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[Listen Again] Why Knowledge Matters for Comprehension with Daniel Willingham & Barbara Davidson

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Episode 139

As we continue our focus on comprehension this month, we’re revisiting one of our most essential conversations.

In this episode, we explore a foundational truth about reading: comprehension depends on knowledge.

We’re joined by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, who explains why background knowledge is one of the strongest drivers of reading comprehension and why strategies alone can’t compensate for gaps in knowledge.

We also talk with Barbara Davidson, Executive Director of the Knowledge Matters Campaign, about the role strong, knowledge-building curriculum plays in helping students access complex text.

Whether this is your first listen or a return, this episode remains foundational.

Resources

If you’re enjoying Melissa & Lori Love Literacy, bring us to your school or event.

We offer keynotes, presentations, and live podcast-style sessions focused on practical, science of reading–aligned strategies aligned to our podcast and book, The Literacy 50. Email LiteracyPodcast@greatminds.org to learn more.

Get free resources and updates at literacypodcast.com.

Comprehension Depends On Knowledge

Melissa

As we continue our focus on comprehension this month, we're revisiting one of our most foundational conversations. This episode centers on a powerful truth about reading. Comprehension depends on knowledge. We dig into why strategies alone aren't enough and what it really takes to help students understand complex text.

Lori

We're joined by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, who explains the research behind why background knowledge is such a strong driver of comprehension. And Barbara Davidson, Executive Director of the Knowledge Matters campaign, who shares what this means for curriculum and classroom instruction. Whether this is your first lesson or a return lesson, this conversation remains essential. Welcome, teacher friend. I'm Lori. And I'm Melissa. We are two literacy educators in Baltimore. We want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa

Our district recently adopted a new literacy curriculum, which meant a lot of change for everyone. Lori and I can't wait to keep learning about literacy with you today.

Lori

Hi everyone, welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy, Literacy Podcast. We are so excited because today we are talking about knowledge. We know knowledge is an essential pillar of the science of reading. In this growing science of reading movement, we want to ground ourselves in knowledge about knowledge. So I can't wait for today's conversation. Melissa, I know you're expecting it.

Why The Guests Joined

Melissa

I like it. Yeah. Yeah, we have um two really special guests today. We have Barbara Davidson, executive director of the Knowledge Matters campaign, and Daniel Willingham, who is a psychologist and professor of psychology at UVA. And today we'll be talking about, like you said, the importance of knowledge in reading instruction. And specifically, um, the Knowledge Matters campaign has a new part of their website with a lot of amazing resources, and we'll get to dig in and talk about everything you can find there.

Lori

So a lot of exciting things to talk about. So welcome to the podcast, Dan and Barbara. Thanks for being here.

Daniel Willingham

Thanks so much for you. Yeah, delighted to be here.

Lori

Yeah. So we'd love to kick this off by just asking you to uh share why you joined the Knowledge Matters campaign.

Daniel Willingham

Uh starting with me. Yeah, go ahead. I joined the Knowledge Matters campaign because this is um the idea that is at its core that children having broad background knowledge is central to reading comprehension. This is an idea that I've known about and championed. I think I first wrote about it in 2006, something like that. Um, and so it, you know, any effort that is um uh that I can support that's going into getting that message out, I want to be a part of.

Lori

Yeah.

Science Of Reading Beyond Phonics

Barbara Davidson

And Barbara, will you tell us your role in that campaign? Yeah, I'm the executive director of the Knowledge Matters campaign, which was launched in 2015 by some of the nation's um uh leading sort of ed reformers who were all very concerned about the fact that this um importance of background knowledge to literacy and reading comprehension was really being wholly ignored in the in K-12 classrooms. And what could uh they do about that? So um I'm a former classroom teacher of learning disabled students um in Norfolk, Virginia. I cut my teeth in education policy at the U.S. Department of Education back in the mid-90s, and I'd say that the proudest of my long uh career in K-12 education um has been this privilege that I've had of running the Knowledge Matters campaign, which standards work, the organization that I'm president of, sort of took over stewardship of back in 2016. So we could talk a little bit more about the campaign, obviously, as as the call unfolds. But um, so I didn't join it as much as I had the gift of um Robert Pendicio and Lisa Hensel were the original executive directors and uh director of the campaign. And they said we kind of we we birthed this baby and now we really don't know quite how to raise it. So um uh that's what they came to me to talk about, and and it's been my great privilege uh since then to do so.

Melissa

That's so exciting. We're glad that you did. Thank you, Barbara. Um, I want to start off by I know something that Lori and I, you know, we see often in social media, you know, mostly social media, that's where we all see it, is about this idea of the science of reading and how a lot of people are equating it with uh foundational skills only, even phonics only. Um, and and there's there's just been a lot of conversation about it. And I wanted to maybe, Dan, you can take this question on of like, how does knowledge and knowledge building fit into this science of reading conversation?

How Knowledge Creates Meaning

Daniel Willingham

Yeah, that's a that's a great point, Melissa. I'm really glad you you started with that. Uh I think scientists see the science of reading as exactly what it sounds like. They're um reading is a topic that scientists have really looked at closely, just starting in the last 20 or 30 years, trying to understand what are the mental processes that support effective reading. Uh, and they've looked at that both in in um people who are typical readers, so adults who are already quite fluent and quite effective readers, uh, you know, what's exactly happening in the mind as that process is happening? And then a really quite separate question is uh what is happening from a scientific perspective as children are learning to read? Uh the role of knowledge is clearly crucial in both processes. Um and again, the Knowledge Matters campaign is trying to bring that to people's attention. But you're absolutely right. When people talk about the science of reading, especially on social media, but elsewhere just in conversations, there is this misimpression that what science of reading means is phonics instruction, and that's it. Uh, phonics instruction is very important. Um, there is scientific evidence that that um uh to that effect, uh, but that's that's far from the whole, from the whole picture. Uh the other thing I'll mention just briefly, science, uh you have to be very careful in drawing conclusions about exactly what scientific findings mean for classroom instruction. Um so one one distinction I draw frequently is scientific uh studies indicate knowledge that is associated with phonics instruction is very, very important, but doesn't say exactly what that instruction needs to look like. It says much more about knowledge that children need to end up with, but not necessarily the path that they need to take to get there.

