Literacy Talks

Addressing Some Misunderstandings of the Science of Reading

• Reading Horizons • Season 6 • Episode 16

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In our Season 6 finale, the hosts dive deep into an article from The Reading League Journal that addresses common misunderstandings about the science of reading. They explore a range of topics, including the role of comprehension, the 95% claim, the debate between speech-to-print and print-to-speech, the necessity of learning spelling and syllable division rules, and the use of nonsense words in phonics instruction. 

Through insightful discussions and real-world examples, the hosts help clarify misconceptions and provide a nuanced understanding of the science of reading. Whether you're a seasoned educator or new to the field, this episode offers valuable insights to help you navigate the complexities and separate fact from fiction when it comes to effective reading instruction.

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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 for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author, and speaker. Now, let's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to this episode of Literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst, and I'm joined by Lindsay Kemeny and Donell Pons. And today we are going to talk about an article that is in the reading league journal the September, October 2024, issue. And Lindsay, Donnell and I, we well, you guys, we had conversations about this before we chose the article, misunderstandings of the science of reading. And there are a lot of questions that they address or misunderstandings that they address in this, and we have narrowed it, but Lindsay and Donnell, you've probably read the whole thing, right? So maybe at the end, we'll ask if there are any questions that we didn't address that you really want to talk about. I guess I could start with the fact that the authors are Sharon Vaughn and Nathan Clemens, and they state some reasons why it's important to clarify misunderstandings of the science of reading. But I thought I would start by asking you your opinion of why you think it's important to clarify some of these misunderstandings. Donell, you want to go first?

Donell Pons:

Boy, I think it's almost a given. We've had so much talk and chatter, especially on social media. I don't think it's any surprise to anyone who spends any time on social media that there's a lot of back and forth about, well, what is, first of all, what is the science of reading? There's still a lot of challenges around that. And then, oh, everybody thinks they have the science of reading. They think it's a place, a location, a conference, or something, or someone's domain. So there's, I think there's always a lot of conversation around that, exactly, what do you mean by the science of reading and then in addition, there's a lot of pushback from folks who are like, well, they weren't part of the science of reading camp, and they are part of the science of reading camp. So I don't think this is a surprise at all. The article, in fact, I was really pleased to see it, and I was pleased by the authors as well, to see who was authoring the piece? Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And in addition to what Donnell said, I mean, we have legislation being pushed around science of reading. We have requirements coming down from districts and leaders saying, hey, you need to be, you know, aligned to the science of reading. So it's really important that we understand what the science of reading is and what it's not. And especially because, you know, there's no, like, I don't know authority that is saying, Oh, this is science of reading. This isn't science of reading. Anybody can use the term. And so it's really problem, because all kinds of products, and, you know, companies and professional development and programs are labeling science of reading, and maybe they're not even changing anything in it, but then they're adding in, in the in their blurbs and summaries about how it's aligned to the science of Reading. So it's so important, I think that that we understand, so that when we're looking through things, we can filter through a little bit and we can see, oh, yes, this is good. Or no, not so good. Even though it said science of reading on it, this is not a good practice, you know,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah, because at the end of the day, the most important thing about the science is the application in whatever instructional setting you're teaching someone how to read in, right? And they the authors, along with all the things that you guys have said, made another point that unnecessary abandonment of practice or materials that are incorrectly perceived as being inconsistent with the science of reading could happen as well. And I think I've seen that as a just a general question, oh, we need to ditch everything and start over right, which we've talked about this I think frequently on this podcast, that that is not the case. So I am looking forward to this conversation today with the two of you, so the very first one will start. And I think this is a really common misconception. It's listed as number seven. And these aren't in any particular order, but if you have the journal, it's on page 40. And the question is, what is the role of. Comprehension in the science of reading, and I know that we have had specific episodes on this. So just at a glance. I mean not at a glance, but as you look at what the authors have said, they state the obvious, like the purpose of reading is to learn, is to understand and learn from the text. It's the whole purpose. They list it as the expected outcome, which I like. And they say that this has been a misunderstanding, because the focus has been on some trickier skills, essentially to teach, like phonics, Symphony mcgornness That comprehension is so expected, actually, that maybe it hasn't become a conversation in the in the mainstream or on social media. What are your guys' thoughts about this? The

