Literacy Talks

Who Needs to Know What? Teachers and Students—Different Needs!

• Reading Horizons • Season 5 • Episode 6

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There is much to know as we teach foundational and more advanced literacy. Here’s where questions arise. How much do teachers need to know about the science of reading to be effective and successful in the classroom? A related question: How much do students need to know about technical reading and language terms to develop and grow their literacy skills and confidence? 

In this episode, our trio of literacy experts looks at reading terminology and who needs to know what so learners become readers. Take away some insight and perspective every educator can use to hone their practice.

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Narrator:

Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Brought to you by Reading Horizons literacy talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies that will help all learners retreating proficiency. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Joining Stacey are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. This episode looks at something every literacy teacher grapples with, it's the challenge of how much explanation we give to students so they can understand reading skills we're teaching. Do we share technical pedagogical terms? Or do we simplify? It's often called the illusion of explanatory depth, and it matters. What do students need to know? And what's important for teachers to know and do? These are the right questions, and we've got answers. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to this episode of literacy talks, my name is Stacy Hurst. And I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And we are going to have a conversation today about knowledge and practice loosely. Let me introduce it by explaining a concept called the illusion of explanatory depth. And this term was coined by researchers Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil from Yale in 2002. And what they did was they interviewed a whole lot of people about very common things like using a toaster, and they asked how well versed they were in toasters. And of course, a lot of people said, this is just one example. They asked about a lot of other practical things, too, that everyone was like, oh, yeah, I know, a lot about toasts, right, like I use one every day, right? So then they kept asking, or they give them a quiz or a test on explain the mechanisms involved with the toaster, and how they were toasters were made. And then of course, in that conversation or quiz, people realize they didn't know as much as they thought they did. They gave them a post quiz. And then they rated themselves lower on that knowledge. So this makes me think about a lot of things in teaching. Because I think, especially with terms like the science of reading, a lot of us feel like we know what that means. But if we were to be pressed on it, maybe there are some things that we wouldn't know as well. As someone in the position I'm in in higher education, I'm always asking myself the question, how much do my students need to know versus what they just need to be able to do? Teaching wise to get students to learn how to read? I walked by a third grade classroom the other day, and a teacher was explaining a term, it actually was set for variability to the third graders, and my thought was, I don't think they need to know that I think they just need to be able to do it. Right. And so that's the whole conversation I kind of want to have today. Any initial thoughts on what I've said so far?

Lindsay Kemeny:

I really like I'm excited about that analogy, thinking about, I use a toaster, I totally can use a toaster. I do that all the time. I know how to do it. But if you asked me like the mechanism, what's involved, you know, how it goes to produce the toaster in the first place? I don't know anything about that. And it's really interesting to think about that with our students learning to read. You know, do they need to know all these little things? What's happening in the brain? No, they just need to be able to read. Right. So I like that analogy.

Stacy Hurst:

Exactly. Donell, what were you thinking? I

Donell Pons:

love that you've brought this up. Because I do think the more that we we see teachers getting access to the information they should have had a long time ago. And we're excited about it. Right? This might be new information. For the first time you're thinking why didn't I know this? I think our enthusiasm. And there's some debate too. I mean, we're hearing different people say oh, yes, they do need to know right down to like somebody else was saying it's weird to hear, you know, third graders say morpheme. But I mean, there's still debate about how much of this, the students really do need to know in order to do the thing. And I like to your point to Lindsey, we just want them to read and I can read like that being able to explain the toaster. I couldn't tell you all of the ways in which I learned how to do this thing that I call reading, but I love it. And I consider myself pretty good at it. And I do it every day. But I couldn't tell you that part for you and tell you exactly how I learned how to do that.

Stacy Hurst:

You know it also you're kind of Donelle makes me wonder if teaching is a profession, if we suffer from that. People saying, I went to school K 12. I know what teaching looks like, right? Or I know how to read. So I can teach it. And I know that with my students, I think they kind of come into my classes, maybe thinking like that, how hard can it be, this is one thing we teach. But then when we start talking about all that goes into it, you can see them realize, oh, there's a lot more involved than I thought. It's

Lindsay Kemeny:

like that just with teaching, too. When I think about like, Oh, I know what to do when the child you know, makes an error. I know what to do when the student does this, I just automatically do it. And then it's another thing to think about, like, especially as like you're helping teachers or like, you know, I writing a book or whatever for teachers have to think about, well, I have to break it down into little steps, and really think about the process that goes behind certain actions, you know, and