Lori

I'm so glad that you brought that up.

Melissa

I think can you also tell us like, is there any research that you want to talk about for knowledge building?

Daniel Willingham

Oh my gosh. Not that I wasn't hoping and waiting for that question.

Lori

Yeah, but absolutely listen, we follow you on TikTok. We know what you we know what you are capable of.

Studies That Prove The Point

Daniel Willingham

So heaven helps. Lori's good to know you're on TikTok. So now you and I are now I'm on the same. Now I know, now I know where we're all coming from. Uh no, so there's um, I think there are two really um, well, sorry, there's really three sources of scientific evidence that are important. One is sort of an analysis of how reading comprehension happens uh or is likely to happen, really leads you to the idea that knowledge must be really important. And the key feature of language, not just of written language, but oral language as well, is that language is sometimes ambiguous and frequently a good deal of information that the speaker or writer intends their audience to understand is actually omitted. And it's in resolving the ambiguity and in uh replacing that missing information that uh reader knowledge is so important. So I'll give you a quick example of each. Um, start with the start with the ambiguity. Uh so suppose that you read Lori tore up Melissa's artwork. She ran to tell the teacher. So she is the second sentence is ambiguous because she could refer to one of two people, either Lori or Melissa. Uh, but clearly, if you're an experienced reader, you're not going to see that as ambiguous. You understand that you run and tell the teacher not when you are uh the perpetrator of a crime, but the victim of a crime. Right? So that's how she gets disambiguated. But that obviously depends on some knowledge of the world. In this case, I've given an example where like pretty much everybody who's listening to Poe understands, you know, has that knowledge, right? So it's simple. Another example, so that's where you you see uh grammatical ambiguity at the level of individual sentences. Once you get to uh making inferences across sentences, uh again, knowledge is important, and this is probably uh a more important source of background knowledge and reading comprehension. Uh so an example I gave my book, uh Trisha spilled her coffee, Dan jumped up to get a rag. So if all you understood about those two sentences was was the literal meaning of the sentences, Trisha spilled coffee, Dan jumped up to get a, you probably would not have understood everything the author intended. The author intended for you to draw a causal connection between those sentences. Trisha spilled her coffee because uh, sorry, Dan jumped up to get a rag because Trisha spilled her coffee. But there's lots of information you need in order to under to uh have the right knowledge to build that causal bridge. You have to know that when you spill coffee, it makes a mess. You have to know that rags can clean a mess, you have to know that people in general don't like messes on the floor and so forth. Um, so this feature of language, all of this is stuff that the writer just left out. The writer wanted you to build this causal connection between the sentences, but actually didn't give you all the information you needed. Now, the reason authors write this way, and the reason speakers speak this way, is if you actually gave all that information, the text that you read would be impossibly long and boring. Yeah, when she spilled coffee, some of it went on the carpet. It was a pretty nice carpet. Everybody was sad and we were worried it was going to get ruined and so on. Uh, so this is a huge part of what it means to know your audience. Knowing your audience means tuning what you say or write uh so to provide as much information as your audience needs, but no more. So those are sort of like pretty high-level theory. Like you can sort of understand, like, okay, probably reading is going to be uh really dependent on background knowledge. Uh, we also have formal studies of children doing the type of reading that children actually do in classrooms, showing that background knowledge really matters. So I'll give you two quick examples of each of those type of studies. One type of study that's become uh pretty well known, I've written about it, and um Natalie Wexler also wrote about it in her book, uh, is commonly known as the baseball study, but this is one example of a family of studies that all use the same logic. If we have two groups of children and one who are more or less comparable in terms of reading comprehension according to a standard reading comprehension test, but one of these groups of children knows a lot about a topic. If we give all of the children a text to read on the topic, then the half of the children, the kids who know a lot about the topic, ought to do a whole lot better. That's the heart of the idea of the baseball study. You've got kids who are more or less comparable uh in terms of performance on a read and comprehension test. Some of them know a lot about baseball, some don't know very much about baseball. They, you know, they crudely know the rules of the game or whatever. These are American kids, so they grew up in a culture where they know that much. Um, and then you give them uh a description of a half of an inning of a baseball game to read. Uh, and then on a follow-up comprehension test, the kids who are baseball fans do a whole lot better. So that's one type of evidence we have. The other type of evidence uh is actually really interesting. It followed from an implication of the study, the type of study I just told you about. A natural question when you think about it is okay, so the baseball study, that's kind of cool. What does that mean about reading comprehension tests? Reading comprehension tests, we're usually encouraged to think of them as just sort of like that's how it gives you a number, and that's how good that child is at reading comprehension, right? And what this another way to put it is no one who writes a reading comprehension test says, this test will tell you how good children are at reading the five passages that are on this reading comprehension test. It's offered as this is how good these children are at reading, right? The baseball students indicates, whoa, that may not be right. Right? So following up from that, we can ask, okay, so who is it who's doing really well on reading comprehension tests? And Ann Cunningham and Keith Stanovich asked that question in a series of studies in the late 90s. And their answer was the kids who do well on reading comprehension tests are probably kids who know at least a little something about lots and lots of topics. Right? So getting back to this idea that one of the main things that knowledge is doing for you is replacing whatever the author thought you probably knew and didn't need to be explained, then you would guess most things you read that are for the general reader, the author's not going to assume you know a whole lot. Right? They're not gonna assume that you know Picasso was a cubist, but they'll probably assume you knew Picasso was a painter. Right. So you need to be a million miles wide, but maybe only a couple of inches deep to be a good reader of like you know, what we think of as the general reader. So Cunningham Instanovich, the way they tested this was they gave people a test of knowledge that was a million miles wide and just a couple of inches deep. And they asked questions like who was Picasso? Uh, and you know, what was the Seven Years' War? Like who participated? A bunch of Seven Years War is probably more specific than that. But they asked a bunch of, because I I was honestly like, no, wait a minute, I just said that who what who's you get the idea. So we get the idea. Yeah, like broad questions and lots of different topics. And then they, these were college students, by the way. And then they administered a standard reading comprehension test with the expectation you're gonna see a very high correlation between how much stuff people know and how effectively they're able to read. And that's exactly what they observed. So that's two, three sources of evidence, or this analysis of language, like there's all this information omitted, and it's knowledge that replaces it. And then the baseball study kind of expertise thing, and then this broad correlational study.