Donell Pons:

whole thing about comprehension is just ubiquitous, right to the whole thing. And I thought it was interesting. They said the argument has been about the approach, so that's where we spent, as you say, a lot of time and attention on components and pieces, and the approach as to how that's done. Well, the outcome has always been, the emphasis should always be comprehension.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, it's, it's the whole goal of reading. And we want the text that they're reading to enrich their lives somehow, right? We want them to be gaining new insights, new perspectives, new knowledge, deepening knowledge, that they might have a little bit of knowledge already, and we want to deepen it. And it's, you know, it's, you know, we've talked about, it's a huge pet peeve of ours when people say, Oh, science of reading is just about phonics. And I like what it said in the article, because it's like the reason why we're so focused on phonics in these signs of reading conversations is because that has been missing from effective reading instruction. We've always attended to comprehension, right? That's always been part of the picture, and phonics has not, which is why that's where a lot of times our focus goes and when people are debating or just having robust conversations about the science of reading, it focuses on that. But it's so important to know that that's not all it is. And it really drives me crazy when people will say, Well, you know, are you using a science of reading approach, meaning using phonics? And I'm like, Hey, there's a lot more to the science of reading than phonics, yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

even on the word level, even when you're teaching phonics, where we should be attending the meaning, right? So, yeah, that's always been very important. I what I appreciate of late is how this science is kind of directing us to have conversations around questions like, what is best to like you said the approach. Do we teach strategies for comprehension? Do we just focus on the outcome? I especially like the emphasis on making sure that teachers especially understand the difference between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. I think that's important, and so the I love that we are having more nuanced conversations about comprehension. But what you guys are saying is correct. We have never not focused on that. That's always been the the outcome. And

Lindsay Kemeny:

almost we've, I think we've almost over focused on it in the in the way of saying, like, um, making it about, I mean, it is about meaning. But you know, every, you know, all sudden, every problem, every student has a comprehension problem when they're reading, it's like, oh, they struggle with comprehension when we've got to look deeper to see exactly what they're struggling with. And I think that's just really common, you know, is especially for me. Before I understood, you know, how reading develops, I would just say, Oh, they're not comprehending, you know. But maybe it's because they can't decode the words, you know. So there's multiple things going on, so yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

And for me, the opposite was true. They could be making a lot of mistakes, and their their rate, maybe not where it should have been but when you ask them questions about whatever they read, they could answer them. So I would always say, well, they're understanding it. That's the important thing, not realizing that, that all that goes into beforehand. And so if we don't understand, like I mentioned a second ago, the difference between listening comprehension or language comprehension, which is what was happening in that case, then we could overlook skills that they need, like the ability to decode Donnell, I I'm sure you see that a lot with the students that you're working with.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I think so, putting all this, you know, in its place, and having a measured approach, really what's, I think, one of the most interesting and important pieces of familiarizing oneself now with what is considered the science of reading. In other words, all the research that goes into how someone learns to read is how it helps you pull apart, like you say Lindsay, when you see a student who isn't able, like what's happening with comprehension? Why are we not able to get there? And then you're able to pull the layer. Apart to be able to say it used to be that you like you said, you'd say, Oh, it's a comprehension issue, hmm. And lots of wonderings about why, and lots of blaming. That's when you get into I remember decades ago, the blaming was, well, you're not paying enough attention. They don't like getting enough of this or and we weren't really diving in because we didn't have the tools to dive in and know how to dive in, and that's the most I think exciting piece to this is having tools to be able to dive in.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that's a really great point. Okay, the next question is one of my favorites to address, and I can literally say the answer to this question kept me up at night, because the question is, Will 95% of all students learn to read if provided instruction aligned with the science of reading. Now this in the article is probably the second to the shortest response from the authors, and they basically say, we can't find any evidence for that. There's no specific studies being cited, but it's a good goal, right? Maybe not realistic out of the gate. And I know Donnell you and I have had extensive conversations about this in the past, and it is true that Louisa moat is the most frequent quoter person cited of this statistic, right? But I did a little bit of a deep dive, and I found some clarifying information. But before we share that, I want to know your thoughts on this. I want to hear your clarifying information first. No, I'm hoping it's like edge of the seat kind of a thing. Yeah, if I'm building up to it too much, but no, I want to hear what you have to say first. Well,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I think, you know, it's surprising when you read it in this article, and it's like there's little evidence to support this notion. I like that. They say it is likely that 95% of students would have improved reading outcomes. If educators had the resources, skills and time to provide effective reading instruction, I really like that. I think, I mean, it's hard to have lower expectations than that, right. As a teacher, I'm like, Well, of course, I want all my students to learn to read, and I truly believe that 95% of my students are capable of learning to read proficiently, but I don't think they can all get there in one year, depending on their needs, right? So Donnell, did you want to jump in, well,

Donell Pons:

I think you led me, yeah, you led me right to where I was going, or I was thinking too. Is that Stacey, we've had this conversation, it can be very challenging, and some students can be very complicated down that road. So when they say, improved outcomes, yeah, I firmly believe that somebody who has really good training is receiving all of that support to enter that classroom, right, right? Totally ready to help those kids learn to read. That is a far better situation for all of those students than a teacher who isn't prepared absolutely any day off like who can't agree with that. So you're going to see 95% of the kids having better outcomes than they would have had otherwise, absolutely, that'd be hard not to argue against that, right? But the part that does catch me is that part where it says, well, 95% of those kids, because I've been in classrooms where there's a lot of there's some complicated situations happening, right, some difficulties, and it minimizes the fact that this is still a really challenging thing to do that. That to me, that's kind of what that stat does. When you just toss it out and it lays out there on its own, it minimizes the effort all that's going to take for different folks to be able to experience that, oh, 95% of us are going to make it to the top. That's just what I'm thinking.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, yeah. And I just, I more and more I think about the time involved, because it is really hard. It's not easy, and certainly in certain like sub scores. If I look at like a sub score, Oh, nonsense word, reading fluency or something, yes, 95% of my students achieved that. At the end of the year. Did 95% of them also achieve, you know the the fluency, words correct per minute at the end of the year, and then it's just like Donnell saying some students are a little more complicated, and I think that most of them still can get there, though. I just think is going to take a little bit longer, like one year I was when I was teaching second grade, I had two students who started the year and they were only able to read three words correct per minute. Well, one of those students went on to hit grade level benchmarks at the end of the year. It was like a ton of growth. She didn't have a learning disability, though. She didn't have a learning disability, she just didn't have efficient effect. Of instruction the year before I got her right, the other student was not at grade level at the end of the year, and he had severe dyslexia. And it doesn't mean he's not capable of achieving reading proficiency, because he is, but it's going to take him longer than the other students. And he you know when you have, especially when you have such a steep way to go,

Stacy Hurst:

and I know the first time I heard that percentage, it was actually encouraging to me as a teacher, and it really motivated me to try harder, because I thought, hey, this is what's possible, and that I understood that that wasn't to say that I would have years that maybe my only 92% of my students would be hitting the benchmarks by the end of the year, and maybe I would have years that 98% of them were hitting the benchmarks right but knowing that that is possible. So I love because with science, we are, we are very and rightly so concerned with citing the evidence and having a proper study when we utilize statistics like this into the author's point, it's hard to find, and I don't think there was a specific study, but I did find where it came from, other than Louisa Moats quoting it. It's actually from the National Institutes of Health, and this, what I'm about to read to you is from a 2019, I think report about narrowing the third grade reading gap. That's what it's titled. So this type the section of this is, truth be told, there's no excuse for poor outcomes. So that's bold. The National Institute of Health indicates that nearly all children, and I think this is the clarifying piece, have the cognitive capacity to learn to read, estimating that only 5% of young readers have severe cognitive impairments that would make acquiring reading skills extremely difficult, while the remaining 95% of students have the capacity to read. Not every student will learn under the same conditions. An estimated 30% of students will learn to read regardless of how they were taught, and that's lower than what I've heard in the past. However, roughly half of students will need high quality tier one instruction in foundational skills and additional 15% of students will require additional time to support and support to meet their reading potential.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, it makes me think of my nephew that I've mentioned many times having a very different experience with learning to read than my child because of the information I provided to his mother. So looking a lot like family members. This little guy starts out on that reading journey, and he's thankfully not having the same challenges, and he's able to maintain. He's making gains, and that was not the story for my son. They both had lots of intelligent, cute little guys in the classroom every day, not excessive absences, I mean all those things that you might want to look to and point at, but they have a history of learning difficulty within their family, and that's what having really good instruction on the ground can do. And it makes me think of how difficult my son's experience was, versus Now, thankfully, this cousin, who's having a very different experience, it took so much effort to lift because we weren't getting a lot of support everywhere. So when we think about if we're really doing excellent implementation, you've got those supports in place. I'd even like to see what that lift would have looked like with that. I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been so heavy as it was,

