Join Susan Neuman, Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at the Steinhardt School at New York University, as she unwinds background knowledge, a strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope. In the sixth episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Susan explains the important link between background knowledge and reading comprehension in the science of reading and shares about her five research-based principles to build knowledge networks in literacy instruction. She also highlights the connection between speech and reading and previews her upcoming studies on the role of cross-media connections in children’s learning.
Quotes:
“What you’re helping children do is create a mosaic; putting all those ideas together in a knowledge network. If you don’t do it explicitly, many children cannot do it on their own.”
“We’ve got to start early. We’ve got to start immediately and know that children are eager to learn and use the content to engage them.”
Resources:
Book: "Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance" by Susan Neuman. More books in the link.
Article: Developing Low-Income Children's Vocabulary and Content Knowledge through a Shared Book Reading Program by Susan Neuman and Tanya Kaefer
Article: The information book flood: Is additional exposure enough to support early literacy development? by Susan Neuman
Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.
Join Susan Neuman, Professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at the Steinhardt School at New York University, as she unwinds background knowledge, a strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope. In the sixth episode of our Deconstructing the Rope series, Susan explains the important link between background knowledge and reading comprehension in the science of reading and shares about her five research-based principles to build knowledge networks in literacy instruction. She also highlights the connection between speech and reading and previews her upcoming studies on the role of cross-media connections in children’s learning.
Quotes:
“What you’re helping children do is create a mosaic; putting all those ideas together in a knowledge network. If you don’t do it explicitly, many children cannot do it on their own.”
“We’ve got to start early. We’ve got to start immediately and know that children are eager to learn and use the content to engage them.”
Resources:
Book: "Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance" by Susan Neuman. More books in the link.
Article: Developing Low-Income Children's Vocabulary and Content Knowledge through a Shared Book Reading Program by Susan Neuman and Tanya Kaefer
Article: The information book flood: Is additional exposure enough to support early literacy development? by Susan Neuman
Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.
How do we help students become confident readers? And what do all our students need so they can enjoy reading success, especially during this unprecedented time? Welcome to season three of Science of Reading the podcast. I'm your host, Susan Lambert. This season, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of Scarborough's Reading Rope, a model that helps us understand the complexities of learning to read and helps us focus on evidence-based practices. Each episode will cover elements of the model, what it means, and how it should impact classroom instruction. We've lined up a dream team of science, of reading experts. We think you'll really love. The Science of Reading. Movement continues to grow, and at a time that is more important than ever. It's vital. We focus on research-based practices to deliver classroom instruction that allows students to learn. If they aren't learning, we need to examine our practices. We may not know what changes are coming next, but we do know we need to stay connected and learning from each other will get us through it. The more we learn and listen, the more we'll be prepared to lead. Our students are counting on us today. We talk with Susan Newman, a specialist in early literacy development. Currently a professor at NYU Susan's done research in early childhood policy curriculum and early reading instruction. We talk with her about the importance of background knowledge and why it's critical to reading comprehension. She's quite passionate about this topic as a matter of equity and access. It was such a pleasure to speak with her, and I know you'll find it helpful. Hello, Susan . Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.
Speaker 2:Well, it's, it's nice to be here.
Speaker 1:Such a pleasure to talk to you today. We have a lot, a lot to get through when we're talking about background knowledge and reading comprehension. But before we get started, our listeners love to hear sort of the journey that you took to get to the place that you are. So I'd love for you to share us a little with us, a little bit of that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there are many different journeys, but let me focus on one in particular. And I was thinking about this morning, and I was a new fifth grade teacher, and , um, as many of you probably experienced, when you're a first year teacher, you kind of don't know what you're doing all that much. Um, and and
Speaker 1:I can relate to that <laugh> . Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly. And, and , uh, I had this fifth grade class, and I just loved them. I, I loved them and tried to do so much emotionally for them because I found that they were emotionally needy. But at the same time, of course, I was trying to teach reading. I was trying to do all the different subjects. And my principal came up to me at the end of a observation period, and he looked at me and he said, you know, watching you with your class is just a wonderful experience. You are so emotionally connected with those students. They love you, you love them. It, it's just a joy to be here. But one of the problems I think I'm seeing is that you're not teaching them anything. <laugh> ,
Speaker 1:Ouch, <laugh>.