Equity And The Knowledge Gap

Melissa

Oh my gosh, this is so fascinating.

Lori

It is. And as you were talking, Dan, I was jotting a couple notes and I was thinking about the idea of knowledge in types of knowledge and then ways that we, I guess, do knowledge or ways that we um ways that knowledge shows up in the classroom. So I was hoping, and and I do think a lot of this has to do with equity, which is what we're getting at. But um, I want to just pause and ask maybe for for you and Barbara to chime in here. I'm thinking about like the types of knowledge. You mentioned world knowledge earlier. There's also lots of different, right? Like ELA knowledge, history knowledge, right? There's lots of different knowledge that, I mean, maybe history fits into world, who knows? I think we could talk a little bit about that, like just kind of sharing the types of knowledge. But I'd also like to name for listeners some terms that we throw around a lot on this podcast. Like we talk about building knowledge, we talk about knowledge building texts, we talk about activating prior knowledge, right? We talk about um knowledge in different ways. And I just thought it would be helpful to kind of just pause for a moment and and chat about that if you two are game for it. And I don't think we talked about this in the pre-call, so make sure it's okay.

Barbara Davidson

Well, Dan, I think what would be great is if you could sort of extend what you were um uh sharing and and talk about this sort of the importance of this velcro, this schema that um uh that that that is so necessary to students to uh for students to have as they make meaning of the text that they're reading.

Daniel Willingham

Is that is that fair? Sure, yeah, absolutely. I mean, they're um we're talking about reading comprehension right now. I mean, knowledge um it's become increasingly increasingly clear that knowledge plays a role in all of the high-level cognition, cognitive processes, um, especially and including all the ones that educators are really hoping that students are going to uh learn about and excel in at school. So reasoning, problem solving, creativity, um, none, just as we wouldn't say reading comprehension is sort of completely separate from knowledge. It's just it's just a bad way to think about how comprehension operates. It's really intertwined with knowledge. Same thing is true of all of these other uh cognitive processes, sort of our our highest hopes, our our our grandest aims for what's going to happen, turning kids into great thinkers, enabling them to be great thinkers. All of this depends on on background knowledge. Now, you know, to get at Lori's question, like what type of knowledge, it really does vary depending on what the task is in front of the child. So I've emphasized the goal of uh being an effective sort of general reader. And, you know, a lot of uh in the last 10 years, I've made a habit of asking parents, what do you what are your hopes uh for your child as a reader at the end of grade 12? Like, what do you want them to be able to do? And admittedly, they probably never thought about it that carefully, but like they mostly say the same thing, uh, which is that that's what they want. They want their child to be able to pick up the Washington Post and read it. And that, you know, they want to be a sort of the educated layperson type reader. And a million miles wide and not very deep is really what you need for that. If, on the other hand, you're gonna become an astronomer, well, obviously you need much more in-depth knowledge, right, to be able to read the types of text that astronomers are reading. Math, to go you know in a quite different direction, math requires a really quite different type of knowledge. So you need uh, you know, math facts needs to be really automatic, right? So when when we get to the question of like what type of knowledge, as Lori asked, you really need to specify what do you want the child to be able to do?

Lori

That's so important. And I'm wondering if we might be able to talk a little bit about that idea of equity that's popping up for me as you're as you're sharing. Um, like what do you want the child to be able to do? Well, I think we all want our kids, whether they're our quote ours, right, or not, to reach their highest potential. And in order to do that, what I'm hearing you say is that knowledge is a really critical piece in that. Um, could you say more about that? And and Barbara, I imagine you have some things to share about that too.

