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Making Sentences Make Sense with Nancy Hennessy and Julia Salamone

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Episode 241

Nancy Hennessy and Julia Salamone discuss the often-overlooked topic of syntax and its critical role in reading comprehension. With Melissa & Lori, they discuss the architecture of sentences, the importance of understanding parts of speech, and the interconnectedness of syntax and meaning. The conversation highlights effective teaching strategies, the challenges posed by complex sentences, and the necessity of integrating background knowledge for comprehension. Nancy and Julia share practical instructional moves, emphasizing the need for explicit instruction and cognitive preparation to enhance students' understanding of sentence structures.

Takeaways

  • Syntax is the architecture of a sentence. It is essential for understanding sentence structure and meaning.
  • Explicit instruction is necessary for effective learning of syntax.
  • Teaching grammar needs to focus on meaning, not just labeling.
  • Engaging students with authentic texts improves comprehension.
  • Integrating background knowledge is crucial for comprehension.

Resources 


We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

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Lori:

Even if students can read the words, the meaning can still get lost. That's especially true as texts get harder. A big reason is that students struggle with how sentences are put together.

Melissa:

In this episode, we talk to the authors of the Reading Comprehension Blueprint activity book, Nancy Hennessy and Julia Salomon. We'll explore sentence comprehension, why it matters, and how to teach it.

Lori:

You'll walk away with practical ways to help your students make meaning at the sentence level. Hi, teacher friends. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa:

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori:

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa:

Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori:

Hi, Nancy and Julia. Welcome back to the podcast. You were last on to talk about the Reading Comprehension Blueprint Activity Book. You co-authored together, which we love the book. We loved that episode with you. But today we're digging into a topic that often kind of flies under the radar, but has a really big impact on comprehension, which is syntax and sentence level understanding. So welcome back to the podcast, you two.

Nancy Hennessy:

Thanks so much. We are thrilled to be here with both of you. The work that you're doing is absolutely incredible. So we are fangirls as well. Um, and I know you must have some fanboys out there um listening to you. So thanks for everything that you're doing, in addition to your work in schools. Um, I love talking about this topic. Uh, I've been talking about it for a long time, and it seems as if people are beginning to pay attention to syntax and sentence comprehension. I think you're well aware of the recent issue of perspectives, actually, two issues that deal with the perspectives, uh, that Kelly Powell Smith and that Julie Van Dyke are the editors. And Julie Van Dyke has done a very nice job in terms of the research world calling attention now to syntax. So anyway, thanks for giving us this opportunity. Yeah.

Julia Salamone:

I'm really excited to be back again. I think this is something that Nancy and I really share is this love of um how do we teach sentence comprehension? I think for me in particular, uh working with kids in high school, you know, as these uh academic texts and the sentence complexity increases, right? That can be where those breakdowns happen. Um, so I think that, you know, Nancy and I really enjoy talking about this topic and coming up with really great ways for uh teachers to tap into helping students navigate, you know, the more complex and sophisticated structures that they'll they'll read as they progress through the grades.

Melissa:

Absolutely. So we wanted to start with this word syntax because we've said it already a few times. And Lori and I were actually just joking the other day when we were preparing for the podcast that when we hear the word syntax, our brains kind of shut down just because it sounds so technical. But really, it's not that complicated, right? So it's, you know, sometimes we call it the architecture of a sentence or the structure of a sentence, but can you just break it down for everybody so that they don't have that feeling that we have sometimes of like, oh, I don't want to hear about syntax, it's too hard.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll try to do that. Um, uh syntax is really all about language. It's a unit of language, and it's the unit of language that gives us the rules that govern how we write sentences. So, yes, it's the architecture, it's the framework. It tells us where the words belong within the sentence. All right. So when we're little and we're listening to oral language, hopefully we develop this awareness of uh syntax that allows us to place those words in the correct position as we speak. And um sometimes people think of syntax as synonymous with grammar. I I just want to say that it's a component of grammar and that it's a link, it's a way of thinking about grammar from a linguistic or language perspective. And I think that's really important. Um so if you have syntactic awareness, if you have an understanding of how we structure our language, and by the way, this can be different in different languages, all right. So that's important to note, particularly as we work with our students who are multilanguage learners, all right. Um, we know what the order is. Um, you know, as teachers, we recognize the terms subject and predicate. The predicate follows the subject. But I really want to talk, and so does Julia, we really want to talk about this from the perspective of meaning. And so having this awareness of this structure, of this order, the internal structure of a sentence, a way of organizing up words, um, really allows us to infer who or what did what, when, where, how, and why. It's a key really to not only the writing of sentences, but certainly the understanding of sentences. So I hope that's helpful in terms of understanding syntax.

Melissa:

Yeah, and I love what you just said because I I similar that I always feel like when I learned some of the subject and predicate and all of that, it felt so removed and it felt so separate. And like maybe we were doing it so we knew how to write a good sentence, you know, so we had the parts of the sentence when we were writing. But I loved what you just said about connecting it to the meaning because, you know, if students can understand the different parts of a sentence as they get more complex, it will help them understand the meaning of those sentences. Am I right? That's absolutely right.