Donell Pons:

then you've all got me thinking about just in my own comment, I was taking the two sides of the coin, right, in my own comment. So we need to be really careful. It's what did I need to know in order to do the thing? And versus what do I need to know in order to teach someone how to do the thing, right? And how much of that information is shared? So I have such a great conversation?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. And as I've been thinking about it, I was wondering how to frame it in a cohesive way. So I thought maybe what we could do is just take something that's common to anyone who is versed in the science of reading, and that Scarborough's reading rope, as some would say, a little too common, right? But maybe we take each strand, and we consider things maybe with the question of what do teachers need to know? And what do students need to know? And maybe we could extend that question to say, What do teachers need to know how to do? What do students need to know how to do and maybe we'll start to see some of those differences. Another reason I thought this would be a really good conversation for the three of us to have is because I think a lot of it depends on the age of the student, and the task we're expecting them to do. So between the three of us, we have essentially birth to death covered. So maybe we can look at it that way. I think we'll start with the lower strands of the rope. So phonological awareness is the term that Hollis Scarborough used on the rope. And we I know, the National Reading Panel called out there was phonemic. awareness we need to be concerned about but what are some terms? To start with something easier that What do teachers need to know? I guess? And what do students need to be able to do?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, I totally think about the sound spelling wall with this. That's like, where I first go to, because this is something that kind of can be debated. And sometimes people I hear teachers say, you know, that is, I don't need to teach my student the word fricative. And you have some teachers that are like, yes, you do. And I'm very much in the camp of No, you don't like, but I'm also like, if you want to use it, fine. I don't think it's gonna, like, do damage to anybody. But I don't need my students to know, the names of you know, fricative are africate. But what I need them to do is hear the sounds in the words, be able to blend and segment them. So but I think it's very helpful for teachers to know those terms. And I didn't always know those. And then when I started learning about the different phonemes, those are sounds right, I first had to learn the difference between a phoneme and graphene. And then learning about the sounds and learning about fricatives can be continuous sounds. And that's helpful for me because it was continuous sounds are going to be easier for my students to blend and segment phonemes. So that's just helpful so that I know when a student is struggling to blend and segment, a word I can scaffold is to, hey, let's practice this with words that are continuous sounds, you know, I need to know that and so, and I'm just using that as an example. You know, there's other things that we're learning about the different, you know, stop sounds and the different, it's helpful for me. But my students and my opinion, students don't need to know those terms. They just need to be able to blend and segment and isolate those sounds.

Donell Pons:

I'm with you, Lindsay, and I and I even was while you were speaking, thinking of my own experience coming to learn more of the phonemes and how We teach these sounds to students, I don't even use the word sound, right? Because students understand that. So again, some people argue over Oh, it's a phoneme Be sure you tell it always. But for if a student gets it by sound, and just let them be, right, that's also cognitive load. Because a lot of students that I work with, we're bumping up against a cognitive load to, there's only so many things that I can be introduced to at a time and work with, and that, I'm going to have an opportunity to really master but if you load that too much, look out, it's going to be a bit of a problem for me. So these kinds of theories are bumping up against each other. But it also made me think when you said, Lindsay, you got better at it by the more you, you knew. So there's a lot of information I've gained access to over the years, that's very helpful in the way that I teach my students. But my students aren't getting any additional information in terms of terms. And that kind of, it looks pretty much the same. However, the way that I do it, I think is much more precise. It's I get to it quicker, I'm able to recognize a challenge and know what to do next. That's gotten better for my students. But I wouldn't say that they're required to give me terms. None of that looks different. However, I think my delivery looks a lot different with what I've learned.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that's a great point. And I think about with my students, I've said this multiple times, as I know that this is probably me, I'm working on it. But it takes a long time for my students to understand the difference between something like phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. Right. Like, it seems that that needs a lot of repetition. But to your point, Lindsay, that's important for teachers to know, because we want to spend the majority of our time on phonemic awareness, right, and to know the difference in the tasks, our children, our students don't need to know that they just need to be able to segment and blend those phonemes or those sounds.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Stacy, you're teaching pre service teachers, did you say that? Just thank you. We have new listeners. And she's saying she teaches her students that she's talking about pre service teacher,