Daniel Willingham

Sure. I mean, we we know from so there are two parts to this. One is, you know, what knowledge. And and when you start emphasizing knowledge, people pretty quickly start asking, well, who's deciding which knowledge is important? Um, and I think from a cognitive psychologist's point of view, the answer follows very closely from what I've been saying. Well, what do you want the child to be able to do? Whatever they know a lot about, they will be better at reading texts on that subject, reasoning about that subject, problem solving on that subject, and so forth. Um, so you do kind of need to like plant your flag and say, this is what I want children to know by the end of grade 12. This is what I want them to be able to be really adept at uh reading about and so forth. And I think there are different answers to that question. This now is not no longer a question about that science really has any contribution to make. This is a question of values. You know, is are children going to school largely for economic reasons and they're going to school so they can get a job? Um are they going to school so that they can learn about the cult, their own culture? And sort of learn more about who they are. These are both perfectly defensible reasons for children to go to school. They lead to quite different implications about what children ought to learn while they're there. It's also the kind of thing school boards really don't want to talk about because this is this is, you know, time is a zero-sum game. And the more time you spend on one thing, the less you have to spend on something else. So that's one piece of the equity pie, Lori, the that you asked about. The other thing I will say is that when we look at socioeconomic status of parents, we there is immense evidence, and this will surprise no one, that children who come from homes where there is less money start school with less knowledge. This is no great surprise. They have there are fewer opportunities, right? If you've got one of the things parents spend their money on is opportunities for children. That already shows up on the very first day of kindergarten. And the people there are nationally representative samples of tests where they're asking the kinds of things children that age might know, like why are there stoplights? What does a police officer do? Right? Sort of the type of general knowledge that we've been talking about. And kids are already behind. And so some people look at those data, and I'm gonna include myself. Uh, and to me, that highlights the children who are have fewer opportunities at home. School represents a real one of the main opportunities for them to acquire background knowledge that is the fuel behind effective reading. And so we really want to make sure that everyone, but especially children who don't have opportunities at home to acquire that knowledge, have that opportunity at school.

Melissa

I just want to like stamp this because we just talked so much about why knowledge is so important. And in education, people can be very like black and white and hear one thing and take it to the extreme. And I just want to make sure we're stamping that we see how important knowledge is, but it is not the only thing that will lead to a successful reader, right? That we we know that you know you can't just give it give kid give a kid a bunch of like all the knowledge in the world and not teach the other parts of of reading like fluency and and those foundational skills and all of that. I just want to like stamp that and acknowledge it. And if you have anything to add to back me up on it, I'd appreciate it.

What Great Knowledge-Building Curricula Share

Daniel Willingham

No, no, I think that you're a hundred percent right. And you know, we're we're sort of circling back. You're right. I sort of need the sin that I was like marking in other people. I'm like, it's not just all phonics, there's knowledge. And I don't talk about anything but uh knowledge. Uh no, and you know, and not just the cognitive side, the emotional side of reading too, right? So I mean, all of us, you know, want children to uh love reading and to read during their leisure time and all that. Yeah, the fact that we're talking a lot about knowledge does not mean that all these other things aren't absolutely uh critical as well. Thank you.

Barbara Davidson

Yeah, perfect. Just wanted to stamp that agreement agreement there, uh Melissa, and I'm glad that you did. And at the same time, I'll say that um knowledge needs to get its day in the sun as well. And so I'm really delighted that you all are, you know, sort of focusing and spending the month of January and maybe even more time as the year uh of 2023 rolls on on you know this really important topic. And um, so can I just give a little bit about the Knowledge Matters campaign? Yes, please. You know, people like Dan and and and other members of the Scientific Advisory Committee are so so very important to this work. Um, the Knowledge Matters campaign itself is a communications effort. We're not, you know, sort of a think tank. Um we uh our motto is to uh find the good and praise it. So, you know, we want to help educators, parents, and others understand, you know, what it looks like to put knowledge building at the center of the literacy instruction, even as we you know focus on foundational skills and um address the standards you know that we're expecting students to master and so forth. Um so you know, we lift up great curriculum, uh great uh great teachers, uh great instruction, and and that kind of thing. The Knowledge Matters campaign is probably best known for this Knowledge Matters School Tour that we've been on over the last sort of four years, where we're uh uh crossing the country and visiting um school districts that have put their bet on the implementation of high-quality knowledge building, English language arts curriculum, uh curriculum that's really been specifically designed to create these kinds of uh experiences, this kind of um uh background knowledge. And we're particularly focused on districts that are serving large numbers of students that are growing, uh, that are growing up in poverty and have had um or in homes with uh less education and and therefore not access to some of this um these life experiences that Dan speaks about as being you know one way in which this this kind of knowledge and this ability to make these connections and um and and and fill in those gaps that are not sort of explicitly stated in text and so forth, where where that comes from. So um uh I I mean I can go further if you want, or I'll sort of respond to some questions that you all might have about really how we how we do this, how we give um uh action to this notion of finding the good and and and praising it.

Lori

Yeah, well, I love that. I love finding the good and praising it. I think that resonates a lot with what we do here on the podcast too. We you know, we do talk about some tough stuff, but we also lift up the really good things. And that's actually why we started the podcast was to lift those big, important ideas up. And we were like, if we're talking about this, we know that others probably want to hear about it and talk about it too. So um we love that. And I think it might be helpful to start, Barbara, by kind of sharing with us what distinguishes the curricula. Like, let's start with the materials. I think that's really important. What distinguishes these curricula from others? What do they have in common and really what makes them great? I mean, we know they're building knowledge, so we'll say that.

