Another Conversation with Shea Kerkhoff

In this episode, Dr. Shea Kerkhoff talks to us about adolescent literacy, student engagement, and how teachers can support middle and high school students as readers and writers in today’s complex literacy landscape. Drawing from her new book, Adolescent Literacy: Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4-12, Shea discusses ways educators can foster motivation, meaningful literacy literacy experiences, and authentic learning opportunities across content areas. She shares insights into the sciences of reading and writing and the importance of honoring students’ identities, interests, and lived experiences in literacy instruction. Dr. Shea Kerkhoff is an Associate Professor and Faculty Fellow of Student Success in the College of Education at the University of Missouri - St. Louis.  

You can connect with Shea at https://sheakerkhoff.weebly.com and you can purchase her new book at https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/adolescent-literacy-9798765151310/.

To cite this episode: 

Hatten, R. (Host) (2026, May 12). Another Conversation with Shea Kerkhoff. (Season 6, No. 10) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/C73C-7820-DF38-4256-1BC4-B

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Why Research Misses Classrooms

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom Caffeine is here to help. In each episode, I talk with a top education researcher or an expert educator about what they have learned from years of research and experiences.

Passing The Mic To A New Host

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Before we jump into today's episode, I want to take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Rachel Hatton, co-director of the David C. Ancient Center for the Advancement of Teaching at the University of South Florida College of Education, and I'm honored to be stepping into the role of host for Classroom Caffeine. If you missed our last episode, hearing a new voice hosting the show today may come as a bit of a surprise. In that episode, listeners had a chance to hear more about my work and about the future of the podcast as Dr. Lindsay Person passed the mic. I'm deeply grateful to Lindsay for the incredible community she has built through this podcast over the years and for her commitment to connecting education, research, and classroom practice in thoughtful, accessible, and meaningful ways. I'm really excited to continue that work and so grateful that you're here listening. And now, on to today's conversation. In this episode, Dr. Shay Kirchhoff talks to us about adolescent literacy, student engagement, and how teachers can support middle and high school students as readers and writers in today's complex literacy landscape. Drawing from her new book, Adolescent Literacy, Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4 through 12, Shay discusses ways educators can foster motivation, meaningful literacy experiences, and authentic learning opportunities across content areas. She shares insights into the sciences of reading and writing and the importance of honoring students' identities, interests, and lived experiences in literacy instruction. Dr. Shay Kirchhoff is an associate professor and faculty fellow of student success in the College of Education at the University of Missouri St. Louis. You can connect with Shay at H T P S colon backslash backslash Jay Kirkoff.weebly.com. That's S H E A K-E-R K-H O F F dot Weebly.com. For more information about our guests, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite drink and join me, your host, Rachel Hatton, for Classroom Caffeine Research to energize your teaching practice. I'm really glad to begin this conversation by welcoming back Dr. Shay Kirkoff to Classroom Caffeine. Shay first joined the podcast in 2023, where she shared powerful insights about disciplinary literacy and inquiry-based learning ideas that continue to resonate in classrooms today. I'm excited to pick up a new conversation with Shay around her current work, talk about how her thinking has evolved lately, and learn more about all the things that she's engaged in in literacy today. Shay, thank you so much for joining me and welcome to the show. Thanks, Rachel. I'm happy to be here. I especially welcome you to this episode because it's my very first one as host of Classroom Caffeine. So you get extra bonus points for doing the show with the rookie. So thanks for taking a chance on me. It's so exciting. Thanks. I'm really excited about it too. So, Shay, when you think about the work you're engaged in now, what are one or two moments that are really informing your thinking and shaping the work you're up to?

When Tier Two Becomes A Tier One Need

SPEAKER_02 3:41

You know, I was sitting at a table in a media center in a high school in rural Missouri with an English teacher and a special education teacher. And we were working on their school-wide literacy action plan. And we were looking for more time during the week for students to have tier two instruction. So tier two meaning small group targeted literacy instruction. And we were having a hard time finding enough time, as I'm sure many teachers can relate. There's just only so much time in the day. And so as we were thinking through the challenge, we realized that these multiple-tier support systems were designed thinking that 80% of our students would be doing really well and responding to tier one, your traditional whole group instruction. And that wasn't the case in this school. So they weren't looking for time for just 20% of their students to receive targeted small group, tier two instruction. There were more students than that. And so what we realized was we needed to flip the script. We needed to provide more opportunities for foundational literacy learning in our whole group instruction in these higher grade levels. So that really informed where my mind is now, what questions I'm asking now. What does foundational literacy look like in upper grades and even in high school? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, and how do you balance that with engagement and motivation challenges in secondary settings, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

That's right. And so we don't want instruction that is baby-ish, but we also want our students, and we know our students want to be able to read and write confidently and to be able to comprehend challenging texts and write in ways that expresses the passionate beliefs that they have. And so when students can read well and when they can write well, they're more motivated to do so. So it's not motivating to do something that you feel like you're not going to be able to do. So I think that the motivation can have a reciprocal relationship with reading and writing confidence and that if we think we're going to succeed, we're more likely to be motivated to try it.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I know you were a high school English teacher too, Shay. That's my background. And I always felt like that was one of the biggest challenges was that by the time I saw students, so much of their own thinking about their ability and their identity as a person engaging in literacy practices felt so concretized. Like I, by the time I saw them, I felt like they'd been getting messages from schooling and teachers about what they could and couldn't do for 10 years, sometimes 11 years. And so I agree. Like of course it's not motivating or engaging to try to do something that doesn't feel good, that you don't feel good at. It's actually a really normal response to disengage from things that we think we're not good at, or that we feel like we're getting messages from other people that we're not good at. So having some positive feedback around, like, hey, we're making progress here, or progress is possible can be motivating in its own right.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Right. I think about a time where I was teaching a literacy methods class and we had an assigned reading the night before, and I came into class and I just took a big sigh and I said, that reading was dense. Oh my goodness, I could hardly get through it. Yeah, it's such important information, but it was really hard because of how dense it was. Right. And I saw all my teacher candidates in that room just relax. Like I didn't realize how high their shoulders were up their neck until I said that. And then they all took a deep breath too, and we relaxed and we talked about how we all struggle to read something sometimes. Right. And that doesn't mean that we're not good readers or that uh sometimes we can put the blame on the authors and talk about what could the authors have done to be more considerate of the reader. And then that also leads us to make it more, it's normal. It's normal to not understand everything you read the first time you read it.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Right. I talk about that with my pre-service teachers around the power of think alouds. And then even just that openness around that was tough, huh? That shared experience of okay, that was a challenging read. That's a powerful think aloud, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be, oh, I'm wondering this or I'm predicting this. It's just the shared openness and transparency of here's what that reading experience felt like. You too, right? Right. Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to give us some time to talk about your new book. So tell us, Shay, what what do you want listeners to know about the new book that you have that's just released from Bloomsbury? And and what what else uh from your current work is worth sharing with our audience?

Confidence As The Engine Of Engagement

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Well, thank you. So my new book is called Adolescent Literacy, Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4 through 12. Terrific. So it is an attempt to answer that question what does it look like to teach foundational literacy in upper grades? And so I spent a lot of time talking with teachers, teachers across grade levels, teachers across content areas, so math teachers, science teachers, social studies, English language arts, literacy specialists, special educators, lots of different perspectives. And then I dug deep into the research literature. And so this book really is a synthesis of the research literature combined with strategies and stories from teachers in these grades who have tried and found things that worked. So as I was doing the synthesis of the research, I had an aha moment about the interconnection of reading and writing. And that is something that I would like to share with your listeners. Wonderful, yeah. So reading and writing are interrelated in three different ways. So the first way, Shanahan and Fitzgerald talk about it as two buckets, one well. And so if you think about the common knowledge base, and you picture two buckets at a well, that common knowledge base being the well, and then reading and writing are two buckets, but they're drawing from that same well. So there's inner relationship there. And then another way that they are related is a reciprocal relationship, meaning that when we teach one, they both improve. Right. So when students read more, their writing improves. And when students write more, their reading improves. And so the last way is a synergistic relationship in that two are better than one. So reading and writing are synergistic, meaning that together they produce more learning than either would alone. So, like if you think of a song, like the melody is beautiful, but put a harmony in there too, and it just is explosive, right? It's it's so much better. And so knowing that, we need to make sure that we are providing time for students to be reading and to be writing as they're learning. And that's where across the day in the different content areas, students can be learning through reading and writing, and then doing both of those then also helps improve their reading and writing.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, I think that's so important because so often I think writing can feel like one more thing for teachers to tackle. It feels like this separate thing I have to do. Um, or I think sometimes teachers feel like, I have to start teaching writing when the state writing test begins, and that's when we tackle writing. Um it feels like additional to the work of reading that we've really been engaged in. We've talked a lot about reciprocal processes, I think, but I love those two other frameworks of the synergy between both are better when the other is present and drawing from that same same well of common knowledge. I think that's so powerful. I always think of Pam Allen has this great line about reciprocal relationships. She says reading is breathing in and writing is breathing out. Yes. Um, which I think is so helpful in terms of like you can't really have one or or be good at one without the other. Um so it makes me think a little bit about your first story, like the that question of time, right? How do we carve out time in our instructional day when we know that you know, students needing catch-up growth and and work in foundational areas? That's really not a tier two problem. There are enough students that it's actually a tier one challenge. And now I know that that reading and writing are made better together, and I still have this question of time. Um, what would you say to teachers that are, you know, posing that question or that challenge?

Reading And Writing As One System

SPEAKER_02 14:01

I think it's a fair question. We ask so much of teachers and so much of our students. And the thing about learning is that just because we learn something doesn't mean we'll remember it. So we could spend 60 minutes lecturing our students to get through the content, because we know lecturing's fast. We can get through all the content that way. But will they remember it? Will they have a deeper understanding of it? And so if we chose to slow down and allow students to not only hear about the topic, but to read about it, to talk about it with each other, to construct their knowledge through writing and responding to texts and to other people's ideas, what would happen?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

And maybe what would happen is we wouldn't get through as much of the content as we used to, but maybe our students would have a deeper understanding of what they learned that year.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah, I think that's right. What is actually high leverage? You know, like if the goal stays the same, just doing more is not always the answer to advanced success, but doing things better, um, you know, in a way that honors that synergistic relationship, where both are going to be improved by teaching one, right? By teaching reading well, writing improves. Um, it's not additional or supplemental, it's actually part of the good work of write reading instruction and writing instructions.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

The other thing, in addition to time, that when I talk to teachers, I hear is that I wasn't trained to teach reading, or I hear I'm I'm not a reading teacher. And I get that. And I'm not trying to say that everyone needs to be a reading expert. That's what the book is for. So that's what I'm here for is to provide that support. And in the book are over a hundred strategies that are tied to research, that have examples, even some free downloads that teachers can use in their class that aren't a big lift, but that make explicit the reading or the writing specific skill that you're wanting your students to be able to do. So it's it's not as if we have to throw out what we've been doing all together and do this new thing. The science of reading is really about making explicit word recognition, which we can do through teaching our upper grade students, our older students, about morphology. So learning prefixes and suffixes. And teachers have been doing that. We've been doing that. I learned morphology when I was in ninth grade in the 1990s. Yep. So that's it's not new. It's just, although it does evolve, the research evolves and gets better, but it is about prioritizing, making sure that our students do have that foundation, that foundational knowledge about words so that they can then build on that when they're reading to make meaning from the reading.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, the the secondary teacher in me loves that the focus of this book is on grades four through 12. Because I I think there is a misconception that science of reading is K12 work, you know, that it just lives in in decoding and in early literacy spaces. So I love that your focus is in these later grades and how foundational work still exists there. It just looks different.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yes. And the other thing that that I know teachers have been doing, but may not realize that it's connected to the science of writing is sentence combining. So it's really when I think of the science of reading and this emerging field, the science of writing, I really think about taking that whole and breaking it down into its parts so that we're we can be explicit about each of the parts. So if we're thinking about the word level with reading, we can also think about the sentence level with writing and those sentence combining strategies. Uh, the juicy sentence protocol is one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yes, I am familiar with that as well. We use that in Pasco all the time. It's terrific.

Practical Foundations For Older Students

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Yeah. Yep. So that and that also combines that reading and writing because you could put a juicy sentence as like a really complex sentence rich. Yes, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. So you can project this juicy sentence, and it can come from the student's reading. And you go through it and you unpack it and talk about what does this mean and why did the author write it in this way? And so when you do that, you help with the reading comprehension, but you also think as a writer, like, oh, how can I write juicy sentences myself?

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah, exactly. I love that that protocol is such a good example of mentor text in a secondary space, right? Like that pulling a really rich sentence or two from the reading and then examining it for craft and structure and what are the authorial decisions made here and how can I replicate that or write something similar to it. I think that's a great application of mentor text in secondary spaces. I love that. Is there anything about the book that you haven't had a chance to say that you want to make sure to share with folks?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

So going back to our earlier conversation about motivation and engagement, I did a synthesis of the research literature on the science of motivation. And so there's a chapter in the book that connects motivation and literacy instruction. Right. And so in synthesizing the previous research, there are eight C's of motivation. So that so having them all start with a C hopefully helps with our memory as a mnemonic device. Okay, so we have community. The first principle is around creating a community of learners, developing teacher and student relationships, as well as helping students to form relationships with each other. Because going back all the way to Maslow's hierarchy, if we don't feel physically or emotionally safe, then it's very difficult to learn.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yep.

The Eight Cs Of Motivation

SPEAKER_02 20:42

The next seat is collaboration. And this is especially important for adolescents who are social beings, but also our brain is a social brain. Humans are social. So when we can collaborate, that helps us to feel motivated to do the work. The third C is control. And this is also really important in adolescence as they're starting to develop their sense of independence. Right. And so wanting to have some control over their learning, that can look like choices. It can be choices from a teacher-curated list, like here are some possibilities that you can choose from. Or maybe the teachers and the students negotiate it together and the students come up with the choices and the teacher says yes or no to those choices. I mean, it doesn't have to be full control. This is we're still in a relationship here. We're still in this community of learners. Right. The next C is consequence. And if you think back to any motivation theory you've read, you probably remember intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. So that is. Is what the consequence is referring to. Extrinsic motivation can be an externally imposed consequence. Now that can be a positive consequence, such as a reward, or it can be a negative consequence, a punishment. So stick and carrot. Right. The carrot is the positive consequence, the stick is the metaphor for the negative consequence. Right. What we know from the science of motivation is that learners are more motivated to learn and have deeper learning when there is intrinsic motivation. And that extrinsic motivation can actually deplete or replace intrinsic motivation. So our education system is set up as an extrinsic motivation system. That's what grades are. Grades are this externally imposed consequence. And we can't get around that in our current system, but we as teachers can choose what we emphasize through our language in our classrooms. So are we emphasizing growth? Are we emphasizing improving as readers? Or are we emphasizing getting a grade of an A on that next test? Right. The fifth C is confidence. And we talked a little bit about this at the beginning, in that if we have confidence that we're going to be able to succeed, then we're more motivated to try. And so the way teachers can support that with their students is by providing resources and scaffolds. But we have to be careful because the naxi is challenge. And we as humans are more motivated when something's challenging. If it's too easy, we're not motivated to do it. And so you as a teacher can provide the scaffolding where it's needed to help students feel confident that they will be able to succeed. But we don't want to provide so much scaffolding that we take away the challenge, we take away the problem solving and the autonomy of the students. So it's like a Goldilocks between too hot and too cold. Right. We need it just right, just right in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

The next C is really related to literacy, and that's constructing meaning. So when we are thinking about foundational literacy, sometimes we might see a worksheet that's just kind of that skill drill that kills motivation. And so what we really want to be doing is teaching explicitly these skills in the service of constructing meaning. And so that in reading, that's reading comprehension, we're trying to comprehend the text. In writing, that is composing, constructing meaning through expressing our words. And the eighth C, the most important, is culturally sustaining. So viewing the repertoire of linguistic resources, the rich cultural knowledge that students bring into the classroom, valuing that, valuing the students as whole beings. Right. And making sure that our curriculum, as Rudine Sims Bishop says, is both a mirror and a window. A mirror meaning it's reflecting the students in our classroom and also providing a window to open up their horizons and broaden their viewpoints as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yeah, I love that. I I think that framework is so helpful, particularly with secondary students, but with all kids, um, because they all drive towards really authentic literacy practices that I think is the goal, right? For any, for any kid engaged in what we hope is lifelong learning and lifelong engagement with literacy. So, you know, all of that around we live in a community of learners, you have some choice in in what you're engaging in. There is appropriate levels of challenge in a way that keeps you coming back for more and engaged in the process, but that it also, you know, you're engaging in work that honors your whole being. I think that's such a helpful way to think about how to keep secondary students in particular engaged in the work, even when they have, you know, challenges or when they when they face gaps that that have compounded over time. So thank you for talking us through that. I know that was a long list, um, but I'm glad we got a chance to talk about that section of the book because I think it's one of the biggest challenges for secondary teachers. Yes. So, Shay, the last question today, given the challenges of today's educational climate, um, what message do you want teachers and listeners to hear today?

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yeah, today's educational climate, it's it's marked by urgency. There's this sense that we have to do something to help our students be better readers and better writers. And alongside the sense of urgency is also scrutiny and competing voices. And so it can be easy to feel pulled in every direction. The science of reading and the emerging science of writing offer us some grounding. So I think of the science of reading and writing not as one more thing, but something that's stabilizing and clarifying for us. So when I speak of the sciences of reading and writing, I'm not referring to a canned curriculum or a scripted program or a legislative mandate. I'm referring to a shared body of knowledge about how humans learn to read, write, and make meaning. This research reminds us that brains are not wired for literacy. Literacy is built through explicit instruction, thoughtful practice, and rich opportunities to use language for real purposes. When we understand how decoding, language comprehension, sentence construction, and text structure develop over time, we're then better positioned to support every student and help every student have access to the literacy and the tools that they need. Equally important alongside this is that the science of reading and writing does not replace teachers' expertise. It depends on it. Research can tell us what is probable, but teachers decide what is possible in real classrooms with real students. So your professional judgment, your knowledge of your students, and your commitment are what bring the science to life. So at this time when education can feel politicized and constrained, literacy research offers a hopeful stance that we can teach in ways that are both evidence-informed and human-centered. After all, it's teachers, not programs that make the biggest impact on students.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

I could not have said that any better at all. I I think that the exhaustion that teachers feel is coming from what they feel is this endless hamster wheel of now this program, now this intervention, now this um canned script. And I think you're so right. If we can set our eyes on a horizon that is actually grounded in what we know to be good work around science of reading instruction, science of writing instruction, the programs can come and go because we are committed to the the work that is overarching all of that. That the programs, yeah, might be trying to align themselves to. But um, you know, we can't every adoption, every curriculum adoption cycle, we can't believe that we're we're throwing out everything we know to be true about what works for literacy instruction for kids. So um you put that really beautifully. So thank you for thank you for ending there and and with a hopeful stance.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

No, thank you.

A Grounded Message For Teachers

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Well, thank you so much for the conversation today, Shay. We'll be sure to include information about your new book, Adolescent Literacy, Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4 through 12 in the show notes. I really appreciate the conversation and your time today, Shay. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

It was great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Dr. Shay Kirchhoff is an educator, researcher, and advocate for empowering young people through literacy. Dr. Kirchhoff is an associate professor and faculty fellow of student success in the College of Education at the University of Missouri St. Louis. As a university professor and former high school English teacher, she draws on years of experience working alongside adolescents to help them develop the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills they need to thrive in today's digital global world. Her work blends cognitive and sociocultural research, field-tested strategies, and innovative teaching practices to make literacy learning relevant, engaging, and equitable for all students. Passionate about making literacy meaningful and accessible, Shay has published widely in academic and practitioner journals, including Teaching and Teacher Education, Reading Research Quarterly, and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. She presents at national and international conferences and collaborates with teachers across the globe. As part of the Show Me Literacies Collaborative, she has been awarded over$10 million in grant funding, bringing comprehensive literacy development statewide. Her new book, published by Bloomsbury, is titled Adolescent Literacy Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4 through 12. You can connect with Dr. Kirchhoff at shakirkoff.weebly.com. That's S-H-E-A-K-E-R-K-H-O-F-F. Weebly.com.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

For the good of all students, Classroom Caffeine aims to energize education research and practice. If this show gives you things to think about, help us spread the word. Talk to your colleagues and educate or friends about what you hear. You can support the show by subscribing, liking, and reviewing this podcast through your podcast provider. Visit ClassroomCaffeine.com where you can subscribe to receive our short monthly newsletter, The Espresso Shot. On our website, you can also learn more about each guest, find transcripts for our episodes, explore topics using our drop-down menu of tags, request an episode topic or potential guest, support our research through our listener survey, or learn more about the research we're doing on our publications page. Connect with us on social media through Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We would love to hear from you. Special thanks to the Classroom Caffeine team, Leah Berger, Abaya Veluru, Stephanie Branson, and Shaba Oshvath. As always, I raise my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me.