema theory was a popular topic in research on human cognition and learning. A schema is an organized unit of knowledge that forms the foundation for many activities involving human thought. Richard Anderson, a professor of educational psychology, brought the notion of a schema to education and argued for its critical role in reading comprehension as well as learning in general. ⁷ He was among the first to convey to me the importance of teaching knowledge to improve comprehension.

In my psychology classes, I was introduced to a study that continues to be one of my favorites. The following passage, which was designed to be ambiguous, was read aloud to college students, and they were asked to recall as much as they could.

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. ⁸

Students given the topic of the passage beforehand quickly made sense of what they heard and recalled many details. (Those students were told, "The paragraph you will hear will be about washing clothes.") But those who heard the same passage without the topic were confused and recalled little. Of particular interest, a third group of students was given the topic after they heard the passage, but they too were confused and recalled little. Of course, it was not simply the topic but rather the knowledge associated with it that allowed the students to make sense of what they had heard-but only if this knowledge was available from the start.

It was studies like this, including similar ones involving reading rather than listening, that early on clearly demonstrated for me the importance of knowledge for comprehension. But somewhere along the line, educators and researchers-myself included-got distracted and failed to pay attention to its importance. It is not exactly clear how this happened. Perhaps it was a shift in focus to bottom-up models of reading that argued that meaning was contained within the text and that the reader's job was to extract it. Or maybe it was just that knowledge took too much time to teach, and it made more sense to focus on skills that could be taught quickly and applied across topics. Also, considering comprehension alongside skill-like aspects of reading probably distracted us from the role of knowledge.

But whatever the reason, knowledge has come back to the forefront in discussions of reading comprehension. Proponents such as E. D. Hirsch Jr., Daniel T. Willingham, and Natalie Wexler have written extensively about the role of knowledge in comprehension.* Their work and that of others ⁹ has begun to have an influence on research in reading comprehension, but change has been slow. Some of the projects in the Reading for Understanding Initiative did have knowledge as a central component, but the other projects paid only limited attention to knowledge in instruction and/or assessment. Limited attention also plagued other large-scale projects, such as those within the Striving Readers program. This program funded by the US Department of Education involved a set of 17 studies designed to improve reading comprehension in middle and high school students. ¹⁰ While materials did address different topics, there was no direct effort to build knowledge as part of the intervention or assessment. Again, it is not surprising that these studies only demonstrated small effects at best on improving reading comprehension.

What Knowledge Does for Comprehension

Why is knowledge so critical for comprehension? To begin with, it provides a framework for organizing incoming information and guides us as we read through a text. We better understand what the topic is and have expectations about where a passage may be going. By doing so, knowledge keeps us on track and prevents us from going down "blind alleys" in our understanding. This framework also gives us a place to anchor new information in memory and associate it with past knowledge. We use these building blocks of the new and the old to construct an initial understanding of what we are reading and then continuously revise and add to it as we move through a text. It is this integration of the new information in the text with what we already know that brings meaning to what we read.

Background knowledge also allows us to make inferences and fill in information that is not explicitly provided. Authors rarely tell us all we need to know in order to understand a text, so we need to fill in some of the details with our background knowledge. Knowledge also enables us to more easily recognize which of the multiple meanings of a word is appropriate for the context. For example, when reading a passage about baseball, knowing that the word pitcher refers to a person rather than an object could be critical for comprehension.

Knowledge is also essential for thinking. But in certain contexts these days, it is seen as secondary to thinking. Critical thinking has become the rage in education. All too often, teachers are urged to engage students in thinking deeply and critically about what they read as if these skills were independent of the topic; meanwhile, background knowledge is downplayed as if the specific information about a topic could be looked up on the internet when necessary. ¹¹ But it is the specific information that gives students something to think critically about-and our minds are surprisingly limited in how much new information they can take in at one time. Knowledge must accumulate over time to ensure a level of depth that allows for a critical analysis of the subject matter. We can't think logically about different approaches to government without knowing a lot about different forms of government. So, in this sense, knowledge is the most critical component of critical thinking.

Knowledge also allows us to make the most use of our working memory, where much of thinking takes place. There are limitations on how much information we can hold and think about simultaneously in working memory, and this amount is heavily influenced by knowledge. Knowledge coming from long-term memory places a much smaller burden on working memory than new knowledge coming from a text (or a speaker); it also leaves us with more capacity in working memory to think about things in novel ways. As a simple example, it is easier to remember the letter sequences USA, FBI, and NBC than PDQ, RJB, and FVO. When reading, the more information related to the topic we already have stored in long-term memory, the more deeply we can think about that topic-even as we read a passage that offers new information.

Finally, the relationship between knowledge and reading comprehension is reciprocal in nature. Not only does knowledge improve comprehension, but comprehension allows the reader to build new knowledge. Creating a coherent understanding of what one reads modifies the background knowledge that is available for subsequent reading comprehension either later in the same text or in future reading of related texts. ¹²

Implications for Instruction

It should be evident from my comments that improving reading comprehension is a complex process that requires multiple levels of instruction and practice. Clearly, building background knowledge that is both deep and broad is needed to lay the foundation for comprehension and for further knowledge acquisition. However, students also need high-quality reading instruction involving decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies in order to best use their knowledge in different reading contexts and for different purposes.

For many years, the primary way knowledge has been addressed in the context of reading has been through activating background knowledge using strategies like prereading discussions, concept maps, and anticipation guides. These strategies can be effective-but they only work when the appropriate knowledge is available. Often, children will not have the requisite knowledge, or their knowledge will be impoverished or inaccurate. If inaccurate, this activation can actually be detrimental to comprehension.

Whereas knowledge activation has been widely viewed as a component of reading instruction, building knowledge often has not. In fact, instruction devoted to content knowledge has actually been replaced by other aspects of reading instruction. In most elementary schools, social studies and science instruction has been supplanted by English language arts (ELA) instruction. Surveys have shown that, on average, children in grades 1-4 receive only 2.3 hours of science instruction per week, whereas four times that amount is spent on ELA instruction teaching word-reading skills, comprehension strategies, and vocabulary. ¹³ The thinking has been that if we want children to improve their reading comprehension, we have to work on reading skills to achieve fluency before we can use reading to build knowledge. However, this false dichotomy between learning to read and reading to learn has not led to better reading achievement.

Recently, educators have begun to rethink reading instruction and consider how to better integrate knowledge acquisition with literacy in ELA instruction. ¹⁴ In these more integrated approaches, students build knowledge at the same time they are learning reading-related skills. This involves a concentrated effort to build rich and connected ideas about social studies, science, and other subjects during ELA lessons. Such instruction does not necessarily replace the science and social studies instruction that may be taking place at other times but rather supplements it. As with other content instruction, reading materials in an integrated ELA program are selected to build knowledge. Instead of reading, for example, about volcanoes one day and Rosa Parks the next, which has often been the case in ELA instruction, reading materials are arranged by topic in a logical and sequential manner and form an integrated, content-rich curriculum. In this way, knowledge is acquired and accumulated over time.

Such content-rich, connected instruction can be especially engaging and can draw children's interests to literacy and learning. Student engagement and learning can be further fostered by culturally responsive instruction. One example is a program called Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering. ¹⁵ This program takes a home-to-school approach to connect new knowledge with culturally relevant knowledge concerning the people, places, and objects that students interact with on a daily basis. By understanding, appreciating, and connecting with this knowledge, learning can be especially enhanced for all children.

In an integrated literacy and knowledge-building curriculum, there should be a strong focus on teaching fundamental reading skills. Depending on the grade and specific skills taught, instruction in decoding, spelling, and fluency could comprise its own unit or be blended with discussion and activities designed to acquire and build content-area knowledge. Vocabulary, an important focus of ELA instruction, can be taught especially well within a content-rich, integrated curriculum. Novel words related to the content are excellent targets for instruction. These words are often repeated multiple times in a text, and their meanings are well supported by the context in which they occur. In addition, once learned, they become part of the knowledge base of the topic. General-purpose academic words, or what are sometimes referred to as Tier 2 words, also are learned more easily in a rich context. When these words are supported by content knowledge, the reader can use this knowledge to more easily infer their meaning. Also, a rich context can prove particularly helpful in learning words with multiple meanings, such as "bright" or "palm." ¹⁶

Content-rich materials are also excellent contexts in which to learn more about academic language. Written language is characterized by more complex grammar than spoken language, and students can benefit from explicit instruction in how this grammar works. Specifically, science texts tend to privilege nouns for compacting information, developing logical reasoning, and achieving precision. ¹⁷ For example, consider this text: "Asthma is a disorder in which the respiratory passages narrow significantly as a result of an allergen. This narrowing...." Here the author creates an abstract noun (i.e., "this narrowing") to represent the entire previous clause. Recognizing the referent of this abstract noun is critical to comprehension and, in cases like this, could benefit from explicit instruction. In other academic texts, students will be confronted with complex and elaborated noun phrases, rather than reduced ones, as well as challenging noun, adverbial, and adjectival clauses. For example, social studies texts use "noun clauses (e.g., 'Jefferson's next argument was that King George III had violated the colonists' rights by passing unfair laws and interfering with colonial governments'), adverbial clauses (e.g., 'Even before Washington reached Boston, the Patriots took action'), and adjectival clauses (e.g., 'He was influenced by the Enlightenment idea of the social contract, which states that governments and rulers must protect the rights of citizens') to pack a large amount of information." ¹⁸ Given this complexity, explicit instruction in how to unpack academic grammar could prove helpful to students in understanding informational texts.

Integrated approaches also can incorporate many of the same comprehension strategies employed in traditional ELA instruction. Some of these strategies, like inferencing and paraphrasing, are rather general and can be explicitly taught and used across various contexts. However, within an integrated approach, some strategies are best selected and taught based on their relevance to what is being read and for what purpose. The nature of texts and purposes for reading vary across subject matters, and thus, the strategies that may be most advantageous will vary as well.

Some of these strategies will be the common ones (e.g., mental imagery) identified by the National Reading Panel. Others will be more text- and task-specific metacognitive approaches to assist comprehension. For example, during a social studies lesson, students may be presented with an explanation or argument and asked to evaluate its validity. In such a case, students would benefit from explicit instruction and practice on how to identify a claim and judge the relevance, sufficiency, and accuracy of the evidence provided. Alternatively, science texts often provide a description of some object, animal, or process, and students are often tested on what they have learned from their reading. For such a task, students may benefit from being taught how to use a graphic organizer to summarize and categorize the information within different organizational structures. Students will also benefit from recognizing that a science text (from a trustworthy source) is an authoritative account and is different from texts in which the author's perspective is central, such as a poem or a historical figure's diary entry. This more nuanced approach to strategies becomes ever more important as students move through the grades and the comprehension skills needed are increasingly determined by the characteristics of the text and the activities carried out within the different disciplines. Nevertheless, knowledge of how disciplinary texts work, or what is called disciplinary literacy, can and should be part of instruction in the elementary grades. ¹⁹

There are now quite a few integrated, content-rich curricula being used across the country. Some of these programs are commercially available through curriculum publishers, such as Core Knowledge Language Arts and Wit & Wisdom, whereas others have been developed by researchers, such as Model of Reading Engagement. ²⁰ Some of these programs have been developed specifically to be used as part of ELA instruction. Others are truly integrated across the curriculum and operate instead of or in addition to ELA materials. There is also quite a bit of variability in the scope of literacy instruction within these programs. Nevertheless, a recent meta-analysis showed that when compared with traditional programs in which literacy and content instruction were provided separately, integrated, content-rich programs resulted in students scoring significantly better on vocabulary and comprehension (including on standardized measures of comprehension). Not surprisingly, significant gains were also made in the content taught. ²¹

Implications for Assessment

The multidimensional nature of reading comprehension presents a significant challenge for assessment. Because of the numerous factors in play, a reader's comprehension ability is more fluid than often thought. In other words, any one individual will have different levels of ability depending on what is read and for what purpose.

Perhaps the best demonstration of this variability and its impact on assessment comes from a study that included scores from 995 children who were administered four different standardized measures of reading comprehension. ²² The researchers found that the median correlation between the different tests was only .54, which was surprisingly low given that the tests purported to measure the same thing. In another analysis of the data, they identified children scoring in the lowest 10th percentile on each of the measures and compared the overlap of these groups across measures. Their results showed that, on average, only 43 percent of the children identified by one test as poor readers were also identified as poor readers on another test. In other words, the odds of any two tests diagnosing the same student as having a comprehension deficit were less than half. Further analyses showed that it was not just a problem of consistency at the lower end of the scale; there was just as much inconsistency in identifying children performing in the highest 10th percentile.

The inconsistency in the results of the different measures of reading comprehension was likely due in part to the poor reliability of these measures, something that is not uncommon for diagnostic measures of reading comprehension. On the other hand, the measures also differed in their formats, so that could have contributed to the variability. One measure employed a cloze task in which children read passages and filled in missing words. In the others, children read either passages or single sentences and then answered open-ended or multiple-choice questions. These formats are known to place different demands on reading-related processes, such as word reading, language ability, and working memory. ²³ Thus, children with different strengths and weaknesses in these processes would be expected to perform differently on the measures.

The content of the passages/sentences may also have added to the variability of the measures. That is, children were likely to have varied in their knowledge about the topics covered, and that could have influenced their performance. Such variability may be present not only across tests but also across passages within a test. For example, in the Reading for Understanding project that my colleagues and I carried out, students read four different passages from an informal reading inventory and answered open-ended questions. We observed considerable variability within students from one passage to another. It was not uncommon for a student to get nearly all the questions correct on one passage and most wrong on another. Whereas there may be several reasons for this variability, differences in background knowledge is a likely contributor.

Because of the variability due to passages, state- and national-level tests of reading use numerous passages that cover multiple topics. But, of course, this introduces the problem of these tests favoring students who have more knowledge about a broad range of topics than those with less knowledge. This has led E. D. Hirsch Jr. to argue that reading tests are actually knowledge tests in disguise. ²⁴

The fact that state and national reading tests are knowledge heavy introduces a further problem: performance on these tests will likely be more difficult to change in the short term, since knowledge acquisition is incremental in nature. Indeed, as I stated at the outset, American children's performance on NAEP has remained virtually unchanged for some time. This has been in spite of significant federal, state, and local efforts. For example, in North Carolina, the percentage of students failing to reach proficiency on state reading tests has remained largely unchanged, hovering above 50 percent, since 2013-14, when the state passed its K-3 Read to Achieve literacy act. ²⁵

Maybe the problem is not only the instructional practices teachers have been encouraged to use but also the way we are assessing comprehension. An alternative approach would be to teach children using an integrated literacy and content-rich curriculum and to test their ability to read and comprehend passages covered in that curriculum. In other words, offer a better match between instruction and assessment. Don't just test the skills and strategies that have been taught; test the specific content-area topics that have been taught. Such an approach would be fairer and more equitable for all involved. Teachers would have a clear idea of what content within which to imbed their literacy instruction. Students would have the opportunity to learn from content-rich curricula and be assessed based on what they learned in school (instead of what they may or may not have learned at home, over the summer, etc.). Also, because instruction would be better matched with assessment, there would be a greater opportunity for schools and districts to evaluate the progress they are making.

One approach that has attempted to better match instruction with assessment is being carried out within the guidelines of the Every Student Succeeds Act assessment pilot program. ²⁶ This program encourages local involvement in the development of the next generation of assessments. It allows states, with approval by the US Department of Education, to pilot new and innovative assessments in lieu of current state exams. Initially, this takes place in a small number of districts before moving on to statewide implementation. As of October 2021, five states have received approval to develop these assessments. Most notable, Louisiana has begun a multiyear process to offer a humanities assessment as an alternative to its English language arts and social studies assessments. ²⁷ The new humanities assessment draws from texts and topics that are included in the state's recommended curriculum. ²⁸ Thus, the content of the test is likely to be well matched with the instruction students receive.

A very limited pilot of this new assessment, LEAP 2025 Humanities, began in the 2018-19 school year, and then implementation was interrupted by the pandemic, ²⁹ so it will likely be several more years before researchers can evaluate the impact of this new approach. Of course, designing an assessment that is in keeping with current research on literacy development is just the first step. The extent to which the assessment will help enhance instructional practices depends on many related components, including meaningful professional development on how to use the results to inform teaching; time (appropriately allocated and compensated) for teachers to learn collaboratively as they adjust to the new assessment; genuine opportunities for all teachers to have a voice in providing feedback on the curriculum and assessment; and lower stakes tied to the assessment results such that teachers are not afraid to be innovative. In fact, one of the findings of the Reading for Understanding Initiative was that "a major roadblock to teacher uptake of new practices is the accountability infrastructure of reform movements. The more test scores matter, the less the likelihood that teachers will adopt novel teaching practices." ³⁰

Still, I am especially encouraged by Louisiana's efforts and am hopeful that other states and districts will also consider how to better align what is tested with what is taught. It is these types of programs, combined with integrated literacy and content-rich curricula, that I believe can better address comprehension. These programs move beyond characterizing comprehension as simply one of the "Big Five" and recognize its complexity and what it will take to help all children understand and learn from what they read. I look forward to attending future conferences where the results of these programs are presented.
Hugh W. Catts is a professor in the Florida State University School of Communication Science and Disorders and is affiliated with the Florida Center for Reading Research. The author of dozens of peer-reviewed articles and editor of several books, Catts has been engaged in research on language and literacy development for over four decades. Much of his work focuses on early identification and prevention of language-based reading disabilities and on reading comprehension assessment and intervention.
*For articles by Hirsch, Willingham, and Wexler on the importance of building knowledge, see the "Reading" section of American Educator's subject index. ( return to article)

Endnotes

1. P. Pearson et al., eds., Reaping the Rewards of the Reading for Understanding Initiative (Washington, DC: National Academy of Education, 2020), naeducation.org/reaping-the-rewards-of-reading-for-understanding-initiative.
2. National Assessment of Educational Progress, "National Achievement-Level Results," Grade 4, Nation's Report Card, 2019, nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=4.
3. National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction (Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child and Human Development, 2000).
4. D. T. Willingham and G. Lovette, "Can Reading Comprehension Be Taught," Teachers College Record (September 2014).
5. C. Snow, Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002).
6. G. N. Cervetti and T. S. Wright, "The Role of Knowledge in Understanding and Learning from Text," in Handbook of Reading Research, ed. E. B. Moje et al. (Taylor and Francis Group, 2020).
7. R. Anderson, "Schema-Directed Processes in Language Comprehension," in Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, ed. A. Lesgold et al. (New York: Plenum, 1978).
8. J. Bransford and M. Johnson, "Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigation of Comprehension and Recall," Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11 (1972): 722.
9. For a review written by one of these pioneers, who in turn describes several others, see S. Neuman, "The Role of Knowledge in Early Literacy," Reading Research Quarterly 36, no. 4 (November 2011): 468-75.
10. B. Boulay et al., Summary of Research Generated by Striving Readers on the Effectiveness of Interventions for Struggling Adolescent Readers, NCEE-2016-4001 (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, October 2015).
11. For a paper that addresses many of the widespread misconceptions about critical thinking, see D. T. Willingham, "How to Teach Critical Thinking," commissioned paper, Education: Future Frontiers (May 2019).
12. Pearson et al., Reaping the Rewards.
13. R. K. Blank, "What Is the Impact of Decline in Science Instructional Time in Elementary School?: Time for Elementary Instruction Has Declined, and Less Time for Science Is Correlated with Lower Scores on NAEP," prepared for the Noyce Foundation, 2012.
14. See, for example, the Knowledge Matters Campaign, knowledgematterscampaign.org, and Curriculum Matters, curriculummatters.org.
15. C. McWayne et al., "Incorporating Knowledge from Children's Homes and Communities," Young Children 75, no. 5 (December 2020): 20-26.
16. J. Gustafson, "Robust Vocabulary Instruction: Bringing Knowledge-Rich Curricula to Life," Achieve the Core, September 30, 2019.
17. Z. Fang, "Scientific Literacy: A Systematic Functional Linguistics Perspective," Science Education 89, no. 2 (March 2005): 335-47.
18. Y. Zhang, "Supporting English Language Learners in Social Studies: Language-Focused Strategies," Social Studies 108 (2017): 2.
19. C. Shanahan and T. Shanahan, "Does Disciplinary Literacy Have a Place in Elementary School?," The Reading Teacher 67, no. 8 (2014): 636-39.
20. J. Kim et al., "Improving Reading Comprehension, Science Domain Knowledge, and Reading Engagement Through a First-Grade Content Literacy Intervention," Journal of Educational Psychology 113, no. 1 (2021): 3-26.
21. H. Hwang, S. Cabell, and R. Joyner, "Does Cultivating Content Knowledge During Literacy Instruction Support Vocabulary and Comprehension in the Elementary School Years?: A Systematic Review," Reading Psychology, manuscript under review.
22. J. Keenan and C. Meenan, "Test Differences in Diagnosing Reading Comprehension Deficits," Journal of Learning Disabilities 47, no. 2 (2014): 125-35.
23. J. Keenan, R. Betjemann, and R. Olson, "Reading Comprehension Tests Vary in the Skills They Assess: Differential Dependence on Decoding and Oral Language," Scientific Studies in Reading 12, no. 3 (2008): 281-300.
24. E. D. Hirsch Jr., Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
25. S. Koon, B. Foorman, and T. Galloway, "Identifying North Carolina Students at Risk of Scoring Below Proficient in Reading at the End of Grade 3," REL 2020-030 (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, August 2020).
26. Every Student Succeeds Act, Pub. L. No. 114-95 (2015).
27. For the state's documents on the assessment, see "LEAP 2025 Humanities," Assessments, Louisiana Department of Education, louisianabelieves.com/resources/library/assessment.
28. Louisiana Believes, "Louisiana's Innovative Assessment Pilot National Update," Louisiana Department of Education, August 15, 2019.
29. Louisiana Believes, "Parent Guide to the LEAP 2025 Humanities Student Reports," Louisiana Department of Education, louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/assessment/parent-guide-to-leap-2025-humanities.pdf; and N. Munyan-Penney and C. Barone, "Innovative Assessment Pilot: Louisiana's LEAP 2025 Humanities Assessment," Education Reform Now, November 2020, edreformnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Louisiana-IADA-LEAP-2025-Humanities.pdf.
30. Pearson et al., Reaping the Rewards, 5.

[Illustrations by Jessie Lin]

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Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension

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It is February 2015, and I am at a national conference listening to a panel present the results of their research on improving reading comprehension. Several members of the panel, like myself and a few others in the room, are funded by the Institute of Education Sciences as part of the Reading for Understanding Initiative.

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The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading

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The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading

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This Reading Research Quarterly article by Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright explains the history of the “science of reading” as an interdisciplinary body of research on reading development. It discusses the Simple View of Reading (SVR), Scarborough’s Reading Rope, as well as the co-authors’ new framework for thinking about skilled reading known as the Active View of Reading.

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What Can I Do With All These Predictable Books?

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What Can I Do With All These Predictable Books?

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This Reading Rockets post by teacher Margaret Goldberg helps provide guidance on how to use early leveled texts to support students particularly as early writers.

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Many teachers have already reorganized our leveled libraries because we learned that, according to Fountas and Pinnell, "levels have no place in classroom libraries." Sorting books into bins labeled by theme or topic is time-consuming, but it's not a difficult task. We immediately see that offering students more choice in their reading materials and teaching them to monitor their own reading for accuracy and comprehension is rewarding. However, books at the lower levels, "predictable books," pose a challenge that is not so easily solved.

Problems with predictable books

Predictable books are designed to teach children not to depend on decoding to tackle unfamiliar words - they are purpose-written to teach children to predict, or guess words - so what children do with low-level books is not actually reading. Some students climb up the levels by transitioning away from picture-cues and predictable sentences, but others hold tightly to the guessing strategies that are reinforced by predictable books, and time with these books actually slows their decoding progress. For beginning readers, decodable books provide a more reliable path towards authentic texts, and using them for phonics instruction and fluency practice offers a "helps all, harms none" approach to teaching reading. But what, then, should we do with all our predictable books?!

Rethinking the instructional purpose

To repurpose predictable books for activities other than reading, we need to look at them with fresh eyes and new criteria. More important than the level stamped on the back cover is the contents inside.

We can ask ourselves, What are the features of this individual book that make it a useful teaching tool? A single book may have more than one useful feature and it might be repurposed for any number of language development, writing, or art activities.

We've listed out some of the features you might look for in predictable books and have drafted example activities to help with lesson planning.

1. Re(write) the book

In the Level A book below, the pattern is I can see a [story word].

Using Post-it® tape, cover all words except for the story words. Covering the punctuation and extending the tape on the other side of the story word will allow for more flexibility in student-generated sentences.

Model the activity by thinking aloud about a sentence that describes the first page of the book. Have students repeat back the sentence you say. Using the tools available to students in the classroom (word wall, sound spelling-cards, etc.) have students "help" you write the sentence.

For subsequent pages, encourage students to be creative in their sentences so that they get the opportunity to apply a variety of high-frequency words and phonics to compose a book that is more interesting than the original.

As students develop more independence and confidence with the activity, rewriting books can become a Literacy Center or independent activity.