Stacy Hurst:

thank you, the water I swim in, so I forget to be explicit about that. And that's where we are to I was just introducing to my students, the sound wall, actually the sound spelling wall, my pre service teachers this week. And it's fun to watch their minds be blown, right? Like when we talk about partner sounds like and, and noticing that they're made the same way they get super excited about that. And you know, that may be something that our first graders might benefit from, but maybe not right, they just need to be able to produce them and read and write. Well,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I think that is helpful for them to know those partners, those partner sounds the voiced and unvoiced pair, because you will see them make a lot of spelling errors. And it's like, look, look the difference look, that one uses your voice and that one doesn't. And you'll see you know, they'll make these spelling errors. And by drawing that out and pointing that out, it helps their writing. Now, is there like a technical term for those the voiced unvoiced pair? I mean, even just saying that that's a voiced unvoiced pair? I don't think the students need to use that term necessarily. We'll just call them partner sounds or buddy sounds Oh, look, these sounds are buddies. And, and good, you know, whatever.

Stacy Hurst:

But just so they know the difference. Yeah. And I was thinking about that too. Because alphabet knowledge. You know, we're talking about iconic letters, that their names start with the sound that they represent most commonly. Even with my students, I don't care that they remember the term iconic letters, right. But I want them to know that when you're teaching students, and maybe not all students, but maybe students who need to intervention, it's easier to start with those letters whose names have the same sound at the beginning. So I've seen this too. I'm pretty sure I've shared it on this podcast before but one really clear example comes to my mind. This is a pre service teacher, who's giving a phonological awareness assessment and she's trying to ask the student to identify how many syllables are in a word. And the kindergartner did not know what a syllable was. So we had gone over in class. How do you describe that to a kindergartner their beats in a word, they're parts of a word. Even that wasn't making sense to this student, you could see my student, the pre service teacher think of the technical definition of a syllable, which is a unit of speech organized around one vowel sound and translate that to the student. She said, Do you know what a vowel sound is student did how many vowel sounds are in this word, then the student could do the tasks that she didn't have to say a syllable is a unit of speech organizer and one vowel sound but the way she applied it, I thought was very artful in that moment. So I think that's the power of knowing teacher knowledge is important. And then also how we translate that into practice becomes really important too.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And you bring up a good point, because there are some terms that I think students do need to know like vowel sound versus a consonant sound, there's a term that I think my students should learn. I think they need to know syllable two. I think they don't need a technical definition, but they need to understand what it is.

Stacy Hurst:

Fair, yeah, and those are the kinds of things that as teachers, you know, when Louisa Moats says in her her article teaching reading is rocket science, how many decisions a teacher makes in a day instructionally, that knowledge comes in handy knowledge is efficiency in those cases, right for us to be able to translate that to our practice. Okay, that's only one strand of the ropes. Let's move to decoding. And this made me think, honestly, how there's so this might be able to be an entire episode on its own too. So we'll try to keep it concise. But when we had an episode on phonics instruction, and I think we've quoted Christopher Such who is saying, how much of the code do students really need to know? Right? And we I don't know that we know that yet. I think it's settled science, that they need to have a foundational knowledge of the graphemes that spell out of those phonemes and how they are used together in words. But do we really need to be teaching some very sophisticated parts of our code? And in this moment, I'm thinking about really rare spelling combinations that aren't used that much. So what are some other things in this realm that we could discuss here and Donelle? I'm thinking about what, of course with Lindsay and I being initially primary school teachers early grades, it The important thing is our students can read and spell, they can read fluently and spell accurately. Do they need to know what a diphthong? Do they need to know that term? Those kinds of questions? Now I've seen it in upper grades, where are they actually in by upper for me starts in like fourth grade. So the benefits the students to know those terms, they learn more about, like the structure of English. And I've seen them really thrive when we're using that terminology. But I think for younger students, that might not be as essential, I don't know, what are your thoughts on this Donell? Oh, I think that's

