Literacy Talks

Sharing the Knowledge: A Recap from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference (SSSR)

October 26, 2022 Reading Horizons Season 2 Episode 9
Literacy Talks
Sharing the Knowledge: A Recap from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference (SSSR)
Show Notes Transcript

There are so many valuable reading and literacy conferences it can be challenging to attend them all, but our Literacy Talks audience is in luck. Donell Pons, one of our podcast hosts, traveled to the SSSR Conference, and in this episode, she shares many of the insights and new data points she learned at this event. From the importance of teaching letter/sound combinations to the role of oral language comprehension, listeners will have the opportunity to take a deeper dive into reading science’s meta-analyses and recent studies. It’s like having a front-row seat at this important event for reading educators!

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Narrator:

Hello literacy leaders and champions. Welcome to Literacy Talks the podcast series from Reading Horizons dedicated to exploring the ideas, trends, insights and practical issues that will help us create literacy momentum. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Officer at Reading Horizons where reading momentum begins. Joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, a Utah based elementary classroom teacher. Today's topic gives you a valuable recap of the recent society for the scientific study of reading conference. It's almost better than being there in person. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to this episode of literacy talks, my name is Stacy Hurst and I am joined each week by my fantastic co hosts Donell Pons and Lindsey Kemeny, those of you who've been joining us for a while know that each episode we take turns deciding the topic. Today's topic is actually Donell's, and I know it'll be fascinating. So Donell, what are we talking about today?

Donell Pons:

So today, we're going to talk about a conference that I attended in July. And it's a conference that I have never attended before, and nobody else had either. And so this is going to be new for us. And it's the Society for the scientific study of reading, they hold an annual conference, a lot of times is in really interesting locations internationally. And so it can be difficult or challenging to get to the conference this year. It was in Newport, California. And so it was nearby relatively to us. And so I thought I'm gonna go, and that was July. Okay, just have to make a note here. I've complained bitterly in many different locations. I'll stop doing it soon. But when in July COVID, numbers were high in California, my husband and I have been those lucky few in the two and a half years, we have not had COVID, that, to our knowledge, we did not have COVID. Now that I've had it, we did not have COVID before, because it left a mark. Anyway, we go down to California, and I attend the conference, get back and it's just as I arrived back, we're obviously sick. And then people from the conference started posting that COVID was rampant, and you know, please get tested anyway. I risked COVID for you guys. So that's what I brought. Right? Sorry.

Lindsay Kemeny:

For the team, yes.

Stacy Hurst:

Good team player. But I guess you know, though, I will I do remember something you said right after you got back, it was worth getting COVID. For

Donell Pons:

I know, I said that. And I think I still need it. Even after all these weeks. I think I still need it. So for those who are not aware of, of this whole society for the scientific study of reading, it's a relatively new organization considering some kind of go way back to the 30s. But from the 19, to about 1995. There's an individual named Ron Carver, who's considered the father of s. s. s are the three s our conference. And it was interesting, I was reading some reflections of folks who, who eventually joined the organization that he was really on his own in setting this up. And he wanted to have a really rigorous environment for folks who were doing research on reading specifically to present and to share. And one of the hesitations of some of the researchers was, well, if we get too siloed too specific about the research that we're doing, and that it's reading, and we only have it here, we might be left out of other journals, scientific journals, and I thought that was kind of an interesting concern. unfounded, apparently, over the years, that was not the case. And then this conference has become extremely valuable. And many of the individuals who have joined have talked about how it has really filled a role for them. So just that little background to give you and then the reason I wanted to attend for years is because one of my favorites in the world of reading and reading research, and compiling that information, helping us understand it as Dr. David Kilpatrick and early on when he presented on his book essentials of assessing preventing and overcoming reading difficulties. About 2015. When I was talking to him, he said, That's a conference you really ought to go to and I remember all wide eyed and saying to him, I don't feel like I could go to anything called the Society for the scientific study every day, I would be out of my league. And he explained No, no, no, you really need to go this is this is where you'll meet the people who actually do the research and it's really fascinating to get a first hand account from the researchers and so that was always in the back of my mind. And finally when it was nearby, I went and you know what his description was exactly correct. The it's really nice to have a first hand account from the individuals who are conducting the research. Sure, there's plenty that's overheads if you're not research. wasn't always steeped in this. But there was enough there to really listen to the conversations, to see not only what the research was telling us, but also the limitations of research. That was also interesting. And that the research the researchers themselves, have these conversations to about what you can extrapolate from the research, and what isn't quite there. They also discuss how challenging it is for instructors, for teachers, educators, in any setting, whether it's a small tutoring, whether it's a whole classroom, how difficult it is for them to take on this research implemented correctly. And only as far as the research itself says you can, right and so that was another interesting thing to hear them talking about that. So to get started, I have a lot of information. When I looked at my notes, it was four days, each day was divided up, I was telling the others it's kind of interesting, each day is divided up, they try to put together the research that has is related in some way into a session, each session, the researchers get 15 minutes to present, there were about six to eight, depending on the subject and the time, six to eight researchers that presented in that time period. And then you had someone leading the discussion at the end to kind of give an overall view was really interesting. And I was on my toes the whole time. It looks like I took about 14 pages of notes over those four days. And I was just rapidly typing to get the notes down. But I want to start off with the first one, which I thought was and again, I didn't get to attend every session, I'm one person I would have loved to have divided and conquered. So I missed quite a few. And there were some fantastic ones. But this one I think I want to start with today to have us kind of have a conversation because it's been kicking around and what we've been talking about. And it was Dr. Shane Piasa, from Ohio State University. And this one is really much in that K through three. But also you could be thinking about anybody who has not made it through the steps of putting sound two letter correspondence together. She talked about some studies. And she also did a narrative review on alphabet learning, which was just kind of what we know today. Not only that recent research, but what do we know, she talked about 45 studies and four meta analyses that were involved in what she kind of extrapolated. And the first one was teaching names versus sounds. So we've had this conversation many times and she says letter sounds first seems to have an advantage. emerging evidence to teach simultaneously letter sound looks like it might be best. So I thought that was interesting. So we thought letter sound first seems to have an advantage. But now emerging evidence seems to suggest that teaching simultaneously letter sound is best. So I'm gonna throw that out to you too, and say, What do you think of just hearing that?

Stacy Hurst:

First of all, Shane Vyas is one of my favorite researchers, she is a girl. I didn't know that for a long time. So I may have had a couple of embarrassing conversations about her research. But that tracks with what I've experienced this summer, my students have been tutoring over the summer, one of them was tutoring a rising first grader. And my student kept expressing frustration that the student only knew the sounds of the letters, not the name. So she started teaching them together. And that made a huge difference just in the course of a summer. So that does track with even my most recent experience. Lindsay, what are your thoughts you've taught in kindergarten?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, well, I was just going to share with you because for me, I just get some confirmation because that's what I've always done. I've always taught the letter and the name and the sound together. And you know, I wouldn't just teach one, we have no time to waste in kindergarten, and you have to make the most of every moment. So I've always taught them together. And I've never had anyone that gets confused with that or, or anything like it was great. So I'm glad that there is, you know, this emerging research that is confirming that teaching the name and sound together is the best way.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, seems to be preferential Okay,

Stacy Hurst:

so let's go into detail about the ages for that, or when I'd like Did she distinguish between pre K and K, for example?

Donell Pons:

No. So we have all the studies, there are 45 studies, I do not have them divided up and put with the research with each statement. No.

Stacy Hurst:

Okay. I just wondered if it was addressed in the presentation.