Barbara Davidson

On our website, we've identified six curricula, and there will be um, you know, others in years to come, I'm sure, that um that we believe do a particularly strong job of building this background knowledge in ELA. We're not talking right now, and I think there's a very appropriate time to talk about the amount of time in school that's being given to science and social studies, because that's surely a way to um to build some of this knowledge as well. But you know, sort of the history of the campaign, at least so far, has been to look at the way in which the English language arts block, which is considerable in in K-12, uh, I mean in K-8 and particularly K-5 schools as an opportunity to do this, because after all, why shouldn't students be, you know, learning to apply the skills that they're learning as a part of their ELA instruction uh to text and and and content that's you know that's that's worthy. So um so we're recognizing uh six uh curricula uh which and and we choose to not spend our time sort of focusing on curricula that some might consider to be high quality because it aligns to standards, but that we um uh do not feel do as good a job of building this knowledge. Instead, we're wanting to shine a spotlight on those that we think do that were intentionally built to um sort of create that scaffolding that you know that Dan was referring to. Um so what distinguishes them, I mean, first and foremost, I think it's their focus on content. And by that, I'm not talking about like random acts of content. I love that. Yeah, it's deep dives into um uh a topic in order to build that kind of domain knowledge that you know Dan describes us as being so important. So, you know, one thing is that rather than jumping from you know topic to topic or pulling up an article on some interesting thing that's happening in current events and then you know, later on in the day or or or tomorrow, you know, pulling up some other unrelated article that's interesting in the moment for students, but isn't deliberately providing this opportunity to look at a topic to dwell in the vocabulary, and I'm not talking about you know um domain-specific vocabulary, I'm talking about academic vocabulary that students simply encounter, you know, in in in or uh uh in all of their reading. Looking at that um at that topic from multiple perspectives, reading informational texts, literary texts. In the case of one of these curricula, um, wit and wisdom, you're actually studying art that happens to give you an opportunity to sort of explore that topic a little bit further. Um, so these are topics, I think another thing that's important to know is that they're topics that that um not only are they engaging for students, and you know, and they are, but they're important to, you know, sort of being able to relate in years to come to other content that students will, you know, be encountering in their studies. So, you know, of these six curricula that we that we highlight on the website, you have I'm just giving a sampling when I say, you know, K-5 students learning about the War of 1812, about ancient Roman civilizations, about the Harlem Renaissance, about um biodiversity in the rainforest, um certainly the civil rights movement, the Great Depression, and so on. I mean, it seems to the average sort of um listener, I suspect, well, of course kids are learning about these things in school, but the fact is they weren't, and and and we all know it.

Melissa

Or like you said, Barbara, maybe one day they read an one article about it.

Barbara Davidson

That's interesting in the moment, but it hasn't really been teased out and and students haven't been asked so to you know to think about and and uh um uh and and look at it from different perspectives and so forth. So the topics um aren't just rich. The text that students are using as they're learning about those topics that they're encountering as they're taught as they're um uh exploring those topics, they're complex, they're diverse. Um the vocabulary that they're learning is um is is is rich. Um most of these curricula are doing this through authentic trade books. That's a real differentiator from sort of your average uh basal reader. Um one of them is not using um authentic text, but ones primarily ones that they have um written themselves. That would be Core Knowledge uh or the CKLA curriculum. But those books that they have written are you know really every bit as rich as the um as authentic uh as award-winning trade books. So that's a real distinguishing characteristic is that the students are working with, using, having in front of them in their hands beautiful, well-written, award-winning um uh texts that are not only beautiful to look at and um and and and um rich in their uh language and so forth, but um but ask them to look at things from you know from different perspectives. Um another big differentiator or distinguisher, I think, is the fact that writing is integrated. So, you know, again, this seems like second nature to us, right? Why of course you would be you know asking kids to uh to do their writing uh with texts and topics that they are um you know engaged with in the moment, but that's not really been the way that it is, and we we all know that too, that writing has been out there, you know, 30 minutes later in the day, and you know, you get a writing prompt. And um so it makes perfect sense that we would do it this way, but um, but you know, the fact is that we haven't. So in in with with these curricula, students are constantly being asked to respond to prompts about and and and finding evidence within the text to sort of uh respond to discussion questions and and and and engage in Socratic seminars and and and and and write uh compositions and so forth.

Lori

Barbara, can I can I add one thing to that? I think that so I saw something on social the other day and a teacher was like, I am confused. Like I don't I don't understand this integrated thing. I feel like it would take so much longer. And what I like, I just feel like what you're saying resonates so much because until we saw the high quality materials, we like well, I'll speak for me, not Melissa. I I totally understand that. I understand where that teacher was coming from. Like, oh my gosh, that must take so much longer. That it it it it does, you know, it's it's how it's not a separate block. Students are going to spend so much time learning skills within the lesson. That would take a long time. It actually isn't. And what I would say is that to any teacher out there, like who might be thinking that, go to the Knowledge Matters campaign website, look for these curricula, and then like ask for samples or figure out how to get your eyes on a sample. I do think in this case, seeing is understanding. And I don't think that Melissa and I would be sitting here today with the very deep understanding that we we have and still learning so much more without having seen those materials from the get-go. It was those materials, like seeing that, seeing that integrated approach and and seeing what efficient writers and readers it built, and I mean time-wise, how efficient it was and um the rich text.

Melissa

Yeah, go ahead. I mean, in Baltimore, what we heard over and over from teachers, and Barbara, I'd love to hear if you're hearing this outside of Baltimore and other places, was that because the kids had so much to write about, they had that that knowledge from what they were reading, that the writing actually, you know, you could do so much more with writing because they weren't just sitting there like, I don't know what to write, right? They had so much to say that then you could just like clean it up with all the other things, you know, the the writing skills.