Donell Pons:

when you have to be careful about and I think I talked about it before with cognitive load. And so again, you know, is this whole class is this intervention. And again, when a student is in an intervention setting, we're usually trying to catch up, right? And so we're trying to fill in holes and gaps, and get the student to get to grade level and even beyond would be nice. So they can have a little space little breathing room, in terms of their spelling and reading. So in those settings, again, it's I think it's student to student because there's a reason why up to this point, being able to be master this skill has been elusive, right. So either the instruction didn't match what the student needed, student wasn't getting enough, there's there was a challenge that wasn't identified. And there's a lot of reasons. And so I think, again, it's the teacher who was very well trained, was very well versed to understand exactly where those needs are. Now, there are different programs that promote let's get really down into the nitty gritty. And a lot of those programs, people are very familiar with them. And some of the criticism has been, you're you're spending a lot of time because it's slow going, it can be very slow going for the student, because there is so much information that is important. And how much of that is really necessary in order to get the student to get into the text, which they need to read. And again, the longer they spend time between the text and themselves, they're not having the opportunities to do the thing. And that's when we really get the wheels rolling is when you're doing the thing. And so I think, broad answer to that question, or that conversation, is just I think that we've been told from the research that I've at least looked at to date, there is no real definitive answer. Yes, you teach just these things. These are the things that seem to be the best. No, there's there's a fair amount of conversation around it. Some feel like oh, yes, we get into the details, we do more. Others say no, you just need a few quick and go. Let's get in, let's get to the text. And so within that, I think it again lands squarely on a really well trained teacher who's getting the support that they need, with the information and staying current and up to date. Because as we say, there's some of this is sitting out there right now. I'm sure somebody's researching a lot of this and hopefully we have better answers. And then being able to meet the needs of the student who comes into that room that setting, whether it's a small group, whether it's one on one, and the individual needs of that student.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and and teachers who know the code, right? Because you do need to know that even the most sophisticated patterns in English. That's important to know at some point, you're going to help some students with that information, too. Right. That's how I simplify precisely. And you know, I think to about this is an argument I heard a lot as I was training teachers across the country and in the Reading Horizons method, they would say, well, 80% of my students can already read. But I also felt like but they need to know this, or just because they can do that thing. There will be a time when they get to where they don't know. And they need to be prepared with this information. So there seems to be a point at which everybody needs to have probably a deep exposure to it. And you're right, Darnell, we don't know the cut off point and where the self teaching hypothesis kicks in. And another term that do teachers need to really understand all the inner workings of that or help their students just have enough practice that they can see when that happens at the students. So yeah, lots of things to discuss with this one. Lindsey, what else do you have to add to that?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, so here's the thing, what do we want, we want our students to be able to read and write, that is what we want. So I need them to look at the SH and know that that represents /sh/. They don't have to be bogged down with the terms like digraph. That being said, it is helpful to classify different things like it's, it's helpful to have a label, because then you can say things like, here are all our digraphs, right, and you can teach all those. And I do teach my first graders, class, what's the diagraph, and they go to letters that make one sound, and they do a little action with it. And it's kind of like, it's not like I'm gonna quiz them on the term diagraph. But it's kind of like another opportunity for them to respond and get their attention. Before I go, That's right, we're going to review our diagraphs ch, sh, th. So it's kind of nice to be able to have some common language. And so I think that plays into like, you know, words like suffixes and different things. You can call them vowel teen, some people call the diphthongs also vowel teams. So it's helpful to have, you know, common language, but like Darnell was saying, this can be cognitive overload for some students. So here's what happens. I hear like in the hall, a student that's out with like a volunteer or paraprofessional, and they're reading a script from a lesson. And the student is out in the hall because they're struggling. And you guys, it's like bogged down with language. And it's all like, they're just saying, Well, what happens when there's a suffix at the end of a one syllable word with one vowel, and then then did it, whatever and using all this terminology, and I just want to be like, just stop and stop just saying it all that show the word, show them what you mean, have them read it. So I think we have to be careful, you know, and especially for the ones in that, that that need more, right? Those are our most fragile readers. Be careful, like how we're speaking to them, pull back some of that cognitive overload. I think all that terminology, point to the thing. Remember, that -ed can spell /t/ or /d/ on this one, let's look at that base word. What's the last sound? Walk them through it? You know, look, these two letters say shush. And don't go remember the digraph? The diagraph? It's the diagram, you know what I mean? I don't know. So I just think, yes, I use the term diagraph in my classroom, but at the same time, I know like, this is a little thing. And I'm going to, I'm going to label my things this way as I'm teaching, but I'm not gonna expect the students to use those words. And I'm, I'm going to focus more on the sounds and blending the sounds and reading. Okay, that was long. I got on the soapbox a little bit. But you know, it's tricky. It can be tricky. Yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

And that's understandable. And I think this is an area where we can hold curriculum writers, you know, to a high standard, because if the person writing that people, the team, writing the content, know it well enough, they can translate it into kid, we'll call it kid language. You can make complex ideas seem simple, like look at the simple view of reading, right? And so I agree, like we're not using so much terminology teaching these concepts to adults are way different than you would with students, primary early elementary students. So making sure that we're acknowledging that as teachers I think is important too.