Nancy Hennessy:

So, you know, words carry meaning, but they only carry meaning insofar as the position that they're placed in within a sentence. So if you're aware of how words work within a sentence, if you listen to the sentence, uh, the light burned brightly, or if you have syntactic awareness and knowledge, which allows for you to understand and then write sentences, um, then you understand that in that sentence, the light is answering the question, what? What's happening? What is that sentence about? Versus if you are listening to a sentence like, I will light the fire at dusk. Now you understand because of the position, because of the order of the words within the sentence, that light isn't about the what. It's about it's not about the who or the what, it's about the do. It's what's happening. I'm doing something now. And I think, you know, that's not something we consciously think about because we have this awareness and we have this knowledge. But for many students, they really need to be explicitly taught how these words work in combination with one another to convey ideas.

Melissa:

And I never even thought about it like that with vocabulary. Again, we sometimes treat that separately, right? Vocabulary, but just because you know the word light and what it means, you really have to look at how it's being used in that sentence to know which kind of light are we talking about here.

Nancy Hennessy:

Well, I love that you just brought that up because oftentimes when we think about these contributors to comprehension, we're thinking about them as being separate entities, like teaching a vocabulary. There's a reason why in a vocabulary routine, you want to ask students about the part of speech, not so much that they can now name it as a noun or verb, that's nice, but that they understand that it's going to convey meaning in different ways when it's placed within the sentence. So we talk about semantics and syntax, reading rope stuff, right? Sometimes people think, well, why is that together? Well, it's together because of this. Uh, semantics and syntax working in constant with one another so that one can understand meaning at the word and then at the sentence level.

Lori:

The way that you're describing it, I feel like Melissa said a moment ago, it instead of being disconnected, it's very interconnected. And it's this idea of um not just identifying apart, right? Not just saying the who or the do, but really thinking about those other higher order thinking skills. Like we're asking students to synthesize and analyze, and we're really bringing some deeper meaning into it through those requests. So I didn't know if you wanted to react to that or say anything more.

Nancy Hennessy:

Well, I think I think that that's exactly so. So when we build meaning, you know, and I'm very uh fond of uh referencing uh uh Kate Kane and Jane Oakill's work here in terms of levels of language processing that we go to to get to a mental model. All right. So thinking about you need to certainly be able to either read or listen to the words, dependent upon where the students are at. But you have to access that meaning, but not in and by itself is that sufficient. You then have to work out the syntactic sense of the sentence. You have to integrate the meanings within and between those sentences. You see, you're successively building meaning, all right, and then you're integrating your background knowledge. So you arrive at what? An overall understanding of the text, a mental model. So this all needs to be integrated. And it's all, you know, if one component is missing, then comprehension is compromised.

Lori:

Yeah, such a good point. Okay, so you know, we're talking about these different parts. Um, you know, and if one's missing, it could be compromised. Nancy, can you tell us the essential parts of a sentence? Uh, you know, we know students need to know all of these parts to make sense of it. So I I think you refer to these as building blocks in your article.

Nancy Hennessy:

So, first of all, syntax and and sentences are kind of they they're engaged in a symbiotic relationship, right? And so when you begin to think about um, how do we build meaning within the sentence? Uh, Louisa Motz, a number of years ago in one of the editions of Letters, described a sentence as a linguistic frame into which we have slots or categories of words. Well, those categories of words are the parts of speech, the phrases, the clauses. These are the building blocks that we combine into meaning into different types of sentences. And one by one, what happens? The sentences add up to the gist of the text. All right. So very important to be thinking about these building blocks and what meaning each of these building blocks can convey. Because uh, in the words of Stanley Fish, he wrote a very interesting article about the fate of the sentence. He said, uh, we have uh words that are ordained into different slots, and I love thinking about that. So we have nouns that do what, they answer who or what, so do noun phrases, all right. We have verbs that answer, you know, the do, what's happening, all right, so do verb phrases. We have adjectives that answer which one, what kind, how many, and so on. So, you know, I could go on in terms of describing each of those building blocks, but what's important to think about is that each of them has a job to do. And while traditionally in grammar, if anyone's had grammar or taught grammar in the past, we we would teach the definition and the labels, all right. These are actually syntactic forms when we talk about parts of speech and so on. We teach the labels and the descriptions, but we didn't teach what their function was. And here we're talking about know what the building blocks are, know what their function is, know what the questions are that each of those building blocks will answer in order to build up to different types of sentences, and then understand that there are different types of sentences and they convey different types of relationships, simple, compound, complex. It's wonderful to use those words, but what exactly does that mean in terms of meaning? So, yeah, building blocks. Um, and I think one of the things Julia and I have tried very hard to do is, and she's going to talk about sentence activities and so on, but also to include activities with these parts of speeches, these phrases, these clauses, so that students see how we build meaning, how we integrate, how we express idea units within text.

Lori:

That's so helpful. You're making me think of uh the old uh, what was it, the schoolhouse rock conjunction, junction? What's the function?

Nancy Hennessy:

Right. And and you know, really, really kind of digging into that so that it isn't, oh, the noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, or it's the subject of the sentence. I'm not going to discredit that or say that's not important, but from the point of view of meaning, of understanding as you're reading, and then being able to express your own meaning in sentences, you have to understand what question are those things going to answer so that you have a sentence that actually, you know, um is a complete thought. So yeah.

Lori:

Yeah. Julia, I didn't know if you wanted to add to that, just you know, why it's so important to understand at the sentence level and beyond.