Speaker 2:And he said that in the kindest way. But , um, I went home and of course I cried <laugh> . And , uh, I thought about it and I thought, oh gosh, you know, he's right that in my effort to connect, I had forgotten that children also need to learn and to learn the skills. And many of these children were flailing. I mean, they were on fifth grade, you could say they maybe were on second grade level reading, but they were really struggling. And so, while I was focused so much on one thing, I neglected the other. And that made me really want to do two things, to go back and to learn more about reading, but also to go to the early childhood years where I felt I could prevent problems before they actually happened.
Speaker 1:I love that message of prevention. Right. It's really important. Um, and I think the, the work that you're doing right now, which you're very passionate about, is very connected to that prevention. And we actually invited you on to talk a little bit about background knowledge. This is a series about the elements of Scarborough's Rope. Um, and we've been focusing a lot on the word recognition side. We're shifting to the language comprehension side. Um, and just talking a little bit about the role of background knowledge in reading comprehension. So I'd love for you to just explain to us a little bit about comprehension and background knowledge and how they fit together.
Speaker 2:Great. Well, you know, again, this is a area of passion for me because we see that many of our children, if I go back to my fifth graders again, you saw, you could see that some of them could actually read. Um, but they were word callers. Uh, this is a very sort of difficult stage if you've ever seen it, where children can actually read the words, but they don't understand them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And I tried to understand what was going on. I mean , um, they seemed to know those words, but they did not know the meaning of those words. And so I began to really , uh, uh, examine , um, comprehension much , um, in much greater depth. And I focused on the notion that a great deal of my training and of what people were saying is that children really need to activate their background knowledge. Um , that when you read, the first process that a teacher would do is to give them a sense of purpose and say, activate your background knowledge. But then I realized a very valuable lesson. What if they didn't have it? Hmm . What, what if they didn't have the background knowledge in order to activate? You could say to them, activate your background knowledge to kingdom come. But if they don't have it, they can't activate it. And so it became a real challenge for me to try and understand, well, what do you do when there isn't any? And that's why content knowledge became so critically important to me. Hmm .
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Um, because I do remember, ooh , this was a long time ago. I'm surprised. I still remember, but I do remember in my undergraduate program learning about like activating prior prior knowledge or Yeah . I am not sure they call it background knowledge at , at that point. So, so what, what, what do you do? First of all, that impacts reading comprehension. We like, we all know that. Um, what , what about, what comprehension, what is the connection there between background knowledge and comprehension?
Speaker 2:Well, in my view, let me first say that I do not see comprehension as a generic skill. Hmm . Some people think so, but I don't. Um, so for example, if I would read a sixth grade text in science, which is not my forte, <laugh> Forte
Speaker 1:<laugh> ,
Speaker 2:I would probably have a little bit of a problem in trying to understand some of the concepts and some of the terms. Um, I would probably not be able to connect and to activate any background knowledge. And so what I began to realize is that side of scarborough's , um, rope mm-Hmm . <affirmative> language comprehension to a great extent. It's two critical things. It's vocabulary and it's it's knowledge. It's content knowledge. And if you don't have content knowledge, you're likely not to be able to comprehend text . Now, this has an enormous , um, implication because what it means is that we have been spending our time on comprehension strategies instead of teaching content knowledge.
Speaker 1:And, and so you're, you're recommending or saying then , then what we should be doing then is that instead of teaching strategies, we should be building background knowledge?