Donell Pons:

So this next one, I think is important, because we've talked about it before, and she made the statement, no evidence to date for preferred sequence. How do you guys feel about that one? Because, boy, do we hear this a lot. You have to teach it this way, you're gonna teach these letters first, you're going to do this. What do you guys say to that?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yes, that also just confirms what I have learned. And there's so many people will be like, well, what's the science of reading way? What's the true sequence? And there is none. You know, I think in general, you want to go in a sequence from simple to more complex, but you know, it's not like what like one way of teaching the alphabet letters when order is is necessarily better than another. So

Stacy Hurst:

we could just list all the ways you could prioritize to order those and And I know over the years, especially Darnell, and I and then lit when Lindsey joined our team, we've had so many conversations about this. But if you want to, like organize them in a way that focuses on continued sounds like, versus if you want to organize them in a way that the name of the letter sounds like the sound the letter represents, or the

Lindsay Kemeny:

handwriting strokes, all the ones that start with the line or the curve, and it's so funny, because like I was reading, I think it was the letters manual. And on one page, it was suggesting an order for like the strokes on the next page. It was gesturing in a different order for whatever reason, and I'm like, okay, but I have to choose one order. So which one do I do?

Stacy Hurst:

I think that's a really good point. I feel like a lot of teachers lately, they're actually starting to call it the letter sequence. And they're just choosing it because it's there. And it's suggested, right, but I do think it's important to note a couple of things, letters is a fantastic foundation. But then as teachers, if we know the research, we can make our own decisions soundly based on what the research will help us to determine. So there isn't a correct way. Some people still do it in alphabetical order.

Donell Pons:

So you guys brought up a couple of things that were interesting. What she went on to say was spacing out similar sounding or looking letters has been correlational. No real evidence to suggest this is all that helpful.

Lindsay Kemeny:

But I think it is a good point to try to separate out some confusing ones like B and D.

Stacy Hurst:

or just starting by separating elemento.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I know right, I think that's a letter.

Donell Pons:

I love it. Well, I think what this suggests is knowing your students in your classroom, right? So the research suggests that that's there is no real order than you're watching your students to see. How are we responding? What's best for us, right? That leaves a lot of that up to date

Stacy Hurst:

was one of my earliest students, which actually was my sister. I was a no, I was like, 12, and she was learning the alphabet. But just teaching the concept of a letter every time I had her repeat to me the letter you she'd say me? And it was no, no, this is a letter, not a word. So you sometimes we have to start there.

Donell Pons:

Okay, here's another one quicker pacing is better.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yes. And Anita Archer perky pace, right.

Donell Pons:

Key pace. Yep. Yep.

Stacy Hurst:

And I think that is dependent on revisiting, right. You're not just gonna do one and done?

Donell Pons:

Because here it goes. The next statement, she made incremental review and practice is important. I think that's true of any learner. Yeah. Here comes the next big topic. Embedded mnemonics. We've had this discussion before. Yes. So far, some evidence, more research needed

Lindsay Kemeny:

some evidence for embedded mnemonics more evidence,

Donell Pons:

and research needed. Okay.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I thought that was pretty like, yes, we have strong research for that.

Stacy Hurst:

Is it just older research? I mean, I remember learning about research supporting that over 10 years ago.

Donell Pons:

Right. Stacy, you make an interesting point. Not all of this is like yesterday, much of this research, we're going back from what do we know from 10 years ago? Because that's where we're still are. These are 45 studies that aren't necessarily done last year.

Stacy Hurst:

And lots of questions we can ask about those studies, too, I guess. So when they say that there

Donell Pons:

some evidence more research needed? Yeah, it just

Stacy Hurst:

what's the end, right, more evidence for them knowing how to form the letters, more evidence for them, recognizing the letters, more evidence of them connecting the sound to the letters, I guess it just depends on the study.

Donell Pons:

So the next statement is teaching, let's see multiple opportunities to see letter form and pair that with the name and sound is advantageous. So as you're saying, more opportunities, right. And so whether that's an embedded mnemonic, whether that's explicit to right teaching, more opportunities, more advantageous,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and that's huge in so many areas, I think we don't give our students enough meaningful practice opportunities. So it's, you know, we really need to focus a lot of attention there, making sure everyone has opportunity to practice over and over.

Donell Pons:

Lindsay, thank you saying that, because how many times do we have to defend reviewing something? I mean, I've heard Well, we've already done this. And you have to defend the right to review.