Unknown:

yeah, it's about

Lindsay Kemeny:

pooling the resources. You know, is what I was thinking while you're reading that Stacy, and you're saying, you know, what did it say? 15% of students are gonna require more. I don't remember the worst, but that's how support, yeah, yeah. Additional support, yeah. And you just think, Okay, I've got a really strong tier one, and you're still going to have some students who need more than that. And so it's this is why data is so important. And I know some teachers just like, cringe when they hear that or the assessment, but you use the data from the assessment, and then you can see, like when you hit your middle of the year and you see, oh my goodness, there hasn't been as much growth for this student. Or now their trajectory is not that steep. They're not going to get grade level if we keep going on this, you know, path. Then you adjust and you say, this child needs more. Or maybe, you know, because I've had students that are on that well above average growth, like that one I told you that started at three words correct per minute. He was still in that red zone at the end of the year. But. His pathway, his trajectory was well above average growth. And that's what I mean like. That's our goal with those kids. They need to be on a well above or above average growth, and they can get there. They just might not get there in a year, if they have and

Stacy Hurst:

that's one thing I noticed about this statement. There was no mention of when right to expect that? Yeah, so over time, as we know, another really clarifying point that I think is so important. I certainly saw this in my practice as a teacher and especially as a literacy coach, and I really want my students to understand this. There's a phrase in there of 95% of elementary students. And here's the point, regardless of background, are cognitively capable. And I think that's important, because, like you said, Donnell, we can excuse away if we don't understand and recognize that. I'm

Donell Pons:

also thinking about getting in there even earlier. I mean, this idea of making sure that our preschool settings, we're including them in the conversations about literacy, so they're just as important as our k3 spaces. It's everyone as Lindsay to your point of resources, right? And making the more we spread that conversation. We attended a conference where pediatricians want to be involved in conversation, and I say yes, yes, and right? Yes, and we have room for even more folks to get on board, because all of that, as you say, our resources and the ability to help move those students along who may need more, right? I'm

Lindsay Kemeny:

really curious about that other 5% because, you know, they're saying 95% of students are cognitively capable. What about those 5% what can we expect of them? Because I and how well I was gonna say, how common? I guess it's like 5% because I have, you know, I had a student who was cognitively impaired last year and, you know, I he, he deaf, you know, he learned all his letter names and sounds. We definitely weren't there with all of our decoding yet. And I just wonder what, you know, the expectations are there. I that's just an area I don't know much about, and I need to, because I keep getting students in, you know, in that group,

Stacy Hurst:

that is a great question. It's also where systems come in right now, this document says a small subset of students that are talking about the 5% have severe cognitive disabilities and will likely struggle to read throughout their schooling. It doesn't say that they're not going to read at all or benefit from good instruction. And I was thinking of a student I had. It was actually my last year of teaching first grade, and she came to me out of after all of kindergarten, the only word she could recognize was the word the and I had read the research about how many meaningful interactions you have to have with a pattern or word before it gets in your long term memory, and hers was well above what I mean want to talk about a misconception. That's another piece of research we could go into later. Yeah, but like she was well above what I was told, which I think was between five and 12 experiences with the word. She was into 30s. Into the 30s, easily. And I was keeping track. I was watching, but she ended up with a classification that would put her into severe, cognitively impaired. And before I knew that was going to be my last year of teaching first grade, I moved into the literacy coach position we had in place that she would repeat first grade because I knew we were there if we just keep going. And by the end of the school year, she did recognize many words, and she had made a lot of improvement to your point, Lindsay, but I think she was coming in, she was ending first grade as a typical student would begin first grade. So I think resources, supports come systemically over the years, when that's the case,

Donell Pons:

and I think my experience with this, and I've had a few students who categorically would fit here, and I think one of the things I learned, and now I use it all the time, is I'm going to put forth all of my effort to help every student, but my expectations of where that student should be or how quickly they move. I need to temper those that I can do something about, but I'm going to put for forward my total effort, all of the training that I've had, and I've seen some remarkable outcomes from students whose whose parents also were like, geez, I don't know. They've told us probably not, and they've become great little decoders. And oftentimes the issue can be with just comprehension later, nuances and that kind of a thing. So I say, I my doors always keep that door wide open, and you just you temper your expectations of how quickly you think the students should be moved. Thing, and that kind of a thing, but I put all my effort and say, Let's go for it. Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and that's what I feel like I do. And I like that you said that like because I do have my expectations, and even sometimes, you know, previous teachers or others work with them, will come and kind of tell me, Well, you know, might not be able to do this or this or this, but I always have my expectations high, but I like that. You know what you're saying, Donnell is also I need to temper them in that. Hey, it might take a little bit more time than I thought, but it doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and throw up my hands. I'm going to invest all I can in that child. We I just have to be realistic as well as how long it will take to be patient