Speaker 2:That's right. That's absolutely right. So some of the strategies you often hear about is, let's say you read a newspaper at night, you're relatively tired, and , uh, you use a comprehension strategy. One of them very clearly is , uh, reread. So I reread, but I still don't understand it too well. So I'm then supposed to ask myself questions. Well, I don't really have enough information to ask those questions. All right . So then I'm supposed to summarize , um, and maybe summarizing is a , another strategy we typically use, but then my summarization is just taking various sentences and plopping them together without really synthesizing that information. So my point is, is that some of the strategies that we have talked about in the past are dependent on having enough content knowledge in order to be able to use them . Mm . So that I think is an enormous insight because what it says to us is that from the very beginning, we have to start building content knowledge for our children if they don't have it.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense to me. I, I , I remember , um, one of my sons is actually in physics. He's a physics engineer. Um, and he would get excited to talk to me a little bit about what he was learning, and I had to listen and shake my head and <laugh> , right ? Like, just enjoy the conversation because I had no concept what he was talking about at all.
Speaker 2:Right? Right. You're shaking your head and saying , uh, ha ha , but not necessarily understanding what he's saying. That's right. Yeah .
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's true. And you know, it's interesting because let's say that you don't have content knowledge about a passage or, or a student doesn't have content knowledge about a passage. And so then we give them a or they're, they're not comprehending, they're not able to find the main idea. They're not, you know, able to summarize. Right . And if we give them a , uh, an easier to read text that they still don't know anything about, they still probably wouldn't be successful on that.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's still containing concepts that they haven't been given access to. So Right. We can level it down, we can make shorter sentences, but that does not , uh, address the critical issue that they haven't had the experience or they haven't had the knowledge to really gain more knowledge.
Speaker 1:Hmm . Yeah. And this idea that , uh, I, I , I think I'm inferring what you said, this idea that you have to have at least some background knowledge to engage in the content or the text of what you're reading, and then hopefully through that you'll build more content knowledge that you can take than to another text you would read about the same topic.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So what happens is that you don't need a lot of knowledge. You need entry into the subject matter , uh, uh, enough that you can start the process and accumulate more knowledge. Knowledge creates more knowledge. Mm-hmm , <affirmative> . So, and, and the interesting thing to me, Susan , is that children want to be expert. They want to be expert in a domain. And it kind of doesn't matter what domain that is, it's the feeling that goes along with knowing things about anything. So a child, for example, who comes to school knowing a lot about baseball, he feels good about himself. It , there's an affect to having content knowledge. And other children will recognize that and say, oh, he's the go-to guy for, you know, baseball information. So it has a , a duplicative effect of providing a good feeling about yourself and about knowing things. Children want to be , uh, knowledgeable.
Speaker 1:Hmm . That makes a lot of sense. When I was a teacher, I know , um, it was fun for me to deliver like topics and, and domains and content to students because they really did wanna be scientists and historians and, and know lots of things.
Speaker 2:Right. They do <laugh>
Speaker 1:And, and at some point, vocabulary, you know, also is a, is a connection to this. Now, I know we're not specifically talking about the Strand vocabulary, but, but we know, you know, Scarborough's rope isn't in isolation, right? The strands all sort of interweave with each other. What's the relationship here between background knowledge or content knowledge and vocabulary?
Speaker 2:Uh , there's a strong relationship , um, a very integral relationship. But , um, I, I think it speaks to something that, maybe it's a little bit of a tangent, Susan, but I'll I'll say it. You go ahead , <laugh> . Alright , you go ahead. Okay. One of the things that we do very often in , in teaching vocabulary, we teach words that are not necessarily related to one another and not intentionally focused on building that content knowledge. So, for example, I went to a , a particular core reading program. It's a core reading program that's not relevant. And the words of the week that children were supposed to learn were people, the word people, and the word around. Now you tell me what a round , the word around has to do with people, right?
Speaker 1:Y Yep . Not related, <laugh>
Speaker 2:Not related. And that might be sort a tier one like word. They're both quite easy to , um, um, yeah , to read. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . But then you go to more difficult words. Um, and, and the same phenomena often occurs that children are taught to learn sophisticated words or tier two words without any connection to those words. So a different strategy is to teach tier three words or what , uh, we call content related words, where those words are related to one another. So for example, if I know a manatee and a , a whale are both marine mammals, that I begin to build knowledge and a knowledge network. It's not only the vocabulary words. I know how the vocabulary words are connected and how they may relate to a larger concept, which is bere mammals. And that's what I think we should be doing, not only in teaching content, but teaching our vocabulary to think about the words and categories of words that we can teach children so that they learn more content knowledge. Hmm ,
Speaker 1:That makes sense. And so that would require then us to be in topics for longer than a single lesson, or even a single week maybe.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So in the very beginning of our work, we focus on topics, not themes, but topics.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? What's the difference between the two?