Barbara Davidson

That's exactly it, Melissa. And that's what we hear everywhere that we go along this Knowledge Matter school tour. That when we ask teachers one of the first, what what are some of the things that you're noticing that's changing, even in places where they've been implementing these curricula very recently, and they will almost uh to a to a district that we have visited, the first thing that they start to notice is how much better the student's writing is. And um, and I don't know that that's so much the result of their having worked on writing, you know, and and having been more successful in four weeks or six weeks' time, uh, or or whatever it is in in teaching kids to write. It's because they're asking them to write about things that they're doing so much of it, and they're doing it in the moment, and they're doing it utilizing the content. I love to tell the story of um talking to a little girl, I believe it was in um Lenore City, Tennessee, which is uh not far from Knoxville. And we always, when we're on the school tour, like to uh, you know, talk to the kids and so forth. And these kids were talking about, you know, I ask them, well, sort of what's your favorite part of the ELA block, and they will tell me that it's that it's writing, and I'm thinking, holy cow, you know, how how is that the case? And um, so I was teasing this out with a little girl, and she looked at me kind of like, well, she says, uh so I said, Well, what, you know, why is it that you um that that you like writing so much more now than you did, you know, before? And she says, Well, now I have something to write about. Yeah, you know, so it turns out that um writing about their summer vacation, you know, in some isolated section of the ELA block, or writing about how they felt about some experience that this that the that the um you know that a student is having in some in some text, some silly little text, um, instead they're being asked to sort of uh defend a um a position that we were in school the other day where you know it was was the um was the king right to you know to to feel this way or you know, and so they had to argue. And I but you know both answers were correct, right? Um and then they wrote about it. So yeah, um there's uh there's a lot. Uh I I sort of can't imagine going back and doing it another way where you're out here writing and you know, teaching them how to write and and write about certain topics and um and so forth.

Lori

Well, going back to Dan's good point earlier, good question, I should say. Like, what do you want your child to know at the or be able to do right in terms of reading at the end of 12th grade? When I think about this this concept of writing or thinking, I would want my child to be able to defend a claim, to think about uh using text evidence to support their thoughts, to be able to articulate clearly um their what they think on a topic and to feel strongly on a point, to have enough knowledge to feel strongly on a point that they feel like they can defend it, not necessarily like be able to write about what they did at recess. Like to like I not that I don't want them to be able to do that, but my thought is if they can do all those things in that first example, then they definitely can write about recess. Right. Yeah. But if they write about recess, I don't know that they can do all those other higher level things. Yeah.

How To Use The Website

Barbara Davidson

Well, and it turns out that kids are just a whole lot more interested in in in in you know in telling what they know about a topic than they are about sharing how they feel. I mean, I sometimes get daunted by a by a writing, you know, prompt like that. Um, I want to mention one other thing before we go on to what some of your other questions might be, and it's probably the most um important, in my mind, distinguishing feature of these curricula, and that is that um is that a lot of the instruction is happening in whole group time. Um uh all students in the classroom are exposed to these complex topics, grade level texts, and so forth. Um, that is a huge differentiator. So um it turns uh and and you know Dan talked about the uh about equity, and and I think it is the strongest argument for uh why a curriculum that is intentionally built to really create this kind of equalizing background knowledge where all kids are going to know, you know, have have the right to engage and and dialogue on, whether it be right about or participate in uh you know a Socratic seminar or or or turn and talk to a neighbor about a topic. You can't do that if you were out of the room, um, you know, getting some some some special support when the anchor text, the text that is really that which the kids are, you know, for the most part uh uh discussing, you know, uh during the day, if if you're not in the room when that's when that's happening. Um and that's uh that has been one of the things that we have heard most um uh most resoundingly from teachers and educators that are implementing these curricula.

Melissa

Yeah. Um Barbara, I'm wondering if you could like, I I know at this point I'm sure teachers are like, okay, this website, I want to go see it, I want to hear more about it. Can you actually like talk a little bit? Like if they if teachers go to the Knowledge Matters campaign website, where where should they go to find this information? What should they click on? And then like, I know there's a lot more that they'll find too. So can you talk a little bit more about like what else they'll see?

Barbara Davidson

Yeah, you know, um, there are two parts of the website that at the present time, there's another one coming that I think will be particularly interesting to them, but we can talk about that maybe at a later time or a later podcast. Um, but the two sections of the web website that I would really encourage, and this is the knowledge knowledge matterscampaign.org website, which was relaunched uh last summer and um and really contains a uh a ton of information. One is the explore curricula section, where we're actually looking at these six curricula that we think do an excellent job in different ways of building this this knowledge, but do have uh of building background knowledge, but do have some of these um common sort of character, excuse me, characteristics across this category of curriculum. And there you will see these six curricula sort of um, you'll be able to very quickly look at uh a map, you know, that sort of plots the different topics and how they build over the grades from K to eight. You'll be able to take a jump on a carousel slide that enables you to look at the texts that are being used. And and then, you know, really to the point that Lori was making earlier, go and go and look at them. Uh we don't certainly house, you know, all of uh, but we house samples of of the curriculum. So again, the I mean our idea is that we want parents and and educators, particularly teachers, to be able to see what what this looks like. And and and um and that's more important really, even than calling out particular curricula. We want to be able to help folks um see that that this is possible, that this is very, you know, it's very doable. This is not some sort of theoretical idea. Um the what you know that the what the the many virtues that Dan sort of shared is not something that teachers have to figure out themselves how to how to benefit from, but there are great curricula there to um to to support them in doing so. So that's one piece. Um the other is that there's um, and I it's the my sort of favorite part, and I gotta put a rope uh plug in for it, it's visit classrooms. So we have over 140 short video segments, like 30-second to sort of Twitter length, you know, videos of interviews with the hundreds of teachers and uh in panels and and individuals and administrators that we've met across uh these these many districts that we've visited who are talking about you know what the benefits have been and what it has been like for them, both from in terms of social emotional learning, um, you know, obviously uh educational equity, uh academic rigor, and and and a lot of the benefits that the teachers themselves are experiencing. We haven't had time yet to talk about that, but you know, there is are many benefits, there are as many benefits that we have heard to the teacher experience of utilizing these curricula in their classrooms as there are student benefits in terms of engagement and academic achievement and all of that. I mean the fact that teachers are turned being re-excited about about teaching reading because they're not only because they're seeing the results and and what teacher wouldn't rather be have kids engaged and excited and you know saying they don't want to go out to research because they really want to stay reading this you know story. How can we stay in? But but that they are able to collaborate, you know, it's sort of it's intellectually rewarding not only is it rewarding in terms of the results that they're seeing, but I think that um the faculty are um uh appreciating teaching in this way in ways that they haven't for many many years.