Post-it® tape is removable, so the same book can be used by multiple students. Different versions of the same book may make for a fun series in Author's Chair.

2. That's a different story

Depending on your students' writing abilities, you can invite them to dictate a story they infer from the pictures or they can rewrite the book themselves.

To begin the lesson, read the book aloud while showing the pictures. (Consider using a document camera to ensure all students can see.) At the end of the story, have students turn to a partner to talk about what happened in the story. Allow enough time for the partner discussion so that students feel compelled to elaborate.

Allow a few students to share their thinking with the whole class and, as they do, flip to the illustrations that correspond with what the volunteers share. Point out features of the illustrations that support what students say.

Explain that most of what students said about the book came from the illustrations because the words don't do very much to help the story. Tell students that the book deserves new words and that they are going to decide what the words will be.

For dictation, display the first illustration and ask students to turn and talk with a partner to tell what happened (or is happening) in the picture. Select one student to share with the class as you transcribe what they say. You can take the dictation on Post-it® notes directly in the book or write on chart-paper and invite students to help you sound out or write some of the words. Repeat this procedure for the remaining illustrations. Then, read the newly written story aloud to the class.

If your students are able to complete the writing independently, you can give them booklets to write in (with or without photocopied illustrations) or simply a sheet of lined paper. To scaffold the activity, you can display the first page of the book and model where in the booklet or on the sheet of paper students will write. The whole class can write one story, students can be encouraged to write their own versions, or a combination of both (some students writing independently, others engaging in guided writing) might be best to address the various writing abilities of your students. Depending on how much time is available after the activity, students can share what they wrote for one page or for their whole book.

3. What's that you said?

To introduce this activity, read the book aloud and allow students time to see each illustration. (Projecting the book with a doc cam works well for this.) Then, flip back to the first illustration and ask students to share what they notice about the picture.

Once a few volunteers have had time to share their observations, prompt students to think about what the characters might be saying or thinking. For example, you might say "Taco is saying ' Woof!,' but I wonder what the squirrel is saying."

As a volunteer shares an idea, record the thought inside a speech bubble drawn on a Post-it® note. Explain the function of a speech bubble - it lets the reader see the exact words a character is saying so they can imagine the conversation. Position the speech bubble on the picture and then reread the page.

For subsequent pages, invite students to share what they believe a character might be saying. You can have them dictate to you or they can make their own speech bubbles on Post-it® notes. You might even consider having them write directly in photocopies of books.

Depending on students' level of language development and experience with comic-style texts, you might use the opportunity to teach the difference between speech and thought bubbles and then incorporate thought bubbles into the activity.

4. Putting the parts (of speech) together

Multiple books on the same topic or with similar predictable patterns make good use of a GLAD Sentence Patterning chart because the same chart can be added to during a series of lessons.

Both books titled At the Park are Level A, but the language demands of the two texts are quite different. One book follows the pattern I can [simple verb], where the present tense verb is the story word. In the other book, the story words are gerunds (swinging, riding) that are part of verb phrases (am swinging, am riding) and the verb phrase is followed by the prepositional phrase "at the park."

Modeling how to add on to simple sentences can help students construct more precise sentences both orally and in their writing.

The first lesson

Using a GLAD sentence patterning chart, show students the parts of the sentences that remain the same from page to page (in At the Park the noun and subject of the sentence, I, is constant) and the parts that change from page to page (the verbs of At the Park change; swing, ride, kick).

Sentence patterning chart
Have students share ideas for how they can add to the simple sentences. For some books, it might make sense to add adjectives or adverbs. At the Park works well for exploring prepositional phrases ("with my dad", "on my bike" "off the play structure.")

Record students' ideas on the sentence patterning chart (see above) and/or use Post-it® notes to add directly to the book (see below).

Students can use the Sentence Patterning Chart to say, write, and draw fun new sentences. A student volunteer can use a Post-it® note in each column to flag the components of the chart that they would like to use and then speak their complete sentence aloud. For example, students might construct:
I jump with my dad.
I ride off the play structure.
I slide on my bike.
The subsequent lesson

Display another book on the same topic or with a similar grammatical structure. Have students share the similarities they see between the two books.

If the sentences in the second book are more complex than the first, point out and explain the differences. For example, in the second version of At the Park, the prepositional phrase ["at the park"] remains the same, but on each page there is a new gerund [swinging, riding, jumping]. Explain that the verbs have the ending -ing because they come after the word "am."

Provide the rationale for the grammatical structure, for example ,"In this book, the boy tells what he does at the park at the same time he is doing it."

Read the book aloud while adding the new words to the Sentence Patterning Chart. Students can then use any grammatical combination from the chart to say, write, and draw new sentences.
I am jumping with my dad.
I am hiding behind the tree.
I am sliding off the play structure.
The new sentences can be used to create a class book or each student might write their own to add to the classroom library.

5. Take two

Sentence combining works best with books that have paired sentences, usually two parallel sentences found on each spread or page.

In the Level A book Friends, the paired sentences are across each spread:

Orson has a big [story word]. Taco has a little [story word].

In the Level B book, Mom and Kayla, the paired sentences are on a single page:

Mom has a [story word]. Kayla has a [story word], too.

Determine the grammatical construction you'd like to teach to build upon your students' oral or written abilities.

Examples
Adding a conjunction to link the sentences

Simple: Orson has a big [story word] and Taco has a little [story word].

Complex: Both dogs have [plural story word], but Orson's is big and Taco's is little.

Replacing a repeated noun with a prop word

Orson has a big [story word] and Taco has a little one.
Adding pronouns to generalize

Simple: Both of them have [plural story word].

Complex: Both of them have [plural story word], but they are different sizes.

Write the sentence frame on a sentence strip or chart paper, but do not display it in the first steps of the lesson.

Begin the lesson

Show a page or spread from the predictable book. Point to and read a sentence pair aloud.
"Orson has a big collar." "Taco has a little collar."
Have students discuss what is the same and what is different about the two sentences. You might write down what students share.
For example: "Both sentences talk about dogs and their collars." "Both sentences say, '__ has a __.'" "One sentence is about the big dog and the other is about the little one."
Model by thinking aloud about how to combine the two sentences.

Write your combined sentence on the board and have students chorally recite the sentence with you, as you point to the words.

Discuss whether and how the combined sentence retains the meaning of the original sentences.

Display the sentence frame and have students read it chorally with you.

Show a new spread in the predictable book and invite a student to complete the sentence frame with the new story word(s).

Repeat this procedure until all students have had sufficient practice and can say or write a sentence with the grammatical construction you've taught.

6. A big improvement

Prepare the text prior to your lesson by writing the questions you will ask and the engagement strategies you will use on Post-it® notes, which you can place on the appropriate pages of the book.

White Post-it® tape can be used to cover over punctuation on pages later in the book or on student copies so that students have the opportunity to discuss marks that are "missing" on a page, and to add the feature(s) to the book with a pen. Or you can unveil the feature by peeling off the tape to reveal punctuation beneath.

During the lesson

Read the first page aloud to students and ask questions that will allow them to apply what they know about spoken language before they see the text.

For example, with the first page of ( Ant Can't, above) you could ask " What did the bird say? What did the ant say? How do you know? "

On the next page (below), you can draw students' attention to reviewing previously taught written conventions, by asking questions such as " What does bee ask? What endmark is used to show there's a question? "

Then you can extend the learning by pointing out the new convention you plan to teach: " How do we know Ant is talking? What punctuation is used around Ant's words? "

The remaining pages of the text can be used to reinforce the convention you'd like to see students' apply to their own writing.

For the last page or two of the predictable book, you may want to have students add the "missing" punctuation to the page by writing on the Post-it tape you placed prior to the lesson. Students can tell what is "missing" on the page and then you can have a volunteer pull off the Post-it® tape in a grand reveal.

To support application of the convention, you may want to give students a photocopy of a page or two of the book so each child can "write in the book" before they then look in their own written pieces for opportunities to apply the convention.

7. You can spell that again!

For this activity, the best texts to use have a single sentence per page and a pattern that includes recently taught high-frequency words.

Use small Post-it® notes, or cut larger ones down to size, so that the targeted words can be covered without obscuring the rest of the text.

The targeted words will be slightly visible, which will offer a scaffold for when students write the words.

Once they have been taught the procedure, students can complete each step of the lesson during Literacy Centers. A single student can do all the steps for a single book, or children at the center can rotate books after each step.
When you first introduce the activity, explain the routine by briefly modeling each of the steps:
1. Look carefully at each page. If you see one of your targeted words, say the word and cover it with a Post-it® note.

2. Optional: (Swap books with a classmate when you are both done covering your target words.)

3. You can peek under the Post-it® notes if you aren't sure about the word, but say the word and its letters as you write: " Look, L-o-o-k, Look." " My, m-y, my. "

After you have written all the targeted words in the book:
4. Optional: (Swap books with a classmate when you are both finished writing your target words.)

5. Pull off the Post-it® notes, reading each one aloud.

6. Optional: Organize the Post-it® notes to graph the high-frequency words and determine which word appeared most frequently.

8. Turn the page

Books that have a cumulative pattern work best for this activity because they provide many opportunities for repetition. For example, in the Level A book, Waking Up!, each page introduces a new farm animal and all previously introduced animals appear in the background.

To begin the activity, read the first page aloud, show the accompanying picture. You might seize the opportunity to have students share the word for the image in their home language. Then, introduce the targeted English vocabulary word. With the book Waking Up!, you might point to the picture, and have them repeat after you, " cow. "

Then, introduce a sentence frame and have the students finish the frame with the targeted vocabulary. For example, " Here is the cow. "

Then, show the next page of the book. Ask a question, such as " Where is the cow?" and invite a student to point to the picture and say the sentence they practiced aloud, " Here is the cow. "

Repeat the procedure for subsequent pages to ensure students are confident saying the sentence.

Then, flip back in the book to introduce the second vocabulary word on the first page it appears and introduce the word. You might use the same sentence frame, " Here is the pig." or, if students are ready, introduce a new frame, " Look at the pig."

Then, invite a student to repeat the new sentence while pointing to the page.

Prompt for the previous sentence by asking a question like, " Where is the cow? "

As you share the rest of the book, you can alternate your prompts - " Where is the cow?" " Do you see a pig? " - and add in new vocabulary and sentence frames to ensure students respond in complete sentences and extend their language as they are ready.

9. Picture this!

Low-level books (A-D) that are focused on themes your class is already studying, may work well for this activity because the pictures tend to be easy to identify.

With younger students learning about modes of transportation, you might select topic-related words less likely to be in students' spoken vocabulary, such as trolley or snowmobile. With older students studying a similar topic, you might also look for opportunities to teach morphology using words students can read, such as unicycle, bicycle, and tricycle, which include the meaningful word parts uni-, bi-, tri-, and cycle.

Depending on your students' language skills, you might provide sentence frames to have them describe the targeted vocabulary words or have them use the picture and their knowledge of the object to co-construct a definition. For example, " A bicycle has two wheels and you peddle to make the bike move. "

10. A (labeled) picture is worth a thousand words

Students can practice their fine motor skills while cutting out pictures and words from the books. Once they have cut out the items they want for their collage, you or a volunteer can check to ensure that the work has been done carefully.

Then, students can be given glue sticks and blank paper to finish their collages.

When students have finished their pieces, you might invite them to talk about their creations in an "Artist's Chair" or with partners. Discussing labelled collages offers an opportunity to use academic sentence frames such as:

" The theme I chose is ___. "

" I selected __ because __. "

" Something I appreciate about your work is __. "

Onward and upward!

Predictable books are not the best tool for teaching students how to read, but they can be put to good use in class discussions, ELD or writing lessons, literacy centers, and art. The activities we've shared are just a starting place and we'd love to hear what other ideas you have for using predictable books.

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What Can I Do With All These Predictable Books? | Reading Rockets

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Many teachers have already reorganized our leveled libraries because we learned that, according to Fountas and Pinnell, "levels have no place in classroom libraries." Sorting books into bins labeled by theme or topic is time-consuming, but it's not a difficult task.

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#4 (Feb 13) Podcast episode on Growing Up with Dyslexia

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#4 (Feb 13) Podcast episode on Growing Up with Dyslexia

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Learn about the educational journey of a tenth grader who describes what it's been like to have dyslexia and the paths his education has taken.

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In this episode, we join Susan Lambert as she talks to 10th grader Hadyn Fleming about his experiences growing up with dyslexia. Hadyn shares his story of moving around a lot and what it took in his educational journey to feel like he had the tools and resources to be successful. Hadyn openly discusses the experiences that made a difference in his life and candidly discloses what it really feels like to have dyslexia. He also shares the way that dyslexia impacts all facets of education and, conversely, how becoming a confident reader gave him increased confidence in other areas of his life. Lastly, Hadyn helps debunk dyslexia myths, and talks about how an educator's belief in their students' potential is essential to student success.

"Give us the opportunity to be great and we will not disappoint you." -Hadyn Fleming

Show Notes:
Rocky Mountain Camp for Kids with Dyslexia https://www.verticalskillsacademy.org/

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S4-E12: A conversation on growing up with dyslexia with 10th grader Hadyn Fleming - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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In this episode, we join Susan Lambert as she talks to 10th grader Hadyn Fleming about his experiences growing up with dyslexia. Hadyn shares his story of moving around a lot and what it took in his educational journey to feel like he had the tool...

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In this passionate interview, Kareen Weaver tells some hard truths the literacy community needs to confront.

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In this episode, Susan Lambert sits down with Kareem Weaver to discuss change management for educators implementing the Science of Reading. Kareem Weaver is a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and a leader of the organization Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate (FULCRUM). He was also an award-winning teacher and administrator in Oakland, California, and Columbia, South Carolina. Kareem discusses what the Science of Reading is at the simplest level and why it's important that educators are undivided in backing the research. He goes on to give an impassioned plea to educators to come together, because this is an issue that impacts all kids. Kareem also highlights the importance of meeting educators where they are and realizing that change cannot happen if teachers aren't given the tools and support they need first. Lastly, Kareem calls for systemic changes to education so that teachers can do their jobs in a way that is balanced, sustainable, and ultimately benefits the students.

"In order to save our kids and to get them competitive in the information age, they have to be able to access information. And so we've got to focus on literacy." -Kareem Weaver
Show Notes:
FULCRUM:Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate

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S4-E14: What it takes to be a literacy education changemaker: Kareem Weaver - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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In this episode, Susan Lambert sits down with Kareem Weaver to discuss change management for educators implementing the Science of Reading. Kareem Weaver is a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and a leader of the organization Full an...

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The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading

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The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading

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This Reading Research Quarterly article is written by the researchers Hoover and Tunmer in response to the Duke and Cartwright article above.

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The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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This article from The Reading Teacher by esteemed reading researchers Drs. Nell Duke, Alessandra Ward, and David Pearson explains clearly what we know works according to research when it comes to comprehension and can serve as a helpful anchor text for rethinking instruction.

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SoR Podcast: Deconstructing Rope/ Background Knowledge with Susan Neuman

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SoR Podcast: Deconstructing Rope/ Background Knowledge with Susan Neuman

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This podcast from Amplify helps deconstruct Scarborough’s Reading Rope with particular attention to language comprehension development and the role of background knowledge and vocabulary.

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S3-06. Deconstructing the Rope: Background knowledge with Susan Neuman

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Amplify Education - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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S3-06. Deconstructing the Rope: Background knowledge with Susan Neuman

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#1 (Feb 13) They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction “In the Dark”, But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training

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#1 (Feb 13) They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction “In the Dark”, But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training

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Phonemic awareness was a hot hot topic this year. This paper by leading reading researchers discusses the most recent research on phonemic awareness and what we know about linking sounds to print.

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Clemens, N., Solari, E., Kearns, D. M., Fien, H., Nelson, N. J., Stelega, M., ... Hoeft, F. (2021, December 14). They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction "In the Dark", But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ajxbv

Clemens, Nathan, et al. "They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction

Clemens, Nathan, Emily Solari, Devin M. Kearns, Hank Fien, Nancy J. Nelson, Melissa Stelega, Matthew Burns, et al. 2021. "They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction "in the Dark", but Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training" PsyArXiv. December 14. doi:10.31234/osf.io/ajxbv.
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They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction "In the Dark", But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training

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A trend has emerged across schools in the United States in which phonemic awareness is viewed as much more than a component of beginning reading instruction. This perspective argues that "phonemic proficiency", evidenced by mastery with advanced tasks such as phoneme elision or substitution, is an important target for assessment and instruction well beyond initial grades.

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Jen Serravallo in Conversation with Wiley Blevins on the Heinemann Podcast

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Jen Serravallo in Conversation with Wiley Blevins on the Heinemann Podcast

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This important conversation is far reaching and discusses early literacy instruction, the role of phonics instruction, the need for aligned-texts, and the pitfalls of all-or-nothing thinking.

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Today on the podcast we have a special conversation about the complex nature of education, reading and phonics instruction, and the pitfalls of all-or-nothing thinking.

Jennifer Serravallo is a renowned literacy consultant and the author of New York Times' bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as well as The Writing Strategies Book; Teaching Reading in Small Groups; Teaching Writing in Small Groups, and Connecting with Students Online, among others.

Jen is joined by Wiley Blevins, an early reading specialist and author with experience teaching elementary school in both the United States and South America. He was Director of Special Projects for Scholastic in New York City, and has written several books on phonics and reading.

Jen and Wiley started their conversation by sharing their observations on the current state of teaching and education.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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jennifer serravallo in conversation with wiley blevins

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‎Heinemann Podcast: Jennifer Serravallo in Conversation with Wiley Blevins on Apple Podcasts

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Today on the podcast we have a special conversation about the complex nature of education, reading and phonics instruction, and the pitfalls of all-or-nothing thinking. Jennifer Serravallo is a renowned literacy consultant and the author of New York Times' bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as...

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In this post by Dr. Tim Shanahan, he discusses his thinking, as well as Dr. David Kilpatrick’s and Dr. Linnea Ehri’s thinking, about phonemic awareness, specifically advanced phonemic awareness and the preferred term phonemic proficiency.

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Using Inquiry-Rich Invitations to Ignite Word Learning Across ALL Grades

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Using Inquiry-Rich Invitations to Ignite Word Learning Across ALL Grades

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How do we create a sense of discovery and wonder about language? Consider how this blog post helps us consider how can we balance direct, explicit, sequential, and evidence-based instruction with inquiry?

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Looking to counteract the current level of stress in the classroom? Wondering about ways to reinvigorate spelling and vocabulary learning? Try extending an invitation... specifically, an invitation for students to actively explore and investigate words! Teachers can use open-ended questions to invite students to discover more about featured sounds, letters, patterns, parts, and words! The playfulness inherent in student-directed exploration acts as " learning mise en place," setting the conditions for word learning that sticks. These joyful opportunities are not only beneficial for young word learners. Playful, exploratory learning makes sense and matters for humans of all ages! Through this stance, teachers are able to use inquiry-rich invitations to:

These practices are substantiated by researchers and practitioners. Zaretta Hammond's work teaches that the brain craves and needs students to be active constructors of learning. Peter Gray's researched insights highlight the vast cognitive and socio-emotional benefits of play. Ellin Keene's work aroundengagement echoes the importance of open-ended and student-initiated learning experiences. Kristi Mraz and Stephanie Parsons remind us of how we open access when we build the structure and framework for learning through discovery.

What follows are actionable ideas for infusing inquiry-rich invitations into word study. Each creates opportunities for students to feel invested in learning more about sounds, letters, patterns, parts, and words themselves!
Emerging Word Learners
Emerging word learners are often found in preschools and primary-grade classrooms. They are naturally curious and need little encouragement to wonder and explore. Creating inquiry-rich invitations for these learners usually involves curating open-ended materials (loose parts) and providing opportunities to manipulate, tinker, contemplate, and create. Common examples of open-ended materials include readily-available resources found outside: sticks, pebbles, acorns, and shells. Additionally, other "loose part" options can be found in most early childhood and elementary classrooms: beads, buttons, counters, blocks, and more. For certain word-themed invitations, teachers might also set out images, letter manipulatives, word cards, etc. Prompts and questions (like those listed below) invite students to contemplate ideas and construct learning by purposefully and creatively using the materials that have been set out. Follow-up instruction and feedback then builds upon and enhances all that was initially learned. Balancing opportunities for discovery with explicit teaching results in deeper and more nuanced understanding.
Sample Invitations:
These inquiry-fueled questions encourage learners to explore sounds, letters, names, and resource tools.

What do you notice about the sounds you hear?

What can you discover about these letters?

What can you make with these letters?

How could you sort these... (letters, sounds, words)?

What's the same? What's different? (letters, sounds, words)

When do we see these words? Where could we use them?

Why, how, and when would these tools be useful?

In this classroom, content-aligned Reggio-styled provocations are set out to spark discovery. Students are welcome to explore materials independently or with peers.
Tip: There's no need to purchase anything new. Utilize and repurpose readily available loose parts and/or natural materials. These are perfect for word-themed invitations. This Reggio Routines mini-chart (Koutrakos, 2019) is a student-facing tool that can be shared after introducing this kind of learning to students.
Developing Word Learners
Very often, students in mid and upper elementary grades are actively developing their word knowledge. Since student-initiated discovery builds interest, motivation, and investment, it makes sense that teachers in these settings would also incorporate inquiry-rich invitations into word study. For example, instead of handing students a list of vocabulary words or directing them to look up definitions, students can instead jumpstart meaningful learning by investigating words/word parts and then sharing their findings with classmates. In as little as ten to fifteen minutes, students can explore sounds, recognize patterns, and begin to develop theories. Additionally, these efficient experiences offer the chance to delve into multiple meanings of words, synonyms, antonyms, cognates, and more. In the days that follow, teachers can then capitalize on this momentum by following-up with explicit instruction, guidance, and opportunities for additional practice.
Sample Invitations:
These thought-provoking prompts intend to help students actively investigate prioritized vocabulary, words, spelling patterns, and processes for learning:

How will you explore these (letters, patterns, parts, words)?

What similarities and differences do you see? What could this mean?

What theories can you create (and support) about the letters, sounds, and parts of these words?

What words "go" with this topic? How are they connected? Which are most important?

Are there any more interesting and precise words with very similar meanings? Which words have very different meanings?

How could these discoveries help you as you read? Write?

How could you share what you discovered?

This remote-classroom artifact was created as part of a mini-inquiry that intended to jumpstart initial ideas around inflected endings. First, students had the opportunity to explore ideas and share knowledge. Then, the teacher guided the class as they delved further into learning about these affixes.
Tip: Strategically design prompts: ideally, these invitations are flexible enough to be used - and reused- with a variety of patterns and words. Open-ended questions (like those listed above) encourage students to investigate and discover more about words and word parts. Over time, these often become "habit of mind" questions students ask themselves. These two mini-charts: Sort It! Alike or Different and Question Craze (Koutrakos, 2019) are student-facing tools that can be shared after an introductory lesson on mini-inquiries. They remind students of their role in activating their own learning and supporting peers' understandings.
Extending Word Learners
Although time is always a consideration, perhaps the creative use of each minute is most essential when working with middle schoolers and high schoolers. When teachers have one period to integrate all aspects of literacy, high-impact efficiency matters! Content area teachers are also often looking for ways to support understanding and use of domain-specific vocabulary. Authentically embedding word work into all that's already being done is an effective solution. One example of how to do this is turning "regular" learning stations into conver-stations. For example, in many classrooms, teachers set up different learning experiences, AKA-stations. As students rotate from station to station, small groups actively investigate content area topics by viewing, listening, reading, writing, discussing, building, problem-solving, or creating. With minimal effort, teachers can easily turn these "regular" stations into conver-stations. By doing so, students have repeated and authentic opportunities to infuse domain-specific lingo as they discuss prioritized content- and related wonders, ideas, and takeaways. As an alternative, one station may also simply be presenting an inquiry-rich invitation with some accompanying words to investigate. Less is more: embedding joyful opportunities to explore words never needs to be an extra or add on!

HELPFUL HINT: If the station-rotation model of learning is new for you, check out Dr. Catlin Tucker's work. Her researched suggestions are incredibly smart and especially helpful during times of remote, hybrid, and blended learning.
Sample Invitations:
Extending word learners also benefit from delving into word-themed inquiries. Often, these center around affixes, roots, tone, mood, and content-area vocabulary.

How many ways could you strategically sort and categorize these... (patterns, affixes, parts, words)?

What theories can you create about the patterns and parts within these words? How might you clarify, substantiate, or extend these theories?

What other "related" words can you discover? How are they connected? What similarities and differences do you notice?

Where and when will you use what you discovered?

What feelings did you get as you read this piece? What words helped to create that feeling?

What words are closely connected to this topic? What words keep coming up in your conversation/reading/writing? Why?

How do you want your reader to react? How could you create this tone? What words will you choose?

How could your discoveries contribute to the learning of your classmates?