Speaker 2:Well, a topic is first thing, a topic is an informational , um, something that is informational. So for example, we believe that children, when they get to third grade, are going to need more about science and social studies. They're certainly going to be smarter about science and math than I certainly am <laugh>. And so we, we teach those kinds of words , um, in, in what we call topics. And the topics might be , uh, the mysteries of space or insects or wild animals. And the difference between what we call a topic and theme is that themes very often are broadly related. Um, for example, a grocery store , um, it might be a theme, right? Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . And we have words like a cashier and meat and milk. They're all related to a larger theme of grocery stores. But notice there's no relationship between the words themselves. Yeah. In the words we teach , um, in topics, we try to create categories or concepts as we teach them. So we'll say to the children , uh, a, b , um, uh, it is a type of insect , um, a , uh, so that children begin to learn that insect has, you know, three , uh, body parts, six legs, and that a spider may not be an insect because it has eight legs. So what we're trying to do in teaching topics is we're teaching categories , um, of, of vocabulary words, which will add to knowledge networks. Another example might be we'll teach , uh, healthy foods or fruit, and we teach banana is a type of fruit. Strawberry is a type of fruit, so that children get a sense of some of the common properties of that category.
Speaker 1:Ah , that makes a lot of sense. Um, so I know, and I'm referring to right now, I'm referring to an article , um, that you authored in Perspectives on Language and Literacy, published by the IDA Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Um , you talk about five research-based principles to then build these knowledge networks. Um, can you talk about some of those principles?
Speaker 2:Sure. I, I actually, I'd be delighted to <laugh> because , uh, I think they're, they're really important. I think one of the things we try to do, you mentioned this before, but one of the things we often do in teaching is we go too fast. Um , and what I mean by that is we'll teach a particular topic and then move on to something else. Um, in our work, we try to spend two weeks on a particular topic. Sometimes we'll even do three weeks if children are really engaged. And that's really important because it takes time to develop the depths of knowledge that we want children to have, as well as the vocabulary words that are associated with that. Um, comprehension and content is a slow developing process, so we have to , uh, give children enough time to , to get deeper in those ideas. So our first principle that we focus on is the big idea. And what we say is there are certain big ideas that we want to try and , um, uh, convey to children. So for example , uh, wild animals , um, insects, how are they all alike? Or, or pets? So I'll say to the children, wild insects, pets, you know , um, uh, uh, what other topic, well related to that, and I'll say to them, how are they all? Well, a pet is a living thing and needs food to survive. Wild animal is a living thing, and it needs food to survive. Same thing with insects. Live animal needs food to survive. So those big ideas are cross-cutting themes that cut across many different topics. And we think that's really important because children will develop a sense of order and structure in the knowledge that they're developing. So that's our first big , um, uh, big idea , um, in terms of helping children develop content knowledge.
Speaker 1:Hmm . And so you do that explicitly then, as opposed to going back to the beginning of our conversation, assuming they have it, or trying to activate prior knowledge. We just like instruct them and start from there.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So for example, instead of saying, what is this story about? Well, if they knew it, they wouldn't have to come to school. Uh , we, what we really, what we want to do is we want to give them our second principle, which is word, knowledge and explicitness. So in other words, when we start a story, instead of doing a picture walk, let's go through the pictures. Uh , picture walk can be problematic because if the children get the wrong idea, they're likely to keep that idea in their heads. Do you know , know what I mean? Great point. Yeah . Yeah. So what we do is we say, this story is about, and then let's pretend that this story is about a cave. And so, we'll, what we'll do is we'll start and we'll say to the children, we're gonna read a wonderful story. This book is, it's a story of caves. A cave is a hole in a mountain. And just a simple phrase, notice just a simple phrase, I didn't talk forever. But what that does is that it sets the purpose for the children, and it provides an easy child-friendly definition of the word. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And they'll remember that. They'll remember those kinds of things. So the explicit instruction, we have so much data, Susan, on the importance of explicitness. And I, I just would love teachers to remember that principle that that enables all children to achieve. So, for example, when we see that four out of five children are raising their hands, and the fifth children child does not raise their hand, they're likely not to because they don't know. And what we want to do is we want to begin every lesson with all children sharing that knowledge, so they all know. So that's our second principle.