Stacy Hurst:

Right. And having students be involved in that review telling is being told is not. Right.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. Have to be interactive. Yes.

Donell Pons:

And that reviews another opportunity. Opportunity is if we're not just sitting right. Yeah. Okay, this was interesting. Teaching letter sounding context is not as effective explicit teaching is still most advantageous. I think that makes total sense. Yeah. Teaching letter sound in context is not as effective explicit teaching is still most advantageous. So

Stacy Hurst:

just to make sure we're all on the same page with that done, Oh, can you give us an example of teaching letters, so aren't in context?

Donell Pons:

Well, yeah, so that would be secondary learning from seeing it within another activity or something. She's talking about explicit teaching of sound and letter, right? This is the letter, this is the sound, and doing activities where it's explicit, rather than, Oh, look embedded within a story, or within this picture, or within whatever, maybe you get a checkup, the sound, or the letter, and your students getting our word. Yeah. And you're assuming the students making meaning out of that,

Stacy Hurst:

which makes sense. And I do have to say, Here, it makes sense. Because the second you introduce a word or a sentence, then our brains who remember we've been attending to speech ever since we were born, basically a few months old, kick in, and we start relying on that, that syntax and to give us a meaning, which is what we do, that's great. But when we're talking about reading, to hyperfocus, out of context on that letter, and the sound that it's representing, will be more beneficial in the long term for reading comprehension. So it makes sense to teach it in isolation, and then reinforce it later. In context.

Narrator:

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Donell Pons:

Okay, I thought this was really good. It bring in writing because we've had this conversation too. And say that teaching alphabet instruction through writing, that the writing and handwriting instruction had very positive effects. So this is interesting for us to kind of discuss here a little bit and the writing activities themselves. They were asking the question, were they providing the opportunity? So there isn't enough research to pull all that apart yet, but just having a writing piece was provided a boost? In the learning of those letters and the sounds now they're trying to pull apart? So was it the letter instruction? Was it the writing instruction? Which piece of that together? was the most beneficial? But I think that's interesting. How often? Do you see teachers really utilizing the handwriting piece to this? How often do we see it? Or don't we? I don't know. I

Lindsay Kemeny:

feel like I do. I see that a lot at my school and in my classroom, but I don't know.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and I'm glad that that's the case, because I keep telling people that a hack for reading is to include writing in your instruction. But I do think it's really important to distinguish if you're using writing, they have such a reciprocal effect, right spelling and forms, reading more than reading and forms spelling and so forth. But when we're, we need to, at some point, separate them, meaning if you're using writing to help your students submit concepts you're teaching for reading, that is fantastic. Keep doing that. But at some point, we need to be measuring their writing ability. Right. So Darnell, how do you I know, I've recently heard you talk about this. What do you think is the the trajectory for doing that, when we're talking about instruction, reading and writing and the relationship between the two?

Donell Pons:

Now I know we've talked about, you know, it's kind of when you kind of backtrack from somebody who has gotten so far along in in their education, and they're still struggling with spelling and writing. And you kind of walk that back and see that from the very foundation, they didn't have this letter to sound correspondence at the heart of it. So I can't emphasize enough to educators how very important this bit we're talking about right here is, and the opportunity to practice to make sure you've got it down. If I'm not getting it, what have you got for me to help me to be able to get it. But what are the tools you're gonna pull out of your your bag to help me, but don't move me ahead? Because I still don't have it. And that needs to be automatic, right? That's the other piece that we kind of assume about this whole thing. We've talked about the pieces for good instruction. But then what does it look like when you've done all those really good things? It's automatic. That's what it looks like. You don't have a student in the seat going ooh, I'm thinking, thinking thinking and then trying to write pausing over not sure how to write that letter erasing, erasing many times. Right. So we haven't even talked about this yet. We've talked about what does really good instruction look like. But then after you've done the really good instruction, how do I know? Well, that's how you know is that it's automatic for your student, right? So I meet a lot of folks in the adult arena that that was never automatic, those pieces were never automatic, yet they moved forward. And so if you couldn't do the letters within the word, and that was challenging, then you're not going to be able to write the words that go into a sentence. And you're not going to be able to do the sentence that goes into a paragraph. And the paragraphs that go to a page write it all becomes so much more difficult because it compounds in the writing when you're talking about writing.