Lori

Yeah I will tell you my favorite part of the website is um the PDFs that you can download to see the big knowledge topics for each curricula. That's my favorite I love just thinking about all of the knowledge that the kids are gaining and how they're gaining that through what texts and I thank you for for doing that and for posting that I think that's a really important and just critical piece on your website for um for folks to jump into and see if you're if you're new to knowledge or maybe maybe you're a knowledge veteran but you're like I need to I need to figure out what topic like tell me more about the topics why these topics go explore them. I think they're awesome. So thank you for for doing that.

Barbara Davidson

Well and Lori it makes it makes the point and I'm glad I appreciate I'm I'm so glad that you that you that that that is um has been important to you because it makes the point that we're not that you know the knowledge matters campaign and those of us who are sort of zealots for this cause um are not saying that there's particular knowledge it you know I I I certainly um Don Hirsch has made a very compelling point for you know a a body of sort of shared knowledge uh that um that we kind of assume that that everyone will have and and and yet gaps show up and and that does uh you know sort of uh uh interrupt uh your opportunity to engage you know with with with other fellow students and fellow men uh uh uh in time but um but really there are you know there there are very different approaches to how to build that knowledge and sort of what's um uh and and and so each of these curricula have a little bit of a different sort of culture in that way we're simply saying that there's a lot that we assume people know and uh and that we have assumed wrongly that that that that we are supporting students in in in building and so you know that um let's yeah let's start at the youngest grades and there are different ways to do that.

Daniel Willingham

And Barbara I'll point out that even though Don has argued that there's uh cult some um helpfulness in shared knowledge in terms of sort of making Americans feel like some common sense of purpose and making us feel bound as a people and so on. Don has also been quick to say yeah you know I sort of came up with one idea of what this uh set of knowledge will look like and what the sequence should be but you know there there should be lots of these and uh so that schools and uh teachers have choice. Uh um there's more there's obviously more than one right way to do this.

Sequencing Content For Real Growth

Barbara Davidson

And that was just so important to us um Dan to be able to show that on the site I think that was another one of the sort of purposes of the site was to be able to show that uh while you may have a different idea about what that sequence is and and and and where the priority should be placed or what have you it doesn't mean that you shouldn't still be uh you know concerned about uh about building knowledge because there's just so many virtues to um you know again to uh building that that that scaffolding to uh building uh that um that that that that bedrock for reading comprehension that's so important.

Melissa

That is great. I know we're like running out of time and I have a million more questions for both of you.

Daniel Willingham

Before we wrap up I'm wondering just I mean is there anything that we didn't get to that either of you want to share about the website, about knowledge building in general, just anything over the course of this conversation that you want to make sure people hear very yeah very briefly thanks Melissa I'd like to amplify something that Barbara mentioned and sort of implied at but I I would like to make a little bit more explicit and it was when she talked about the the idea of random acts of content being a problem and she went on to talk about the importance of depth which I absolutely agree with. The other aspect of that is that of of what where you don't want randomness is in terms of sequence. So if you accept that um what you know is very important to what you are able to understand then clearly what what we want is everything that every lesson plan that we present to a child, we want it to be the case that they have all of the background knowledge they need and it stretches them just a little bit so that they can feel like it's in their grasp, but there is you know there there is something new for them. In order for any educator to know that yes, this is that's what this license plane is going to do. They need to know what the children already know. And about the only way you can do that is not just with a a curriculum that is chalk full of stuff but one that is also carefully sequenced.

Lori

That's so important. I I think about that all the time I think it's impossible we have teachers ask us all the time I don't have a knowledge building curriculum how do I do this and I think that what you just said Dan is impossible for a teacher to execute because unless you have that curriculum and you know kids are going to do this in you know you're a fourth grade teacher you know kids did this in third grade this in second grade they're doing this in fifth grade they're heading to middle school they're gonna do this you it's impossible to do that without a structured curricula I think you know Lori I think it was the second or third uh school tour visit that we uh went on back in probably I guess it was 2017, 2018, um talking to a uh a group of teachers who uh were in a district that had spent an awful lot of time writing curriculum and and and you know really feeling like they had done as best as as well as they could and um could you know could possibly have done and just you know hours and hours and hours of outside of school time uh committed to it and so forth.

Barbara Davidson

And then um and and and looking at me and saying in our wildest dreams we could never have put it together this brilliantly not only the sort of sequencing over the course of the years and the sort of you know coming back to topics at sort of the right level now at the right you know at the right grade and so forth but identifying the texts that gave them the opportunity to do that. And um anyway it was a very um the other the other thing of course that they say is that we we would never have imagined that our students could could do this and and also being um blown away you know about their ability to um to manage the texts but do so because of the support that the curriculum has has given to them.

Lori

Yeah. Yeah I mean it's somebody's actually lots of people's full-time jobs to write that curriculum. Yeah and I that's I just keep thinking about that I'm like we ask so much of teachers we can't also ask them to write their own curriculum like that's impossible. So Dan I know you were going to say something I did you I'm gonna pass it to you now.