Speaker 1:That's great. And I love that , um, reminder about explicit instruction, because I think we've talked about it in other episodes, but , um, but when we're thinking about building background knowledge, I think sometimes teachers believe that exposure is, and that implicit instruction is enough for what kids needs. And we, and , and we know that that's not true in , in all of, of how students learn.
Speaker 2:That's right. I think we all appreciate , um, uh, an even playing field, and that's what explicitness does. It levels the playing field. So everyone can participate as the community of learners, and that's really important.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:So our third principle, can I go on? You can go
Speaker 1:On <laugh> . Alright .
Speaker 2:Our , our third principle is , uh, that children really need multiple genres , um, in order to learn. We never start with the information book , um, when we are talking about our topics, because the information books have , uh, greater vocabulary, greater density of concepts. And so it's a , it's often a little bit difficult to begin that way. So what we often do is we begin with a predictable book, a predictable book in our topic, it may be the topic of insects or marine mammals, but a predictable book is wonderful because it provides co participation for our children. You know, if I say , um, brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? You know, that the children are going to see, I see a green frog looking at me. So in other words, there's a co participation that is just unnatural with predictable books. Plus it provides the vocabulary again and again. But of course, predictable books have limitations. They have, you know, wonderful language, wonderful lilting sounds of our language, and they create a mnemonic Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> , so many of you can remember conjunction junction, what's your function? Right . I know
Speaker 1:I'm gonna list , I'm gonna tear that in my head all day long. Now
Speaker 2:I know <laugh> , I know I hate to do that to you, <laugh> . But, but the fact of the matter is, is that predictable books have that mnemonic quality. And so they're very important for children, especially those who may struggle a little bit with language. But then we go on to narrative nonfiction and story books , because story books have an emotional content. You know, you could read about pigs, you know, and as an information book, but if you read Charlotte's Web, oh my gosh, you know, right . I mean , the emotion that you might feel when you read a storybook. So we then move on to storybooks and, and get children to know and recall and understand story structure. But then finally, we always go to information book over our two, three week period, because the information book will provide that wonderful content knowledge, plus the children will have heard the words again and again from the predictable book and the narrative nonfiction, so they can really deeply understand those information books. So we always do it in that sequence to provide the multiple genres so that children can really begin to build a deeper sense and a , a greater comfort with content knowledge.
Speaker 1:That's great. I'm gonna say back to you what I think I heard you say. Sure . Because I think this is a , this is a nuanced point that people , people could maybe miss. So if we are doing a topic of, let's say we're doing a topic of farm animals or farms Sure . That you don't have to jump just to informational text. With that, you should actually scaffold students starting with , uh, a great picture book to be able to engage them into the storyline and narrative, which comes much easier to them , uh, than, than the structure of an informational text to include all genres when we're talking about that topic.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You said it better than I did, but <laugh> , um, e exactly . So what you're doing is you're actually using the text as a scaffold. And that's really important to remember because sometimes teacher questioning can actually disrupt children's content knowledge. So we're always very careful in using the text and remembering when to talk with our children, because again, sometimes the interruptions can affect comprehension.
Speaker 1:I love what you just said, using the text as the scaffold. That's right. Um , because we do that as adults, if I don't understand something, I will go back to another source to try to figure it out and go to that text to help me scaffold. That's lovely. That's right . Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:That's right. Thank you. Well, I'll go on to my next.
Speaker 1:Please do. Okay.