"Which One Doesn't Belong" is a playful critical thinking routine where students choose which option they believe does not fit - and explain why. It's important to note that each option represents a correct answer because there are reasons why each could be the outlier. This reading-themed "Which One Doesn't Belong" conver-station was used to help students collaboratively explore different genres and formats of texts... and the academic language aligned to each. A Final Note
Tip: Use ongoing, embedded collaborative inquiry to build community and collective capacity. This Talkin The Talk mini-chart (Koutrakos, 2019) provides a basic understanding of what students do at conver-stations. This Show Off mini-chart (Koutrakos, 2019) is a student-facing tool that can be shared with students after introducing different ways for classmates to teach others what they have learned.

Student-driven discovery changes the tone of a classroom. The engagement, excitement, and investment that result from this kind of word play are hard to replicate. Gained insights are vital contributors to overall success. However, please know that these inquiry-rich invitations don't stand on their own. Teachers also need to strategically nurture, nudge, and deepen initial discoveries. This happens through modeling, direct instruction, and loads of along-the-way feedback. It is the combination of discovery, explicit teaching, and guided learning that yield a deep understanding of the why, what, and how of words and the know-how in how to apply and transfer word knowledge. A commitment to shared ownership recognizes that all members of a class community have the right and responsibility to contribute to collective learning.

Celebrate the synergy and spirit created through inquiry-rich, collaborative classroom experiences. Widen your lens and reimagine the possibilities for word study. When teachers highlight joy and center students as activators of learning, they simultaneously bolster understanding and create more long lasting success.

Pam Koutrakos is an educational consultant with Gravity Goldberg, LLC where she works with students, teachers, and administrators PreK- grade 12. She authored Word Study That Sticks: Best Practices K-6 and The Word Study That Sticks Companion: Classroom-Ready Tools for Teachers and Students, K-6. Both include ideas, lessons, resources, and tools for teachers of all subjects. Her third professional text is slated to be released in the coming months. Connect with Pam on Twitter @PamKou and on LinkedIn.

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Using Inquiry-Rich Invitations to Ignite Word Learning Across ALL Grades

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By Pam Koutrakos Looking to counteract the current level of stress in the classroom? Wondering about ways to reinvigorate spelling and vocabulary learning? Try extending an invitation... specifically, an invitation for students to actively explore and investigate words! Teachers can use open-ended questions to invite students to discover more about featured sounds, letters, patterns, parts,...

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Dyslexia: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of diagnosis and treatment

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Dyslexia: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of diagnosis and treatment

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Dr. Hugh Catts and Dr. Tiffany Hogan argue for the early identification of children at risk for dyslexia and the provision of instruction/intervention that is matched to their needs.

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Dyslexia: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of diagnosis and treatment

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Dyslexia is a significant developmental disorder that is associated with a host of negative consequences. Most states in the US have recently passed legislation requiring the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia in school settings. Whereas this legislation brings needed attention to children with dyslexia, diagnosis and treatment are often delayed until several years after school entry.

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Podcast episode with Dr. Nadine Gaab on Dyslexia and Developmental Trajectories

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Podcast episode with Dr. Nadine Gaab on Dyslexia and Developmental Trajectories

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Adding nuance and complexity to the discussion of dyslexia, Dr. Gaab emphasizes the ways educators can ensure that all students experience the joy of learning to read.

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In this episode, Susan Lambert joins Dr. Nadine Gaab to discuss dyslexia and the developmental progression of the brain and behavior of students as they learn to read. Dr. Gaab, an Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focuses on both typical and atypical learning trajectories from infancy to adulthood, with a special emphasis on language and reading development and the role of the environment in shaping these trajectories. In this episode, Dr. Gaab provides further insight into these developmental trajectories as they relate to early intervention for at-risk students. She differentiates between early diagnosis of dyslexia versus early identification of at-risk students. Adding nuance and complexity to the discussion of dyslexia, Dr. Gaab emphasizes the ways educators can ensure that all students experience the joy of learning to read.

"We want to make sure that we find everyone who is struggling with learning to read and make sure that everyone gets to experience the joy of learning to read." -Dr. Nadine Gaab
Show Notes: National Center for Improving Literacy Video - Tracing the Roots of Language and Literacy How the brain learns to read by Nadine Gaab

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S4-E9: Dyslexia and developmental trajectories: Dr. Nadine Gaab - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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In this episode, Susan Lambert joins Dr. Nadine Gaab to discuss dyslexia and the developmental progression of the brain and behavior of students as they learn to read. Dr. Gaab, an Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of...

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Common Misconceptions about the Phonological Deficit Theory of Dyslexia

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Common Misconceptions about the Phonological Deficit Theory of Dyslexia

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A highly technical paper but an important one for what we know about phonological processing and dyslexia (it’s more than phonemic awareness).

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1. The Phonological Deficit Hypothesis of Dyslexia: A Scientific Success Story

The Phonological Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) of dyslexia, in many ways, is a model of true scientific progress. This success story began over half of century ago at Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut, where unplanned and unanticipated discoveries about the nature of the speech code [ 1] lead to a new appreciation of the complexities of "extracting" phonemes from the speech stream [ 2] and the far-reaching implications of these insights with regard to the challenges of learning to read a writing system based on phonemic units [ 3, 4, 5]. This was by no means the first time that a child's difficulty with what today is called "phonological awareness" was mooted by educators and psychologists as a cause of reading problems and dyslexia. Well before the Haskins breakthroughs, many educators had speculated, albeit in rather vague intuitive ways, about the role of "auditory discrimination" or "sound analysis" in learning to read and dyslexia, but lacking the firm theoretical foundation that the Haskins group provided, this issue was poorly understood and often confused with auditory-perceptual acuity.

Alongside the breakthroughs in phonological awareness, a steady accumulation of convergent findings pointed to subtle sub-clinical abnormalities in preliterate spoken language among dyslexics. These signs, also noted decades earlier by physicians and clinicians such as Samuel Orton [ 6], were later formalized as the diagnostic and research tools widely known today as confrontation (picture) naming, word-finding, short-term phonological memory (e.g., digit span), pseudoword repetition, pseudoname learning, speech perception and production, as well as Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) (although opinion is still divided as to what extent RAN can be considered "phonological", see, e.g., [ 7, 8]). Together with phonological awareness, this phonological ensemble was collectively labeled "phonological processing" [ 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] and the new Phonological Deficit Hypothesis of Dyslexia was born, rapidly displacing earlier perceptual and sensorimotor hypotheses of dyslexia and, moreover, spawning a new generation of interventions that proved effective tools for educators and clinicians. The torrent of converging research findings came to the boil in the final decade of the twentieth century with numerous independent reviews and meta-analyses of the research literature (see, e.g., [ 4, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19]), spilling over into the early years of the 21st century ([ 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27]; and countless other papers).

Today, the PDH remains the status quo to the extent that no behavioral or brain-imaging investigation of dyslexia can afford to neglect the assessment of phonological skills in either the definition or validation of their dyslexic sample. Yet, despite the remarkably broad consensus about phonology, there remain loose ends to be tied up to which I return in my concluding remarks.

As is so often the case with any successful scientific theory that has been popularized well beyond the bounds of the research community, there are inevitable misunderstandings and misconceptions that have gained currency over the years. My purpose here is to address and hopefully dispel some of these misconceptions about the phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia.

The phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia (PDH) is just about deficits in phonemic awareness (PA) and, consequently, is merely a circular "pseudo-explanation" or epiphenomenon of reading difficulties.

There are actually two misconceptions here. First, the PDH is not just about phonemic awareness (PA): PA is only the tip of the phonological iceberg. Second, even if we consider only the PA deficits among dyslexics, such deficits are not a circular pseudo-explanation or epiphenomenon of their reading difficulties any more than other levels of explanation such as genes, neurobiology, or poor teaching.

I begin with the most common misunderstanding about the PDH-that the PDH refers solely to deficits in PA.

Deficits in PA are only the tip of the phonological iceberg, and like other reading-specific subskills such as pseudoword reading and letter knowledge, is a genuine (proximal) explanation of poor (word) reading.

Phonology is far more than just phonemic awareness. (Throughout this paper, I refer only to phonemic awareness rather than the more general topic of "phonological awareness", which typically covers a broader array of phonological units from single phonemes, through multi-phonemic sub-syllabic units such as rimes and bodies, to whole syllables. This is because almost all of the research literature focuses on the awareness of phonemes rather than other "larger" units. Furthermore, the role of larger supra-phonemic units remains controversial, especially when the question of dyslexia in languages other than English arises.) Like other reading-specific subskills such as letter knowledge and pseudoword naming, PA is often the product of "deeper" spoken-language phonological weaknesses that predate literacy acquisition [ 28] and, indeed, go right back to birth [ 29, 30, 31]. Ever since the dawn of the dyslexia concept, physicians and clinicians have noted subtle sub-clinical "signs" of spoken-language abnormalities primarily (but not exclusively) in speech processing among dyslexics (e.g., [ 6]). These signs are not obvious because dyslexics are, to a large extent, competent speakers of their native tongue. However, because phonology is so crucial for learning to read, as I elaborate below, they only become "visible" in literate societies. (This is one reason why some have claimed that dyslexia is a modern "invention"-a myth designed to blame the child for poor teaching.) The classic dyslexic signs include word-finding and word-retrieval problems, difficulties recalling addresses, telephone numbers, the days of the week or months of the year, foreign names and places, early speech production and later articulation difficulties especially with phonologically challenging material such as tongue-twisters. All of these tasks are especially taxing for phonological processing (input and output) because relatively abstract verbal labels have little or no inherently meaningful referent to help compensate, and, on occasion, circumvent the phonological weaknesses. Ironically, many of these everyday "tasks" are all modern literate inventions, and would not have "exposed" a dyslexic profile in a pre-literate world. Few would have noticed such subtle weaknesses in oral language except perhaps when memorizing and reciting prayers or scriptures, especially in sacred and unspoken languages such as Latin, Sanskrit or Arabic.

Once we take into account the full spoken-language and written-language phonological picture, and not merely a short-sighted, truncated PA-only view of the PDH, the notion that the PDH is merely a circular explanation of reading disability/dyslexia can be dismissed: We have another more "distal" non-reading and pre-reading yet phonological "level" of explanation. (Coltheart and Jackson [ 32] proposed a very useful distinction between "proximal" and "distal" causes of reading difficulty, "... in considering the causes of reading difficulty it is essential to distinguish between proximal cause (some abnormality in the information-processing system that the child is using to read) and distal cause (the reason for this system being abnormal). The same proximal cause (e.g. poor phonic knowledge) can be the product of different distal causes in different children (e.g. the distal cause might be constitutional, environmental, or educational)." P. 1. I adopt the proximal-distal terminology but avoid the deterministic term "cause" preferring more probabilistic terms such as "precursors" (or risk factors) which are more consistent with the current research consensus.)

Returning to the tip of the iceberg analogy, it is clear that once we look below the surface (i.e., beyond PA) we see that, this ensemble of phonological deficits are true precursors or antecedents of reading disability/dyslexia in both a temporal and logical sense.

1.1. Why the PA-Only Shortsightedness?

There appear to be several reasons why the spoken-language roots of phonology are so often ignored when discussing the PDH. First, phonemic awareness has monopolized the attention of most psychologists, educators, and neuroscientists for multiple reasons. (1) The correlations between PA and tests of word reading are typically among the strongest (e.g., [ 33]), (2) PA is readily teachable, and (3) experimental training studies (e.g., [ 20, 34, 35]); have demonstrated a powerful influence of PA on early reading progress (at least in reading accuracy). In contrast, attempts to "remediate" other aspects of spoken-language phonological weaknesses have not met with much success and consequently have little to offer the educator or clinician. As a result, PA has received immense publicity in reading education circles and even in public debate on the teaching of reading, especially in the US and the UK [ 21, 36].

Yet, another reason why dyslexia researchers have been preoccupied with PA and ignored other aspects of phonology may be the growing popularity of the Double Deficit Hypothesis of dyslexia [ 37], which has also (unwittingly) helped promote the view that phonological deficits are just about PA, and that rapid serial naming (RAN), which has traditionally been classified under the rubric of phonological processing [ 9, 10, 13], represents a separate, additional, and unique source of difficulty among dyslexics.

However, even when spoken-language phonological deficits are overlooked, there is nothing circular about PA in and of itself as a true proximal explanation of dyslexia, provided we are careful to distinguish between reading proper and the mechanisms or subskills necessary for reading to develop.

Even though phonemic awareness, like letter knowledge and pseudoword naming, is an essential component subskill of an efficient reading system and hence reading-specific, this does not mean that PA is a circular explanation or epiphenomenon of reading difficulties. However, I first wish to emphasize that phonemic awareness is not an emergent linguistic capability.

The evidence is clear that awareness of phonemes develops only in the context of the development of alphabetic literacy and does not appear to be an integral part of humans' biological preparedness for rapid, early, universal, and seemingly spontaneous spoken language acquisition. In the words of Bowey [ 38], phonemic awareness is "inextricably linked" to learning to read an alphabetic orthography (p. 168). Additionally, unlike spoken language competencies, reading is a skill that requires a conscious investment of time and effort, explicit instruction and a great deal (years) of practice. Moreover, as an integral component of alphabetic literacy learning, phonemic awareness is closely tied to the particular orthography being learned, the fidelity of the spelling-sound mappings, the timing of alphabetic and only alphabetic reading instruction and even the type of instruction (see Share, [ 39], pp. 596-599, for more detailed discussion). Children who are taught to read whole syllables but not explicitly taught the phonemic principle (that letters or the quasi-syllabic aksharas in Indic scripts) map phonemes do not spontaneously develop awareness of phonemes [ 40, 41, 42]. Like learning to read (English) which Gough famously dubbed "unnatural" [ 43], see also [ 3], becoming aware of the constituent phonemes in spoken words does not come "naturally". The available evidence therefore, converges on the conclusion that phonemic awareness is not a universal and emergent linguistic capability [ 10, 39] but is best categorized as a reading subskill.

If phonemic awareness is reading-specific, then a truncated PA-only version of the PDH that equates to deficits in phonemic awareness alone begins to look like a circular explanation (pseudo-explanation) of reading difficulties. This is incorrect not only for the reason discussed above (PA is just the tip of the iceberg) but for another equally compelling reason.

Reading disability/dyslexia cannot be defined on the basis of either PA, pseudoword naming or any other reading subskill.

On both sides of the Atlantic, current definitions of dyslexia unambiguously specify reading, that is, the reading of (typically isolated) words.

"Dyslexia is evident when accurate and fluent word reading and/or spelling develops very incompletely or with great difficulty",

(British Psychological Society [ 44])

"Inaccurate or slow and effortful word reading (e.g., reads single words aloud incorrectly or slowly and hesitantly, frequently guesses words, has difficulty sounding out words".

In Europe, too, benchmark measures of reading ability (and disability/dyslexia) (e.g., the Alouette Test in French [ 46], or the Een Minuut (One Minute) Test in Dutch [ 47]) all typically employ real words and real words alone. Researchers must not lose sight of the purpose of reading, which is accessing meaning-at the level of single words, phrases, sentences, and text-because reading is a purposeful socio-cultural practice, and in today's literate societies the ultimate goal, indeed the very raison-être of compulsory schooling, is becoming literate (and numerate), namely, understanding, learning from, reflecting on, producing and enjoying written language. (Historically, this was not always the case [ 48].) Some educators would even argue that reading isolated (real) words is already one step removed from "real" reading which is "connected text", but a few moments spent in a supermarket, a pharmacy, on the road, or on the internet shows that reading in the "real world" includes many single words too.

This means that benchmark tests for defining reading skill and reading disability/dyslexia cannot be based on pseudoword naming or PA and can only be based on real words, real sentences and real texts. If a child presents difficulties on such benchmark measures, then it makes sense to dig "deeper" to uncover the reasons. No competent reading specialist or diagnostician these days would neglect to assess pseudoword reading or PA, but in the classroom the purpose of teaching children to read (and write) is not fast and accurate pseudoword naming or phonemic segmentation. (Of course, the question of assessing pre-school "readiness" for reading is different and here it behooves educators to assess letter knowledge and PA-the two key co-determinants [ 38] or co-requisites [ 10] of early reading.)

PA, like other reading subskills such as phonological recoding (decoding) and letter knowledge are co-requisites [ 10] or co-determinants [ 38] of reading development, but are not reading per se in the sense of purposeful socio-cultural practice. Of course, just knowing that a child has poor PA or pseudoword naming says nothing about the "distal" source of this proximal obstacle to reading. If, following Coltheart and Jackson [ 32], we make a clear distinction between reading per se and the requisite "mechanisms" or sub-skills of reading, then we can say that poor phonological recoding (decoding) skills (manifest in poor pseudoword naming) or poor phonological awareness are "true" proximal explanations of poor (word) reading. (Half a century ago, prior to the ascendance of the PDH, the "proximal" causes of poor word reading were sought elsewhere in perceptual processing such as letter discrimination and visual processing (e.g., [ 49, 50]). If, however, we conflate the goal and the means to achieve this goal then, and only then, do we risk accusations of circularity and pseudo-explanations of reading failure.

Needless to say, neither poor PA nor slow and/or inaccurate word reading or pseudoword reading can distinguish between biologically based reading difficulties (i.e., classic IQ-discrepancy defined dyslexia) and cases of reading difficulty stemming from non-biological environmental and/or instructional factors. Distinguishing between what some researchers like to call "hard-core" or "true" dyslexia as opposed to non-dyslexic poor readers was the logic of the Response to Intervention approach (RTI) pioneered by Vellutino and colleagues [ 51] that has now become the norm in the US. If a child who has not had an adequate opportunity to learn to read (poverty, adverse home circumstances, inadequate or insufficient instruction, etc.) is given good evidence-based instruction (either in whole-class settings, or, failing that, in more intensive, small-group instruction), and still fails, then we can conclude that the source of the difficulty is probably an intrinsic neurobiologically based dysfunction ("constitutional") that calls for more intensive one-on-one daily instruction with a specialist.

In summary, there is nothing circular or trivial about poor PA "explaining" dyslexia (at the proximal behavioral level of analysis). On the contrary, this has been one of the success stories of modern reading science.

Where are the studies on phonology today? There aren't any because we don't need to re-invent the phonology wheel. Today's research establishment has accepted, indeed institutionalized the role of phonology in reading. Researchers today are addressing at new beyond-phonology questions searching for the roots of the phonological deficit-at the neurobiological level-looking for additional non-phonological sources of difficulty, and looking at other languages and writing systems, but no self-respecting journal today would consider publishing a study reporting deficits among dyslexics in pseudoword reading or PA (at least not in English), because there is nothing new or disputed here. Science concerns itself with tackling unresolved questions with the goal of creating new knowledge or refining existing knowledge. Journals are not interested in publishing "old news".

Summing up, the role of phonology is reading and dyslexia is almost universally taken for granted today, perhaps almost trivially obvious, but what today seems obvious (like many successful advances in science that topple the old status quo and become well-established "facts"), was the product of decades of empirical and theoretical work that had to prove itself against a very different status quo.

Why phonology is necessarily a major source of variability in reading ability and hence a core deficit (or at least one core deficit) among struggling readers whether dyslexic or non-dyslexic.

Phonology is an inescapable feature of writing system architecture. No writing system can function effectively without it. Every writing system incorporates both symbols that represent the sounds of a specific language (phonology) as well as meaning (morphology). This is true of every extant writing system today including Chinese [ 52, 53], and is even true of the very earliest forms of writing-ancient Chinese, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mayan, and Sumerian. Phonology is a sine qua non of writing (and of reading [ 10, 24]) simply because an efficient writing system cannot function without serving the needs of the novice for decipherability (the ability to decode new words) and learnability and this can only be achieved via a workable degree of phonological transparency-systematic or semi-systematic correspondences between symbols and sound. It is equally important to note that an effective writing system cannot rely solely on phonology (hence phonology is not the whole story of reading ability and disability/dyslexia, as discussed below), because it must also fulfill a second function-addressing the needs of the expert-to-be for unitizability-necessary for rapid, whole-word (or whole-morpheme) recognition via morphemic transparency-systematic or semi-systematic correspondences between symbols and meaning (e.g., the English plural marker ⟨s⟩ or the past tense suffix ⟨ed⟩; [ 52, 53, 54]). The idea that children learn how to combine or chunk (unitize) meaningless groups of elements such as letters into meaningful higher-order units (morphemes and words) has featured in almost every English-language theory of learning to read proposed over the past half century [ 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61]. Here, I confine my comments to the decipherability/learnability criterion (elsewhere [ 53], I present a more detailed discussion of the morphological criterion).

Because all printed words are unfamiliar at some point in development (even a child's own name), the beginning reader needs a means of identifying new words. Neither contextual guessing, nor direct instruction affords a feasible means of unlocking word identities [ 9, 10, 39], so the child needs some means of independently identifying novel words. This is achieved mainly (but not solely) by systematic or quasi-systematic mappings between the graphic symbols and units of the spoken language. In morpho-syllabic writing systems of which only Chinese survives today, semantic cues (available from the semantic radical) are combined with phonological cues (the phonetic) to allow children to identity (many) novel words by themselves at the intersection of meaning (including context) and sound [ 62] Although English is a fundamentally alphabetic script, it also has a strong morphemic element [ 63, 64, 65] (consider the past tense suffix ⟨ed⟩) that is also helpful in identifying novel words-their meanings and pronunciations). English is not easily decipherable as the evidence clearly shows [ 39, 66, 67] but it is sufficiently regular (mainly in the consonant letters which are more informative about word identity than the fickle vowel letters).

1.2. Decipherability, Learnability and Combinatoriality

Decipherability is possible by virtue of the combinatoriality of writing systems-this refers to the fact that a limited (and hence learnable) number of elements (alphabetic letters, Indic aksharas, Japanese kana, etc.) can be combined and recombined to generate an unlimited number of units of meaning-morphemes and words. This combinatoriality-infinite ends from finite means, is a fundamental design principle of all languages whether spoken [ 3, 68, 69, 70], written [ 53] or signed [ 71, 72]. In spoken language, a few dozen phonemes can be combined to generate thousands or tens of thousands of morphemes, which can further be combined into an infinite number of possible words in a nested hierarchy of increasingly complex units. (This same combinatorial or "particulate" principle common to all human language (spoken, written or signed) can also be found in many hierarchical systems including chemistry and music [ 73, 74]). Likewise, a writing system is workable if and only if it is based on a limited and learnable number of sub-lexical graphic units (letters, aksharas, kana, etc.) that can be combined into a potentially infinite number of meaning units. These "elementary particles" or building blocks of writing can only be phonological units (not units of meaning) and must be sub-lexical, that is, below the level of whole words, such as phonemes, sub-syllabic units such as core syllables [ 75], or, if the syllable inventory is relatively small, whole syllables as in Japanese kana [ 76].

In the absence of combinatoriality, as in the mythical case of a pure logography, each word or morpheme must be learned anew and memorized as best as possible with the aid of mnemonics. Without phonology, the curious pre-literate child as yet unaware of the combinatoriality of print, resorts to "logographic reading" [ 56, 59, 60, 61, 77], epitomized in attempts to read, or write by looking for referential elements such as the two "eyes" in the word ⟨look⟩, the "tail" at the end of the word ⟨dog⟩ or producing (in the case of writing) enlarged letters for writing ⟨elephant⟩, or using the color red for ⟨tomato⟩. Almost immediately, however, this strategy runs into insurmountable difficulties generating unique "clues" for each word, which rapidly leads the learner up a blind and very short alley [ 56, 57, 78, 79, 80]. This non-systematic, non-combinatorial rote learning is little different from trying to memorize thousands of phone numbers-a feat few are capable of, yet this is precisely the type of learning that is often and erroneously claimed to be how Chinese children learn to read! [ 27]. These observations explain why no writing system, even Chinese, contains more than a handful of pictograms (e.g., 木 'tree') or ideograms (e.g., 二 'two') that directly convey meaning [ 77, 81, 82].

This means that the reader of any script must come to appreciate the combinatorial infrastructure of the orthography s/he is learning-how the basic building blocks of writing map into the speech code-and this can only be achieved at the sub-lexical level [ 76]. In addition to learning the specific symbol-sound mappings of the orthography being learned, the learner must "get inside words", go below the level of meaning and penetrate their sound structure. This phonological analysis or "meta-linguistic" awareness is an inescapable pre-requisite for literacy learning enabling the learner to exploit the combinatoriality of writing, decipher novel letter strings, match up spellings and pronunciations, and begin the process of building the orthographic lexicon by unitizing or chunking sub-lexical symbols into higher-order meaning units-the key to rapid automatic word recognition. It follows that any difficulties that a novice reader may have in processing speech sounds (e.g., hearing loss) or difficulties (in the absence of hearing impairment)) in processing the nuances of phonology (speech sound disorder, dyslexia) will almost invariably impair learning to read. Here, the evidence is incontrovertible and goes well beyond phonological awareness to early pre-literate spoken language competencies in processing (receptive and expressive) the sounds of speech as discussed earlier. Phonology, therefore, is necessarily a major source of variability in reading ability and hence a core deficit (or at least one core deficit) among struggling readers whether dyslexic or non-dyslexic.