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I just think that, you know, Nancy's hitting on all of these things that, you know, are so important. I I've been getting sort of those flashbacks of my own middle school experience. I had this like really thick grammar textbook, and I remember coding and and going through the exercises, but it was always so disconnected. I think the point uh we're making about this idea of first of all, things being integrated, right? It was always isolated. It didn't mean meaningfully connect to what I was reading or what I was doing and learning about in my classes. Um, so I have, you know, I I was taught in that traditional sort of grammar workbook approach. However, you know, in our work together, really thinking about this idea of prioritizing function, right, over just the form. And, you know, I agree with Nancy. That's not to say, like, I'm never gonna say a noun is a person, place, or thing. I think there are some really great um, you know, programs that kind of look at the labeling piece, like framing your thoughts. I think that can be a great way for coding and think thinking about a sentence parts for kids. But I think we need to really begin by focusing on the function, because that's gonna tap into the comprehension piece. It's gonna help them later with their writing and so forth.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah, we often talk about that as being prerequisite knowledge that they have an understanding of. And when we work with teachers, that's one of the first thing we first things we do is get them thinking about what questions do these words answer, you know, these parts of speech. What do I think many times when people think about phrases, for instance, they don't think about phrases answer questions, just like noun phrases, you know, prepositional phrases, adjectival phrases, and so on. Um, as do clauses, but in a somewhat different way that gets a little bit more complicated.

Melissa:

Yeah, Julia, I was thinking the same thing that you were with my going back to my uh my own time in school and filling out those worksheets. And it was always that, right? You just learned like this is a verb, and then you have a worksheet that's okay, find all the verbs, circle all the verbs, underline the nouns, you know, and we we know that that's that's not really helping for this, you know, understanding that we want for like if we're trying to understand a complex sentence, that's not the way to go about it. And I I find that like it made me not really want to teach grammar. And I think that for a lot of teachers, it probably you know makes them not want to teach grammar either. But Julia, you're in the classroom, right?

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I I am. I work with students regularly.

Melissa:

Yeah, so we we want to hear from you. Do you have any like tips for some? I know you're talking about like making it more meaningful, but like let's get let's get a little more concrete even. Like, do you have some like fun, engaging ways to teach these building blocks of a sentence that really helps it stick and connect it to comprehension and meaning?

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I think for me, I think that the starting point is that, you know, grounding things in the context of what kids are learning about in school, right? One of the, I think one of the easiest ways to sort of tap into this is putting this type of um thinking and instruction into in-class read alouds, or, you know, using student writing to foster discussions about, you know, we're looking at a specific part of speech, right? Um, I think that this really helps it uh remain from being in isolation. So kind of that like drilling kill worksheet approach. Um, I love pulling authentic examples from the text that we're working on. I like to talk about how authors use a particular type of word or a sentence, right? I think that is one way to really tap into, you know, how did that make the work more impactful? Um, and I think there's just a variety, you know, we're living in the age of like this amazing access to children's literature. So finding books that are super kid friendly. Um, so for example, I'm a big Kevin Hankeys fan, like Lily's Plastic Purple Purse, such a lovely way to teach adjectives, right? So making like picking stories that kids are gonna be, you know, interested in and and and love. They're, you know, great books. Um, I also think, I think using visuals to reinforce this idea that these parts of speech, phrases, clauses, they have a function, right? Um, so I think that this can be brought in once kids are able to understand the parts of speech and and can recognize them in text, right? So we've we develop that prerequisite knowledge. Um, and I believe starting with something that's familiar to students. So starting with images that they, you know, would connect to from everyday experiences. So, you know, you could pick things that maybe are connected to animals or sports or cool currents school happenings. Um, I work in an all-boys school, so I have a lot of sports enthusiasts, right? So using images from, you know, what's happening to start this conversation. So I might take a picture like the little league the playoffs, right? Of a little leaguer sliding into home base and then really prompt students with those questions to get them thinking about the different parts of speech and their function, right? So who is in this image? Well, you know, the the baseball, the little league or the baseball player. Um, what's he doing? Sliding, sliding into home base, right? Um, where is this happening in the summer, right? And so we're again, we're tapping into the function of these various uh pieces of a sentence. I think once they've mastered this with some topics that they're familiar with, then you can begin to bring in class content. So I teach uh high school kids, use a lot of um primary sources in in history. So, like using things like political cartoons or photographs from the time period to do this type of thinking, to begin to think about, all right, well, what's the what's the who or the what? What is that, what is the subject of this image? Um, and I think that can be just a nice um approach because not only are we tapping into that idea of function over form and we're thinking about the the role of these uh words in a sentence, but we're also really thinking about like deepening a student's understanding of that course material, right? So like they're they're thinking about making connections by closely um reading, right, a primary source, an image, a document. So I really do think that it can be just like a lovely way to kind of incorporate that language work into a variety of different, you know, subjects. You could do that in history, you could do it in science. There's lots of opportunities to build that kind of work in.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah, if I just might add, many of the things that Julia just described are within the instructional framework that we've provided, within the tools and tips, which is a resource for um this particular podcast. And the instructional framework that we have is broken down into different types of activities, all right, for building blocks for the building blocks for sentences and then for the integration of sentences with a focus on cohesive ties. So um that's a great reference for people as well.