Speaker 2:Um , my next , uh, big principle is distributed review. Um, and I think, again, we forget this a little bit. Um, when we teach distributive review is not just review, it's review over time. So very often in the description that we just talked about, whether it's farm animals or marine mammals, I will have children repeat and learn those words and content again and again through these different texts. But if I never revisited Susan, they'll forget children. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , they'll , they'll forget it. Yeah . And so what we have to do is we have to go back and, and do it again a little bit later. And what we found is distributed review is what we call spaced review. That means not repeating it immediately, but repeating it , uh, uh, at various intervals over time. So we, we will do repeated reading, but then we'll take a little break, go to another topic, show the topic, cross connections with our big ideas, and then maybe go back and, and talk about our book again. So we, we, we have to be careful to not forget and to remember that children are likely to go onto the next topic without seeing those cross connections. And that's where we're building those knowledge networks. We're reminding children what they've learned and how it , it creates greater depth over time.
Speaker 1:And , and this says to me then, and I , maybe this isn't true, but it feels to me then a classroom teacher needs to be really thoughtful. And I wouldn't even say a classroom teacher, but a an entire grade level to be really thoughtful about the, the topics that they're introducing and the connection and the coherence of those topics across the grade level. Is that right?
Speaker 2:That's absolutely right. Coherence is a , a , a perfect word here because what you're helping children to do is to create a mosaic putting all those ideas together in a knowledge network. And if you don't do it explicitly, many children cannot do it on their own. Um, they haven't had the experiences to do it , um, before. And so what you're doing is creating an intentional connection, and that's what they need, especially those who are struggling.
Speaker 1:Hmm . That makes sense. Well, why don't we go on to your last one? 'cause I have a feeling this is a great extension of what we just said.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. So , uh, my last one is intentional opportunities for language engagement. And this, oh, I'm so passionate about Susan <laugh> because , uh, because one of the things that , um, we know is that sometimes teachers do too much talking and children do too much listening. And what we know about knowledge is that knowledge is engaging. Oh, children just love it. And once they start on it, they, they really want to , uh, develop more and more. So we have a term we call conversational terms. And what this means is that it's almost like a conversational duet between a teacher and students, and we do it as a whole group rather than picking on individual children very often. So, in other words, all have a whole group of children who has listened to this wonderful story of VA mammals. And then I'll engage in very quick , uh, in conversational terms so that I speak, and then the children speak, I speak and the children speak. And in doing that, what we're doing is we're providing opportunities for them to talk and talk a lot. We're providing opportunities for those l children, English language learners, to feel like they're part of a team. You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , they're not singled out, they're not special. They are part of the classroom community and they're engaging in these conversations. But the important thing also is the strict amount of interaction has a dramatic effect on expressive language. So we have seen in our own data and data from others that that leads to content knowledge and comprehension, because they have to be on, they have to be engaged. And that's really critically important.
Speaker 1:And , and that's another connection that we actually saw on the word recognition side, is this connection between language, what students say and what they're able to read.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. If they can talk about it, they can begin to deeply understand it. You might even remember when you were studying for an exam years ago that often you had to say it out loud or express it in some way, whether it's writing or, or talking about it in order to know, ah , I do know what I'm talking about. And then you also know, Hey, sometimes I need to go back and relearn because I don't know it well enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I actually noticed that as, as an adult. I mean, I , I recently got a dog and take him out for a walk all the time. And what I found myself doing now is telling my dog about the things that I just read in the morning <laugh> . Right . And it actually helps me remember it better and work through it a little bit,
Speaker 2:<laugh> . That's right. Right. Exactly. You're working through.
Speaker 1:Yeah . Well, I'd like to read a couple of sentences from, from the end of this , uh, this article that you wrote. Sure . And for our listeners, we will link them to this in the show notes. True . Um , but here's the sentences. It says, despite the numerous consensus reports on the extent research on comprehension, we have ignored the factor that most powerfully predicts it knowledge. Instead, we have fallen prey to quick fixes, a wish fulfillment that some sort of monitoring, activation, or strategy might repair what has been lacking in background knowledge.