However, phonology alone does not and cannot explain all the variability in reading [ 83] because as hinted above, meaning units (morphology) must also be represented and clearly demarcated in a writing system. The unitization and automatization of sets of letters into integrated chunks (here written language mimics spoken language) that can be rapidly and efficiently recognized principally at the level of morphemes is facilitated by various demarcation devices in writing such as word spacing (in English), character size uniformity (in Chinese) morpheme demarcation within poly-morphemic words (in Finnish for beginning readers), word-initial capitalization (German, and, in former times, English too), uniquely word-final characters (e.g., Thai, and Arabic), all of which help the reader chunk groups of symbols (letters, aksharas, kana, characters - the minimal units of writing) and without which, reading speed is significantly impaired [ 84, 85]. This means that, contrary to popular belief, the phonological principle is not the sole basis of all reading, or even learning to read.

This analysis highlights another common misconception about the PDH.

The PDH does not purport to explain all the variance in reading ability or, by corollary, explain all the difficulties experienced by all disabled readers or dyslexics [ 83]. It is not a unitary deficit hypothesis. Clearly, there are other sources of variance in reading ability. (I share the contemporary view that dyslexia is a dimensional, not categorical disorder, that is, it is not a distinct category of readers [ 86], but merely the lower end of a continuum of severity [ 87, 88] and many more.) There are other candidates at the behavioral level of analysis such as visual attention (Facoetti), Visual Attention Span (Valdois), procedural learning (Nicolson & Fawcett), but to date, none of these additional candidate (or competing) sources of variance has remotely approached the consensus achieved by the PDH. In most cases, a single researcher or team has compiled an impressive body of evidence in support of their own theory, but other independent teams have either failed to replicate the empirical findings with additional controls, or have replicated the findings but offered a different interpretation (see for example, [ 7, 8, 89, 90, 91] with respect to the visual attention span (VAS) hypothesis).

Another proposal regarding sources of variance other than PA has been put forward by Wolf and Bowers [ 37] who have made a strong case that Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) represents an additional unique source of variance in reading which cannot solely be regarded as a member of the phonological processing family as traditionally claimed [ 9, 10, 13]. According to the Double-Deficit Hypothesis (DDH) of dyslexia, dyslexics can be subdivided into three varieties, or subtypes; a group with selective deficits in PA, a group with selective deficits in RAN, and a "double-deficit" subgroup with both PA and RAN deficits who are the most severely disabled readers. The DDH has generated a great deal of controversy in the research literature [ 7, 92, 93], but, more recently, a growing (and more favorable) interest among researchers studying dyslexia in more transparent orthographies [ 94, 95, 96].

Summing up, phonology is not, indeed cannot be the whole story to reading ability and disability/dyslexia.

2. Where Does Neurobiology Enter the Picture?

Neurobiology (and genetics) supplies another link in the multi-level chain of explanation, but both are more "distal" levels of explanation. Unfortunately, neurobiological hypotheses of dyslexia are often erroneously interpreted as the "real" causes of dyslexia partly because post-mortem and in vivo brain imaging evidence appears to offer tangible evidence of pathology, (unlike most psychological constructs). The appeal is very seductive-we can literally see the heterotopic malformations in Galaburda et al.'s post-mortem cortical sections of dyslexic brains [ 97], we can virtually "see" the (computer-visualized) disconnections in the sub-cortical white matter tracts of dyslexic brains, and the smaller and "cooler-colored" "blobs" of under-activation of brain regions using fMRI. This work has, understandably provided a tremendous fillip for the much-debated and still what many (at least in educational circles) regard as the questionable notion of dyslexia as a neurobiological condition. However, so too did the Response to Intervention (RTI) movement that provides another way to separate presumably biologically based dyslexia from instructional-environmental factors that are also extremely potent sources of reading difficulties [ 26, 98]. However, much of the neurobiological hype still rides on the wave of opinion that infers from the brain evidence that we are seeing the real "hard" or "true" causes of dyslexia and in so doing overlooks the role of neuroplasticity: the fact that the brain is an organ like any other in the body that matures, changes, and atrophies depending on its use, misuse or disuse. It is not, as was once believed to be the case with IQ, something fixed and innate (which helped promote the now discredited IQ-discrepancy definition of dyslexia). Similar to the well-known correlation is causation fallacy, any neurobiological differences between dyslexics and controls may be the product, and not necessarily the cause of the reading problem. The evidence now documents how literacy learning changes our brain [ 99, 100]. David Olson's [ 101] World on Paper has now become the World on Screen as print and the ubiquitous 2D screen now permeates almost every moment of our waking lives, reshaping language, our perceptions of language (not just phonology), cognition and even visual processing of the non-print visual world [ 99]. This means that once literacy is acquired (or failed to be acquired) associations between almost any behavioral "deficit" or brain "signature"-functional or anatomical-are, given the reality of neuroplasticity, just as likely to be a consequence of reading failure as a cause: correlation is not causation.

The challenge for the neurobiology of dyslexia, therefore, is to establish that any putative neurobiological signature-temporal (Tallal), magnocellular (Stein), cerebellar/proceduralization (Nicolson & Fawcett), ciliary (Kere), oscillatory (Pugh & Hoeft), anchoring (Ahissar), asynchrony (Breznitz) (i) predates the onset of reading, (ii) predicts future reading outcomes (or at least significant variance) and, especially important (iii) coheres and converges with current knowledge about the reading process and, inter alia, the role of phonology. This means that any neurobiological account of dyslexia (like any behavioral hypothesis) needs to be clear about where it stands vis-à-vis the PDH. Many new behavioral and neurobiological accounts often present data from groups or individuals with dyslexia without specifying whether the new hypothesis is (i) , (ii) in addition to, or (iii) phonology.

An example of an explanation of dyslexia that has been claimed to underpin phonological deficits is Tallal's temporal processing hypothesis [ 102, 103, 104]. This account converges well with the PDH because sensitivity to rapid acoustic changes in speech would be expected to impair aspects of speech processing important for the fine-grained phonological representations on which tasks assessing phonological processing are assumed to depend.

The visual attention span (VAS) hypothesis advanced by Valdois [ 105] acknowledges the importance of phonology, but proposes that VAS deficits exist in addition to and independently of phonological deficits. That is, these deficits represent another distinctly non-phonological core deficit. A similar claim has been made by Wolf and Bowers [ 37] regarding the contribution of RAN to dyslexia in the context of their Double-Deficit Hypothesis.

Finally, there are (more rarely) those who propose explanatory models of dyslexia that discard or replace the PDH. For example, Vidyasagar and Pammer's [ 106] visuo-spatial attention account of dyslexia explicitly rejects the PDH, claiming that their account replaces the PDH.

Summarizing, neurobiology cannot be seen as the basis, source or real cause of dyslexia any more than any other "level of explanation" whether this be PA, the DCDC2 gene or well-trained teachers delivering quality reading instruction. It is one link in an interlocking multi-level explanatory chain extending from genetic risk factors through neurobiology, cognition and language, to environmental-instructional factors including the home, schooling, and the broader socio-cultural-historical setting, all of which interact with brain plasticity. Neurobiological accounts must connect coherently to the available evidence at other levels of explanation [ 107].

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Common Misconceptions about the Phonological Deficit Theory of Dyslexia

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In this discussion paper, I review a number of common misconceptions about the phonological deficit theory (PDH) of dyslexia. These include the common but mistaken idea that the PDH is simply about phonemic awareness (PA), and, consequently, is a circular ...

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#3 (Feb 13) What is Advanced Word Study? Keys to Literacy

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#3 (Feb 13) What is Advanced Word Study? Keys to Literacy

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This post from Keys to Literacy helps explain advanced word study and how to support students to grow in their decoding and encoding skills as they progress to more advanced, multisyllabic words.

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Keys to Literacy recently launched its newest professional development program: Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond. Sometimes referred to as advanced phonics, instruction for advanced word study teaches students how to read and spell multi-syllable words by using a combination of word analysis that focuses on syllables, and structural analysis that focuses on meaningful units (morphemes - roots, prefixes, suffixes). Learning how to focus on morphemes also helps students determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

During kindergarten through grade 3, students are developing phonemic awareness and learning beginning phonics concepts that support word reading. Because English has an alphabetic written language, these skills are essential for learning how to decode unfamiliar words and develop the ability to use the orthographic mapping process to map and remember thousands of sight words, enabling fluent reading. In a previous post I discussed the value of a phonics scope and sequence that covers phonics concepts from basic letter-sound correspondences in kindergarten to advanced correspondences and learning syllable types in grade 3.

What type of advanced word study instruction do students need beyond grade 3? Students in grade 4 and above who are still having difficulty with basic decoding skills may need supplemental instruction for the basic skills described in the previous paragraph. However, most students beyond grade 3 benefit from instruction that focuses on strategies and practice for reading unfamiliar, multi-syllable words. Ehri's Phases of Word Reading Development (1991) provides a model of how word recognition develops over time. As shown in the graphic below, there are four phases: Pre-alphabetic, Early Alphabetic, Later Alphabetic, and Consolidated Alphabetic. Advanced word study instruction is for students who have reached the Consolidated Alphabetic phase where they are beginning to read fluently by sound, syllable, and morphemes, typically during grade 3 and the start of grade 4. This includes instruction to build automatic recognition of the six syllable types, application of syllable division principles,recognition of morphological (meaningful) units within words, an understanding of the schwa vowel sound in unaccented syllables, and knowledge of spelling rules for adding suffixes.

English is a Morphophonemic Language, Including Words Derived From Greek and Latin
Written English words are comprised of both sound-spelling correspondences and morphemes that provide clues to meaning. We spell by both the sounds in words (phonemes) and the meaning represented in word parts (morphemes). Certain morphemes keep their written spelling even though their phonemic forms change. When the sound in a word changes in a different variation of the word, the spelling does not change. This can be challenging for students when they read or spell more complex words in grade 4 and beyond. For example, read the sample pairs of words below and notice how the spellings for parts of the words stay the same even though the sound changes.

Another challenge for students is that a large percentage of words learned after grade 3 are multi-syllable words derived from Latin and Greek (Carlisle, 2007); 60% of unfamiliar words in middle school books are derived words (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). These words consist of roots that hold the core meaning of the word, and prefixes and suffixes that can alter the meaning or function of a word. Once students begin reading multi-syllable words, they are further challenged by the occurrence of the schwa vowel sound. The schwa is the most common vowel sound in the English language, accounting for 20% of the vowel sounds (Yule, 1996), and it often is the cause of spelling mistakes. The schwa sound is formed with a neutral mouth position, and it replaces a vowel sound in the unaccented syllables of multi-syllable words. It is sometimes called the "lazy" vowel, and can sound like a muffled version of the short u sound or the short i sound, as in the words . It can be spelled with any vowel. See a previous post I wrote about schwa for more details and examples.
Instructional Suggestions
Multi-syllable word reading and spelling is aided by the application of an approach that COMBINES:

Word analysis focused on syllables: breaking words into parts by identifying vowel sounds, applying syllable division rules, saying each part, then putting the parts together to say the word

Structural analysis focused in meaningful units: reading words through recognition of roots, prefixes, and suffixes

Common Core Reading Foundations standard 4.3.a for grade four expects students to "use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllable words in context and out of context."

In order to apply word analysis, students must learn to automatically recognize the six syllable types (closed, open, silent-e, vowel team, vowel-r, and consonant-le). They must also learn how to fluently apply basic syllable division rules, including 1) VCCV, divide between C's (rab/bit); 2) VCV, usually divide before the C, then try after the C (mu/sic, cab/in); 3) words ending in consonant-le - the 3 letters stay together (bub/ble, ri/fle). In order to apply structural analysis, students must learn to recognize roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

Students benefit from learning a routine for "attacking" an unfamiliar, multi-syllable word. Click here to watch a video of a routine offered by PaTTAN of Pennsylvania titled Reading Big Words. The example below of a word analysis routine is from Keys to Literacy's new professional development offering, Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond.

To support spelling of multi-syllable words for which a suffix has been added, it is helpful for students to learn the following spelling rules:

Doubling Rule 1-1-1: if a one-syllable base word ends in one consonant with one short vowel before it, double the final consonant of the base word when adding a suffix that begins with a vowel. (mad + est = maddest, mad + ly - madly)

Doubling Rule for Two-Syllable Words: two-syllable words double the final consonant before a suffix that begins with a vowel if the second syllable of the word is CVC, and if the stress (accent) falls on the second syllable (admit + ed = admitted, limit + ed = limited)

Silent E Rule: words ending in a silent e drop the e before a suffix beginning with a vowel, but do not drop the e before a suffix beginning with a consonant (hope, hoping, hopeful)

Y Rule: final y after a consonant changes to i before any suffix except one beginning with i (copy/copies/copying)

Teaching Advanced Word Study in Any Subject
While it is typically assumed that the English language arts teacher should be responsible for teaching students these skills, students must read multi-syllable words in every subject. Academic words derived from Latin and Greek appear in all content area text, and it is often the case where science and math present the best opportunities to practice the application of advanced word analysis skills. Every teacher, regardless of the subject-area taught, can play a role in helping students learn to apply advanced word study skills to read, spell, and identify the meaning of unfamiliar, longer words.

References

Carlisle, J.F. (2007). Fostering morphological processing, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. In R.K. Wagner, A.E. Muse, & K.R. Tannenbaum (Eds.). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: The Guilford Press.

Ehri, L. C. (1991). Development of the ability to read words. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, Vol. 2, pp. 383-417). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Nagy, W.E. & Anderson, R.C. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304-330.

Yule, G. (1996). The study of language (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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What is advanced word study? - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy recently launched its newest professional development program: Advanced Word Study - Grade 4 and Beyond. Sometimes referred to as advanced phonics, instruction for advanced word study teaches students how to read and spell multi-syllable words by using a combination of word analysis that focuses on syllables, and structural analysis that focuses on meaningful units (morphemes - roots, prefixes, suffixes).

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Reading Matters Meeting with Devin Kearns

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Reading Matters Meeting with Devin Kearns

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Dr. Devin Kearns is a leading researcher on syllabication as well as other aspects of skilled reading. In this episode of the Reading Matters Meetings with Dr. Mark Seidenberg and Dr. Molly Farry-Thorn, Dr. Kearns talks syllabication: key take-away: simple rules, lots of practice.

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On Eating Elephants and Teaching Syllabication

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On Eating Elephants and Teaching Syllabication

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Like phonemic awareness, syllabication was a hot topic this year. Dr. Tim Shanahan discusses recent research on teaching syllabication and the best use of instructional time to teach how to break longer words into smaller chunks.

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What are your thoughts on teaching syllable division patterns? I recently came across some new research from Devin Kearns and it made me start thinking about if all the time programs spend teaching syllable division patterns is really justified. If teaching syllable division is not time well invested, what type of instruction would you recommend replacing it with?
Shanahan response:

I was training for a 500-mile bike trip. Three of the days' rides would be centuries (100 miles plus). The practice was making my back ache and my knees hurt, but I felt no closer to being able to accomplish those distances. They seemed absolutely impossible. I was so discouraged I I wanted to drop out; there is no shame in knowing your limitations.

But I didn't quit. I pedaled all 500 miles and was even charging at the end.

What turned things around? I had an epiphany. It dawned on me that I would never be able to pedal 100 miles and that no one else could either. That realization made all the difference. You see, though I couldn't ride a century, I could easily ride 10 miles. So, to reach my goal, I just had to ride 10 miles 10 times.

If you look at the productivity literature - how to solve complex problems or take on overwhelming challenges - the idea of "decomposition" comes up a lot. The experts say if you want to do something hard break the problem into smaller parts.

That, fundamentally, is the idea of syllabication in decoding. When you confront multi-syllable words, it may help to break them into smaller parts.

It's kind of like that old joke:

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

That may seems pretty sensible, but where do you bite?

That's the problem when it comes to splitting up English words. It isn't always clear how to divide things and what do you with the vowels once you have bite size chunks?

Syllables matter in English because they're the basic orthographic unit that governs the consistency of our system of spelling (Venezky, 1967), and the perception of vowel sounds (the central element to the syllable) is key to successful early phonemic awareness development (Linnea Ehri has described the perception of the syllable as paving "the way for entre into benefiting from phonics instruction"). The syllable has been found to be an essential unit in phonological processing (Ecalle & Magnan, 2007). In other words, syllables are pretty basic.

I, too, read the Kearns study (Kearns, 2020). You seem to think it says something about whether to teach syllables. I don't see it that way (a close reading of the study suggests Kearns doesn't either - and his other work confirms that (Kearns & Whaley, 2019)). Remember Kearns only examined a single category of syllabication patterns (a group governing the pronunciation of single vowels). He found a high degree of reliability in VCCV words (such as rab-bit) and a reasonable degree of consistency in VCV words of two syllables (though that division rule didn't do so well with longer words). He also reported that there were particular spellings with highly reliable pronunciations within that universe of words (such as "ic" and "wa"). And, that still leaves us with all of the other kinds of syllables such as sion, tion, ble, or a raft of common morphological units that operate consistently as syllables in our language (e.g., un, pre, trans, pro, ing, ed). None of these were the focus of his analysis.

I take it that Kearns was just reminding us that simplistic approaches to decoding instruction that encourage students to expect a simple and consistent set of pronunciation rules would be a poor reflection of the facts of the English spelling system.

Students need to develop a mental set for diversity or variability when it comes to word recognition. Teaching syllabication as a rigid set of "rules" makes no sense, since our orthography doesn't work like that. Telling students that VCV patterns are to be divided after the first vowel may benefit the reading of words like label or tiger, but it plays hob with words such as statue.

We must remember that the sounding out of words is only intended to provide readers with approximate - rather than exact - pronunciations anyway. It may be possible to determine that the word is statue if you starts with " stay-tue" but it would be infinitely more likely if "stat" was the starting point.

The solution to that problem isn't proscribing syllabication training, but to make it more conditional (studies like that by Kearns can be useful for informing those curriculum choices). In any event, it is wisest to tell budding readers that when beavering away at an unknown word with that VCV pattern, they should try splitting the word both before and after the consonant, trying out at least a couple of the high probability pronunciation possibilities (there are more choices than those two, with schwa being a frequent culprit - Rosemary Weber (2018) provides an interesting analysis of the role of the schwa in word perception).

As I've written many times before, we can't determine what works in teaching through descriptive studies of the brain or language. Such studies may help explain why some instructional approaches work or provide valuable insights about new pedagogical possibilities. But they can't reveal what works - which is what any real science of reading instruction ultimately needs to be about.

There aren't a huge number of instructional studies to go on, and some of those found that syllable teaching didn't work. However, an insightful analysis of these studies (Bhattacharya & Ehri, 2004) sorts this out nicely: Those regimes that taught rigid spelling rules for syllabication didn't improve reading, while those that aimed at fostering conditionality and flexibility in the use of syllables to decode words did significantly better. Also, since that time, syllable instruction studies have been consistently positive in their results (Diliberto, Beattie, Flowers, & Algozzine, 2009; Doignon-Camus & Zagar, 2014; Ecalle, Kleinsz, & Magnan, 2013; Ecalle & Magnan, 2007; Gray, Ehri, & Locke, 2018).

Your letter makes it sound as if teachers spend a lot of time teaching syllabication. I doubt that and hope it isn't the case. In studies that found syllabication instruction to improve word recognition and reading comprehension, students received only 2-9 hours of teaching (yeah, even 2 hours of syllable training was beneficial).

Given all of this, I would definitely teach syllabication. It clearly has value. Though the amount of such teaching can be pretty limited. Nevertheless, decoding instruction is not primarily or mainly about teaching students to sound out words. Such teaching, if successful, must instigate readers to perceive patterns and conditionalities within words (that's what orthographic mapping and statistical learning are all about).

So, yes, teach syllabication, but expose kids to the exceptions and teach them to use these divisions conditionally and flexibly. Approach words both through decoding and spelling (see Richard Gentry's fine work on this). Focus considerable attention on the morphological units within words as well (for this I turn to the book Words Their Way, and to Peter Bowers' WordWorks Literacy Centre.)

Please pass the elephant.
References
Bhattacharya, A., & Ehri, L. C. (2004). Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37(4), 331-348. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1177/00222194040370040501

Diliberto, J. A., Beattie, J. R., Flowers, C. P., & Algozzine, R. F. (2009). Effects of teaching syllable skills instruction on reading achievement in struggling middle school readers. Literacy Research and Instruction, 48(1), 14-27. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1080/19388070802226253

Doignon-Camus, N., & Zagar, D. (2014). The syllabic bridge: The first step in learning spelling-to-sound correspondences. Journal of Child Language, 41(5), 1147-1165. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1017/S0305000913000305

Ecalle, J., Kleinsz, N., & Magnan, A. (2013). Computer-assisted learning in young poor readers: The effect of grapho-syllabic training on the development of word reading and reading comprehension. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1368-1376. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2013.01.041

Ecalle, J., & Magnan, A. (2007). Development of phonological skills and learning to read in French. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 22(2), 153-167. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1007/BF03173519

Gray, S. H., Ehri, L. C., & Locke, J. L. (2018). Morpho-phonemic analysis boosts word reading for adult struggling readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 31(1), 75-98. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1007/s11145-017-9774-9

Kearns, D.M. (2020). Does English have useful syllable division patterns? Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S145- S160. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.342

Kearns, D. M., & Whaley, V. M. (2019). Helping students with dyslexia read long words: Using syllables and morphemes. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51(3), 212-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059918810010

Venezky, R. L. (1967). English orthography: Its graphical structure and its relation to sound. Reading Research Quarterly, 2(3), 75-105. https://doi.org/10.2307/747031

Weber, R. (2018). Listening for schwa in academic vocabulary. Reading Psychology, 39(5), 468-491. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/10.1080/02702711.2018.1464531

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Studies are showing that some syllabication rules aren't particularly consistent or useful. Nevertheless, research shows that teaching students how to separate words into syllables has a positive impact on reading. The key is to teach it flexibly -- not as a set of consistent rules.

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Lose the Rules: Reading and Spelling Multisyllabic Words Made Easy

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Lose the Rules: Reading and Spelling Multisyllabic Words Made Easy

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This webinar is from 2020 but offers concrete, research-based strategies for making the reading of multisyllabic words easier for students.

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Hunter - Lose the Rules: Reading and Spelling Multi-syllable Words Made Easy

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Grammar Re-imagined: Foregrounding Understanding of Language Choice in Writing

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Grammar Re-imagined: Foregrounding Understanding of Language Choice in Writing

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This article posits it’s time to reimagine grammar instruction based on sustained and cumulative research evidence.

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ABSTRACT
The topic of grammar teaching has remained a stubbornly contentious subject of discussion for more than 50 years, tending towards binary, even polemical, positions. Yet scrutiny of the research shows how little attention has been afforded to considering what the relationship between learning about grammar and learning about being a language user might be; or to effective pedagogical practices for teaching grammar. Instead, the debate has reverted to inappropriate "what works" discourses. This article discusses these discourses and the need to re-imagine why and how we teach grammar, drawing on sustained and cumulative research evidence.

Introduction

The topic of grammar can claim a truly chequered history. No other aspect of subject English, other than perhaps the teaching of phonics, has provoked such sustained and unresolved debate about its value and its place in the curriculum. In the past 50 years or so, it has been variously described as having a " harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, and Schoer , 37); " a waste of time" (Muller , 68); worth " ignoring" (Elbow ); and as " the skunk at the garden party of the language arts" (Haussamen et al. px). The substance of this debate has been extensively addressed (e.g. Denham and Lobeck ; Kolln and Hancock ; Locke ); and it is not the purpose of this paper to repeat it again here. However, one characteristic of this long-standing debate is its tendency towards binary, even polemical positions which begin with a stance for or against the teaching of grammar, and summon evidence or argumentation to support this stance. See for example, articles against grammar teaching by Wyse () and for grammar by Hudson (). As a consequence of this, discussion of the role of grammar in the English curriculum is frequently dominated by a desire to prove that it "works" or not, rather than by a desire to understand the nature of children's learning and the multiple complexities of any individual classroom context. Table 1

Grammar re-imagined: foregrounding understanding of language choice in writing

Of course "what works" in an educational context is a much more complex question than its brevity implies. Underpinning the idea of "what works" is a medical model of efficacy, based on an interaction between a medical intervention and a human subject. But, as Biesta notes, " a student is not an illness just as teaching is not a cure " (Biesta , 8) and learning is not a simple interaction between input and output. It is complex and nuanced, with multiple actors, and, crucially, teachers who enact their classroom practice in a myriad ways. And, in a world which - at the time of writing - is acutely aware of medical interventions, the Covid vaccine is illustrating that, even in a medical context, the question of what works is not simple. What is effective for some is less effective, or even inappropriate, for others. Moreover, the efficacy of grammar seems to be questioned far more than other aspects of English teaching: for example, questions are rarely asked about whether being able to name metaphor or enjambement improves literary critical analysis; or whether story mountains help narrative writing; or whether rhetorical questions and emotive language really strengthen the persuasive argument. To an extent, an understanding of pedagogy and learning would signal that an answer to such questions would never be a simplistic yes or no, but a more indeterminate "it depends", because pedagogy and learning are shaped both by individual learners' aptitudes and capability, and by how teachers plan and enact their teaching.