Stacy Hurst:

Well, when we're talking about multi modalities when we're learning to an eye I think often of our episode on the sound wall and the research that has gone into connecting that production and pronunciation of each phoneme, eventually to its representation in print, the brain recognizes those sounds because of the way they're produced the placement, it's almost as if, and I don't want to get too in the deep end here. But it's almost as if it could recognize those sound, whatever the sound was, without the sound itself. If I did this, I'm making this out of it, am I like the formation of that my brain would recognize, right or connect it, but I'm thinking that too, with letter formation, and writing, and it really probably helps the brain be more fluent with writing and getting meaning across, which is why we write, sometimes I

Lindsay Kemeny:

get frustrated, because I feel like there's so much pressure put on us or put on kindergarten teachers or at the end of kindergarten, they need to be able to write, you know, three sentences, and I'm thinking, Okay, can we slow down, let's really, we want to make sure that they are fluent with the strokes, and they can write all their letters fluently, easily. We want to make that automatic. And I feel like sometimes we're trying to push our students too quickly before they have those foundational skills.

Stacy Hurst:

I agree. And I've heard it lately said we have to slow down in the beginning. So we can go faster later.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Go slow to go fast. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah. Love it.

Donell Pons:

Lindsay, I love that you said that, because that is so true. And remember that not every student is ready for the same thing at the same time, right? So gosh, I love that. And then that doesn't take into effect, you know, students who may have a learning disability with, you know, getting the aspects of writing down, you know, maybe it's dysgraphia. Or maybe it's dyslexia and dysgraphia. And recognizing that when we allow more space in the classroom for all the students to go at the correct pace with excellent instruction, more students are going to be served. Right. That's fantastic. I love that reminder. And I'm Stacy, you made me think of a quote from Beth Phillips from the Florida Center for reading research that she sent the conference and I've kicked it around in my head. Language matters. Even if we never developed reading, there is no reading comprehension without oral language comprehension. love that quote, to think about for a minute, right? Language matters. Even if we never developed reading, there is no reading comprehension without oral language comprehension.

Stacy Hurst:

that stood out to me too. And it was, it made me remember, one intervention that we orchestrated we designed for a kindergarten student who had been raised in a home that wasn't verbal wasn't very verbal at all. And we started there. We started by reading stories, we kind of use that as the anchor and then having conversations with her about them. I was reading specialists at the time, and everybody involved with that intervention was like, Are you crazy, like, that's not really going to help her read. But it was attending the language and making sure that she heard it, and she could converse and just hearing that dialogue, right.

Donell Pons:

I love that. Like I had a conversation with an adult who loves language, oral language, has dyslexia and has just struggled to get spelling and that down, but loves oral language. And I thought Why didn't anyone ever build on that? Why didn't we build on that? And instead, it was utterly ignored, which is really interesting. So at our peril, we if we don't understand this to the detriment of our students, right, really good. Excellent. Okay. We have been at it for a while. So I know we're coming to the end of our conversation, even though we could go on for a while. But I think this has been a fantastic conversation, because it hits on a lot of those foundational things that we have discussions about, right? And they continue to get kicked around. So it's nice to just refocus. So what does the research tell us up to this point? That's what this particular presentation did is, here's what we know. Here's some of the questions that we still have. That's what I love to you guys is at the end of all of the presentations, each one, they would say, we still have a lot of questions. There are a lot of questions. And I thought that was fantastic, because I think we have this sense that it's set in cement. And that's the definitive answer. But what it is, is is there as curious about learning more as any of us, and there is curious about what this means and what the next step is, as the rest of us. And I think that's fantastic, is to realize there are folks that are eagerly working on the next step

Stacy Hurst:

was the scientific method. Right. And I love reading research studies. I like the section that talks about limitations. And then shortly after that, it will say what's next. It is never the end right? Concluded finito and even one research study, even if it's really solid and well designed, gains power and impact when it's combined with others that are corroborating the findings in some way. Darnell one thing I do want to ask you right before we end, because you were there all during the whole conference. What is most important For us, as those of us who are practitioners, how do we access that research and translate it to practice?