Speaker 2:That's right. I still believe that <laugh> , even though I wrote it about a year ago, I still believe that strongly. Yes .
Speaker 1:And, and the next sentence actually says it hasn't worked.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah. So, yeah. Go
Speaker 1:Tell me more.
Speaker 2:Oh , I was just gonna say that one of the things that we've done wrong, Susan, I, and I love this scholar, Jean Shaw, many years ago , uh, talked about children go from learning to read to reading to learn. And I love her work otherwise, but that is a wrong assumption. And it assumes that children are working on decoding and then magically around three third or fourth grade, well, then they're going to be engaged and want to learn to, you know, use reading to learn. But that doesn't happen. What happens is the skill they're developing early on, the way in which they're reading the reason for reading is occurring in those very, very early years. So if we don't engage them in content from the very beginning, by the time they get to fourth grade, they don't know why they're reading and they call it boring. And of course, you and I know that reading is anything but boring. Right. Um, so I think my, my point here is we've got to start early. We've got to start immediately and know that , um, children are eager to learn and to use the content to engage them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and Scarborough's Rope is organized that way we can get kids that rich, lovely , uh, knowledge through read aloud , texts in kindergarten, first, second grade.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They love it. And you know what they love being read to when they're, you know, sixth graders, eighth graders. Yes . They still love
Speaker 1:It. That's true. That's really true. Well, what are some of the new things you're thinking about or projects that you're working on right now? Well,
Speaker 2:One of the things that we're very interested , uh, and you're gonna not believe this to some extent, <laugh> after we've talked about this, but we've been focusing a lot on screen media and the opportunity for children to learn through educational screen media.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:And , um, what we find is that children learn , uh, vocabulary and content through screen media, and then that often connects with books. So we have , uh, actually just conducted an experiment that had children , uh, read and watch , um, uh, a wonderful story on , on science. Um, and what they, we found is they learned , uh, more vocabulary words, and they learned more content when they had cross media connections. Hmm . So I think this is a natural for many of us, especially when I think of families at home now, they feel a little guilty that their children are watching screen media, but if it's educational, if it's good , um, it often promotes children's interest in book reading. And I think that's something for us to consider the cross media connections and crossing boundaries , um, more and more.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's so accessible to kids', it seems like . That's right . You could take advantage of, of not an either or maybe, but maybe a both and
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 1:Well, this has been just super interesting, Susan. We appreciate your time and, and before we close out, I would just love for you to leave our listeners with some takeaways or things to think more about.
Speaker 2:Sure. Um, I'm always happy to do that. <laugh>, I guess, I guess one of the things I, I'd like to suggest to teachers especially is that we we're really doing harm for our children if we don't teach rich content early on , um, to them that they are so interested in learning. And so many times I will go into the classroom and I, I will see reading instruction without a connection to rich content and a focus on what they're reading. And so I urge , um, teachers to think about , uh, issues of ways in which we can address content earlier on. And to think about reading as something that is more than just learning the skill, but really engaging their minds. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 1:<affirmative> , that's great. And it feels a little bit like the advice you're giving teachers is full circle back to maybe the advice that you got from that first principal to That's right . Actually teach them something.
Speaker 2:Right. <laugh> . Um , I always feel a little guilty, Susan , why I tell that story, but I think it's a cautionary tale. You gotta love 'em , but you gotta teach them at the same time.
Speaker 1:No, I love it because being vulnerable like that and taking that feedback in , that's a hard thing to do, especially when you're a brand new teacher in the classroom. So thank you so much, number one for being , uh, being a guest on this episode, but for number, number two, and even more importantly, I guess, is for the work that you're doing for students. Uh , we appreciate it so much.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. It's been delightful.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening and keep your feedback coming. Do you wanna learn more? Be sure to stay connected by subscribing on your favorite podcast app and join our Facebook discussion group, science of Reading the community. Visit amplify.com to check out all our free literacy events and upcoming Science of Reading Symposium. Until next time, keep the hope, take the action and stay in touch.