This article takes as its starting-point the recognition that teaching and learning are complex, situated endeavours, and therefore a consideration of the role of grammar in teaching and learning English needs to be cognisant of this. The team of researchers in Exeter have undertaken a series of at least fifteen cumulative studies about grammar and grammar teaching over a period of more than 20 years. These have investigated various aspects of grammar and grammar teaching, adopting a range of methodological designs from efficacy trials through corpus studies and longitudinal qualitative studies (see Appendix 1). The studies have provided rich insight into the ways in which understanding of grammar can help young writers not simply to achieve higher writing attainment scores but also to understand better the nature of the language choices they make as writers. Critically, they have also provided evidence of where grammar teaching is less successful and what aspects of teaching mitigate against successful integration of grammar in English. Informed by these studies, and other international research in the field, the stance I take in this article is not a binary one of being for or against the teaching of grammar: rather I propose a re-imagining of how we think about grammar, both in terms of the possibilities it offers for supporting young writers' understanding of linguistic choice in their writing, and the need to constantly focus attention on teaching and learning.

Curriculum

In re-imagining grammar in our curriculum in England, it is helpful to understand where we are situated in relation to international perspectives on grammar. In some ways, there is an Anglophone and non-Anglophone distinction, Anglophone countries tending to share the pattern of excluding grammar from the curriculum in the late 20th century and then giving it renewed emphasis in recent decades (Denham and Lobeck ; Macken-Horarik et al. ; Myhill and Watson ). At the same time, many non-English speaking countries have routinely included grammar in their respective curricula, particularly in Europe and across the Far East. However, in the past 10 years, there has been a veritable flurry of international interest, paralleled by research, which is re-examining the role that grammar plays in the curriculum. The international journal L1: Educational Studies in Languages and Literature has published three Special Issues on Grammar in the past three years (Boivin et al. ; Rättyä, Awramiuk, and Fontich ; Fontich, Van Rijt, and Gauvin ), and the Journal of Teaching Writing has a Special Issue forthcoming in 2021, exploring linguistically based writing pedagogies. Common to all of these is a critical interest in the nature of learning about grammar and the possibilities of grammar to develop more sophisticated linguistic knowledge connecting language knowledge and experience. There is also a recognition that, traditionally, grammar in the curriculum represented a prescriptive view of grammar, which saw grammar as a set of norms, or " the rules of 'correct' grammatical usage" (Crystal , 79), whereas modern linguistics, in general, espouses a descriptive view, examining how language is used in different contexts. These different ways of thinking about grammar generate different rationales for including (or not) grammar in the curriculum: " Prescriptive grammarians are judgemental and attempt to change linguistic behaviour of a particular sort and in a particular direction. Linguists, or mental grammarians, seek to explain the knowledge of language that guides people's everyday use of language regardless of their schooling" (Honda and O'Neill ). Underpinning the recent international research is an emphasis on descriptive grammar, eschewing a view of grammar as solely concerned with error correction, and instead seeing " language as a resource, a meaning-making system" (Derewianka and Jones , 9); a means of empowerment (Janks ; Myhill ); and linguistic knowledge as a way of " resisting fall-backs into prescriptive notions of language", countering the pressure to teach " some perceived prestige variety " of language (Denham , 5). There is also growing interest in cognitive linguistics and the possibilities that this presents for re-thinking grammar teaching (Giovanelli ; Giovanelli and Mason ; Cushing ; Giovanelli, Harrison, and Nuttall ). Originally an approach imported from L2 grammar teaching (see for example, Holme ), cognitive linguistics offers conceptual and analytical tools for the analysis and interpretation of texts which have value in educational contexts.

In the light of this, what view of grammar is represented in the National Curriculum for English in England (DfE , , )? The overall Aims for English, repeated in all Key Stages (KS), specify that students should develop " an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language" (DfE, 3), and that " It is important that pupils learn the correct grammatical terms in English and that these terms are integrated within teaching" (DfE , 5). There is also an emphasis on Standard English throughout all Key Stages, as noted by Cushing (). The overview of Writing states that students should develop " an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar" (DfE:5). The overview of Reading for KS1 and KS2 notes that good comprehension draws on " linguistic knowledge (in particular of vocabulary and grammar) and on knowledge of the world" (DfE:4), whereas at KS3 and KS4 the expectation is that students will " use age-appropriate vocabulary, including linguistic and literary terminology, for discussing their reading, writing and spoken language" (DfE , 3).

However, what is striking is the difference between the curriculum expectations for primary (KS1 and KS2) and Secondary (KS3 and KS4). The KS1 and KS2 Programmes of Study have detailed statutory curriculum requirements for grammar, including, for example, the requirement that year 2 students learn how to use " the present and past tenses correctly and consistently including the progressive form" and " expanded noun phrases to describe and specify" (DfE , 22). In addition, the statutory Appendix 2 (DfE , 64-69) sets out the grammatical terminology which students must learn and on which they are tested at age 11 in the national test of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS Test).

In contrast, at KS3 and KS4 there is no such specification, and far more reference to linking grammar with " meaning", " effectiveness", " evaluating the effectiveness and impact of other writers" grammatical choices', and recognising differences between Standard English and other varieties of English (DfE , 4-5). Although the curriculum states very clearly what terminology must be taught, it cannot be described as reflecting a wholly prescriptive view of grammar, but neither is it a descriptive view: it veers uncertainly between focusing on accuracy in usage and looking at how grammar works. There is a sense, perhaps, that the primary curriculum is very form-oriented in contrast to a more function-oriented secondary curriculum. What is evident, however, is that there is no transparent purpose for the inclusion of grammar in the curriculum, unlike, for example, in the Australian National Curriculum which sets out clear goals for teaching grammar, including " the gradually more powerful conversion of 'knowledge about' language into a resource for effective reading, listening, viewing, writing, speaking and designing" (ACARA , 6).

Grammar for a purpose

The starting-point for our own research on grammar teaching has been the importance of establishing a clear purpose for grammar in the English curriculum to inform the development of appropriate classroom practice. We have adopted the theoretical thinking of Halliday and his view of grammar as " a system of meaning potential" (Halliday , 39) as the basis for developing our pedagogical approach. It is worth noting that Halliday's work has been known in the UK since the 1970's, and informed both the Language in the National Curriculum project and the National Literacy Strategy. Halliday's thinking represents a move away from form-focused approaches to grammar, concerned with the structure of language, to a function-focused way of thinking about grammar as a system, which looks at " grammar as a meaning-making resource [and] to describe grammatical categories by reference to what they mean" (Halliday and Matthiessen , 10). In contrast to traditional school grammar, Halliday's functional grammar looks at how any given grammatical form, such as a verb, performs different meaning-making functions in different communicative contexts. Through his concept of lexico-grammar, Halliday proposed " the unity of grammar and lexis" (Halliday and Matthiessen : 64), positioning grammar and vocabulary on a continuum, and he argued that syntax and morphology are " both part of grammar" (Halliday and Matthiessen : 24). Thus meaning-making is not simply about the lexical meaning of words, as explained in a dictionary, but also about the way word choices and relationships, syntax and grammatical choices also shape meaning. Choice resonates throughout the composing process: be that at word level, at syntactical, clause or sentence level, or at the level of textual organisation through cohesion, coherence and text structure.

Significantly, as an academic linguist, Halliday was also profoundly concerned with language learning, and how children learn how to make meaning (Halliday ). Clark argued that Halliday's approach challenged normative political views of grammar because he stressed "the social, cultural and creative aspects of language that influenced and altered its use" and he emphasises " that learning is, above all, a social process" (Clark , 42). The purpose of learning grammar is not to learn that you should use fronted adverbials, but that you should learn how the choice of a fronted adverbial alters how meaning is conveyed in a clause or sentence, and therefore whether the use of a fronted adverbial fulfils your authorial intentions or not. This way of thinking about grammar moves away from prescriptive rules of usage (which are not the same as the deep underlying rules of grammar which native speakers of a language learn implicitly) to a view of grammar as fundamentally linked to the process of composition. Or as Crystal puts it, " The educational aim today is to place grammar within a frame of reference which demonstrates its relevance to the active and creative tasks of language production and comprehension " (Crystal , 10).

Through the cumulative suite of research studies outlined in Appendix 1, we have developed, tested and refined a pedagogic approach to the teaching of grammar which draws first and foremost on Halliday's functionally-oriented thinking, and which emphasises the notion of grammar as choice. The goal of teaching is to support students' understanding of this crucial relationship between grammatical choice and meaning-making, and to enable them " to make choices from among a range of linguistic resources, and to be aware of the effects of different choices on the rhetorical power of their writing" ( Lefstein , 382). Our research has demonstrated that teaching grammar as choice can improve students' writing attainment (Jones, Myhill, and Bailey ; Myhill et al ), but also that in some contexts the efficacy of the pedagogy is limited if teachers are not confident in implementation (Tracey et al. ). Although we have focused principally on the teaching of writing, one study included an evaluation of the effect of this approach on reading comprehension, and found a strong positive effect on students' capacity to discuss the use of language in GCSE-type comprehension papers (Myhill and Watson ).

At the heart of our pedagogic approach is the importance of making connections for learners between a grammatical choice and how it subtly shapes or shifts meaning in their own piece of writing: in direct contrast to a traditional view of teaching grammar as a system with a set of grammatical terms in the " hope that students will somehow connect the analysis of language to the production of it" (Vande Kopple , 5). To support teachers in implementing this pedagogy, we have created the LEAD Principles as a way of framing planning and teaching. These are set out below, but are discussed in more detail in Myhill, Watson and Newman ():

Link: Make a link between the grammar being introduced and how it works in the writing being taught
Connecting grammar and writing; a functionally-oriented meaning-making
Example: Explain the grammar through examples, not lengthy explanations;
Teaching grammar-writing links explicitly - but not being deflected into grammar lessons
Authenticity: Use examples from authentic texts to link writers to the broader community of writers
Showing student writers the grammar choices published writers make (and building the reading-writing links)
Discussion: Build in high-quality discussion about grammar and its effects
Fostering metalinguistic understanding through dialogic talk

It is important to see the LEAD Principles as a scaffold for developing teacher confidence in using this approach: they are not intended as a rigid framework for teaching, but rather as a way of supporting teacher thinking. In time, teachers do not need the LEAD principles, as this way of working, foregrounding grammar as choice, becomes more naturally and holistically embedded in how they think about teaching writing.

The LEAD Principles promote student learning about how written texts craft and shape meaning, not only at the lexical level of vocabulary choices, but also at phrase, clause, sentence and text levels. Take the example of the sentence below, from former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo, where he re-tells the story of King Arthur. The sentence occurs early on in the story, and describes a boy's first sight of King Arthur's hall:

At one end of the hall was a staircase hewn out of the rock, winding its way upwards into the smoky darkness. (Morpurgo , 13)

Syntactically, this is an AVSA (Adverbial-Verb-Subject-Adverbial) sentence, but that is simply the description of its structure. How are those structures operating in this sentence at this point in the narrative? One way to consider this is to invite students to play around with other possibilities for this sentence, without removing or adding anything, and to discuss how they communicate identical information but in subtly different ways. Some possibilities are listed below:

A staircase hewn out of the rock was winding its way upwards into the smoky darkness at one end of the hall.

Winding its way upwards into the smoky darkness was a staircase hewn out of the rock, at one end of the hall.

Winding its way upwards into the smoky darkness, at one end of the hall, was a staircase hewn out of the rock.

The point of this discussion is not to decide which sentence is better, but to draw attention to the different effects each option establishes. In Morpurgo's example, the initial adverbial supports the cohesion of the narrative at that point: the reader has been introduced to " a huge hall" and " the middle of the hall" in the previous sentence, and the fronted adverbial sustains the physical description of the setting. But the subject-verb inversion and the final adverbial seem to follow the boy's eyes as he looks across the hall, seeing first the staircase, then its rock composition, and finally its disappearance into the darkness. For developing writers, a link has been made, through discussion, examples and the use of authentic text, between a writer's choice and an interpretation of the effect of that choice. The purpose of teaching grammar in this way is to open up understanding of writerly choices, and the rich repertoire of possibilities available every time we compose a text.

Grammar and metalinguistic understanding

Raising students' awareness of grammatical choice and communicative/rhetorical effects in writing develops metalinguistic knowledge and understanding about writing. This is important because "meta" knowledge is explicit and thus useable knowledge, giving students greater ownership and authorial agency as writers. Metalinguistic understanding, like its sister concept metacognition, operates at a conscious level and involves the capacity both to engage in " reflection on language and its use" and to draw on that reflection " intentionally to monitor and plan their own methods of linguistic processing" (Gombert , 13). Returning to Morpurgo's sentence discussed in the previous section, a writing classroom nurturing metalinguistic thinking will enable writers to make choices relevant to their own authorial intentions: for example, an individual writer may decide that she prefers the choice of " Winding its way upwards into the smoky darkness, at one end of the hall, was a staircase hewn out of the rock" because the two fronted adverbials, combined with the subject positioned after the verb, create the sense of delay and anticipation she wants to evoke.

Our studies show that fostering this kind of metalinguistic understanding through purposeful grammar teaching draws strongly on teachers' capacity to lead metalinguistic talk. The D of the LEAD Principles is a reminder of this, and we have found that the most effective implementation of our pedagogical approach is where teachers are confident in managing rich and productive classroom discussions about writing choices (Myhill and Newman ; Myhill, Newman and Watson ). We have called this rich discussion dialogic metatalk and it is characterised by metalinguistic discussion which is not focused on "right" answers but open-ended thinking about language choices and possibilities. Crucially, the teacher verbalises for students the link between a rhetorical effect in an authentic text and the grammatical choice which shaped that effect; and invites student verbalisation and justification of the choices made in their own writing. Generating dialogic metatalk appears to be a critical element of learning transfer, moving young writers from a dependence on what teachers suggest are effective choices in writing to a deeper understanding of their own and greater authorial independence.

The differences between effective and less effective dialogic metatalk is thus a key aspect of successful implementation of our pedagogical approach: indeed, the evaluator of our Education Endowment Foundation project (2016) recorded that teachers' use of discussion " to tease out thinking and choice-making " was compromised in some of the schools observed (Tracey et al. , 4). Where the talk was less effective, it tended to be monologic and strongly teacher-controlled, rather than creating dialogic space for metalinguistic thinking. Very often the questioning during interaction was closed and directive, with little room for students' own interpretations, and often simply seeking responses which match the teachers' thinking. Sometimes the metatalk was focused on the grammatical form rather than its function, and on exhortation to use a particular form in their writing with the implication that effective writing is essentially grammatical deployment of certain grammatical features. Another characteristic of less effective talk was where the teacher missed an opportunity to pursue metalinguistic thinking when a child said something interesting or showed some misunderstanding that was not picked up. In contrast, we witnessed many examples of effective metatalk, which involved a carefully managed interplay of the interactions below:

Checking Questions:

These were closed questions, but they served a purposeful function in a discussion sequence, typically to correct a grammatical or textual misunderstanding, or to recall a point from a previous lesson needed to build a discussion thread. These checking questions were skilfully used to initiate discussion, or within a discussion sequence, in order to develop the metalinguistic thinking further.

Opening Up Initiations:

These were questions or statements which were framed to open up students' metalinguistic thinking about a particular point. Often these were Why questions, but they included initiations such as What do you think?, What if ... ?, How? and Tell me.

Invited Elaborations:

In contrast to the missed opportunities evident in less effective metatalk, these were questions or invitations which followed up something a student had already said, and typically included invitations such as Tell me more? Can you give me an example? Why do you think that? They encouraged students to elaborate upon a point made, or to justify what they had said with further explanation or detail.

Effective metatalk represented a skilful linking of the metalinguistic discussion to the grammar-writing connection which was the learning focus for the lesson. Equally, teachers used the language choices in authentic texts as springboards for discussion, rather than using texts reductively as models to be imitated (Myhill, Lines and Jones ). When metalinguistic talk brings together rhetorical purpose and linguistic choice, young writers are supported in recognising how writing is crafted and how they can enact their own authorial agency.

Enabling teachers

However, it is not only students' agency which is important in re-imagining a role for grammar in the curriculum. It is also imperative to foreground teachers as central to any pedagogical approach and needing their own professional agency. One weakness of some studies of grammar, particularly efficacy trials, is a tendency to position teachers as unproblematic implementers of a teaching programme, rather than as critical mediators, managing the teaching and learning needs of students in relation to the expectations of the new programme or pedagogical approach. Our own studies, including the randomised controlled trials, have consistently explored how teachers implement the grammar as choice pedagogy, both through observation and interviews with teachers, and this underlines the centrality of the teacher's role. Our data suggest that, in addition to the capacity to lead dialogic metalinguistic talk, as discussed above, there are three further teacher-focused facets which influence successful implementation of grammar as choice: teachers' subject knowledge of grammar; the importance of sustained Continued Professional Development (CPD); and the effect of national assessment practices on how the approach is used.

Firstly, and not surprisingly, teachers' knowledge of and confidence with grammatical concepts has a strong relationship with their effectiveness in embedding grammar as a tool for making writerly choices in their own classrooms. It has been noticeable when leading CPD in other countries where teachers are routinely taught grammar themselves that they find it easier to adopt the LEAD pedagogical principles as they are not anxious about whether they understand the grammatical concepts. Many teachers in England were not taught grammar in their own schooling, and their uncertainty with grammar is wholly understandable (Myhill et al ). Even with the expectations of the National Curriculum and the specification of required grammatical terminology, we still find that many primary teachers struggle with the grammar when it moves beyond simple examples. However, our data (Myhill et al ; Myhill, Watson and Newman ) and the later EEF evaluator data (Tracey et al. , 4) highlight that teacher subject knowledge also needs to be assured in terms of recognising how grammar is working in different texts, partly due to a lack of familiarity with a functional orientation. This can make it challenging for teachers to make connections between a grammatical choice and a communicative/rhetorical effect, leading to a more form-focused emphasis on labelling.

Secondly, wherever possible we have always worked with teachers on our research projects through sustained CPD rather than through training programmes. This starts from a recognition of the importance and professionalism of teachers, and the need to give teachers agency in how they implement grammar as choice in their own classrooms. It also signals the benefits of collaboration in classroom research, and mutual reciprocality of the expertise that teachers and researchers bring to understanding classroom practice. The goal is not compliance to a programme, but developing professional understanding of the underlying LEAD principles and, with that, greater confidence in adaptation of recommended strategies to meet learners' needs. Biesta () has argued that narrow conceptions of "what works" eradicate " professional judgement with regard to the 'how' and the 'what for' of professional action from the domain of professionalism" and that it sees teachers as " abstract 'machines' in which reflection and judgement are seen as a weakness rather than as an essential part " (Biesta , 323). We reframe these discourses which position teacher development as concerned with training in "what works" to a discourse which values the professional knowledge teachers bring to a CPD course, and the importance of sustained opportunities to try things out in practice, to reflect, and to share ideas with others.

Finally, our various studies signal how national assessment practices have a direct impact on how some teachers implement grammar as choice in their classrooms. The general washback effect of testing on teaching is well-known: of particular concern here is the specific impact on pedagogical innovation in terms of re-imagining grammar in the curriculum. One impact derives from the Key Stage 2 teacher assessment of writing, where perceptions of what markers would reward led to some teachers deflecting attention away from a connection between a grammatical choice and rhetorical effect. Instead, they conveyed a message that "good" writing must include certain grammatical features, such as adverbials, the passive, or even more bizarrely, nouns and verbs (Myhill and Newman ) - a phenomenon also identified by Barrs (), Hardman and Bell (), and Cushing (). At the same time, the reality of the national GPS test meant that some teachers deviated from the LEAD pedagogical principles to run decontextualised mini grammar lessons (Myhill, Watson and Newman ); and the form-focused questioning discussed in the previous section may also have been a consequence of the GPS test.

Conclusion

From a theoretical perspective, re-imagining grammar in the curriculum requires a movement away from prescriptive grammar, concerned with (arbitrary) rules of usage, to descriptive grammar; and from form-focused grammar teaching to functionally oriented grammar teaching. Such a re-imagining supports students in developing a metalinguistic understanding of the relationship between a grammatical choice and its communicative or rhetorical effect in a text. Our research has provided repeated evidence of the benefits of this approach, and is aligned with parallel research in other countries (Macken-Horarik et al. ). Importantly though, we have also drawn attention to factors which can limit effectiveness. These relate principally to four key areas: teachers' capacity to lead dialogic metalinguistic discussion; teachers' subject knowledge of grammar; the importance of sustained CPD which recognises teachers' professionalism; and the distorting impact that national assessment practices can have on pedagogical implementation.

This article opened by noting the contested nature of grammar teaching. In re-imagining grammar, we need to move away from simplistic views of teaching and pedagogy in terms of "what works". Biesta argues against the idea of evidence-based practice because it draws on a " causal model of professional action" (2007, 7), where teachers who follow an agreed approach will all achieve the same outcomes. This is an impoverished and limiting understanding of teaching and learning, which diminishes teacher professionalism and ignores the complexity of teacher mediation of learning. Debating whether grammar teaching works or not is a sterile endeavour: instead, we need real engagement with growing understanding of the ways in which grammar teaching can reap benefits, but also a critical willingness to address factors which can act as inhibitors of effectiveness. Only then might we realise the possibilities of writing classrooms where young writers are metalinguistically discursive, able to enact their own authorial agency and independence.

Year 1

letter, capital letter, word, singular, plural, sentence, punctuation, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark

Year 2

noun, noun phrase, statement, question, exclamation, command, compound, adjective, verb, suffix, adverb, tense (past, present), apostrophe, comma

Year 3

adverb, preposition, conjunction, word family, prefix, clause, subordinate clause, direct speech, consonant, consonant letter vowel, vowel letter, inverted commas (or "speech marks")

Year 4

determiner, pronoun, possessive pronoun, adverbial

Year 5

modal verb, relative pronoun, relative clause, parenthesis, bracket, dash, cohesion, ambiguity

Year 6

subject, object, active, passive, synonym, antonym, ellipsis, hyphen, colon, semi-colon, bullet points

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Debra Myhill is Director of the Centre for Research in Writing at the University of Exeter, and her research has focused on all aspects of writing, particularly metalinguistic talk; grammar and writing; and the writing process.

References

, , , M.-J. García-Folgado, and . 2018. "Working on Grammar at School in L1 Education: Empirical Research across Linguistic Regions." L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature 18: 1-6. doi:10.17239/L1ESLL-2018.18.04.01.

2005. "Bernstein's Theory of Pedagogic Discourse: Linguistics, Educational Policy and Practice in the UK English/literacy Classroom." English Teaching: Practice and Critique 4 (3): 32-47.

2020b. "Grammar Tests, De Facto Policy and Pedagogical Coercion in England's Primary Schools." Language Policy. doi:10.1007/s10993-020-09571-z.

2021. "Policy Mechanisms of the Standard Language Ideology in England's Education System." Journal of Language, Identity and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1877542

2020. Positioning students as linguistic and social experts: Teaching grammar and linguistics in the United States, L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 1-16.

Derewianka, B. , and 2010. "From Traditional to Grammar to Functional Grammar: Bridging the Divide." Special Issue of NALDIC Quarterly, Reading, 6-15.

, , and 2020. "Special Issue Research on L1 Grammar in Schooling: Mediation at the Heart of Learning Grammar". https://l1.publication-archive.com/show-volume/64

, and M. J. García-Folgado. 2018. "Grammar Instruction in the Hispanic Area: The Case of Spain with Attention to Empirical Studies on Metalinguistic Activity." L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature 18: 1-39. Working on grammar at school in L1 education: Empirical research across linguistic regions. https://l1.publication-archive.com/show-volume/54

Giovanelli, M. , and . 2015. "'Well I Don't Feel That': Schemas, Worlds and Authentic Reading in the Classroom." English in Education 49 (1): 41-55. doi:10.1111/eie.12052.

, and . 2019. "'More Fronted Adverbials than Ever Before'. Writing Feedback Practices and Grammatical Metalanguage in an English Primary School." Language and Education 33 (1): 35-50. doi:10.1080/09500782.2018.1488864.

Haussamen, B. , , , and 2003. "Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers." Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/grammar/alive.pdf

, , and . 2013. "Grammar for Writing? An Investigation into the Effect of Contextualised Grammar Teaching on Student Writing." Reading and Writing 26 (8): 1241-1263. doi:10.1007/s11145-012-9416-1.

, and . 2005. "The Story of English in United States Schools." English Teaching: Practice and Critique 4: 11-31.

Macken-Horarik, M. , C. Sandiford, , and . 2015. "New Ways of Working 'With Grammar in Mind' in School English: Insights from Systemic Functional Grammatics." Linguistics and Education 31: 145-158. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2015.07.004.

and . 2017. 'The Dress of Thought': Analysing Literature through a Linguistic Lens In Goodwyn, A. C., Durrant, C. Reid, L. and Scherff, L (eds) International Perspectives on the Teaching of Literature in Schools Global Principles and Practices. London: Routledge pp18-28.