Melissa:

For sure. And we'll link that in the show notes. So if you're wondering what Nancy's referring to, um, we have it for you and you can find it there. And I just wanted to comment on I hadn't even thought about doing this work with a visual first, but just taking out the you know complexity of, you know, even the fear of looking at a sentence, you know, it's just like, oh, it's a really safe space. And then getting those questions is like kind of part of their thinking routine and just like, oh, who is this and where where is it happening and what are they doing? And just asking those questions. That's such a lovely way to get it in. And I'm sure, especially for multilingual learners, that's a really nice um first place to go.

Lori:

Yeah, and you can even do that with content too, right, Julia? I mean, it doesn't have you know, I mean, it could be dislike if you're just trying to get some engagement around some current event that's happening, awesome. And you can do it with, you know, I'm picturing second grade students learning about the rainforest. There could be a great photograph of the rainforest that then they're reacting to in the spirit of, and like you mentioned earlier, Nancy and Melissa, like the vocabulary that they learned about the rainforest too. They could be integrating that. Julia, I cut you off. Go ahead.

Julia Salamone:

No, I was just gonna say, I just think it's a really powerful, like using visuals is a really powerful way. I have, I have a fine arts background. So like I've always been attracted to visuals, but it's just a great way to scaffold and and bring kids into this conversation around, all right, well, what are you seeing? What is this picture about? And I think it's what's lovely about it is that you can use it across, like you said, across different subjects or different topics. Um, and then as kids are, you know, coming along with that generation, like and they've got those ideas, then we can start to talk about, well, how could we craft a sentence using these ideas that you've, you know, shared? So I think that it's it's a really kind of simple strategy, but also very, I think, effective and gives you a lot of bang for your back.

Lori:

What about the role of knowledge here? We're talking about stuff that students are learning about. So, you know, for example, a familiar topic that they're learning about in science class or history class. Does the role, what what is the role of knowledge play here in understanding sentence syntax?

Nancy Hennessy:

Well, I think as we think back on how we build knowledge, how we arrive at, you know, the ultimate goal of comprehension, which is knowledge, all right, we begin with word meaning and then sentence uh meaning, comprehension, and continue to build with the integration of background knowledge and then the mental model. So having some knowledge of, but a sentence, a key sentence, all right, can often be a strategy that we can use to begin the building of that knowledge necessary even to understand the text that they're about to read. So um, you know, this this is all interconnected. We just don't get to that end goal without working through um the idea units, the integration of idea units, the integration then of background knowledge, and then the creation of this mental model. I don't know, Julia, do you have some other thoughts on this?

Julia Salamone:

I was just gonna think a little bit of that um the Hatton and Lupo article, Nancy, and how we've been thinking a little bit about the many different types of knowledge. Um, so this idea that, yes, um, we want our kids to have the background knowledge, which is gonna help them unpack those academic texts that they're reading and those topic specific, but like we also want to consider things like linguistic knowledge, right? What do they come to um our classrooms with and what do they need to build upon? And I think what's been really cool in that work that Nancy and I have been thinking about, it's like there's a lot of different types of knowledge that kids are tapping into in school. And I think one of the things that, you know, Nancy and I have really been thinking about is like, how do we as educators have that awareness? So that, you know, it's it's yes, background knowledge, and like if you're learning about um the Civil War, for example, and reconstruction, having that is important. But then there's different types of knowledge. Like if I'm reading a primary source and like the linguistic structures are very different, right? Um, I'm gonna be tapping into different types of knowledge as I'm I'm going through that text.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up, Julia, because language is at the heart of this. But we also have to be thinking about not only the language, skills, and capabilities, but those different sources of knowledge. And uh we have been talking about what goes into comprehension, including strategic knowledge and conditional knowledge and linguistic knowledge and so on. So it all fits together. There's no doubt that comprehension is extremely complex and it's complex for us as educators. There's no doubt about that.

Lori:

Thank you for this little sidebar from the main conversation. I think it's so important to make sure that we're talking about all of this in concert with uh, you know, the focus of this conversation, which is the sentence. So I appreciate that uh little sidebar conversation. Um, I do want to go back to the article that we're talking about, though, because you name common challenges that make sentences kind of tricky to understand. I love what you call them. I love that you call them troublemakers. Um, because it they're troublemakers for everyone. You know, I know when I read things, I still have troublemakers. Um, so I I want to I would love for you all to walk us through these and just tell us a little bit about them.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah. Well, I think I first became aware of them when I was introduced to Cheryl Scott's work, and that was quite a while ago. And then she continued to do work with Catherine Balthazar. So you see both of them, and then Richard Zippoli noted in our work. They're all speech and language pathologists. Big surprise. All right. Um, I hadn't really thought about it. But if you step back and you begin to think about these differences between our oral language, the way we speak every day, our everyday language, and the language that we find in books, it's quite different. All right. Uh Mary Ellen McDonald just did a very nice article on book language, just calling attention to the fact that from the time little ones begin to listen to read alouds, they're encountering really complex sentences. And they're complex for a multiple uh multiple reasons, as indicated by these researchers that I just named. So the sentences can be extremely long, so length. They can be extremely dense, multiple idea units, not just one idea expressed in a sentence. They can be very difficult because the who is separated from the do, right? Because there's phrases or clauses that are descriptive and important to the sentence, make the sentence um, make the sentences richer, but also you have a little difficulty kind of digging through the sentences. They can be difficult because of passive voice. So the importance of building, you know, from the beginning, this understanding of the building blocks, working with simpler sentences. And oftentimes, you know, um, not oftentimes, we're beginning with decodable text and we're using decodable text as the foundation. They're really a springboard. Um, and Nancy Eberhart and Margie Gillis do a beautiful job in talking about syntax within the context of decodable text. But what we really are focused on are academic language text, book language, the texts that we find in school. And the words are more complex, the sentences are more complex, right? The ideas are more complex. And so teaching students how to parse, how to work through those sentences is absolutely critical. Just listen to one or two examples. This is chrysanthemum, and Julia has used this example when we talk about uh complexity. So this is a read-aloud for the most part, kindergarten, first grade. And she loved the way it sounded when she whispered it to herself in the bathroom mirror. Think about all of the different phrases that, you know, it begins with a clause, all the different phrases that one is hearing, even the use of the word she threw out and the use of the word it through out. Who's she? All right, who is it? All right, well, she is chrysanthemum. It is hearing her name, all right. Um, and then you can go all the way to more complex sentences, such as the ones Julia was just referencing in a high school setting. And this actually comes from a ninth grade science curriculum. Julia and I have been doing more and more work connected directly to curricula because our framework, our comprehension blueprint is curriculum agnostic. And so we've been looking more and more how do we take this information, for instance, on sentences and bring it and listen and see if you can count the number of words and in this sentence. Coral reefs, which are actually colonies of individual animals called pollups, have experienced extensive bleaching as the oceans warm. When overheated, they expel the colorful symbiotic algae that lives within them.

Lori:

30 words, all right. And that what grade level high school you said?

Nancy Hennessy:

That's ninth grade science. Oh my gosh, ninth grade science. Ninth grade science, yeah. Wow. So just thinking about the fact, and and we're all about using the text. You use the text as the base, you teach from the text, all right. Um we're all about using the text and identifying for students what's going to be complex and working with them in terms of parsing their way through the sentence. They can't even read that sentence fluency if uh fluently if they don't have, you know, the syntactic awareness and knowledge to even get a sense of, you know. What are the different idea units? Because we could count up idea units in the sentence as well, which are often linked to verbs, the how many verbs you have. Incredible, right? So I I um have referenced recently um a quote from Stephen Stahl, who's no longer with us, but I think I think he really hits the nail on the head. The ability to parse grammatical structures, and that's what this is about, all right? To identify the word's place in the structure coupled with integrating the meaning of the words and phrases is necessary to understanding the sentence. If you can't work your way and recognize and be taught explicitly about the troublemakers, all right, and in a sequential way, all right, in a way that builds cumulatively, how are you going to deal with a sentence like that in ninth grade?

Lori:

Right. Because I imagine a typical ninth grader would probably get as far as the term uh symbiotic, to be honest. That was the point in the sentence where I was like, I don't know, I need to see this, you know. Right. And then they'd probably just be like, I'll just ask my teacher, right? I mean, that's realistically, we need to we want to teach them to like have the vigor to attack that sentence with these tools that we're teaching them.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah. So pulling those sentences out, using them even as a warm-up, all right, for a lesson. Um, and and modeling, consistently modeling and thinking aloud and talking about, you know, how do you work your way through a sentence like that? Where's the who and the do? All right, in that sentence. And it that has to begin very early on.

Melissa:

Yeah, and I was so glad that you brought that up about the early on. My son actually just read Chrysanthemum in his class the other day. Um, but it's true, even when I'm doing, you know, just reading with him um, you know, before bed, so many times, like you think, oh, this is just a short little book, or you know, you look at the topic of it and you're like, oh, this is just a fun book that we're reading, you know, together. And then I'm getting into it and I'm like, do you want me to read that sentence again? Because I'm Alex, like, I actually I need to read the sentence again to make sense of it. So I know he needs to. Um That's exactly right. But it's true, like even at the youngest ages, like starting there, you know, it those sentences can be pretty, pretty complex. So I think that's really smart to not just, you know, say, oh, this is for older kids, but it really starts young.

Nancy Hennessy:

Well, this is this is why we talk about using text early on. So when we think about the upper and the lowest strands of the rope, while we're very focused on word recognition, we're also all about you begin language comprehension. Well, certainly, hopefully before they even come to school, the development of rural language, but you begin with read alouds early on, along with those decodable texts so that they get the word recognition aspect. Yeah, they need that language development.

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, and I think authors like Kevin Hankeys, who's my one of my favorites, right? Um, use such a beautiful, rich language. Um, I remember like kindergarten, my little my little one just read it as well. And it's these beautiful sentences, but yeah, I sometimes have to stop and reread. And so, how are we modeling that for kids? How are we thinking like about the the questions that we might ask ourselves? And I think Nancy is completely correct. This idea of you as the teacher, the expert, really showing kids and making that transparent.

Melissa:

Yeah. So, Julia, we're coming back to you again for this. So we want to hear some of these more concrete strategies. And you're gonna talk us through three sets of high-impact instructional moves that can really help students tackle these complex sentences. So these might actually even help me when I'm reading to my son, instead of just asking to reread it again. I can have more strategies in my pocket. So, first, can you walk us through questioning and parsing and how this there's a sentence structured sentence organizer? So, can you tell us how that fits in with the questioning and parsing?