Narrator:

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Lindsay Kemeny:

So I, you know, I don't use a lot of terminology, I guess, like I said, I use digraphs and other things. But there was a really, really cute phonics song that I wanted to show my students and we and this is when I was teaching second grade, and we printed out the lyrics that they could read and sing along. It was awesome. And it did use like words like phoneme and grapheme and all these different ones. And so I just like quickly told them what it was and didn't worry about it, because they all loved singing the song and they wanted to do it. And it was kind of like, I think it was like how to divide syllables and stuff. And it was really fun. But I just remember being like, oh, oh, I don't use that. seconds. Let me just quickly tell them what those are. You

Stacy Hurst:

know, I found this in with my own first graders with the markings that we put the diacritical markings of a vowel sounds. And they have a term right there, macron and a breve. And I was I did not set out to teach my students the name of that marking. But when I told them, You know what, your parents probably don't even know the names of these markings, then they wanted to learn them. And, you know, I'll be darned if it didn't stick, because then they thought they knew more than most people, and they probably do. But that's a good point to bring up, Lindsey. Okay, so the third part of that lower strand is sight recognition. And I think we can all agree that this is where teacher knowledge needs to be really clarified, when we use the term sight word. The definition that we want to have teachers work towards is to be any word that a student could recognize automatically without effort. Yet, we have this term sight words to mean high frequency words that are irregularly spelled, you can see how that would impact your instruction, right? As a teacher, if they know, the definition we just shared that researchers use, then they know that they're working towards that ability in the brain to orthographically map any pattern that they see. Whereas if they're looking at that definition, in the traditional sense of how we used to think about it, they're probably doing practices like cards, flashcards for students to memorize words as a whole. That's just one example I can think of on this strand of the rope. Do you guys have any others? Just

Lindsay Kemeny:

to go along with that the term sight word. So you know, we're saying we want all words to be sight words, and it can be easy to think that like to not understand that, I guess. And that doesn't mean they see it by sight, but they recognize it instantly. Because the sounds they hear they have matched those with the letters they see and the meaning of the word, those three things. And now it can be stored in memory for effortless retrieval in the future. Right. So yeah, I think that's mostly a teacher thing to know.

Stacy Hurst:

And this students don't need to know the definition. But we've used the term with students lately, with young students heart words, right? They know I think a lot of students are becoming familiar with that term, meaning those are the high frequency words with irregular spelling's, but they don't need to know the technical definition of the sight word. Donell, what about with your students,

Donell Pons:

I was just going to say that we're older students a really key point here is they need this to. So that's the thing about oh, what do I need to share that they need this too. So this may seem like something that oh, you should have learned or you were taught when you were younger? But no, the whole point as to why I'm still struggling is I didn't get this. So I need this. And that just to make a plug for the older students to sort of give them an opportunity for this, that would also include the last round that we talked about with decoding that had the alphabetic principle. So give them opportunities to your older students in a safe encouraging environment to do alphabetical order A to Z and to make sure that letter formation is there, because oftentimes, that isn't there either. And they didn't get an opportunity. And so these are the things that although we're not teaching things, you know, we're talking about what do I need to know versus what do my students need to know? This is key and make sure your older students have received this and they get really good solid instruction. And

Lindsay Kemeny:

one thing I want my students to know with this is I do want them to know, hey, match the letters with the sounds like hey, don't just look at the letters and try to memorize them do think about the sounds like you know, they they wrote the word of but they wrote f o and that says fo like that says fo which of those letters do you think I mean? This is a this is a tricky smelling, which of those letters do you think would represent the US sound? Or I would say spell which would sound The US sound probably more likely, oh, the Oh Would Yeah, you know. So I'm just pointing out that that they don't have to just look at it and say it really fast. Think about the sounds and the letters as you're reading it. You

Stacy Hurst:

know, you bring up a good point that I've had to distinguish with with my students too. And I get this you we've mentioned it before in this podcast. Louisa Moats is adamant that letters don't make sounds right. So I'm teaching that to my pre service teachers. And I use the word represent, I use the word represent with my pre service teachers. And the really astute ones will ask me, would you use that word represent with the kindergartner? No, we say spells. This. This letter spells this sound. And so that's a prime example of what a teacher should know and what a student should know and be able to do, right? Okay, I want to before we move to the upper strands of the rope, and I hope these will go a little more quickly. There is a part of Scarborough's reading rope that is increasingly automatic, right? Those skills on the lower strand need to become increasingly automatic. What do you think teachers need to know about that in relation to what their students need to do to become an automatic anticodon.