Donell Pons:

Well, sort of in a way. And there is a newsletter that you can get from the Society for the scientific study of reading, but they, they say, to stick close to those organizations that have always been following research and science. So the International Dyslexia Association, which also puts out a publication that brings a lot of papers together, and following real scientific review, evidence based scientific review, in publications that are well known to stick to stick to that information. And then I thought it was really interesting. They're open to fielding questions. So the individuals from the Florida Center for reading research will email call us reach out if you have a question. That's the other thing is, there is no barrier between you and having a conversation with a researcher and getting clarification on something they'd rather have that can have an educator having passed over a piece of information wondering, did I interpret this correctly, I'm not sure I'm doing this right. And so they would love to have you reach out. The other thing I thought was interesting is to note that some of the researchers have less experienced teaching reading than educators. They're not with students all the time, that was the other thing I should have known and you kind of should know these things. But you they're young researchers, some of them have just been researching and they haven't taught in classrooms. So all they've ever done is worked with students, maybe in a lab setting, there are limitations to that. So they like hearing from educators about what you know, about teaching reading in a classroom setting, because ultimately, that's where this information is headed is to mainstream into classrooms, in the hands of educators. But a lot of them haven't had the experience that a lot of educators have had in teaching reading,

Stacy Hurst:

think to kind of end where we started, I often think of Rene area when she was asked how she felt about the way that teachers were implementing research in the classroom. And she literally had no idea. She was like, Oh, I don't know who she is a researcher. She's focused on that, not necessarily translating it. And then also Danelle, you mentioned Dr. Kilpatrick at the first of your as you introduced this topic. And I've frequently heard him speak and heard him talk about approaching Dr. Airy at that conference, and discussing her theory, which we now refer to as orthographic mapping and her phases of a word recognition development. And so it sounds like to bridge that research into our classrooms. In practice, it takes effort on both ends, right? The researchers have to keep communicating what they're learning. And those of us who are practitioners, or teachers, or whatever are role need to be actively engaged in figuring that out. And I would add one more, do research in your own classroom, there's nothing I get more excited about than data from my students. And just figuring out, you know, what is the next step? Based on what we know, science is

Lindsay Kemeny:

ever evolving? You know, and so like, we were kind of saying that before, not everything is settled. And so that that's just something we need to be evolving to. And not that like, one study comes out, and we totally flip everything we're doing, right? Because you want to look at maybe a consensus are that's why I like a meta analysis. So good, because it's going to look at more than one study. But looking at research and learning how to read it, that's a whole nother thing that can be hard. There's a book that this is reminding me, I want to go back and read again, it's called the Goldilocks map, which is wonderful. I think it's Andrew Watson is wonderful for teaching teachers how to approach research.

Stacy Hurst:

There is another one and it's brown, and I never. But it has to do with how do we know to trust the experts? Yeah, the typing of like the Goldilocks map? Yeah, they're very similar. I read that together. A couple of years ago, it was very beneficial. That could be a whole other episode, which I think it needs to be. So our time for this episode, unfortunately, is coming to a close. But we like to thank you all for joining us today. And I would personally love to continue this conversation about how we can bridge research to practice and so reach out to us if you have any ideas or experiences, things that you've learned in your own classroom or from researchers, or if you are a researcher. Help us out here. Okay, well thank you again for joining us for another episode of literacy tots.

Narrator:

Thanks for listening to literacy talks, the podcast series for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Literacy talks comes to you and your colleagues from Reading Horizons, we're reading momentum begins, visit reading horizons.com/literacy talks often for resources, ideas and great literacy learning conversations, subscribe to our podcast digest and you'll always be up to date on all things literacy. See you next time.