Julia Salamone:

Yes, definitely. Um, so we know that questioning is a really powerful tool uh to support students' reading comprehension. Uh, I think that you can use um simple questioning, right, to reinforce students' understanding of the role of that part of speech in a sentence, right? Tapping into form, not just solely focusing on function. And I think questioning can be very powerful as a standalone strategy, right? But what Nancy and I really like to think about is how do we combine that with other strategies to be even more impactful? And I think so combining questioning and parsing together or breaking a sentence apart into its components, that can really help students understand the function of the words, the phrases, uh, the clauses and through active sentence deconstruction, right? We're kind of breaking that sentence down into its building blocks. Um, and I think we can think about again, starting with our little guys, starting with less sophisticated structures and then moving on to more complex ones. You know, Nancy mentioned this, you know, the idea of goal of moving to kids onto a place where they're able to do that kind of independent activities as maybe an exit ticket or maybe a warm-up activity in class, right? So a structured sentence organizer, it's a graphic organizer, right, that really supports this process. It features the question words of uh related to word functions at the top of the document. So it can include questions like who or what, which is tapping into nouns, is or was doing our verbs, uh, which one, what kind, how many, our adjectives, and then the where, when, how, why, um adverbs, prepositional phrases, right? So that's at the top. And then students can really be taught to parse or or break apart those sentences based on the questions they answer. So we'll go back to our ninth graders, right? That Nancy and I were thinking about. Um, so that that coral reef, um, they're learning about habitats and they're learning about um conservation and and sustainability. And they they do, they learn about the passenger pigeon, which was a species that was very once very um plentiful and then had a rapid extinction. So I might give them the sentence, the once plentiful species declined and disappeared from the wild, right? Then I can use that organizer. And I'm gonna, again, model this first. I'm not just throwing my kids in cold, but well, who or what is that sentence about? Well, it's about the species, right? This, the passenger pigeon species. And what were they doing? Well, two things. First of all, their their species declined. So that was the first thing that that is the action here. And then they disappeared. So two things uh that that connect to what the action is. And then we have, well, which one, what kind? Well, they were once plentiful. And I think that's a really important um thing to tune into as a reader because it's telling me that, okay, well, they were doing really, really great. And then all of a sudden, not so much, right? Um, so that's gonna tap into what the kids are learning about in terms of the advent of commercial hunting and how that impacted the species. Uh, and then the like the the where, right? Um, from the wild. So they were, they disappeared from where? From the wild. And so I think again, we're thinking about, you know, again, breaking apart this sentence into something that answers those various questions and thinks about each of the words or phrases and what they do. And I think it's really important to note that sometimes the questions are going to be answered than more than one word, right? So from the wild, we have that phrase, that prepositional phrase that answers the where question. Um, so answers can include a single word, it might be one, but it could also be a group of words functioning together. So there's that level of flexibility, you know, um, when we're thinking about language. Um, so I think that's something that's really important to highlight and to talk about.

Lori:

I I love that. I love that as a really practical quote, activity for lack of better word. Um, way. If I'm a teacher listening, I'm thinking, okay, I might have my students who are reading about this topic further today come in and question and parse this sentence, right? They're going to deconstruct it as their entry work, either honestly, either separately or with a partner. I think this could work really well. As long as I've modeled it previously, I think that they could do it as their entry work. And then they're prepared to jump in to the content of today's lesson and in less than what, like three minutes or less.

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I think it's such a great, like that, that warm-up. But, you know, again, we've had explicit instruction. We've taught, we've talked about this, you know, we're building, um, our kids have been learning about these, you know, various structures moving from simple to complex. But then it is, it's a great way to just kind of get started and jump into a classroom conversation uh about, you know, the topic of the day. So I think again, when we're thinking about things that are really like high impact, um, questioning and parsing is one of those strategies that I think is very, very uh useful and and is very beneficial in terms of that like high impact utilization.

Nancy Hennessy:

I think also you're making me think about the fact that keying into that critical knowledge base is so important. And oftentimes what will happen, as with vocabulary, when we talk about vocabulary, we talk about choosing words that have to do with the big ideas or the enduring understandings, whatever it, the themes, the topics that you're working with, you can do the same with a sentence. You can choose the sentence that begins to get you engaged and involved in what you want your student walking away with from that particular passage. Yeah.

Melissa:

Yeah. And I think it makes sense, Nancy, because the these questions get them to the meaning. That's what I was thinking. I was like, what's the difference between this and like sentence diagramming, you know, where you're like, oh, here's the prepositional phrase. But you weren't thinking about the meaning at all then. You were just like finding the different parts. But this is still finding the different parts, but in a way that they're making sense of it as they're doing it. So you want them to make sense of this to something that's connected to something they're learning.

Nancy Hennessy:

Yeah. And we sometimes get questions about do you not believe in diagramming? Well, you could use diagramming, but you have to tie it to function. It's not just about the labeling.

Melissa:

All right. Our second instructional move, that's actually two, is it's sentence combining and expansion. So can you share some examples of these?