Donell Pons:

So I think this is everything we've been talking about, if we're not getting in the way of students by putting too much terminology, then that allows the student to be able to move to that where it's the automaticity that comes. So I think this is so important in the conversation we've been having. So

Lindsay Kemeny:

I think both teachers and students need to know that the automaticity comes with a lot of practice, reading and reading aloud, so that with the opportunity for feedback, right, so that someone can hear them and be checking and correcting any errors. So sometimes people think, oh, practice, that means like, oh, this worksheet or this or this, or to me, no to me, practice is reading aloud with feedback.

Stacy Hurst:

And we have a saying on this podcast, doing the thing. The thing Yeah, talking about the thing, or working around the thing, doing the thing. Yes. Thank you, Donell. Yeah,

Donell Pons:

I'd also talk about readers ear. I mean, that's not a terribly technical term. But that's where you develop good readers here. And so students should be doing a lot of practice specially in the younger grades reading aloud, hearing themselves read. There's value to that. So quiet, silent classrooms all the time. I'm a little nervous, because how often are they hearing themselves read and developing a readers ear?

Stacy Hurst:

Do you know what Donal, you bring up a good point too, with older readers who are in intervention. And again, my experience with older readers, I've taught adults learning English, and I've mostly taught it, you know, fourth, fifth and sixth grade intervention groups, but you can be explicit with them. I know that most of the time when we're older, we read in our heads, right? You don't see somebody at the park reading out loud. But you can say this helps our brain to recognize those words more quickly. If we do that, initially, if we do a whole lot of reading out loud, then it will help us to read quietly in our brains. And I think that is something that teachers need to know and can communicate to their students at that point to in first grade, my students didn't have a choice to everything was out. I didn't even bother talking about the difference for most the year. Okay, just quickly, addressing those upper strands. I'll list them off. And then if you guys just want to share anything that comes to your mind. So yeah, background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, which includes syntax and semantics, of course. And then we have this strand called verbal reasoning, which includes inference and metaphor. And then literacy, knowledge, print concepts and genres belong in that category. For example, what are your very first terms

Lindsay Kemeny:

here? There's a lot of terminology. So I wanted to talk about like grammar like nouns, verbs, a positives, adverbs, because the most important thing, I think, is that they know how to use them, versus know how to label them. What do you guys think?

Stacy Hurst:

I am having flashbacks from junior high and diagramming sentences, which I always questioned as a student. I think my time is it a junior high student would have been better served actually writing sentences that follow those patterns. But I have Donell I'm sure you have a lot to say about this, because this is your thing. I'm just

Donell Pons:

thinking to you, Lindsay, what you were saying too, and it's we're always talking about what are the what are the words doing in the sentence? Everything's got a job right? What are they doing? Somebody asked you in your standing out in the hall. What are you doing out here? You got to have an answer, right? What am I doing out here? Everything has a job. So the fact that we have students just read things without ever asking questions about what are these words doing and what do I think Think of that last sentence that I just read that that makes sense to me. So that's that increasingly strategic to that's on this upper strand, think about what strategic means to and they want your students to become increasingly strategic when they're using this upper part of the strand. And so all of that is thinking it's the cognition that's occurring when I'm doing the thing, right, what am I getting out of doing the thing, we talked on the lower strand about doing the thing getting increasingly, you know, automatic doing the thing. And now the top is what am I getting out of doing the thing, how much meaning and how much my deriving connecting from doing the thing on the upper end of the strand. And there's a whole lot as we mentioned, we've, you know, rattled off a long list, and each one of those lists has like six or seven items underneath it, it's a lot, it's happening at the top. And unfortunately, I don't see a lot of conversation happening about the top of the strand. And I still think we have a lot of students that are exiting third, going for fifth and sixth. And maybe they're getting, you know, a little bit of this, but they're not getting a really cohesive instructional plan that really serves them well. So that when they get into middle school, high school, those skills are really set and other really paying off. And a lot of students aren't seeing a payoff,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I got a program to use with my son, like a grammar program. And it came very highly recommended. And it was something I noticed with my son and his writing that he really seemed to struggle with, you know, good formation of a sentences and different things. And I just thought, Oh, I'm going to teach this and I've heard such great things, I'm going to use this grammar program. All the whole thing, all it did was have them label, and it just had stuff and you just Label Label Label and you would add more and more now we can add the articles and which is the adverb once the nerve noun and the verb a little blah. And, as was. And so to me, I'm like, I cannot believe so many people recommended this to me. Like, I want him to be able to use the words in a sentence, I want him to be able to construct a well written sentence, not necessarily label all these things, you know, that being said, it's helpful to know the terms I think, at the same time, right? I would just put more weight on, you know, what they're doing with the words what the words are doing in the sentence. And if they can create that.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I think another important distinction for teachers to make based on what you just shared. Lindsay, and, and you as well Donell, the difference between reading comprehension and writing. Right, and I think those are younger grades, especially, I actually used the term schema, my first graders could tell you what schema was what I do that again, probably not. But we were talking about how you just, you know, add to your knowledge, the things you know, and so we were focusing on building schema, background knowledge becomes important. How can you do that? Vocabulary is always a focus. But at that point, we're really focusing on can they understand spoken language, can they understand what they read at that level, but as students go through the grades, they're expected to generate writing more and more. So I think that terminology becomes important. And it needs to be similar. At that point, we don't really translate it in the same way we would for a first grader,

Lindsay Kemeny:

they need these terms as they get older. And like even my 18 year old, last week, he was writing an essay and he was, you know, kept bringing it to me to get my opinion, or I don't like this sentence, how can I change this? And then he was like, I really want to start this paragraph with an idiom. Like, won't be a good idiom here, you know, but like, you know, it's helpful for him to have that language.

Stacy Hurst:

So they have a point of reference. Yeah, Donell. And

Donell Pons:

I love hearing that that's, I just get so excited when I hear people talk about well, my the student came to me and they said this and they love. I love that because there's engagement that tells me there's engagement, and I love getting to that level of engagement. That means there's enough support, I've received enough instruction that I can have engagement when a student is disengaged, then I say to myself, What do I need to do to help that student get to the level where there's engagement, because everybody wants to be engaged in it. And there isn't a student around who says, I want to go to class today. And I don't want to learn a thing. And I don't want to, I don't want to be interested. Nobody starts out none of us do that. No student does that. They want to be engaged. But there are various ways in which disengagement occurs. And they can start right at the door when they walk in. And they say, Oh, we're doing this today. I don't have the skills for that. Yikes. It starts right there for some. And so if this is even an intervention, you can put all of these pieces together. Because if people have been listening and saying, Well, that's a lot, I've got to get all that packed into a what. But you can do all of these pieces and hit on them. And I even had this experience last week with a student who's now a high school level, and trying to make it more interesting, get that level of engagement because he's got all these skills. Let's really take it to the next level. And so we practice doing some of the, you know, we're going to do a read of these particular words. We're also going to do some spelling of these particular word pattern. You know, just to really make sure we're honing in on those skills and then What we did for fun activity is, I got a lot of words just randomly selected, I thought that'd be fun. Five, six, maybe seven, eight, depending on where they're at. And let's spell them. He did the great work with the spelling showed me how they were spelled, and were they able to talk about it? And then I said, Okay, now you and I are both going to create different sentences, you get to do whatever you want with these words, put in whatever order. Remember, you're gonna have to add things like articles, I don't have those here. You could change the tense of something if you want to, he knows he has the skills to be able to do all of this. Okay, great. And All right, one a new right one, there wasn't sure if he was going to love this or not. But he dives in, he starts writing this thing down. And my goodness, his sentences were amazing. They were complex. And I was struggling, I'm over there going, oh, what can I do here? I can always there. Oh, my dear. And so we share, then then we share out and I said, Okay, I'll go first. But I said, I'm going to only do that because I know, I'd be intimidated after I heard your sentence. If I hear your sentence. I'm not even gonna want to read my sentence. So I read mine out. And then he gets to his and he's just excited to read this. So again, what is he doing? He's reader and writer, right? He's, he's creating for an audience, he will be that audience too. But he's also the writer. He's the creator of this text, and he's doing all of it. And this is a kid that five years ago, I would never have guessed would be that excited. Not only that excited, but creating sentences of this depth and level, wouldn't have thought about it. But we had to start with those skills, just like the rope puts them together. And he had to receive instruction and encouragement, and then doing the thing at each of those levels to be able to get to where he was. But man, that's exciting. And it can all be part of intervention as well. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and talking about what teachers should know, which Darnell I don't know, more knowledgeable teacher in that space than you, you have a large amount of knowledge for that. And then translating it to having a student do what you just had him do, right? That's not a one and done. That's a series of steps and trial and error. And do we do need to give ourselves Grace about that, I will make a very general comment about that very thing when we're talking about syntax, especially, I know. And Lindsey, you can tell me if this was your experience, too. As a pre service teacher, I got very little if any of that kind of information, the basals. I used focus highly on parts of speech. That's about all I remember. And so going back to where we began with the illusion of explanatory depth, I know there was a time in my life, where I could say, oh, yeah, I could teach how to write a sentence. But if I got really down to brass tacks, I probably could not explain it very well. So I'm mentioning this to say, we all have that, in our background, we have a space where we could improve. And this one is an area I continue to improve on. If you see me at conferences, I'm usually going to the syntax, the sentence was just so I want to solidify my knowledge in order to be able to get that out of my students, whether they're pre service teachers or not. And I think I'm in the experiment that we began explaining this episode with, they had people verbally explain what they said they knew well, so I am going to take that as a challenge for myself. To do that, I get the opportunity. throughout every semester, I teach my pre service teachers to revisit all of these concepts, but there are spaces, syntax, being one of them, that I probably need to increase my knowledge, so that I can have my students do their thing. And for my students that's teaching it so I have a long way to go there. Anything else that you guys want to add about those upper strands? Before we wrap it up? I just

Lindsay Kemeny:

think it's good to continually be thinking about what do I need to know what just what do my students need to know? And of course, I'm talking about this as a teacher, right. But yeah, what do what do? You know, what's important for me? What's important for them? What do I need to share? What do I not need to share? And I think, I think it's good to always remember, what's my overall goal for the students? Anytime we're doing something or giving a lesson thinking? What is it you want from them? What's the objective? Yeah, and

Stacy Hurst:

thank you for putting a plug into that. I'm going to assign this episode to my students. So I can reiterate the importance of an objective. Really clear and good, objective. Right. Donell ending thoughts?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I just I love what you said, Lindsay, and I don't want to overstate it too much. But it does make me think of an image I had as a kid when I wanted to learn how to ride a bike. And I remember I had my brother who was going to help me and he wanted to explain all the parts of the bike to me and I was so bored. I thinking to myself, well, I don't want to ride the bike anymore. And I think about that often when I'm with my students, how much do they need to know to do the thing and I still want them to be really interested, and it's a fine balance and giving them what they need, making sure we don't go so far, that they dropped the helmets say, Hey, I forget, I don't think I'm really interested in riding a bike, that I think that's always a good thing to keep in mind. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

I love that you make me think of my dad who was a mechanic. That's important. So when I started to talk about learning to drive, he was going into this whole, like, when gears turn the cogs and they have to match up, and I'm thinking to myself, I just need practice, I just need to do it in a way that I won't wreck the car, right, like, now as a mechanic, did he need to know that 100% He needed to know that stuff, right? So I think as we go in our careers, I know my skill set changed dramatically when I left being a first grade teacher and became a literacy coach. And then again, as we get higher education for ourselves, some of us who are seeking doctorates and and you do need to know, on that level, but I think also having this conversation, Lindsay, I like that, you said that, it's always good to ask ourselves, what do I need to know? And what do my students need to know and be able to do? What's the objective here? Because I think we have just identified the gap between research and practice, right? We've refined how we could fill that. What does the researcher need to know? And as I'm reading a research article, keeping that in mind, but then asking myself as a teacher, what out of this article do I need to know? And what do my students need to know from what I learned? So all good questions. We've said it before a million times on this podcast, but as teachers, we're learners first. And I think as we've had this conversation that's been highlighted for me repeatedly, so I have a list of things I need to keep learning. I guess we're never done. Thank you so much for this conversation. And to our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us for each episode. We hope that you'll join us next time for the next episode of literacy talks.

Narrator:

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