Stacy Hurst:

and be good at communicating when that child moves out of your class or and that's where assessment comes in, because you, no matter what someone else has told you, you need to know. You need to know where that student is. And Donnell, as you were talking, I was thinking too. We were talking about cognitive capacity here, but part of that capacity is cognitive load. So the science of reading, thankfully, is informed by a lot of different areas, including cognitive science. And maybe that's an adjustment, you know, that we can make. So, yeah, let's never dismiss a kid or or even personally place them in that 5% we don't know that. I think in most cases we won't know that. And I'm going

Donell Pons:

to do a quick plug for the parents too, or whoever the Guardian is. For these students, more than ever, I include them in on conversations to have them gaining as much knowledge as they possibly can, because, as you say, Stacy, they're only with you for a period of time, but they're with that individual over the lifespan of their education and as much background and knowledge you can give them to be the advocate for that student. I've seen really good outcomes from having parents that were shoulder to shoulder with me watching, what are you doing? How can I and then they pick it up and take it from there, and then you check back with them three years later, I love nothing more than hearing that parent say, here's where we are now, and you're thrilled. Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

that's so great, Stacy. I just wanted to clarify or jump in on what you because you brought up something really a good point where you said, we can't just place them in that 5% ourselves. And that's so true. And when, and I had just finished saying I had a student in this 5% last year, I have one this year, but there's psychological testing that has been done, and I know that, and I have had years where I think the previous teacher assumed that, and had told me something, and I assumed, well, actually I didn't, but I know that they had these assumptions, but then they picked up things rather quickly, and I knew that they were, you know, more than capable of being 95% right, which

Stacy Hurst:

is especially important when we're teaching in those early grades, because, as our system is now like the student I was sharing, they only learned the word the in kindergarten. I She was not my student when she received that classification that we often wait, right? We often wait for a very specific classification until they're in second or third grade or or so forth. So excellent point. Lindsay, let's not, let's not break them into jail ourselves, right? That's not our job as teachers. It's the opposite. So I appreciate that conversation.

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Stacy Hurst:

Okay, the next question is also a favorite, because I have heard a lot about this on social media. I love watching and listening to the dialog about this. So this is question 15 on page 42 according to the science of reading, is a speech to print approach to beginning reading instruction superior to a print to speech. So just to clarify, too speech to print and then print to speech, and they're saying which is better? And in a typical classroom that is using a speech to print approach, you see a focus on individual phonemes. You'll typically see a sound wall. We're focusing on placement, manner of articulation, and then we're connecting letters to those phonemes. And a print to speech setting is more that we're just starting with the print, right? We're starting with the alphabet. We're teaching the name and the sound, of course, but a. We're introducing the print or the visual version of that first so what do you guys think? What stood out to you about the answer to this question?

Donell Pons:

I thought it was interesting. To date, no studies have tested whether a speech to print approach is superior to any other type of instruction. I because this one boy, do you hear a lot of this? I hear it all the time.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they're both needed, yes, speech to print. You need print to speech. But the thing is, I don't think here's the problem. The term speech to print has become a little muddy, because people aren't always referring to the same thing when they say speech to print. I mean, Louisa Moats has a book called speech to print, right? And yes, we know we need to focus on the phonemes and we need to attach them to the graphemes. But there's also a approach to instruction, which they used to call themselves speech to print, and then they kind of changed the term, and they're called structured linguistic literacy, but people kind of use the terms interchangeably. And I don't know if the authors of this article like are aware of that, but that approach kind of grew out of phonographics, and you have lots of different companies using that. Either way, it's still true that we don't have research that says that approach is better or worse than your typical phonics instruction.

Stacy Hurst:

And in the absence of that research, to me, it makes sense to emphasize the speech to print transition, because a that's kind of how we evolve anyway, right? We start with speech and then also the structure of it just seems a lot more simple. I've taught with a method before where you hold up the letter A, and you go over all eight spellings for that sound right at once, and talk about cognitive overload. It is. But I also know that essentially, we're like you're saying Lindsay. We need both, I would it's easier for me to think of it in the term of we have 44 sounds, and we have most common spellings for those sounds, and then we have others. And it just seems like an easier way. Rather than focusing on the 250 spellings for those 44 sounds, it just seems like a better structure, especially when in my position, when I'm teaching pre service teachers to understand this, but in truth, it is speech to print back to speech again. That's reading, right? And they also mentioned the authors mentioned we need to focus on spelling as well. And I don't think anybody would argue with that, but that makes reading even more efficient. So big

Lindsay Kemeny:

conversation I like, I'm not really interested in and aligning myself with one side or the other. I'm not like, I do this approach. I do speech to print. I do print to speech. I do explicit phonics. I do structured linguistic literacy. I'm just like, I teach students to read, and I look at best practices, I look at research on practices and and I actually, I don't know I have a different view, because I see a lot more similarities in the two approaches, the new differences. So I just kind of you things a little different.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, in fact, I always find myself questioning, like, what's the big deal about that question in and of itself? That's just me. Donna, what were you going to add to that?