2019. 'Linguistic Choice as Empowerment: Teaching Rhetorical Decision-Making in Writing'. Education & Democracy 28 (2) 55-75.

, & 2020. 'Thinking differently about grammar and metalinguistic understanding in writing'. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature, 13(2), e870. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/jtl3.870

and 2013. Grammar Matters: How Teachers' Grammatical Subject Knowledge Impacts on the Teaching of Writing Teaching and Teacher Education 36:77-91

and 2016. 'Metatalk: Enabling Metalinguistic Discussion about Writing', International Journal of Education Research. 80 (177-187).

, , & 2018. 'Texts that teach: Examining the efficacy of using texts as models'. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 18, 1-24.

, , and 2019. "What Is Grammar in L1 Education Today?", L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 19. 10.17239/L1ESLL2019.19.02.02

Vande Kopple, W. 1998. "Current Research on Language and Its Status with Composition Teachers." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. 49th, Chicago, IL, April 1-4, 1998. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED418408.pdf

Appendix 1: Studies from University of Exeter Centre for Research in Writing

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Grammar re-imagined: foregrounding understanding of language choice in writing

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ABSTRACT The topic of grammar teaching has remained a stubbornly contentious subject of discussion for more than 50 years, tending towards binary, even polemical, positions. Yet scrutiny of the research shows how little attention has been afforded to considering what the relationship between learning about grammar and learning about being a language user might be; or to effective pedagogical practices for teaching grammar.

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Morphological Awareness: One Piece of the Literacy Pie

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Morphological Awareness: One Piece of the Literacy Pie

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Morphological awareness is becoming a hot topic. Or at least a warm one. This post from the International Dyslexia Association helps break down morphological awareness as one piece of the literacy pie and how to support students with this critical bridging skill that supports word recognition development and language comprehension.

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Morphological Awareness: One Piece of the Literacy Pie - International Dyslexia Association

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What We Teach About Race And Gender: Representation In Images And Text Of Children’s Books

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What We Teach About Race And Gender: Representation In Images And Text Of Children’s Books

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Thanks to authors, illustrators, scholars, and publishers of color, the world of children’s literature is increasingly more representative of diverse society. This article takes a close look at the ways in which our text selections influence what we implicitly teach about race and gender.

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#1 (Feb 27th) Fostering Critical Translingual Writing in an Elementary EnglishDominant Classroom

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#1 (Feb 27th) Fostering Critical Translingual Writing in an Elementary EnglishDominant Classroom

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Translanguaging and translingual writing came to the forefront this year–rightfully so. In this article from Language Arts, the authors discuss how to foster translingual writing in English dominant classrooms.

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NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English

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Looking for Quick, Everyday Writing Practice for Students? Try Parachute Writing!

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Looking for Quick, Everyday Writing Practice for Students? Try Parachute Writing!

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In this ILA blog post, the author discusses a highly actionable, simple, joyful approach to everyday writing that can really compliment your ongoing writers workshop curriculum. Supporting students to get stronger at the sentence level is both possible and critical!

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Organization, neatness, and structure have never come naturally to me. I will be the first to admit that I am one of the least organized people you will ever meet. My to-do list rarely gets finished; I have a desktop that is a mosaic of mismatched files and downloads; my office is cluttered with books, sticky notes, and note cards; and don't even get me started on my closet. Perhaps my penchant for clutter, chaos, and disarray is why I have such a love for writing and teaching it.
Writing is messy
You see, real, honest, authentic writing is messy. Real writing is that early morning, just-out-of-bed look-not the "I'm ready for my close up," pretend this is how I look at 5:00 a.m., Instagram post-worthy version. Nah. Real, authentic writing does not just emerge polished and ready to publish. Instead, it often requires practice and work. To quote Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias, "It takes some effort to look like this!" and writing is no different. It is a unique process, complicated and non-linear. Recursive and dynamic. The writing process is organized chaos. Fragments falling. Sentence puzzles taken apart and put back together. Words omitted. Words added. There is no one right way to write. And this is why I love it.

And this is why students need to write often and for a variety of purposes: They need practice. Authentic writing is rarely formulaic, neatly contained, and boxed in. It can't be reduced to a clever acronym where students fill in the blanks and respond, and it certainly isn't something that we can race to complete. Because real writing looks messy, it requires deliberate planning and purpose, strategic thinking and decision making, and careful consideration and awareness of audience and purpose. Plus, writing often and for a variety of purposes not only helps students become better writers but also aids in their development as readers.

The only way that students will get better at writing is by writing. Writing engagements can be used in any content classroom, at any time, and with any audience. Regardless of a student's reading or writing skills or level, there is some type of writing that they can do daily.
Parachute Writings
I use the term Parachute Writings (PWs) to describe quick writing opportunities that can be easily deployed in the classroom. PWs can be dropped into just about any lesson and require limited up front preparation.

Just like parachutes prevent skydivers from crashing into the ground, PWs offer an element of safety for students. They are quick, low stakes, and flexible, which provides students the opportunity to practice multiple writing skills for a variety of purposes and audiences in short bursts.

PWs can be conducted with a partner or in a group setting, which offers another level of safety. Think about real skydivers: Before they attempt a solo jump, they take part in tandem jumps as part of their learning and training. Writing is no different. Building confidence in writing often is achieved through collaborative exercises and peer engagements.

PWs can be dropped into lessons at multiple points in your teaching on a frequent, daily basis; however, you need to be mindful about when the writing should be deployed and where. Although versatile and flexible, there is a specific element of purposeful implementation when using PWs. When planning PWs and adding them into lessons, it is helpful to consider the overall objectives and goals of the lesson.

Here are some easy PWs that you might try in your own teaching.

Drop Drafts are great PWs that can be used at any point in a lesson. Have students stop what they are doing and write for a minute or so (this can be in the form of a prompt or question posed by the teacher or other writing task). Remind students that this writing is only going to be seen by them so they will be more likely to write truthfully and freely. After the students finish their Drop Draft, have them crumble up their papers and "drop" them in the trash on the way out the door. Because this PW is not graded or read by peers, it can be used not only for clarification or understanding of content but also for sensitive, non-academic issues.

Quick writes (QWs) are some of the easiest PWs because they can take on multiple forms with the click of a pen. In a flash, QWs can transform into a whole different writing engagement based on the context and purpose of the lesson. These quick bursts of writing are often shared with peers or extended later into more developed pieces of writing. Plus, quick writes offer students the ability to read and respond to a variety of texts using any number of activator questions or thinking prompts.

Easy QWs might involve a small excerpt of text such as song lyrics, a short passage from a novel, or a poem. You might ask students to write about what the piece reminds them of, have them borrow a line from the writing, or pick out words they like. You can also use images, movie clips, and objects for QWs. For example, one summer I used slices of watermelon as a descriptive writing QW for my students. QWs are great not only for daily writing but also for extension opportunities. If students connect with a particular QW, they can choose to extend it to a more developed piece later.

Hear This is a strategy that works extremely well with listening and speaking lessons, highly descriptive texts, or concepts that require students to visualize material. An easy way to incorporate this type of writing is in tandem with highly descriptive material. As the text is read aloud to the students, they draw what they hear, thus creating a physical visual of the material. After students have created this visual accompaniment to the read-aloud text, have them add words from the text on sticky address labels or sticky notes and affix them to the drawing. This is a great way to teach not only listening comprehension and visualization but also textual evidence.

Regardless of the subject area or grade level, offering students multiple opportunities to write helps them grow into strong, confident writers. Try deploying one of these Parachute Writing activities into your lessons and watch your students soar.

Interested in reading about more high-interest, engaging ways to get students to write? Pick up a copy of Write Now and Write On: 37 Strategies for Authentic Daily Writing in Every Content Area to learn more about easy-to-implement writing ideas for students.
ILA member Rebecca G. Harper is an associate professor of literacy at Augusta University, Georgia. She serves as an invited speaker and keynote presenter for a variety of literacy conferences and delivers literacy professional development sessions across the United States. Her research interests include sociocultural theory, critical literacy, and content and disciplinary literacy. She resides in Aiken, SC, with her husband, Will, and children, Amelia, Macy Belle, and Vin. You can follow her on and on .

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Organization, neatness, and structure have never come naturally to me. I will be the first to admit that I am one of the least organized people you will ever meet. My to-do list rarely gets finished; I have a desktop that is a mosaic of mismatched files and downloads; my office is cluttered with books, sticky notes, and note cards; and don't even get me started on my closet.

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What Your Kindergartner’s Writing Shows About Reading

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What Your Kindergartner’s Writing Shows About Reading

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Reading and writing are reciprocal processes and by studying students’ writing we can be more attuned to potential challenges students may face with reading as evidenced by their spelling. In this Psychology Today post, Dr. Richard Gentry discusses what we can learn about a Kindergartener’s early literacy development by closely studying their writing. Dr. Gentry is one of the foremost, research-based voices on spelling! I anticipate spelling is going to be an increasingly hot topic as we move into 2022.

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Key points

Early literacy development happens in five developmental word reading and developmental spelling phases.

The kindergarten phases are outcomes of developing reading circuitry.

Kindergarten spellings of novel words can show you what the child knows or does not know on the path to literacy.

For teachers and parents, a close look at a child's writing sample offers key information about his or her literacy development. In this post, I collaborate with co-author Dr. Molly Ness of Fordham University to show how analysis of writing in children as young as kindergarten shows rich information as outcomes of the child's brain development and reading circuitry. We focus on how children develop literacy as spellers and how to use the rich evidence from spelling samples to monitor progress and plan for instruction. Our case study of Lulu, a kindergarten speller, will demonstrate what her spelling reveals about how she is thinking about how English writing, reading, and spelling work.

An Overview of Spelling Phases

As children evolve as early readers, they move through a series of five developmental spelling phases, outlined in the table below. These phases reveal how the child integrates-or fails to integrate-phonological awareness, alphabet fluency, letter-sound connections, phonics, sight words knowledge, and use of morphology. The research in support of phase observation and spelling to read spans over five decades (for a comprehensive review of research, see Gentry & Ouellette, 2019)

Learning to spell is not a matter of memorizing words, but an orderly developmental process with a series of increasingly more complex spelling patterns that "culminates in a much greater understanding of English spelling than simple relationships between speech sounds and their graphic representations" (Reported in Lutz, 1986, p. 742). In Lulu's sample below, you will see how she analyzes each word in a ten-word spelling activity revealing remarkable understanding for a child in September of her kindergarten year. While children may start and move through the phases at different ages, the sequence of the five spelling phases (outlined in the table below) is consistent and predictable.

In subsequent posts, we will dig into Phases 3 and 4, but let's highlight the key characteristics of the non-alphabetic, pre-alphabetic, and partial alphabetic phases.

Phase 0: Non-Alphabetic

Phase 0 is the first phase of writing; children's writing begins with scribbles but has no letters. By age three, children's scribbling may include letter-like features including loops, squiggles, dots, and lines. After this first phase-Non-Alphabetic-children move to Phase 1 when they learn to write their names; however, they are not accurately matching sounds to letters.

Early literacy instruction in Phase 0 should emphasize name writing so that children develop print concepts including words as individual units, white space surrounding words, left to right writing orientation in English, top to bottom page orientation, letter names, and early letter formation.

Parents and teachers might look for the following behaviors/markers in Phase 0:

Pretend writing and reading, no real reading or concept of spelling

Limited awareness of sounds in words

Child's inability to write his/her name and/or appropriate pencil grip

Appearance of letter-like forms; sometimes indications of left to right directionality

Discrimination of writing from drawing pictures

Parents and teachers can support young readers in this delightful phase by encouraging name writing, using nursery rhymes to teach oral language, and supporting children's learning of letter names.

Phase 1: Pre-Alphabetic (No Letter-Sound Matches)

Here's what to expect in the first half of kindergarten: You may see some letters but no letter-sound matching; sometimes no spacing; floating letters with numerals; letters and scribbles mixed together; or simply random letters. Look to see when your kindergartner begins to use left-to-right directionally. Initially expect to see just a few letters often repeated. With more experience, the child should move to substantial production of many known letters.

Phase 2: Partial Alphabetic (Some Letter-Sound Matches)

Here's what to expect in the second half of kindergarten: Partial-but not full-mapping of letters to sounds. Sometimes it's only one or two sound-to-letter mappings at the start of the phase, such as an E for eagle. As the child increases in knowledge of the alphabet and how letters map to sounds, expect him or her to get the most prominent sounds such as DNLDK for the two words Donald Duck.

Introducing Lulu and her Monster Spelling Test

To get a better sense of a kindergartner's early literacy skills, Molly (second author) gave five-year-old Lulu the Monster Spelling Test (Gentry & Ouellette, 2019). This list of ten words includes ones that are intentionally too difficult for young children, as their spelling errors provide data for analysis and interpretation.

One of the strengths of the Monster Test scoring is that the teacher is able to make judgments not only based on the actual invented spelling and the letters she puts down, but from observing how the child processes sounds as she writes them down.

As you can see in this video, Lulu confidently processes syllables and enunciates each sound to try to match it to a corresponding letter.

Lulu has moved beyond Phase 2 spelling. It's clear that she is well into the expectations for First Grade. As she sounds out each spelling, she uses sophisticated strategies and is beginning to move into Phase 4. More specifically, we see her employ the following linguistic behaviors:

She's beginning to think of sounds in syllables.

She mostly spells short vowels correctly.

She uses vowel team spellings (e.g.: uo, ui). This reveals her understanding that some vowels are spelled with more than one letter.

She hasn't yet mastered spellings for -ed endings, a goal to happen by the end of Phase 4.

All of her spellings are logical phonics patterns.

Lulu is a very sophisticated speller in September of her kindergarten year! She is in Phase 3 moving into Phase 4. She is functioning as a speller at what would generally be expected in the middle of first grade and she is quickly moving into Phase 4 as both a writer and a reader. Watch and listen to Lulu demonstrating her integration of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, handwriting, and spelling by clicking the link below.

In our next posts, we'll show you what happens in Grade 1 and how children should achieve recognition and retrieval of over 300 words and phonics patterns by the end of first grade! Be on the lookout for our post on Dr. Molly Ness's Psychology Today blog, "Learning, Maximized."

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What Your Kindergartner's Writing Shows About Reading

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Early literacy development happens in five developmental word reading and developmental spelling phases. The kindergarten phases are outcomes of developing reading circuitry. Kindergarten spellings of novel words can show you what the child knows or does not know on the path to literacy.

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#3 (Jan 30) Learning Academic Vocabulary through Lunchtime Chats, Hands-On Activities, and Complex Texts

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#3 (Jan 30) Learning Academic Vocabulary through Lunchtime Chats, Hands-On Activities, and Complex Texts

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Looking for simple ways to infuse more language development with students? In this ILA blog post, the author discusses ways to integrate academic vocabulary throughout the day.

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I started sharing lunch outside on the playground with my students when we returned to in-person learning last spring. We had the best conversations. It was an unexpected gift of the pandemic. One day one of my second graders asked me to share some important words.

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The Ted Lasso Effect: How to Build Capacity with Warmth, Wisdom, and Walk-Throughs

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The Ted Lasso Effect: How to Build Capacity with Warmth, Wisdom, and Walk-Throughs

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How do we begin to create change in our schools? In this blog post, Julie Wright discusses what she calls the Ted Lasso Effect or how to build capacity and create change through warmth, wisdom, and walk-throughs.

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by Julie Wright

By now you've heard of Ted Lasso, I'm sure. And, if you are like me, at the end of a tough week you just need a little Lasso in your life to rejuvenate. There's something kind of special, something timely, about Ted Lasso's one-liners: "With every choice, there's a chance." Even though this guy is a fictional character, he sort of feels like a friend, a cheerleader, a coach. I think it's because his words of wisdom apply to so many educational circumstances. Ted, like many of us, works really hard to be capacity-builders.

Capacity-building occurs when the talents and needs of everyone across the learning community converge to move a school or district in a unified direction.These aren't one-and-done triumphs-when we build capacity, we create a longer lasting momentum of human potential. . These are enriching experiences that are repeated over and over again. Day after day, month after month, year after year, educators know how to share their knowledge and experiences with others to create a culture of getting better all of the time...together!

Building capacity doesn't happen overnight, but can be a bucket-filling process when we work off of the good versus harp on the negative. There are many ways to initiate asset-based, capacity building opportunities. Here, I'll share two do-it-tomorrow ways that I've found pretty foolproof.

1. Get people reading and talking.

2. Get people walking and observing.

Get People Reading and Talking
There's a reason that pediatricians read medical journals. They need to be informed of the latest research and findings so that they can provide the best care for their patients. Teachers need the same updates. Whether it's reading and discussing an excerpt, infographic, article, or a chapter of a book, teachers re-fuel their thinking and reboot their practices when they stay current with theory and research.
Try It
Invite a small group of teachers to join you during lunch time to talk about a short article or piece of text from a professional book. You can give them the text to read ahead of time or build in reading while eating lunch. Then, discuss the text together. Consider using the this version of the 4 A's Protocol, adapted from www.schoolreforminitiative.org, to get discussion moving:

Here is a template for an invitation. Adopt or adapt it to fit your needs and purpose.

Join me for a "Lunch & Learn" on ____________ [insert date and time]. During that time, we'll be talking about _____________ [insert topic or link to article]. Bring your lunch and I'll bring a dessert to share. Let me know if you can make it. Hope to see you there!_____________ [insert name]

Not sure if lunch time is the best time? Well, consider one of these during a different time: Dine & Discuss, Popcorn & Ponderings, or Snacks & Study.
Get People Walking and Observing
Gather a group of curious educators to participate in an asset-based learning walk. Picture this. Administrators, instructional coaches, and teachers on a quest to "sniff out the good" across the learning community. The goal is to capture all of the choices and instructional decisions that were being made and envision all of the chances, or opportunities, that those choices afforded for future student learning.
Try It
As you walk from classroom to classroom, have each educator use a note catcher ( try one of these!) to capture all of the good happening across classrooms. Instead of collecting and analyzing quantitative data, consider a learning walk focused on data collected by observing students, or kidwatching, in the round. Write down what you see and hear and name how those noticings make a difference to student learning.

By kidwatching, the focus isn't evaluation. Instead, you and your colleagues give yourself permission to trust your gut, to thin-slice. Thin-slicing refers to the ability to find patterns in events based only on "thin slices", or narrow windows of experience or data. It's learned intuition, and it flickers in our minds as we process information to make decisions. Teachers do it all the time in the midst of teaching and watching how students are responding to their instruction. It's powerful when we deliberately use it as a lens for a learning walk that focuses on what seems to be going well. Strengths; what's harmonious; productive, uplifting, surprising, and so on. To try it, encourage your colleagues to trust their instincts as they take in-and take notes on-the following:

Student talk (what students say, discuss, and share)

Student work (what students write, make, create, design, solve, perform, and do)

Learning environment (what is on the walls and bookshelves, furniture arrangement, and supplies used for learning)

Instructional resources (what students read, listen to, or view)

Here's an excerpt of an example.

Class: US History

Block: 2

Background: The teacher jump started learning time by sharing a series of images with students, asking them to write what they thought the image represented or what was happening in the image. By the end of the class, the students made connections about how each of these images connected to the learning progression question: How do the powerful hold onto power?

What assets do I see/hear? How do these assets make a difference to student learning?

Student Talk
Ss shared observations of each image with a partner
Ss tossed around ideas, nudging one another to inspect some images a second time for new or different noticings
As the T nudged ideas, sharing places where Ss could lean in and look closer at certain images, Ss responded verbally and through writing

Ss shared and gained new ideas from others
The classroom was filled with S talk

Ss had more than one way to share their ideas and understandings

Student Work
Ss wrote bullet points, blurbs and sentences about what they thought each image represented or what was happening in the image
After speaking to others, Ss made new observations using the comment feature in their google doc

Looking across past entries, it is evident that this activity is repeated (with different images) across time giving Ss multiple opportunities for deeper learning

Learning Environment
As Ss entered the classroom, there was gentle lighting in each corner of the classroom, creating a calm, productive atmosphere
Each S had their own learning space with proximity to peers and T
Each S had access to and could easily see the screen with images and the ability to move closer if needed or wanted

This classroom invited a mixture of social with academic

Ss jumped right into the learning at the start of class

Instructional Resources
Each S had 1:1 access to a laptop, google classroom, and individual digital folders
Ss were invited to view and review images as often as needed
Instructional resources encouraged risk-taking, connection-making, and integration of ideas

When Ss have access and autonomy, they are in charge of their own learning

When Ss make connections, especially through integration, learning can go from surface to deep

Ss=students T=teacher
So Why Does This Matter?
Capacity-building is one of those terms said so often it becomes a pleasant white noise. It exists as a bullet point in memos and professional learning initiatives. It's time to make it vivid, real and action-oriented. Whether you are a district leader, a principal, a coach, or a teacher, you have the power to build capacity in students, and in colleagues. Start small. Get people reading, talking, walking, observing, and talking some more. You might focus on students first, and then do the same sleuthing on what leads to meeting a team, department, or building goals.

Begin with the assets you see. Name them, together. Negotiate what they mean in your school. Consider their implications for day- to-day practices. Get curious, and use these insights to frame professional learning questions that are most productive-and most pertinent to your learning community- for future growth together. That's because with every choice, we uncover new opportunities, or chances, to grow our teaching practices.
References
Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Penguin Books Ltd., 2005.

School Reform Initiative - a Community of Learners. https://schoolreforminitiative.org/doc/4_a_text.pdf.&nbsp;

Wright, J. What's Our Response? Creating Systems and Structures to Support ALL Learners. FIRST Educational Resources, 2021.

Wright, J. Side by Side Coaching: 10 Asset-Based Habits That Spark Collaboration, Risk-Taking, and Growth. Benchmark Education Company, 2022.

JULIE WRIGHT is a teacher, instructional coach, and educational consultant with over twenty-five years of experience in rural, suburban, and urban education settings. She holds National Board Certification as well as a B.S. in Education, M.A. in Language Arts and Reading, a K-12 Reading Endorsement, and extensive school leadership post-graduate work, including a pre-K through grade 9 principal license from The Ohio State University. Julie serves as an Adjunct Faculty Member at Ashland University and is the co-author of What Are You Grouping For? How to Guide Small Groups Based on Readers-Not the Book (Wright & Hoonan, 2019). Follow Julie on Twitter @juliewright4444 or for more information on how she can support your efforts, visit www.juliewrightconsulting.com.

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The Ted Lasso Effect: How to Build Capacity with Warmth, Wisdom, and Walk-Throughs

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by Julie Wright By now you've heard of Ted Lasso, I'm sure. And, if you are like me, at the end of a tough week you just need a little Lasso in your life to rejuvenate. There's something kind of special, something timely, about Ted Lasso's one-liners: "With every choice, there's a chance."

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#3 (Feb 27th) The Changes We Need: Education post COVID-19

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#3 (Feb 27th) The Changes We Need: Education post COVID-19

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Of course, COVID has challenged us and changed us. In this article, leading SEL researchers, Drs. Yong Zhao and Jim Watterston posit the changes we need now and in the future with an emphasis on curriculum that is student-centered, inquiry-based, authentic, and personal.

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The changes we need: Education post COVID-19 - Journal of Educational Change

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused both unprecendented disruptions and massive changes to education. However, as schools return, these changes may disappear. Moreover, not all of the changes are necessarily the changes we want in education. In this paper, we argue that the pandemic has created a uniqu…

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Podcast: Building Resilience through Routines, Relationships, and Regulation

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Podcast: Building Resilience through Routines, Relationships, and Regulation

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COVID has magnified the trauma students encounter. In this Amplify podcast episode, leading trauma specialist Ricky Roberston offers concrete, actionable ways to support students who may need us most.

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S4-E11 Building resilience through routine, relationships, and regulation in the classroom: Ricky Robertson - Science of Reading: The Podcast

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In this episode, we join Susan Lambert as she talks to Ricky Robertson about building systems of support for students impacted by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the educators who work with them. Ricky is an educator, author, and consulta...

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Eyes that Kiss in the Corners
Written by Johanna Ho

Illustrated by Dung Ho

Published by HarperCollins Children's , 2021

ISBN 978-0-06-291562-7

Grades K-5
Book Review
"Some people have eyes like sapphire lagoons with lashes like lace trim on ballgowns, sweeping their cheeks as they twirl. Big eyes, long lashes. Not me. I have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea." In Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, a young Chinese American girl speaks to readers through lyrical language that celebrates the beauty of her eyes and the eyes of her beloved Mama, grandmother Amah, and little sister, Mei-Mei. Each page sings with emotion, affirmation, and every day moments of love like "When Mama tucks me in at night, her eyes tell me I'm a miracle." Dung Ho's breathtaking, warm illustrations invite readers into the daily life of the narrator with scenes showing her snuggling in bed with Mama, picking lychee on trees with Amah, and walking in the door after school to Mei-Mei's smile. Ho's lush illustrations complement narrative moments that pay tribute to folkloric traditions with dragons swirling across the page and coy whirling in their oolong pools. While an exquisite book to read aloud on its own, Eyes that Kiss in the Corners pairs well with other recent titles that celebrate children's inherent beauty and brilliance, where we are from, and how we can come to love ourselves.
Teaching Ideas: Invitations for Your Classroom
Note to our Readers: These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive. Choose one. Choose more. It's up to you. Some ideas are bigger and will take a number of days to complete. Some are shorter. You can also choose to complete one part of a teaching idea, but not the whole thing. It's up to you!