Julia Salamone:

Yes, definitely. So I think sentence combining and expansion are both powerful instructional moves that can support reading comprehension and writing. So they're kind of doing double duty, which is really beautiful and I love as a teacher. Um, with sentence combining, students are given um two or more kernel sentences. And that can feature varied um different syntactic patterns, right? But that should always be based on a logical sequence that's moving from simple to more complex. Um, so for example, in the activity book, we have a sequence that starts with adjectives and adverbs and combining based on sentences that include those. And that's a great starting point. And then moving on to more advanced work with like combining adverbial or relative clauses. So we're kind of thinking about that continuum of simple to more advanced. And I think for this activity, teachers provide focused questions and kernel sentences from text that students are reading in class. So let's go back to this idea of the passenger pigeon since it's near and dear to my heart and my brain right now. But this idea of I might pose the question, how would you describe the passenger pigeon prior to this introduction of commercial hunting? Right. And my students might respond, well, it was a social bird of great numbers, because they learn about how they had this like social community and they were very abundant. And they might say it was a fast flying species. So they're answering my question, but now I want to think about combining those ideas and focused on those adjectives. So we might work to combining those ideas to the passenger pigeon was a social fast flying species of great numbers. And that's answering my question again. It's answering, well, what were they like? How were they before that introduction of commercial hunting? Right. Um, so uh I think thinking about it this way, it's a really nice um activity for them to then also kind of do an informal um comprehension check, right? So it serves to, they're not only thinking about, you know, kind of putting these ideas together, but it's also showing, like, okay, what do you, what did you remember from this class content? What, you know, in terms of what we talked about and the passenger pigeon and sort of their life before and after the introduction of this uh, you know, widespread hunting, right?

Nancy Hennessy:

I love that she just made the connection between reading and writing as well. And this is one of the things I think we want to make certain that we say today that we integrate oral and written activities throughout our work with sentence comprehension, that this is not a standalone. We're not only about the meaning of the sentences, but how do you go about showing us that you're understanding what you're reading, both oral activity and the development of as well, um, this capability and then written activity. And secondly, um, she just mentioned Julia, uh, Julia's brilliant uh in terms of all that she comes up with instructionally. This connection to assessment, there isn't a great deal out there in terms of comprehension assessment. We keep searching. There are some good things coming on the horizon, um, uh, and there's a few things that we've had from the past. But informal activities, these activities that we do with our students can be the source of uh informal assessment, knowing whether or not they understand at the sentence level what they're being um what what they need to have in order to make meaning of the text.

Melissa:

I'm so glad you said that, Nancy. I was thinking that a lot of the things we've been talking about, I feel like people may have heard of before, but a lot of times it's in the context of writing instruction. And so to really think about it not just in that bucket, but for I mean, we're talking about it for reading comprehension. That is the reason that um we're we're talking to you two. So it's really helpful to think about it for both.

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I think the same thing applies to sentence expansion, right? So we can think about it in that duality. Not only is it when we're expanding sentences, we're, you know, working on those writing skills and being more descriptive in our writing, but it also can be a tapping into of reading comprehension and what students, what content they're remembering from the readings that they're doing in class. So sentence expansion, students are asked to elaborate on a kernel sentence and they use the question words. So what, when, where, how, why to expand on that. Um, when I think about designing spit sentence expansion activities, teachers are really going to think about what are the key ideas, the big ideas from the units and the text that they're teaching. Um, and then you can provide the question words to prompt students to help them kind of think through that process. Uh, and it can be, like Nancy said, introduced as an oral activity first and then moving on to written responses. I think Dr. Charlie Haynes, um, fabulous speech language professor, um, but um, his book from talking to writing, which I think is a wonderful resource, but really connects to that, this idea that we can start with these act exercises as oral activities and then move along to then infusing that in in our writing, right? So we'll go back to the passenger pigeon again. And if I had my kernel sentence, right? Passenger pigeons migrated, right? The who and what they're doing. I might ask my students to then expand upon that using um their answers to various questions. So I might say, well, where did they migrate? And they would, you know, we would have talked about and gleaned from the reading, well, across North America. And when did they migrate? Well, this happened in the 18th and 19th centuries, but this was before they rapidly went extinct, right? And then why? Well, their migration was really to help them not only find food, but it was to help them find nesting grounds. So I could combine these ideas, and again, there's explicit instruction, teacher modeling first, but it might, they might come up with something in the 18th and 19th centuries, uh, before their rapid extinction, passenger pigeons migrated uh across North America to find food and uh nesting grounds, right? So we're kind of taking this really simple sentence, this kernel sentence. And now I love talking about, okay, well, what do you notice before and after? Look at how much more robust this is in terms of, you know, what you've you've you've produced, right? And again, this is a really nice informal comprehension check. Um, I think that, you know, I think you could scaffold this. So if you're working with kids, you could start by expanding using one question word and then gradually introduce more question words. Um, you can pair this again with a visual. Um, you know, I think in the activity book we have some examples of this with pairing it from, you know, I think we have a second grade science unit, right? With like lightning flashing in the sky and using that lightning flashes as our kernel sentence. So again, you know, some really nice ways to bring this in and then to kind of work kids along that continuum so that they're they're be able to do this independently.

Melissa:

I knew that I'd be learning about these strategies, but I didn't know I would learn so much about passenger pigeons today. So thank you for that, Julia. I've learned a lot. All right, our third um and final of these um high impact moves is well again, two, but it's explicit instruction and cognitive preparation. Um, you mentioned those a few times, but what does this actually look like for teachers in practice?

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, I so I first encountered that term cognitive preparation. It was during a book study through the Pennsylvania branch of IDA of syntax uh knowledge to practice. And that's um Margie Gellis and Nancy Everhart's book. Um, and and Nancy already referenced that. But they described it as this deliberate use of grammatical and syntactical knowledge that really helps teachers to apply these skills across a variety of things that kids are reading, right? And I I loved the naming of this and it stood out to me. And this is something that Nancy and I talk a lot about, but good teaching, effective teaching involves a lot of planning and preparation, right? So it's really central to what good educators do. Um, it's this very highly metacognitive teaching is very metacognitive practice. And I think not only is that metacognition really important, I think, for all aspects of teaching, but also for teaching syntax and sentence comprehension. So kind of like reflecting on, you know, my knowledge and then how can I apply that and pick those sentences and select um the passages from the text that are going to be most impactful. Um, I think again, another thing that, you know, Nancy and I share and one, you know, big key insight I've taken is that teachers are constantly asking themselves questions. Um, I think skilled teachers do this all the time. And so they're using it to guide planning, they're using it to reflect on planning. And I think Nancy's blueprint is just such a great tool to help think about that because it gives you that concrete set of guiding questions to be considering as you're planning, you're pulling your text, you're really reflecting on those questions because it's gonna help you be mindful. Um, you know, again, the the questions in the blueprint, right? They they help us as educators anticipate places where kids might have challenges. You know, those potential troublemakers, they're gonna pop up. So we are looking at that text and we're really kind of thinking about okay, where are the trouble spots gonna be? Right. Um, it helps us plan for explicit instruction. You know, we've talked about that throughout, but this idea that uh we teachers as the expert are modeling for the this for them. We are doing our think aloud for them so that they can see how experts are engaging in these activities. And then really considering the best times um for practice. Uh, I think this is another concept that Nancy and I have been really um doing a lot of thinking about recently. Um, if folks, I'm I know you guys uh had the opportunity to talk with um Matt Burns, but um again, the fall uh issue of practi uh perspectives, which was from fall 2023, the practice issue is awesome. I think it's a really great resource for folks. And one of the articles that really kind of stood out to us was the instructional hierarchy and and how we connect student literacy or student learning and instruction. And that's by Vander Hayden and Burns. And I think one of the things that we really appreciated is that the different stages of practice that learners engage in, right? So we're moving them along to working towards independence, but we're gonna move from acquisition where we're first learning something and we may not be accurate yet, right? This is a new skill to fluency where it's, you know, I am getting it, but it's taking me a little bit longer to do it, then to that idea of generalization and application, right? So this idea, so they're eventually reaching this fluency where they're able to do it quickly, and then they're, you know, able to apply what they've learned, you know, to varied settings. And I think what this drove home, uh, you know, is that students across the tiers, right? Tier one, tier two, tier three, like they there's a lot of practice that should be going into this work with sentences, for example. Um, so I'm not gonna throw my kids in cold with that structured sentence organizer. I want to create opportunities where, you know, I'm providing that explicit instruction and then they're able to engage and practice um in meaningful ways. Um, so I think what Nancy and I have been trying to do, and and what I think educators in general, like what just keeping this really being cognizant of it, is this idea that, you know, students may need many opportunities to practice and employ a skill to that independent level.

Nancy Hennessy:

And within the tools and tips that we're providing, there's a very nice example of this explicit instructional continuum or this hierarchy, and then there's an actual example using sentence anagrams. So you all may want to take a look at that. Um, but I think I think it it becomes increasingly important that we're thinking about what is this strategy and activity accomplishing? What's our focus? Is this about acquisition? Is this about what's called fluency in this continuum, or is this about really application or generalization? And so being very cognizant that students have to move through all three. And different students are going to need different um amounts of dependent upon who they are and what they bring to the task.

Lori:

We love talking with you both because you make the intangible very tangible. So that is at least I love it for that reason. It's so fun to hear these examples and to hear specific moves that teachers can do to get students really understanding sentences more deeply that then will translate into whole paragraphs, right? And whole books. Um, so thank you. So this is such an important conversation, and we're so grateful that you took the time to have it with us. Yeah.

Nancy Hennessy:

Well, we're grateful for the opportunity to reach out to everyone who listens to your podcasts and are committed to continuing to learn, right? This is what we all have to be doing so that we can meet the needs of our students. So the two of you have done an outstanding job with your podcasts and making this available to educators. Thank you.

Julia Salamone:

Yeah, no, I think I think that idea of one of the things of in your far reach is this idea that like Nancy always has talked about like gramophobia. It's real, right? We don't have to be afraid. We can we can embrace um, you know, teaching about uh grammar and syntax. And I think one of the things, you know, we really try is to make things actionable and approachable. So, you know, we really appreciate the time to be able to share that because that's such a thing that's near and dear to both of our hearts.

Lori:

Well, it shows. Thank you, thank you both. We're two dynamic duos here on closing it out. So thank you so much.

Melissa:

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Lori:

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Melissa:

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Lori:

We appreciate you so much, and we're so glad you're here to learn with us.