Donell Pons:

No, just that. I mean, that's why that statement, about to date, no studies, you know, just make it, because it is such an area of argument. And I just think it's kind of it's a waste of time to be spending so much time discussing whether one or the other is correct, because, as you say, ideally both are present when you're teaching a student, and as you say, Lindsay, when you've got that toolbox full of really good techniques, you might have a student where a speech is very obvious and needed, Okay, gonna whip out more you just all day long, that's what you're doing. If you're if you've been building up your skill set, you're able to do that for your students, yeah?

Stacy Hurst:

And I don't want people to be limited by Yeah, like you said Lindsay, putting themselves in a box with one approach or the other, because both are needed and hard for me to tell apart. So Okay, number 16 on page 44 according to the science of reading, is it necessary for students to learn spelling and syllable division rules? So the emphasis here, I think, is on rules, and they're talking about the idea commonly or traditionally, is that memorizing these rules helps students? Read and spell words they have not previously encountered. But reading research has never established that learning these rules is necessary for learning to read. Well, in fact, approaches that emphasize these techniques were developed long before much reading research existed, and scholars have also noted the inconsistency of spelling and syllables that becomes a big topic, especially when we get to multi syllabic word instruction, right? Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny:

You know this is interesting because I was originally taught like to divide syllables in more of a structured way. And then I was taught. I got another program where it was a little more of a flexible way. And I know that Devin Kerns has done a lot of research in this area, and really, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. But I think he used to be in the camp of syllable division rules, and then he just completely after doing research, he completely changed course. Is that right? And because I know now he's very much about a flexible approach. You need to be flexible. And I have a lot of thoughts here, because I have seen that, I would say I teach more of a flexible approach right now in my classroom, but I think there could be a case for some students needing a little more of a rigid, structured approach. And I have this little video clip of my son, because I taught him with a little more of a structured approach. And this is like an old video clip. It's one minute, and we're gonna play it so you guys can hear it. But this is him just kind of walking him through, him through dividing one word. So we're just gonna play that, and then we will keep talking. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll be able to see the video. Otherwise you could just kind of hear,

Lindsay's son:

hi. I'm gonna show you some location. Okay, syllabication. Here we go. You underline the vowels, you put a V under them, and then you put a line like this, oh, you put the C right here. Where to stand for

Lindsay Kemeny:

confidence, consonant, consonant, yep, okay, so they put for the C. And now, do you know where to divide it? Yeah,

Lindsay's son:

put it right here. Okay, and this will be CL for close

Lindsay Kemeny:

that's a closed syllable, okay, open. So we have an open at the end. Okay, so can you read the word now?

Lindsay's son:

Temp, oh,

Lindsay Kemeny:

good, nice job. Okay, so for my son, and it's so fun to hear His voice and see the video, because he's so little, He's so tiny, and this was like five years ago. Um, it's, I have to say that this, doing this was just really built his confidence. He had no idea how to attack a little bit of a bigger word. He didn't know what to do. And this just kind of gave him a formula for how to attack the word. And I just want to clarify that he has severe dyslexia, and I feel like he needed this. That being said, I don't know if I had taught him back then with a little more of a flexible or an easier way, would he have done okay with it? I just, I don't know. I'm not sure. What are you guys' thoughts?

Stacy Hurst:

Well, I do want to point out that he even used the word confidence in

Lindsay Kemeny:

for confidence. I'm like, oh,

Stacy Hurst:

loved it, yes, and you know, I agree with you. So if we're talking about again, we'll go back to the 95% conversation, and 15% of our students need more. That's the kind of thing we're talking about, right? Maybe more structure to how we're teaching that, and we have to go slow, in some cases, to go fast when we're talking about getting things in long term memory. So yeah, and

Lindsay Kemeny:

of course, the idea is they don't have to stop and do this process every time as they're reading, but it's at the beginning, right? It's at the beginning stages to kind of teach them and have them start looking for these patterns. I will say I don't know, because. We had to label the syllable types. And I do not think that step was necessary. Like, I think that was maybe kind of a lot on the cognitive load, just because to come up with a label for the syllable, you know. So I think that was something, you know, we could easily take away. And I do, like, you know, I've easier approaches now, like um, with Reading Horizons, you know, they have two will split. One will run right with the talking about the consonants in between the vowels. And I just found that really easy for my students, and then learning to flex the vowels. And just one more thing, though, because we talk a lot about that mispronunciation correction kind of right. They can try. They can flip between two vowels and see which one sounds right, and then that's the word. My issue was that with that is what? Well, I think that works for a lot of students. But what about English learners? Would they need a little more of a structured approach? Those that won't necessarily have those words in the book their vocabulary, right? So I don't know it's