Daniel Willingham

Yeah I just wanted to add one thing to it that um and this bears on what you were just commenting on Lori. You know that there when you said like teachers it's it's such a burn for them to write their own curriculum. There are for every teacher though there are jewels in uh in the year where they've got you know a topic that they absolutely love or a book they love reading with their children. And that's one of the things you do have to be prepared for when you are doing a school wide or district wide curriculum. Like everybody probably has to give up something you know there may be things that you love doing that just like that actually really needs to go in the grade before you or whatever it is. So you know you have to we do and I've seen this in higher in higher ed as well when I talk like within the psychology department University of Virginia of like how we're going to sequence things people are like but I'm royalty in my classroom like you can't tell me what to do right so it it it got it's a bitter pill but the payoff is absolutely huge. And I think it uh so I want to be candid about what I see as what you know does come up as something that's um is a less than wonderful part of this. But that's really like that's about us, right? That's not about our students that's about us and so we have to keep that in mind and um yeah the payoff will be worth it.

Barbara Davidson

Dan I had a district superintendent in Tennessee telling us if they had done this sort of rough audit um as they got into uh working with the curriculum and realized that they had been that the the the the every that every grade had been uh had a unit on pumpkins or something you know something around Halloween time they so they said their kids were really really really expert about you know pumpkins but um and because teachers like to you know teach about it around Halloween I remember hearing that from students you know they would they go well we read this book I we're reading this book again like we read this last year and you know as as an individual teacher if you're planning you don't know what necessarily without a curriculum what they did the year before and yeah it's it's real yeah I'm actually wondering Barbara I feel like we should do a a knowledge matters campaign tour with with Melissa and Lori we should do a live podcast Melissa and Lori love the knowledge matters campaign tour.

Lori

Would you do that? Would you come with us? I don't know but I mean it it would sound like a great time wouldn't it?

Why This Work Matters Personally

Barbara Davidson

I was listening to you talk I was like I wish I was there to hear the teachers themselves and the students I was just listening to something on the news or watching something on the news last night about all these folks that got stranded in an airport and took a bus trip together to Knoxville did you see that that that whole that whole thing that whole road show so yeah you guys can come along we'll get on the bus with you. Get on the bus. I love it. No I'm I'm very serious about that. I think we should explore this. That is a good idea.

Lori

All right we will talk more we'll we'll let all the listeners know an update at some point because we'll definitely follow up on this yeah because we've got a lot of places we're going this spring so um oh that's so fun okay well we'll talk but I know we are we are over time actually and so what we just want to close out with one important question. Melissa do you want to kick it off?

Melissa

Sure. So for each of you we just want to wrap it up with why do you do what you love for education or literacy specifically?

Barbara Davidson

Okay I'll jump in. I mean uh because it's a it's it's a um you know playing off of what we were just just talking about uh I mean there is no greater privilege for me than being able to see kids um you know getting turned on to to to learning about stuff you know to and really becoming experts on something and um and their minds are just such little sieves and um or or or sponges yeah not a sieve we want to keep it in there right yeah that's awesome it's great that's not that that's us yeah that's that's me a 65 plus right now they're little sponges and um that just so uh it's such a privilege to see the agency that they start to feel and I and my heart is there with the kids who have I was a former teacher of learning disabled students um you know I know the struggles that these students face um uh obviously we've got you know dramatically increasing numbers of English learners um lots of kids growing up in poverty and so forth so my heart is particularly with those who are finding agency you know as a result of this experience that that high quality knowledge rich uh uh curriculum and and teachers well supported in in in delivering it um and excited about you know what it is that they are doing um makes you know makes possible for them so that's what turns me on every day.

Daniel Willingham

Well uh it it's an apt question because this is that was certainly not my path in life and I began um post PhD as a um memory researcher uh who was not interested really in helping people learn I was doing very yeah I mean it was it's it's really ironic but um I was doing very technical work in biological basis of memory uh that didn't have promise of practical application and it was actually E.D. Hirsch who asked me to address 500 teachers at his national conference about cognitive psychology because he thought it was interesting and I I did I wouldn't know what in the world I could possibly tell teachers about learning that that they didn't already know. And uh the uh I was extremely anxious going into it and really regretted that I had ever agreed to do this. And I was actually newly engaged with my now wife and I invited her to and she's a teacher and I invited her to come to Nashville with me to watch me give a talk about teaching and then I in like 20 minutes before I was to give the talk I said don't come I made her like sit in the coffee shop. I was so sure it was going to be a disaster because I again I thought like what in the world do I know about learning and reading and so forth that teachers already know. And to my astonishment teachers didn't know all of it and they were uh a lot of them thought it was you know came up to me afterwards said they they thought it was really interesting. And that's what made me realize my field has done a terrible job of communicating what we know about how people learn to educators. And that was when I decided I'm gonna try and do that. And that's what I've been doing since 2002.

Share And Stay Connected

Lori

Did she did she forgive you for for kicking her out? She did yeah we were newly engaged she was so she was still in the mode of like whatever you want honey you know like yeah she was she really liked you a lot back then right exactly yes yes well thank you so much to both of you for being here we can't thank you enough for giving us so much time and and knowledge thank you for your knowledge well thank you all for everything that you're doing yeah absolutely thank you thanks for listening literacy lovers to stay connected with us sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com and to keep learning together join the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast Facebook group and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter. If this episode resonated with you take a moment to share with a teacher friend or leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Melissa

Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast are not necessarily the opinions of GreatMinds PBC or its employees.

Lori

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