Why Am I Me?: Celebrating Who We Are. Eyes that Kiss in the Corners affirms for readers that who they are is beautiful and praise-worthy. Gather other books that celebrate self-love and the exploration of our identities such as I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes, by Lupita Nyong'o, Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, by Britt Paige, I Am Enough by Grace Byers, Hair Love by Matthew Cherry, or view the Oscar-winning short film . Using these texts as a guide, support students to write and illustrate as a form of self-acceptance by focusing on things they love about themselves and their families.

The Best Part of Me: Loving Ourselves with Lyrical Language. The driving metaphor in the story is that the narrator's eyes "kiss in the corners". This evocative language allows readers to connect to the beauty of her eyes in a wholly original and memorable way. Invite students to choose a body part they love about themselves and to consider language possibilities for describing it in a new way. Pair Eyes that Kiss in the Corners with The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About Their Bodies in Pictures and Words by Wendy Ewald. Invite students to take photos of the best parts of them and to pair their photos with lyrical phrases, poems, or stories that celebrate who they are. Post these photo/text pairings on a physical bulletin board or in a digital board such as Padlet.

Celebrating Our Family Histories and Connecting Our Stories to the Past. Eyes that Kiss in the Corner pays homage to the power of family love and human connection. Gather other books that celebrate family love with emphasis on varying family structures with books like Going Down Home with Daddy by Kelly Starling Lyons (family gathering), Juana Martinez-Neal's Alma and How She Got Her Name (family name stories), Yamile Saied Méndez's Where Are You From?, Cynthia Rylant's The Relatives Came (family gathering), A Most Unusual Day by Sydra Mallery (adoption), Stella Brings the Family by Miriam Shiffer (LGBTQ family), A Family is a Family is a Family by Sarah O'Leary (different family structures and circumstances), Still a Family by Brenda Reeves Sturgis (homelessness), Shelly Rotner's photo essay Families (diverse family structures), Karen Hesse's Night Job (working nights), and Bao Phi's A Different Pond (immigration). Consult booklists such as Social Justice Books: Learning About Family Structures. We also recommend you work with your school or local public librarian to be sure that you read an array of titles that reflect different family circumstances. Leverage students' reading about families to create their own family stories drawing inspiration from the books in the text set.

Rhythm and Repetition for Effect: Craft Study. Support students to notice and name how Joanna Ho uses repetition for effect thereby creating a rhythm to the story read aloud. What words and phrases are repeated? Where do they appear in the book? What impact does repetition have on us as readers? In what ways is repetition a form of comfort because we are able to anchor ourselves in some language while the author layers new language? Invite students to create a narrative that intentionally uses repetition for effect. Students may want to borrow some of Ho's repetitive choices such as the phrases "My eyes...her eyes..." and "They are..." as a way to launch their own writing.

Picturebook Making: Layout Study. The layout of each page of Eyes that Kiss in the Corners has been thoughtfully created to move readers' eyes across the page in dynamic ways. Support students to notice and name the work of the interior book designer whose creativity influenced the design of the book such as the two-page spreads, how print is staggered, and when sentences stand alone on a page. Also support students to notice visual elements such as the use and absence of color and the use of swirling lines to create motion. Use Molly Bang's Picture This: How Pictures Workto support students to grow in their knowledge and vocabulary about visual elements in picturebooks. Then, engage in a study of the interior designs of other picturebooks you already have in your classroom. Create a class anchor chart of the ways layout choices grab our attention as readers citing specific book examples with elements such as font choice, use of color, absence of color, endpaper designs, and where and how print appears.

Children's Books that Feature Asian and Asian American Characters. Eyes that Kiss in the Corners celebrates the narrator's Chinese American family and heritage in both explicit and subtle ways. Take stock of your classroom library for the ways in which Asian and Asian American characters are represented to ensure that you have culturally and historically responsive texts with positive representations of characters, their heritages, and their communities. We recommend consulting Diverse Book Finder, The Colours of Us suggested titles, as well as the Lee and Low Books collection for title suggestions. Lee and Low Books are the top publisher of Asian American books and their titles include a wide range of genres and rich cultural diversity. We also recommend viewing a variety of videos by author and illustrator Grace Lin, who has been active in the We Need Diverse Books movement and whose books often feature Asian-American characters. Her videos include an interview with Reading Rockets, a famed TEDx talk, and many different illustration guides that include "tidbits of Chinese culture" on her YouTube channel.
Critical Literacy
Addressing Stereotypical Representations of Asian People. Eyes that Kiss in the Corners affirms the inherent beauty, brilliance, and familial connection of the narrator and her Chinese American family. Yet, there have been many negative and stereotypical representations of Asian and Asian American people in children's literature as seen in books with characters who all have the same faces or skin tone denoting sameness, antiquated views of cultures and people, inaccurate caricatures, and false folktales such as in The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Hutchet Bishop, The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack, and Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel. Consider addressing the ways that characters, cultures, and communities can be stereotyped in books and media and the harmful impact this has on individuals and communities. Identify Eyes that Kiss in the Corners as a book that affirms the beauty, brilliance, connection, and experiences of the characters in ways that celebrate rather than stereotype the cultural heritage of the characters.

Further Explorations
Digital Resources
Joanna Ho's Site
https://www.joannahowrites.com/
Joanna Ho Author Interview

HarperCollins Activity Guide
https://b0f646cfbd7462424f7a-f9758a43fb7c33cc8adda0fd36101899.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/activity-guides/AG-9780062915627.pdf
Colours of Us: Asian and Asian American Children's Books

Lee and Low Books: Asian and Asian American Books
https://www.leeandlow.com/cultures/asian-asian-american-interest
Social Justice Books: Early Childhood Families

Reading Rockets Interview with Grace Lin
https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/lin
Grace Lin TEDx
https://ed.ted.com/on/a0o0BODb
Grace Lin YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIQet5ij4zAuR_QGOQ1vAxQ Books Barnes, D. (2020). I am every good thing. New York, NY: Nancy Paulsen Books. Britt, P. (2017). Why am I me? Ill. by S. Qualls and S. Alko. New York: Scholastic.
Byers, G. (2018). I am enough. New York: Balzer + Bray.

Ewald, W. (2002). The best part of me: Children talk about their bodies in pictures and words. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
Harris, R. (2012). Who's in my family?: All about our families. Ill. by N. Bernard Wescott. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. Kostecki-Shaw, J. (2011). Same, same but different. New York: Henry Holt.
Kuklin, S. (2006). Families. New York: Hyperion Books for Children.
Lyons, K.S. (2019). Going down home with Daddy. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishing. Martinez-Neal, J. (2018). Alma and how she got her name. Somerville, MA: Candlewick. Méndez, Y. (2019). Where are you from? New York: HarperCollins. Nyong'o, L. (2019). Sulwe. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers.
Phi, B. (2017). A different pond. Ill. by T. Bui. Edina, MN: Capstone Books for Young Readers.
Thompkins-Bigelow, J. (2020). Your name is a song. The Innovation Press.

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Encourage Self-Love with Eyes that Kiss in the Corners - The Classroom Bookshelf

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Eyes that Kiss in the Corners Written by Johanna Ho Illustrated by Dung Ho Published by HarperCollins Children's , 2021 ISBN 978-0-06-291562-7 Grades K-5 Book Review "Some people have eyes like sapphire lagoons with lashes like lace trim on ballgowns, sweeping their cheeks as they twirl. Big eyes, long lashes.

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Written and Illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Published by Fiewel and Friends 2021

ISBN 978-1-250-31716-2
Grades PreK-3 Book Review
"It's not fair...," thought Louise... "when the things we love must end." In Bear Island, Caldecott-winning author and illustrator Matthew Cordell affirms for children that they can find resilience and hope in the midst of grief. With deep respect for the child as a reader, Cordell gently invites readers in the opening pages to infer that Louise's beloved dog, Charlie, has passed away. In the pages that follow, Louise ventures out to an island thinking about Charlie. There, we witness the range of emotions Louise experiences as she processes her grief. She thwacks a tree and declares "I'm leaving". She stares in wonder at a kaleidoscope of butterflies and delights in the sudden appearance of deer. Just when she is feeling "something new and good was happening" both on the island and within her, comes a disgruntled bear who confronts Louise with a raging ROAR only to be roared at even more ferociously by Louise. With the bear defeated and dejected, Louise ventures away only to look back at the bear to notice "a familiar feeling, a familiar sadness". From that moment of shared recognition, the bear and Louise forge a bond in their journey towards healing. Cordell's loose pen, ink, and watercolor illustrations complement and extend the print inviting children to lean into the emotional tone of each page. Full of possibilities for deep and meaningful literacy engagements, Bear Island opens the door for children to talk about loss and sadness through a soulful narrative that offers a model for emotional recovery by connecting with nature and through the simple passage of time. With rare subtlety and without a trace of didaticism, Cordell's Bear Island is a gift for this moment-both timely and timeless.
Teaching Ideas: Invitations for Your Classrooms
Note to our Readers: These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive. Choose one. Choose more. It's up to you. Some ideas are bigger and will take a number of days to complete. Some are shorter. You can also choose to complete one part of a teaching idea, but not the whole thing. It's up to you!

The Loss of a Loved One. Bear Island gently introduces young readers to the realities that beloved pets, and by extension, family members, sometimes pass away. We recommend reading aloud Bear Island without forcing conversation about loss or trauma on children. Rather, the story itself may invite students to share connections about losing someone special in their own lives. Prior to initiating a conversation about grief and loss, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (2015) encourages adults to develop their own awareness about such topics. NIH recommends demonstrating an openness that invites children to communicate, to show acceptance toward children's feelings, to offer honest information, to answer questions in understandable and age-appropriate language, and, to reflect on your own feelings and beliefs in order to talk with children. If you have students that seem comforted by Bear Island or curious about other stories that help address grief and loss, we recommend books such as The Rough Patch by Brian Lies (dog), Blue by Laura Vacarro Seeger (dog), Rosie and Crayon (dog), Ocean Meets Sky by Terry and Eric Fan (grandparent), Grandmother's Visit by Betty Quan (grandparent), The Remember Balloons by Jesse Oliveros (grandparent), One Little Bag: An Amazing Journey by Henry Cole (grandparent), French Toast Sundays by Gloria Spielman (grandparent), Always Remember by Cece Meng, The Dandelion's Tale by Kevin Sheehan and Rob Dunlavey, Death is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham, The Goodbye Book by Todd Parr, The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers, Badger's Parting Gifts by Susan Varley, Ida, Always by Caron Levis, and Big Cat, Little Cat by Elisha Cooper. We also recommend reading Maeve Visser Knoth's article "What Ails Bibliotherapy" from The Horn Book Magazine to consider the role of "advance bibliotherapy" to help prepare children for emotional experiences before they occur. In this way, books such as Bear Island play an essential role to inoculate children rather than treat the symptoms of emotional trauma when they occur.

Complex Characters Invite Us to Become More Human. Cordell's honest portrayal of a child's grief after losing a pet reminds readers that being human can be hard. Engage in character analysis of Louise by inviting students to describe her strengths and her struggles. Consider creating a lifesize cutout or collaborative graphic organizer of Louise for students to identify what's in her head and what's in her heart as a way to extend their thinking. Invite students to identify other characters that help us to think about the complexities of being human and the gift of our existence. Create a class chart of these characters that serves as an interactive writing invitation all year long.

The Power of Craft Techniques. With only a few sentences on each page, Bear Island is an ideal text for students to notice and name craft techniques. Support students to notice the use of repetition, punctuation for effect, transitional words and phrases, a variety of sentence types and lengths, fragments for effect, dialogue, and sound words in bold. Encourage students to identify the craft techniques they want to incorporate into their own writing. Once techniques are identified, place Bear Island in an accessible book area with pages marked with sticky notes to let students know where these craft techniques appear, so they can refer to them when they need a mentor text for their own writing. You may also want to photocopy pages that contain particular craft techniques as part of a conferring toolkit to support individual writers.

A Touch of Magical Realism. While we know that animals and humans can connect in profound ways, they can't quite engage in the ways that Louise and the bear do in Bear Island. Invite students to consider the touch of magical realism that Matthew Cordell gives to the book and how it enhances our experiences as readers. On what pages and in what ways does Cordell play with our imaginations through the connection between the bear and Louise? What can humans and bears do and not do? How would the story have been different without this touch of magical realism? Invite students to play with touches of magical realism in their own storytelling and story creating.

Close Reading: Illustrations that Reveal Feelings Change. How we process grief is personal, yet one thing we may have in common is a range of feelings that we experience including anger, despair, and acceptance. Support students to discuss how Cordell uses illustration techniques to convey the emotions that Louise feels over the course of the story. How does the use of sepia and soft colors convey the past as well as deep sadness? At what moment in the story do the colors start to change? What might that reveal about Louise? What are other ways Cordell expresses emotion through his illustrations such as through the facial expressions and body language of characters? After exploring the illustrations, have students create their own illustrations using ink and watercolor to portray a scene from their own lives where they experienced strong emotions.

Bookmaking. Bear Island offers a mentor text for students to create their own books using a variety of illustration techniques. Each page of Bear Island is worthy of close investigation and offers replicable techniques for students to illustrate their own stories with a focus on: the use of white space, double-page spreads, color for effect, paneling, wordless pages, and Cordell's signature binocular-effect layout. Students may want to draw from Cordell's techniques to illustrate stories they have already written, or your students may want to take inspiration from the story itself to make books about times when they experienced strong emotions or lost a loved one.

Duet Model: Wolf in the Snow and Bear Island. Pair a reading of Bear Island with Matthew Cordell's Caldecott-winning Wolf in the Snow. Invite students to engage in text comparisons of the two books including illustration techniques, a reverence for animals, human-animal connections, a touch of magical realism, strong family ties, winter settings, and the circular nature of both stories. Create an anchor chart or graphic organizer that supports students to find similarities and differences between the two books noticing and naming what they see and what the stories make them think.

Change and Constancy Text Set. Gather books that explore change and constancy, such as Brenden Wenzel's A Stone Sat Still and Cori Doerrfeld's The Rabbit Listened to help your students understand that while change is a constant in our lives (both rapid change and slow change), there are elements of beauty in life that endure. Also support students to consider how characters process unexpected challenges in life through the help of others, by spending time in nature, or by simply allowing time to heal. Encourage students to consider how they can help support others in the future who have experienced sudden change in life by asking questions like "What do you need?" and by simply demonstrating compassion through listening and being present for those we love.

Beloved Animals as Deuteragonist Characters. Pets and beloved animals make wonderful deuteragonists, or characters that are second-in-command to the protagonist. The bear serves as a significant character in Bear Island as the wolf pup does in Cordell's Wolf in the Snow. Students may be familiar with deuteragonist characters from Disney stories including Dory in Finding Nemo, Nala in The Lion King, or Miss Piggy in The Muppets. Introduce the concept of deuteragonist characters to students and invite them to create their own narratives with a human protagonist and animal deuteragonist or two animal characters where one is the lead and the other is a nearly equal partner in the narrative.

Author Study. Matthew Cordell's books are beloved by readers of all ages for their gentle pacing and reassuring narratives. Invite students to engage in an author study by noticing and naming comparisons across the books he has written and/or illustrated. How would they describe his illustration style? What seems important to him based on the characters and themes of his stories? What do they notice about the books he illustrates but doesn't write? What can they learn about his life and influences from online research? Follow his Twitter (@cordellmatthew) or Instagram (@cordell_matthew) account as a class for updates on his work.
Further Explorations Online Resources
Matthew Cordell's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/cordell_matthew/
Interview with Matthew Cordell about Bear Island

Horn Book: What Ails Bibliotherapy?
https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=what-ails-bibliotherapy
Sesame Workshop: Helping Kids Grieve

Scholastic Website: About Children and Grief
https://www.scholastic.com/snp/childrenandgrief-2.htm Books Written or Illustrated by Matthew Cordell
Arnold, M.D. (2015). Lost. Found. New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

Cordell, M. (2020). Hello, neighbor: The kind and caring world of Mr. Rogers. New York, NY: Neal Porter Books.
Cordell, M. (2017). Wolf in the snow. New York, NY: Feiwel and Friends.
Cordell, M. (2017). Dream ( Wish). New York, NY: Disney-Hyperion.

Cordell, M. (2015). Wish. New York, NY: Disney-Hyperion.

Dotlich, R.K. (2016). The knowing book. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.

Levine, G.C. (2012). Forgive me, I meant to do it. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Picturebooks to Support Children with Grief and Loss
Cole, H. (2020). One little bag: An amazing journey. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Cooper, E. (2017). Big cat, little cat. New York, NY: MacMillan.
Dooerfeld, C. (2018). The rabbit listened. New York, NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.
Fan, T. & Fan, E. (2018). When ocean meets sky. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Higginbotham, A. (2016). Death is stupid. New York, NY: The Feminist Press.

Jeffers, O. (2010). The heart and the bottle. New York, NY: Philomel Books.

Levis, C. (2016). Ida, always. New York, NY:Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Lies, B. (2018). The rough patch. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Marcero, D. (2017). Rosie and crayon. White Plains, NY: Peter Pauper Press.

Meng, C. (2016). Always remember. New York, NY: Philomel Books.

Oliveros, J. (2018). The remember balloons. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Parr, T. (2015). The goodbye book. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Quan, B. (2018). Grandmother's visit. Toronto, Canada: Groundwood Books.

Seeger, L.V. (2018). Blue. New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

Sheehan, K. & Dunlavey, (2014). The dandelion's tale. New York, NY: Schwartz & Wade.

Spielman, G. (2018). French toast Sundays. Springfield, NJ: Apples and Honey Press.

Varley, S. (1992). Badger's parting gifts. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Other Recommended Resources
Dávila, D. Melilli, A., Canady, F., Dunham, H., Alexander, K., Li, K. (2019). Picturebooks and the cycle of grief. Journal of Children's Literature, 45(2), 88-96.

National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. (2015). Talking to children about death. Bethesda, MD: Author.

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Wandering through Grief Towards Reassurance with Bear Island - The Classroom Bookshelf

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Written and Illustrated by Matthew Cordell Published by Fiewel and Friends 2021 ISBN 978-1-250-31716-2 Grades PreK-3 Book Review "It's not fair...," thought Louise... "when the things we love must end." In Bear Island, Caldecott-winning author and illustrator Matthew Cordell affirms for children that they can find resilience and hope in the midst of grief.

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I Am the Storm
Written by Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple

Art by Kristen and Kevin Howdeshell

Rise Books, an Imprint of Penguin Random House, 2021

ISBN 978-0-593-22275-1
Book Review
Wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards have become an increasingly more regular part of our lives. In response to the greater frequency of extreme weather, beloved author Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi E.Y. Stemple, have crafted a luminous picturebook that comforts as well as informs young readers about these four weather emergencies. Each scene begins by acknowledging the power of storms, often using figurative language, followed by a brief explanation of what families can do to feel safe and empowered, such as: "When the wind howled and blew, loud as a train, we had a party in the basement with Grandma, reading books and playing games with the flashlight." Throughout the book, children are reassured that we can weather storms safely and we can rebuild what may have been lost. This is seen most profoundly in scenes where families are picking up branches, fixing fences, shoveling walkways, and bringing flowers to a neighbor. Yolen and Stemple acknowledge the big emotions that are natural to have in a storm, but what resonates most in the text are not the feelings of fright children may experience, but the resilience, creativity, and hope that children in the book find in each storm. This is seen across each weather emergency such as when a child dances and twirls like the wind after a tornado and when children turn their cousins' bunk bed into imaginary boats high above the waves after fleeing a hurricane. Textured illustrations by Kristen and Kevin Howdeshell enhance each storm scene with hues of green, blue, orange, and brown that mirror the natural environment of each scene. As our children encounter more frequently occurring traumatic storms, this book reminds them that storms are powerful, but so are they. Back matter explains each of the four weather emergencies and what children can expect when they occur. Read aloud I Am the Storm well in advance of the next storm to ease children's anxieties and help them feel prepared and empowered for whatever storms they may endure.
The Longest Storm
Written and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

Minedition, 2021

ISBN 978-1-6626-5047-5

"A storm came to our town. It was unlike any storm we'd ever seen. No one knew how long it would last." Characteristic of his previous work, Dan Yaccarino's The Longest Storm uses spare text and bold illustrations to convey the range of emotions a single-father family experiences during a strange storm. With too much time and the feeling of too little to do, the children try to pass the time: by washing the dog (making a big puddle in the process), eating food out of the fridge, cutting their own hair, and fighting over tablets. Things go from strange to bad to worse. The family runs out of nice things to say and for a while everyone just wants to be alone. Several pages then reveal a big flash, darkness, and the family gathering together in bed by candlelight. The next day, while the storm remains, the family has changed as seen by the smile on the father's face while cooking eggs and the children's joy while playing handheld instruments, watching a movie with popcorn, and playing a board game. Written in response to his own family's experiences with the COVID-19 lockdown, The Longest Storm eloquently acknowledges the family challenges we all endured through the most restrictive days of the pandemic while also serving as a comforting text for the storms that are yet to come. Illustrations use a palette of deep blues and bright yellow to create bold contrasts throughout the book that mirror the contrasting feelings the characters experience. Full of tension, honesty, and beauty, The Longest Storm is a mesmerizing picturebook full of read-aloud possibilities that acknowledges the struggle and hope that any storm can bring.
Grades PreK-5 Teaching Ideas: Invitations for Your Classrooms
Note to our Readers: These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive. Choose one. Choose more. It's up to you. Some ideas are bigger and will take a number of days to complete. Some are shorter. You can also choose to complete one part of a teaching idea, but not the whole thing. It's up to you!

Storm Preparedness: Feeling Safe and Loved. Both of these books offer children reassuring messages that they may encounter difficult, even scary storms, but that there are ways to be prepared for the next storm by focusing on safety and love. Have students share their thoughts about what makes them feel safe and loved during a storm. Then, invite students to linger on each page to notice how the characters were prepared for the storm (or not). How do the pages offer possibilities for how they could prepare for a future storm such as by gathering books to read aloud with family members, having flashlights ready, or having cards handy for playing games. With older students, pair these books with novel-in-verse The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park to support students to think about the hypothetical situation of having to decide what things they would save in a storm situation. Send home a letter to families informing them of these read-aloud titles and how you are using them in the classroom to help students feel reassured, safe, and loved in preparation for the next storm whenever it may come. Invite them to have a discussion at home about storms, how to be prepared, and what we can do to help everyone at home and in the neighborhood.

Growing Knowledge about Storms: What Do I Know? What Do I Wonder? Our students have various life experiences with storms depending on where they have lived. Gather a variety of nonfiction and fiction texts (see Further Investigations below) to grow student knowledge about extreme weather, to pique student interest, to help them develop questions, to find answers, and to feel safe and secure in advance of the next storm. In addition to print texts, consider sharing time-lapse videos of storms such as NASA's satellite video of Hurricane Harvey. Please be mindful that some students may find certain videos of storms retraumatizing if they have survived extreme storms. It's important to be aware of your students' past experiences with storms. After reading and viewing storm-related texts, invite students to engage in a collaborative KWL chart. What do students know about storms, what do they wonder about storms, and what do they learn by reading and viewing various knowledge-building texts?

Weather Clubs. Consider having students engage in small groups based on their interest in one of the four weather emergencies featured in I Am the Storm: forest fires, hurricanes, tornados, and blizzards. Using a variety of texts (see Further Explorations below), have students engage in collaborative research to learn more about these types of extreme weather and what we can do to feel prepared. Have groups create physical displays or multimedia presentations with the goal of both informing and reassuring.

Ready Set Draw!: Drawing Emotions. View Dan Yaccarino's Ready. Set. Draw! episode on KidLitTV which focuses on drawing characters' faces to convey emotions just like he does in The Longest Storm. Pause the video at select moments to have students share the emotions his illustrations show. The video is organized like a tutorial so either invite students to follow along and draw the faces as Yaccarino draws them or watch the video and then invite students to draw faces based on Yaccarino's techniques. Create an emotions anchor chart using student drawings based on Yaccarino's techniques that can help students name the various emotions they feel throughout the school year. Remind students they can use these techniques in their illustrations for all of their artwork in the future.

Perspective-Taking with Speech and Thought Bubbles. Both of these books offer opportunities for students to engage in perspective-taking by imagining the thoughts and dialogue of characters across the pages. Invite students to choose a two-page spread from either book and for them to use sticky notes to create dialogue for speech bubbles or the internal thinking of characters. Draw students' attention to the facial expressions of the characters to help them infer what the characters might have been thinking, feeling, or saying to one another given the range of emotions displayed through the illustrations in combination with the print. Challenge students to imagine the perspectives of both the children and the adults in the pages.

Close Reading: Color for Effect. Support students to discuss how the illustrators of both texts use color to convey the storms within each text. What pages do students find themselves drawn to the illustrations the most? In what ways does color play a role in those pages to depict the storm itself, the setting, or the emotional aspects of living through a storm? Have students create their own illustrations where they think about color for effect. They might even want to try out some of the specific techniques the illustrators use, such as Yaccarino's use of shades of blue in contrast to bright yellow or the way the Howdeshells create texture and use natural colors in their artwork.

Using Movement and Drama to Retell. Invite students to use movement and drama to retell the events of these books. If using I Am the Storm, have students work in small groups to reenact one of the four storm scenes. Students can play the parts of the characters or the storm itself using movement and sounds to represent the ferocity of the storm. If using The Longest Storm have students work in small groups to retell the beginning, middle, and end of the storm with a focus on the challenges, struggles, and moments of hope. Following group performances, have students share what they noticed were similarities and differences in their interpretations of the events of the books. Support students to reflect on the ways this experience can enhance their understanding of events in future stories.

Introduction to Symbolism. While the term symbolism is academically advanced for an audience of young readers, both I Am the Storm and The Longest Storm can be read both literally and metaphorically. Literally: What are the storms we encounter that are weather emergencies? Metaphorically: In what ways has living through the pandemic been similar to living through a storm? What are the storms that live inside us? What does "I am the storm" mean? Invite students to write their own I am statements using Yolen's and Stemple's as a guide with accompanying artwork to show how powerful they can be-just like a storm.
Further Explorations Online Resources
Jane Yolen's Site

Heidi Stemple's Site
https://www.heidieystemple.com/
Dan Yaccarino's Site
http://www.danyaccarino.com/
KidLitTV, Ready Set Draw! Dan Yaccarino, The Longest Storm

I Am the Storm Book Trailer, Heidi Stemple YouTube Channel

The History Channel: Natural Disasters and Environment
https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment
NASA Satellite Video: Hurricane Harvey from Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJ9-LIq1XQ
Storm Chasing Videos
https://www.stormchasingvideo.com/
Disasters: National Child Traumatic Stress Network
https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/disasters
American Psychological Association: Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and Children
https://www.apa.org/topics/disasters-response/tornadoes-kids
Society for Research in Child Development, Understanding the Impact of Natural Disasters on Children
https://www.srcd.org/research/understanding-impacts-natural-disasters-children
Great Schools: After the Storm: Natural Fears or Signs of Trauma?
https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/after-the-storm-signs-of-trauma-in-children/ Books
Ashman, L. (2020). When the storm comes. New York, NY: Nancy Paulsen Books.

Claire, C. (2017). . Toronto, Canada: Kids Can Press.

Macken, J.E. (2010). Waiting out the storm. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Miyakoski, A. (2016). The storm. Toronto, Canada: Kids Can Press.

National Geographic Readers. (2009). Storms. Washington, DC: National Geographic Kids.

Park, L.S. (2021). The one thing you'd save. Boston, MA: HMH.

Polacco, P. (1997). Thundercake. New York, NY: Puffin Books.

Simon, S. (2002). Super storms. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Thomas, R. (2005). Eye of the storm: A book about hurricanes. Bloomington, MN: Picture Window Books.

Usher, S. (2018). Storm. Dorking, UK: Templar Publishing.

Viau, N. (2013). Storm song. New York, NY: Two Lions.

Zolotow, C. (1989). The storm book. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

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Supporting Children to Weather Storms with Hope and Resilience - The Classroom Bookshelf

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Two luminous picturebooks explore the power of storms and the power within us. Simultaneously honest and reassuring, both I Am the Storm and The Longest Storm will leave a lasting impression on readers to help them navigate the next storm they encounter in life.

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Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey
Written by Erin Entrada Kelly

Published by Greenwillow Books, 2021

ISBN #978-0-06-297042-8

Grades 2 and up
Book Review
Marisol is a quirky, endearing eight-year-old girl who wonders if this summer she'll know what it's like to be brave. Maybe. Or if she should give swimming another try. Maybe. Or whether she'll climb the tree in her backyard that she named Peppina. Maybe tomorrow. In Maybe Maybe, Marisol Rainy, Newbery Award-winning author Erin Entrada Kelly, portrays the inner life of Marisol with both grace and humor. Short chapters with hand-drawn, black-and-white illustrations by Kelly invite early chapter book readers into Marisol's endearing story. As in her previous novels, the cast of characters represent a mosaic of ethnic and racial diversity. We meet her mother, born in the Philippines, who speaks four languages and is the smartest person Marisol knows. We meet Marisol's best friend, Jada, who makes silent films with her. And we long to meet Marisol's father, working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Just in time for summer, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is a charming tale of the everyday experiences of a young girl making her way through the world. This is a story primed for early elementary grade readers for summer reading, read-alouds, book club conversations, and to join the series bin of your classroom library.
Teaching Invitations
Note to our Readers: These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive. Choose one. Choose more. It's up to you. Some ideas are bigger and will take a number of days to complete. Some are shorter. You can also choose to complete one part of a teaching idea, but not the whole thing. It's up to you!

Dynamic Characters in Early Middle Grade Series Books. Marisol has a lot of things that make her a dynamic, memorable character including that she names the tree in her backyard, she loves silent films, and she has a fear of climbing trees. These kinds of details help us as readers to imagine her as a real person who has hopes, ambitions, and concerns just like we do. Support students to consider what makes a character dynamic and gives a character complexity and depth. Invite students to create a character map of Marisol by using a variety of materials that includes details about her personality and quirks that make her dynamic. Invite students to notice and wonder about other dynamic characters they encounter in early elementary series books such as the Juana and Lucas series by Juana Medina, the Anna Hibiscus series by Atinuke, the Yasmin series by Saadia Faruqi, the Jaden Toussaint series by Marti Dumas, the Lola Levine series by Monica Brown, the Sherlock Sam series by A.J. Low, the Ruby and the Booker Boys series by Derrick Barnes, the Julian, Huey, and Gloria series by Ann Cameron, the Clementine and Waylon series by Sara Pennypacker, the Fudge series by Judy Blume, the Judy Moody and Stink series by Megan McDonald, the Ivy and Bean series by Annie Barrows, the Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry, and the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary.

Character Comparisons. Marisol's best friend, Jada, has a lot in common with Marisol but she is her own dynamic person with her own complexity. Invite students to compare and contrast Marisol and Jada using a T-chart or Venn diagram. What do both girls love to do? What makes them individuals with their own strengths and concerns? Extend this thinking by inviting students to consider the ways in which the girls demonstrate friendship with one another. In what ways does the girls' friendship serve as a model for friendship in life? Invite students to do comparisons of themselves and one of their closest friends as a way to deepen connections to the characters and the situations they find themselves in.

Weaving Your Own Story Into Fiction. Read the "Dear Reader" letter by Erin Entrada Kelly in the front matter of the book before reading the novel. Invite students to notice times when Entrada drew from her own life for inspiration for Marisol's story. Using Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey as a mentor text, invite students to write fictional stories that draw on their own lives. Start by having students brainstorm their own important life moments including their hopes, fears, successes, and firsts and lasts in their lives. Then, have students craft a fictional character that includes some of their own personality traits, mannerisms, and ways of speaking. Support them to create a story map where the character gets into some kind of trouble that they have to get out of by the end of the story. Encourage students to write more than one story to become series writers.

Creating Voice in Fiction. Even though Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is written in third person, there is a strong sense of Marisol's voice on every page thanks to the way Erin Entrada Kelly crafted the story both through the words and illustrations. Select particular pages for students to notice how Entrada achieves a strong sense of voice by giving life to the writing. How do we understand the feelings of the characters? How do we see the world through Marisol's point of view? What do students notice about the kinds of sentences Entrada uses? How do the illustrations support or extend the writing to achieve voice? Invite students to look back at their writing from the year to identify places where they can create more voice by employing some of Entrada's techniques. Extend student learning by having them assume the role of one of the characters to craft a diary or journal entry from Marisol's point of view.

Repetition for Effect. Invite students to notice how Erin Entrada Kelly uses the repetition of the word "maybe" to help deepen the complexity of Marisol as a character but also as a thematic anchor to the story. In what ways is the use of "maybe" a clever literary device that matches with Marisol's personality while also playing with the joy that comes from alliteration? Which do students think came first-the name Marisol or the word "maybe"? Invite students to think about a word that they could use to describe themselves that has the same sound as their first name and to include that detail in their own fictional or autobiographical narratives. Extend student learning with a pairing of Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey and Rafael Lopez's Maybe Something Beautiful to notice how each author uses the word "maybe" for effect.

Self-Awareness: Bravely Sharing Our Feelings and Outgrowing Ourselves. The term "self-awareness" is defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning as "the abilities to understand one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one's strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose". Marisol engages in self-awareness throughout the book in ways that can serve as a model for students including how she shares her fear of climbing trees with her best friend, Jada. Create a class list of the ways Marisol explicitly models self-awareness such as how she identifies her emotions; demonstrates honesty and integrity; links her thoughts, feelings, and actions; has interests and a sense of purpose. Even though Marisol has a lot of self-awareness she is still growing in areas like having a growth mindset. What kinds of advice can students give to Marisol to help her build on her strengths and to find the courage to keep climbing both physically and metaphorically? Extend student learning by inviting them to think and write about the ways they demonstrate self-awareness in their lives with the opportunity to share their thinking or keep it private.

Duet Model: Playing with Point of View with Wishtree. Consider pairing Maybe Marisol Rainey with Katherine Applegate's . In both books, a tree plays a central role in the story. Invite students to consider in what ways the setting plays a significant role for the characters in each book. In what ways are the stories different from one another? From whose point of view is each story told? Using Wishtree as a model, invite students to rewrite Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey from the point of view of Peppina, the tree. What would the tree say to itself? What might it feel? What words of encouragement would the tree give Marisol to encourage her to climb her knobby branches and see the world from a new perspective?

Erin Entrada Kelly Author Study. Gather a collection of Erin Entrada Kelly's work and biographical information, including interviews, videos, and Tweets. As a class, read through the novels she wrote, noting similarities and differences across the books' formats and styles. Pay special attention to her use of diverse languages, perspectives, and characters. Ask your students to identify patterns in setting, theme, character, and plot across the books. Based on students' inquiries, observations, and analyses, compile a list of lessons about writing gained from this study and invite your students to try out some of the techniques you have discussed in their own work. See the websites and titles listed below as a starting point for gathering information. This teaching invitation originally appeared in our entry on Hello, Universe.
Critical Literacy
Taking Stock of Series Books. Research has shown that students who read book series become more engaged and enthusiastic about reading, are encouraged to continue reading, become comfortable with the structure of stories, and that students gain a number of important reading skills, particularly in the areas of fluency and comprehension (Kragler, 2000; Hopper, 2005; Mackey, 2006). While the diversity of characters in series books has grown in the past few years, more diverse books have not always made it onto classroom bookshelves. Invite students to do a diversity inventory of the series books in your classroom, in other classrooms in the school, in the school library, and in your local library. Have students share their findings by creating infographics on sites like Canva to inform others about the representation of diverse characters and what might be missing. Then, have students work with the school librarian to research series that the school could purchase and plan a presentation to the school's principal, Superintendent, or Board of Education.
Further Explorations Online Resources
Erin Entrada Kelly's website
http://www.erinentradakelly.com/
Erin Entrada Kelly on Twitter
https://twitter.com/erinentrada?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Reading Rockets Interview
https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/entrada-kelly
Reading Rockets Interview Transcript
https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/entrada-kelly/transcript
HarperCollins Site

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning

Poor Little Peppina (Silent Film)
Books by Erin Entrada Kelly
Kelly, E.E. (2020). We dream of space. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Kelly, E. E. (2015). Blackbird fly. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Kelly, E. E. (2017). Hello, universe. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Kelly, E. E. (2019). Lalani of the distant sea. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

Kelly, E. E. (2016). The land of forgotten girls. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.
Series Books for Early Elementary Readers
Atinuke. (2007-2014). Anna Hibiscus. San Diego, CA: Kane Miller.

Barnes, D. (2008-2009). Ruby and the Booker Boys series. New York: Scholastic.

Barrows, A. (2006-present). Ivy and Bean series. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Blume, J. (1972-2002). Fudge series. New York, NY: Puffin Books.

Browne, M. (2016-2017). Lola Levine series. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books.

Cameron, A. (1981-2002). Julian series. New York, NY: Random House.

Cleary, B. (1968-1999) Ramona series. New York: HarperTrophy.

Dumas, M. (2015-2017). Jaden Toussaint series. Little Rock, AK: Plum Street Press.

English, K. (2009-2011). Nikki and Deja series. New York: Clarion.

Faruqi, S. (2018-present). Yasmin series. Mankato, MN: Picture Window Books.

Low, A.J. (2016-2017). Sherlock Sam. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Lowry, L. (2009-2015). Gooney Bird Greene. New York, NY: Yearling.

McDonald, M. (2000-present). Judy Moody. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

McDonald, M. (2005-present). Stink.Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Medina, J. (2016-present). Juana and Lucas.Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Pennypacker, S. (2008-2016). Clementine series. New York: Hyperion.

Pennypacker, S. (2017-2019). Waylon series. New York: Hyperion.

Wayans, K. (2008-2015). Amy Hodgepodge series. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
References
Kragler, S. (2000). Choosing books for reading: an analysis of three types of readers. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 14(2), 133-141.

Mackey, M. (2006). Serial monogamy: extended fictions and the television revolution. Children's Literature in Education, 37, 149-161.

Ross, C.S. (2009). Reader on top: public libraries, pleasure reading, and models of reading. Library Trends, 57(4), 632-656.

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Just in Time for Summer Reading with Maybe, Maybe, Marisol Rainey - The Classroom Bookshelf

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Just in time for summer, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is a charming tale of the everyday experiences of a young girl making her way through the world. This is a story primed for early elementary grade readers for summer reading, read-alouds, book club conversations, and to join the series bin of your classroom library.

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Amari and the Night Brothers
Written by B.B. Alston

Published by Balzer + Bray, 2021

ISBN 978-0-06-297516-4

Grades 4-8
Book Review
Imagine the joy of discovering you have magical abilities...now, imagine if those abilities were then deemed "illegal" by the community of supernatural creatures you thought were becoming your friends. Thirteen-year-old Amari Peters is on a quest to find her missing brother, Quinton, who went mysteriously missing months ago. When she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, she is invited to a tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, a magic society dedicated to keeping magical beings hidden and the last place Quinton was seen before his disappearance. In a badging ceremony reminiscent of Harry Potter's sorting hat, Amari discovers she is a magician with powers that threaten the members of the Bureau and her place in it. Amari is the kind of fierce, fearless, female character we need on our classroom bookshelves and in middle grade readers' hands. Amari's experiences as a young Black girl are poignantly portrayed both in the world we live in and in the hidden world of the Bureau. Debut author B.B. Alston has crafted a novel that draws on the familiar and comforting elements of fantasy but that challenges readers to bear witness to injustice and hatred that stems from racism. The first in an upcoming trilogy, Amari and the Night Brothers is a thrilling, fast-paced read that tackles issues of loss, belonging, and race in ways that will inspire readers to confront prejudice and interrogate privilege.
Teaching Ideas: Invitations for Your Classroom
Note to our Readers: These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive. Choose one. Choose more. It's up to you. Some ideas are bigger and will take a number of days to complete. Some are shorter. You can also choose to complete one part of a teaching idea, but not the whole thing. It's up to you!

Weredragons, Magicians, Rhino Hybrids-Oh My: Fantasy as a Genre. Fantasy books vary in the ways they tell a story that departs from our everyday reality. A simple definition of fantasy is any story in which at least one element cannot be found in our human world. Support students to notice and name the elements that make Amari and the Night Brothers a fantasy novel by having students work in partnerships or small groups to create story element charts or infographics. Some of the elements of fantasy found in Amari and the Night Brothers include: magical powers, fantastical beasts, an imagined world, traveling through time and space, and fantastical objects like talking elevators. After identifying elements of fantasy in the book, invite students to use Amari and the Night Brothers as a mentor text for their own fantasy stories that incorporate the elements of fantasy that B.B. Alston uses. There has been an increase in fantasy titles featuring cultural diversity and diverse life experiences. See the titles listed in Further Explorations below for other fantasy titles to add to your classroom library.

Heroism in Amari's Worlds. Support students to define what makes someone a hero. Then, have students consider the ways in which various characters represent heroism through the story. For example, we learn at the beginning of the story that Amari's brother, Quinton, is a hero to people in the real life of their neighborhood and in the imagined world of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. What were Quinton's qualities that made him so heroic? Who helps Amari realize that she is a hero, too? In what ways is her heroism apparent both in our world and in the supernatural world of the Bureau? How does it look different in each? Who are the friends that stand by and up for Amari, particularly in the face of peer pressure and hatred stemming from racism and classism? Extend this conversation to support students to consider everyday acts of heroism that they might demonstrate, for example, when they feel nervous but do something anyway, when they stand up for others, or when they try something for the first time.

What If: Create Your Own Illusion. Central to creating any work of fiction is asking the question "what if?" Invite students to imagine some of the "what ifs" that might have been on author B.B. Alston's mind when he sat down to write Amari and the Night Brothers. Then, invite students to zoom in on the scene where Amari creates her first illusion. What if they had Amari's magical ability to create illusions? What would they want to create? Have students write descriptions of what they would create and then invite them to use a variety of art materials to create a visual image of their illusion.

Design Your Own Badge. The badging ceremony is an exciting entry point for Amari as a trainee in the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. The badges that trainees are awarded range from badges made from simple materials like paper to the illustrious moonstone badge Amari receives. The more rare the material, the higher level the badge. Invite students to examine federal and state badge designs from U.S Bureaus such as the FBI and Bureau of Land Management. Invite students to design their own badge either with traditional art materials or using digital technologies. Have students share their badges with one another in a mock badging ceremony that supports students to embody the excitement Amari and the other trainees would have experienced for this event.

Fantastical Setting: Close Reading and Creating. The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs can't be looked up on Google Earth but there are many descriptions in the text of the various floors that compose the Bureau. Invite students to engage in close reading and rereading of how B.B. Alston describes the setting of the Bureau. In partnerships, have students create architectural floor plans, maps, or models of the Bureau with detailed labels for the various elements of the setting. Have students share their drawings with one another noting similarities and differences that encourage returning to the text for details.

Overcoming Self Doubt. Amari is incredibly determined and courageous, but like all of us, she faces self-doubt and sometimes engages in defeatist "compare despair" thinking. Support students to notice these moments in the text. What are the strategies Amari uses to overcome self-doubt and compare-despair thinking? What are the ways her friends help support her to see the good in herself? Use Amari's experiences as an invitation for students to journal about moments of challenge in their own lives and how they might draw from Amari's example to overcome self-doubt in the future.

Nominating Others to Greatness. Quinton brought Amari into the world of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs through his magical briefcase nomination. At the end of the novel, we are left with the cliffhanger of Amari nominating her friend, Jayden. Invite students to discuss nominations and to consider ways they can metaphorically "nominate" others in life to greatness. In what ways can they lift up the greatness and brilliance of others through acts of inclusion, affirmations, and friendship? Consider creating a class routine that encourages students to nominate one another for acts of generosity, compassion, and collaboration.

Secret Agent Training for Kids. Reading Amari and the Night Brothers may inspire the inner secret agent in your students. Deemed "Artemis Fowl meets Men in Black" by the publisher, HarperCollins, Amari and the Night Brothers includes the mystery and mystique of secret agent training in a fantastical, hidden world. Have students identify the kinds of secret agent training Amari and the other trainees are challenged with and compare that to secret agent training in the known world. Visit the International Spy Museum's lesson plans and activities to create engaging extensions for students including cracking a secret code and mind memory activities.
Critical Literacy
Power, Privilege, Positioning, and Potential. Throughout the novel, Amari is confronted by racism and classism from her peers whether in the known or magical world. Even Quinton's disappearance is attributed by the police to neighborhood violence and getting mixed up with the wrong people. Support students to identify and discuss these moments from the text. Then, support students to identify the ways power and positioning support some characters to have fewer risks and more privilege over others in both worlds such as in the case of legacy kids at the Bureau. In what ways does one's potential seem to hinge on societal forces outside of one's control? Support students in a conversation about how this plays out in the novel as well as in their own lives. Consider pairing Amari and the Night Brothers with the realistic fiction middle grade novel by Torrey Maldonado for a deeper investigation into how power, privilege, positioning, and potential are represented in each book.

Interrogating a Lack of Diversity in Fantasy Books. Read with students B.B. Alston's author's note about how he originally sat down to write a fantasy novel with characters that didn't look like him. What were his reasons for doing that? What changed his mind to create a fantasy novel with a Black girl protagonist? Amari and the Night Brothers is helping diversify the genre of fantasy books but there is much more that needs to be done in diversity in children's and YA literature and in the media. Share with students the infographic by Lee and Low Books on Diversity in Hollywood Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blockbusters. Invite students to take stock of the fantasy collections in the classroom library, school library, or local public library. Have students create their own diversity gap studies to create an infographic on fantasy books with diverse representations using Lee and Low's infographic as a mentor text. Support students to grow their access to fantasy books with diverse representations of characters by writing letters to the principal, school board, or local newspaper. There has been an increase in fantasy titles featuring cultural diversity and diverse life experiences in the past few years thanks to the work of many authors, illustrators, and publishers. See the titles listed in Further Explorations below for other fantasy titles to add to your classroom library as well as imprints such as Tu Books by Lee and Low and Rick Riordan Presents by Disney-Hyperion.

Further Explorations
Digital Resources
Reading of Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

HarperCollins Teaching Guide
https://b0f646cfbd7462424f7a-f9758a43fb7c33cc8adda0fd36101899.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/teaching-guides/TG-9780062975164.pdf
Book Riot: 10 Middle Grade Fantasy Novels with Black Girl Leads

Middle Grade Fantasy Novels with Black Girl Leads
https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/list/share/231130168/779928207
Tu Books
https://www.leeandlow.com/imprints/tu-books
Rick Riordan Presents

NCTE: Teaching Black Children Cultural Identity Through Magic, Folklore, and Myth
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/12/teaching-black-children-cultural-identity-magic-folklore-myth/
International Spy Museum Activities:
https://www.spymuseum.org/education-programs/educators/lesson-plans-activities/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAgomBBhDXARIsAFNyUqNTxs_0a1C0EMqtUOTVkb6cykW-99lcRfMqx6fIPvwvmSUQwsEOoh0aAmp4EALw_wcB
International Spy Museum: Code-Making and Code-Breaking Video
Fantasy Books with Characters of Color
Armendáriz, L.D. (2020). Julieta and the diamond enigma. New York, NY: Lee and Low Books.

Baptiste, T. (2015). The jumbies. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Young Readers.

Chokshi, R. (2018). Aru Shah and the end of time. New York, NY: Rick Riordan Presents.

Durham, D. (2021). The shadow prince. New York, NY: Lee and Low Books.

Okorafor, N. (2005). Zahrah the windseeker. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers.

Magoon, K. (2016). Shadows of Sherwood. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

Rhodes, J.P. (2013). Bayou magic. New York, NY: Little, Brown Books.

Whitley, J. (2012). Princeless: Save yourself. Action Lab Comics.

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Amari and the Night Brothers Celebrates #BlackGirlMagic - The Classroom Bookshelf

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Amari and the Night Brothers Written by B.B. Alston Published by Balzer + Bray, 2021 ISBN 978-0-06-297516-4 Grades 4-8 Book Review Imagine the joy of discovering you have magical abilities...now, imagine if those abilities were then deemed "illegal" by the community of supernatural creatures you thought were becoming your friends.

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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EKC provides literacy consultants, consulting services, and literacy professional learning for schools.

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Reading and Writing Workshop in International Schools Facebook Group

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Reading and Writing Workshop in International Schools Facebook Group

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Free resource with sample decodables and more...

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for supporting decoding and beyond

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Beyond Decodables aims to support young readers' success in reading by allowing children the chance to decode words in a meaningful context. Our collection of complimentary books, created in collaboration with Boston Public Schools, are highly research-based and approved by experts, teachers, and children. Using our Six Aspects of Beyond Decodables, learn about how these books were written to support Pre-K-2 students and teachers.

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decodable books for kids

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deepen your practice

Check out our founder, Dr. Julia B. Lindsey's new book, now available everywhere books are sold.

In this book, Dr. Julia B. Lindsey's evidence-based routines help young readers decode words efficiently so they can spend more energy on comprehending-and enjoying-what they read! You'll find:

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● Need-to-know essentials of how kids learn to read.

● Principles of high-quality foundational skills instruction.

● Teacher-approved instructional "swaps" to improve early reading instruction.

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Reading Above the Fray addresses content learning, culturally responsive practices, and the importance of engaging readers from the start.

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Free Books for Kids | Beyond Decodables | Teacher Resources

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Beyond Decodables provides access to free kids books online with a focus on phonics and diversity. Kids books include decodable words related to CVC words, consonant diagraphs, CVCe Words, Multisyllabic Words, Consonant Blends, and Long Vowel Patterns.