Stacy Hurst:

100% Yeah, it is, because syllabication is simply figuring out what the vowel sound is like. That's what it is. And so, yeah, if you're an English language learner, you would need to know where the emphasis goes. Oftentimes, that's mostly what they need. But, and to your point, getting close enough, you know, then that set for variability can click in and say, Oh, I know this word. Yeah, good points, Donna. Were you thinking, yeah,

Donell Pons:

and it's fun to watch that video. I think he's such a kick too. So great. And you know, for and I'm talking obviously our audience, there's a lot of people who have a lot of experience also teaching reading, have used different programs. And so you probably have a lot of thoughts that are going through your mind as well. But I was just thinking to myself, we all know that at some point for our students, certain students, it is very helpful to have those things right. Like you said, it was an anchoring point. Gave him the confidence. We kind of giggle over that word confidence, but it really did, because he was able to confidently say, Hey, this is how I'm going to divide this words, how I'm going to go about pronouncing it there. You can't give a kid enough of that, right, especially if that, if they've been struggling. So I think that's awesome. The one thing, and you mentioned already yourself, Lindsay, there's a couple of things there. The one thing I sometimes wonder about are all the things we have students do. So sometimes we think, Oh, if a little is good, then a little more is even better. And I'm concerned about that, and I always have been, too, for the same reasons you are. And then the other piece that I find concerning at times is we spend a good deal of time in the instructional phase and not nearly as much in the doing phase. And oftentimes, when you're with a student, that's something I'm constantly thinking about, to myself, is keeping instructional time as low as possible, doing as much as possible. And you it's constant you got to be thinking about because you could spend a good deal of time in the instructional phase. And that's always to me, can, let's get in doing the thing, and

Stacy Hurst:

then just, more broadly, address things, position in a word, matters, right? We're not, we don't have to go over every tiny little thing. I also, like Christopher, such as the one that I think of that kind of posited this question to us, but how much of the code do they really need to learn? Right? And maybe we're over teaching some of those patterns, and especially the less frequent ones. I think there are all kinds of things to consider, like you were saying, Donna, we're talking about this. One thing I do, like is the built in scaffold, like the approach your son you taught your son with Lindsay. That's great. That's a good scaffold for when he gets to a word he doesn't know. And I think sometimes marking systems get a bad rap, but you're building in that scaffold, and you don't have to rely on a teacher to be able to do that if you have those skills. So he was marking the vowels and the consonants and linking them and essentially doing the same thing that that Reading Horizons teaches, too, just in a more methodical way, so

Lindsay Kemeny:

more methodical and more of the labeling, yeah, just it would be interesting to know if you know, because that's just what I was taught then. And it'd be interesting to know if I had tried another approach, how that would work. But it's just, I mean, it just goes back to, I think it depends on the student, and I think some students probably need a little more structure. And I wonder if there has been any studies specifically on, you know, the different groups, like a special education setting, versus what the teacher is doing in the general classroom, although it would probably be best if they were doing the same thing, right?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, or maybe just a different scaffold, the same kind of instruction, same terminology, more scaffolds or fewer scaffolds. I. Yes would be the yeah situation there. Okay, last one, does the science of reading say that reading pseudo words, in essence, nonsense words, is a key part of phonics instruction?

Donell Pons:

Hmm, you know, we've had conversations about this. We

Stacy Hurst:

have and I will tell you, early on in my career, I was highly suspicious of nonsense words. I questioned them. Why are we using them? And I definitely think it's important to clear up misunderstandings, because out of a lot of things that we've talked about today and that are considered part of the science of reading. This can be misconstrued, and actually, in my opinion, do damage. So I have seen, as a result, we use DIBELS in my district, and there's a nonsense word measure. And actually that is nonsense word reading is a pure assessment of how students can apply those patterns and orthographically map a word so to speech speak in their brain without have relying on the meaning or the fact that they've seen that word so many times they've just memorized it. So as an assessment, I think it's great, but what I saw in application teachers, after we started giving that test, would send home lists of nonsense words for students to memorize and practice. And so I think there's a fine line between how we use them instruction, if we use them instruction in instruction, and how we use them for assessment. And I think everybody would agree with the authors and to say there are situations where you shouldn't use them at all, like with English language learners, essentially, to them, every word could be a nonsense word when they're learning English. So I feel like I'm stating the obvious. But what are you guys thinking about this question?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, they're nonsense words are really helpful in assessments, because they're going to let you know if the child knows their sounds and the letter sounds and can blend them automatically. Can they do that? Because if they can't, sometimes you get a student who does decently on their passage, on the reading passage does decently, and then you look at the nonsense word assessment, and they just tank. It's terrible. And that can clue you in to this child might be relying on the really good visual memory, right? And they're memorizing words and and they're also figuring out words from context, because they're super smart, and they're relying on that, instead of relying on that phonemic awareness and phonics. And that's really important to know, because then you can, you need to address that in you know, you need to work on that with that student. All right, I like in the article How it said that these nonsense words are pseudo words. It to include them. They should be considered very cautiously. They use that term, you know, in your instruction, very cautiously. And it talked about how sometimes they can be helpful for students who are prone to guessing. And you get that some students that are just, I mean, they will only look at the first letter and they guess, and it's so hard to break that habit. And okay, so for those students, it might be helpful to do some nonsense words with them, because they can't guess those there's no way. They've got to attend to the letters and they have to blend so in certain situations. But they said, quote, if used sparingly,

Donell Pons:

yeah, I just amend all of that. I think I love that they led with assessment, because that's the piece we've usually come down the conversations about can be very useful in assessment settings to tell you things about what the student does already know and what's automatic, what is not, what needs more help. But then seeing them appear in all kinds of ways through instruction, very concerning, and, as they say, sparingly, very cautiously, for a very specific purpose.

Stacy Hurst:

And I have learned over time that I am I use them in even as a form of assessment, in spelling less and less, I feel like there's not a space for a ton of nonsense words asking students to spell them, especially because, given our orthography, we can spell a lot of words many ways and so and then you're not attaching The meaning to them, which is critical as well, right? So, yeah, that's a good, good point. Thank you guys so much for having this conversation today. Just an ending. There were 50 to 18 questions. I said 15 there were 18. Were there any that you feel like maybe we should discuss in another episode? Twitter that you were hoping that I would choose this time

Lindsay Kemeny:

I like to number nine question. Number nine, it's, does the science of reading say that level text should never be used? So that would be a fun one to talk about another time

Stacy Hurst:

you're not going to tease us with your response.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, it's what's hard as that, I feel like it requires an explanation, right? So I'll just read this quote. The text itself within level text is not necessarily the problem. The problem is how these levels and level texts are used, all right? So you don't need to go and throw away all your level text, because any text could be leveled, and that would be a catastrophe. But if you are referring to predictable, repetitive texts, go ahead and you can remove those from your classroom. Okay. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

good point, plus those things are expensive. Man. Donnell, any question that you wish we would have gotten to. So

Donell Pons:

number three, if you're an educator, and you've been in a setting where somebody says, Oh, I just think they're too young to really know what's going on with reading, and you've just really tired of it, and you don't have a really diplomatic way of responding to that, and you're just, I'm fed up. Number three, just, you just read it right from the top. It's not very long, and you can just read it to that. It to them. It's very, very diplomatic, but it gives a nice response for the question Donal, because article so number three is, won't all children learn to read if we wait long enough? It's the one you've heard, I'm sure. And they're very diplomatic. Learning to read is much easier for some students than others, but it is not an automatic process. What a nice way to say that nice.

Stacy Hurst:

And you know what? We should memorize that it would be a good response to have handy when you get asked that question. And back to 30% only 30% will learn to read, no matter what your approach is, right? So we don't want numbers that low. And you know, I'm thinking as we're having these conversations, we said this when we determined we were going to discuss this article, that every question could have its own episode. So thank you guys so much for the conversation today, and as you were responding, I think in every instance in my mind, it just highlighted how important teacher knowledge is, because it is the practices that we need to refine. And of course, we always add to our knowledge as well, but you can't do that in a way that gets us closer to that Bullseye if you don't have the knowledge of the science of the research. So I'm thankful for groups that help do that, translating right of science to practice, like the reading League and the journal I look forward to every quarter. So I guess we could thank the reading league for that. Any other closing thoughts,

Lindsay Kemeny:

guys, I don't think so. This was a great conversation. Thank you. Yes. Thank

Stacy Hurst:

you. Loved it, and I hope that listeners, you enjoyed it as well, and hopefully we will see you at our next episode of literacy talks.

Narrator:

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy Talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where reading momentum begins. Visit readinghorizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading.