January 15, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode, Susan Lambert rejoins podcast alum Natalie Wexler to discuss Natalie’s new book Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning. Listeners will gain insights into why this topic is important, what this book offers educators, why Natalie was so drawn to writing this book, and what cognitive science-informed teaching looks like in general. Natalie addresses how cognitive load theory works in practice with literacy, misconceptions about focusing only on phonics, and scaling science-informed instruction. Natalie also answers a question from the listener mailbag about encouraging colleagues to adopt an evidence-based approach.
Show notes:
- Connect with Natalie Wexler:
- Website: nataliewexler.com
- Pre-order Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning: https://ascd.org/books/beyond-the-science-of-reading?variant=125006
- Substack: Minding the Gap, by Natalie Wexler
- Resources:
- Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
- Connect with Susan Lambert: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-b1512761/
- Listen to Illinois administrator Serena Klosa on Beyond My Years!
Quotes:
“We’re overlooking the ways in which the typical approach to teaching reading comprehension and writing actually conflict with what cognitive science tells us about how people learn to do those things.” —Natalie Wexler
“We spend much more time trying to teach…them to read, but we kind of expect them to just pick up writing. You know, for most kids, it does not happen.” —Natalie Wexler
“No matter how good you are at making inferences, if you don't have the requisite background knowledge, you're not gonna be able to do it.” —Natalie Wexler
“It doesn't work to just ask inexperienced writers to just write down stuff. That is not going to provide the cognitive benefits.” —Natalie Wexler
Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Natalie Wexler?
04:00 Natalie’s new book
07:00 What is the science of learning?
11:00 Connecting the science of learning to reading, writing, literacy
14:00 Automaticity and cognitive load theory
17:00 Transferable vs non-transferable skills
22:00 Strategies to release cognitive load when learning new skills
24:00 Learning to write, writing to learn.
29:00 Bringing science informed teaching to scale
32:00 What readers will take away from the book
33:00 Mailbag question: How can one person get more colleagues to use an evidence-based approach?
36:00 Final thoughts
*Timestam
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Natalie Wexler (00:00):
These barriers that we have erected between
reading and writing are kind ofartificial. And need to come
down. But also between reading,writing, and learning. This
stuff is all connected.
Susan Lambert (00:15):
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science
of Reading (00:17):
The Podcast from Amplify. I hope your new year
has gotten off to a greatstart! And I hope you're
excited to return to our Season9 reading reboot. All season
long, we're reexamining andbuilding on foundational
literacy concepts. So far,we've explored the fundamental
(00:39):
differences between standardsand curriculum. We've rethought
comprehension. We've revisitedthe critical role of text diet
and so much more. Today, I'mthrilled to welcome back
education writer and authorNatalie Wexler, whose brand new
book is "Beyond the Science ofReading: Connecting Literacy
(00:59):
Instruction to the Science ofLearning." Natalie will help us
unpack the fundamentals andlatest research on learning
science. We'll also reach backinto our mailbag to tackle
another fabulouslistener-submitted question.
Let's now welcome back, NatalieWexler. Natalie Wexler, thank
(01:19):
you so much for joining us ontoday's episode.
Natalie Wexler (01:22):
Delighted to be here, as always, Susan.
Susan Lambert (01:26):
I was gonna say, again, and for those of you
that are new listeners, you maynot recognize Natalie Wexler,
but she is a friend of thepodcast. And I think this is
your third appearance. Is thatthe right word?
Natalie Wexler (01:39):
Yes, I suppose, if not everybody's seeing me,
but I am appearing. At leastvia audio. And yeah, I think it
is the third time.
Susan Lambert (01:46):
It's really exciting. You launched this
podcast into existence wayback. Several years ago. I
can't even remember how longago it was, but it was right
after you published your veryfirst book. Is that right? When
you published your first book,"The Knowledge Gap" ?
Natalie Wexler (02:02):
Yeah, that came out in August 2019. And it was
a month or two later, I think,that I was the first guest on
the podcast.
Susan Lambert (02:10):
And since then, you've also done , in the book
publishing world, you've done"The Writing Revolution," part
one and part two.
Natalie Wexler (02:20):
Yeah, the first edition came out in 2017, so
actually before "The KnowledgeGap."
Susan Lambert (02:26):
Oh, true . Yes .
Natalie Wexler (02:27):
But we came out with "The Writing Revolution
2.0" in I think July of 2024.
So pretty recently.
Susan Lambert (02:34):
Congratulations! Very exciting. And I will tell
you that there is almost noplace that I go across the
country, no district, noschool, no classroom, that
doesn't know about your work.
For sure either on "TheKnowledge Gap" or on "The
Writing Revolution." That'spretty amazing, isn't it?
Natalie Wexler (02:52):
It's totally mind boggling . It is not at
all what I was expecting. Andit's been incredibly gratifying
to have so many people be awareof, and often embracing, the
messages in those books.
Susan Lambert (03:05):
And the great thing about those books is they
both sort of go together,right? So this idea of
knowledge building, superimportant, and the idea of
extending knowledge building byincorporating that into what
you're doing in writing is alsopretty exciting.
Natalie Wexler (03:22):
Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, it is allconnected. And we've been
treating these things asseparate.
Susan Lambert (03:27):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (03:27):
But they're really not.
Susan Lambert (03:29):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And you're joining us
today because you have a newbook out called "Beyond the
Science of Reading (03:36):
Connecting Literacy Instruction to the
Science of Learning." So why anew book? And tell us a little
bit about it.
Natalie Wexler (03:46):
Well, I actually was not planning to
write another book. I felt likethat was exhausting. I'm not
sure I can do it again. And wewere sort of in the middle of
"The Writing Revolution 2.0,"but I had blurbed a book by
someone else, and the publishersaid, right after I sent in the
endorsement, "We're looking forsomeone who might be interested
(04:08):
in writing a book on why theScience of Reading needs to go
beyond phonics. Do you knowanyone who..." And that is an
issue that had been on my mindfor some time. When I wrote The
Knowledge Gap, I don't thinkI'd ever heard anybody use the
term Science of Reading. Maybethe first time was your
podcast, I don't know. Butcertainly when I was writing
(04:31):
the book, that was not a termthat people were using. And it
has since become one. Not thatthe Science of Reading is
limited to science relating tophonics instruction, but the
spotlight has really beentrained on problems with
phonics instruction. H owphonics instruction doesn't
(04:52):
line up to the science ondecoding or on word
recognition, foundationalskills. And it was a little
frustrating to me, because ofcourse there is a lot of
science relating to otheraspects of reading, like
comprehension. And literacygenerally, like writing. And
that was sort of gettingdefined out of the Science of
Reading in a way. I think itwas leading to the idea that if
(05:15):
we just fix that phonics part,everything's gonna be fine. So
I definitely wanted to addressthat. But I went beyond what
they asked, because I have hadsort of one foot in the Science
of Reading world and another int he Science of Learning, o r
cognitive science world. AndI've noticed both of these
(05:37):
movements, the Science ofLearning, cognitive science
movement, has been smaller, has gotten less attention than
the Science of Readingmovement. But both of these
movements are d oing greatthings. Bringing news o f what
science tells us about learningand about reading to educators.
But I saw that there was adisconnect between these two
(05:59):
movements. And that the Scienceof Learning community, they too
were kind of just focusing onphonics. If you're doing a good
job of teaching phonics, thenyour instruction is in line
with t he Science of Learning.
But they were overlooking theways in which the typical
approach to teaching readingcomprehension and writing, the
way those approaches actuallyconflict with what cognitive
science tells us about howpeople learn to do those
(06:22):
things.
Susan Lambert (06:22):
Can you talk a little bit more about cognitive
science, and what it tells usabout learning? I know we're
gonna get into maybe readingand writing and relationship to
that. But generally, when yousay the Science of Learning,
what does that, at a metalevel, sort of mean to you?
Natalie Wexler (06:39):
Well, it's hard to summarize it in an elevator
speech.
Susan Lambert (06:46):
An elevator pitch.
Natalie Wexler (06:46):
Yeah, an elevator pitch. But I will try.
So, there are a number ofprinciples of learning and
teaching that have accumulateda lot of evidence behind them,
going back to maybe the 1970sor so. And basically, there are
things like, for example,retrieval practice. So
retrieval practice means thatthe more you try retrieving an
(07:10):
item of information that youhave somewhere in long-term
memory, but you've maybeslightly forgotten it.
Recalling that informationmakes it easier to retrieve in
the future. And I think that isa sort of fundamental
principle. And then there arevariations on it. Like it's
good to sort of mix things up,and that's called distributed
practice or stretch. That kindof this practice out over a
(07:32):
period of time spaced practice.
And then there's things likeelaboration, or sometimes it's
called elaborative rehearsal,where explaining things, coming
up with examples of things thatreally helps with comprehension
of information. And so thereare conferences I've been to,
and lots of books out there,and articles sort of listing
(07:54):
these principles and why theywork. And that is actually
another point that I think iscrucial. There's something
called Cognitive Load Theory,which really explains why these
things are so helpful tolearning. And that has to do
with the way we take in newinformation. Basically it's
called working memory, which isthe aspect of our consciousness
(08:15):
where we're trying to makesense of new information. And
it's very limited. It can onlyhold maybe four items for 20
seconds before it starts tobecome overwhelmed. And the
best way around that is to haveinformation stored in long-term
memory and to be able toretrieve it. 'Cause if you can
retrieve some relevantinformation, whether you're
reading, or listening, orwhatever, that is going to
(08:38):
expand your capacity in workingmemory to take in new
information. So if you'rereading about baseball, or
listening to a radiobroadcaster, if they still have
those things of describing abaseball game and the
terminology, you know what adouble play is or whatever, you
don't have to look it up orwhatever. You can just attend
to that information. And so I'dsay that, overall, what these
(09:02):
principles of cognitive sciencedepend on is knowledge. They're
all sort of geared to enablingstudents to retain information
in long-term memory. Be able toretrieve it easily, so that
they can analyze it and thinkabout it in various ways. And
so that's the basics ofcognitive science, as applied
(09:24):
to teaching and learning.
Susan Lambert (09:26):
That's super helpful. And it reminds me that
we've done a couple of episodeson this. So, most recently, we
had Greg Ashman on to talkabout Cognitive Load Theory.
And then we had another episodetoo with Peter Brown, "Make It
Stick." Do you remember thatbook, Natalie?
Natalie Wexler (09:43):
Yes, I do.
Yeah. That's sort of thegranddaddy of these books that
are, I forget when it came out,but it was at least 10 years
ago or more . And since then,there have been more and more
books. Greg Ashman is amongthem. ButI, list them in the
new book, some of them in oneparagraph, and there are like
eight different titles that Icould come up with almost off
(10:05):
the top of my head. So there'sno shortage of books aimed at
acquainting teachers with thesethings. I don't know how much
it's really penetrated. It'spenetrated more, I think, in
some other countries, likeEngland and Australia. But it's
been a little slower to get offthe ground here in the United
States.
Susan Lambert (10:22):
So was that when the interest to take all that
information that we know abouthow we learn and sort of
intersect it with what's thislook like in literacy? Reading
and writing?
Natalie Wexler (10:35):
Yeah, well, one of the things I've noticed is
that when I go to theseconferences, etc., that the
discussion of cognitive loadand the Science of
Learning-informed teachingreally focuses on things like
science, math. Maybe history tosome extent. But not so much on
reading. And certainly not onreading comprehension, or
(10:55):
writing. There's been verylittle research applying
Cognitive Load Theory to thosethings. But I was sitting there
thinking, or reading thesebooks and thinking, "Well, how
does this apply to what I knowabout how reading comprehension
and writing are taught?" And soone thing I noticed was, if you
look at those things throughthe lens of Cognitive Load
(11:16):
Theory. And the idea that ifyou're trying to juggle too
much new information in workingmemory, you're gonna lose your
ability to comprehend, orretain, information. We're
making reading and writing muchharder for kids than they need
to be, because we are askingthem to apply skills like
finding the main idea, orsummarizing, or whatever to
(11:39):
topics that they may or may notknow anything about. The way
literacy instruction isorganized is there's a focus on
a skill. The teacher may modelthe skill on a text on one
topic, but then kids aresupposed to go off and practice
it on texts on other topics. Orwrite about other topics that
they may have limited, verylimited, information about. And
(12:01):
so they're not only juggling inworking memory, the cognitive
demands of reading, andespecially writing, which if
you are not yet a proficientreader and writer, those
cognitive demands are veryheavy.
Susan Lambert (12:12):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (12:13):
But they're also trying to deal with
content that they may notreally know anything about. And
so that makes it harder to readand write. It also makes it
harder to use reading andwriting as ways of learning and
deepening knowledge, whichclearly they are, but the other
thing that I noticed is there'sbeen very little application of
(12:34):
Cognitive Load Theory towriting. Surprisingly. Because
we know writing imposes acrushing cognitive load. If
you're not an experiencedwriter, even if you are. In
addition to asking kids oftento write about topics they may
not know much about, like in aseparate writing curriculum or
whatever, we don't explicitlyteach them to write, we spend
much more time trying to, withgreater and lesser degrees of
(12:59):
success, teach them to read,but we kind of expect them to
just pick up writing. And thatreally, for most kids, it does
not happen. And if you thinkabout the cognitive load that
they're encountering, thatreally helps explain why. And
it also deprives writing of itspotential power as a lever for
(13:19):
deepening and reinforcingknowledge of content.
Susan Lambert (13:23):
Let's go back to the reading piece. Because when
we think about and we talkabout either the Simple View of
Reading or Scarborough'sReading Rope, there's two
elements to it. This wordrecognition side are the
foundational skills. I hear alot of folks talking about
these things are important,because we want to develop them
(13:45):
to automaticity, thefoundational reading skills,
right? We wanna develop thoseto automaticity, so that kids
can use their cognitive energyto put to the upper part of
Scarborough's Rope or thelanguage comprehension element.
So is that a small step intoapplying Cognitive Load Theory
into what it takes to become aproficient reader?
Natalie Wexler (14:07):
Yes. And I have seen in both camps, on the
Science of Learning side, theScience of Reading side, I have
seen people make that point.
And it's a completely validpoint. You are not gonna have
the cognitive capacity forcomprehension analysis, etc.,
if you are expanding so muchcognitive effort on just
(14:28):
figuring out what the wordsare. So, yeah, we have made
progress there.
Susan Lambert (14:32):
Yes. That's great. But I think your point
is that the same applies to theupper part of the rope, or the
other element of the SimpleView of Reading. This sort of
language is that there's thingswe can do to support kids in
developing backgroundknowledge, or building
background knowledge, thatwould actually help them be
(14:52):
better readers or writers,right?
Natalie Wexler (14:54):
Yes. And I'm glad you raised that, this
isn't so much in the bookbecause I've continued to think
about it and it's too late toadd things to the book, But I
think, first of all, we'renever going to have some of
these skills practiced toautomaticity. And I think there
has been an idea out there fora long time for kids to master
(15:15):
some of these comprehensionskills, like making inferences
or finding the main idea. Andthen they will just sort of do
those things automatically. Orthey'll be metacognitive, which
is not supposed to beautomatic, but that is a
conscious monitoring of yourcomprehension. I don't wanna
(15:39):
get into this, but I'm not surethat there's a huge difference
between those metacognitivestrategies and the supposedly
automatic skills, because Ithink really expert readers
when they're reading, they'renot consciously saying, "Well,
I wanna visualize now." Or "I'mgonna ask myself questions
now." It does become kind ofautomatic, but not in the way
that decoding is. I think thatit's not so much that you can
(16:05):
practice this on a simple text.
You can practice finding themain idea, it will become
automatic, and then you will beable to apply that skill to any
text. However, I think there'sa distinction between
transferable skills andnon-transferable skills that I
think is important.
Susan Lambert (16:21):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (16:22):
So decoding, like riding a bike, is a
transferrable skill. For themost part. It doesn't matter
what bike you're riding, theprinciples remain the same. No
matter what word you'redecoding, you should be able to
apply them and figure out whatthat word is. The two that I
would like to focus on aremaking inferences and finding
(16:43):
the main idea. Let's takefinding the main idea first. I
don't think it's completelytransferrable, but I'd say it's
also summarizing. I would callit summarizing, finding the
main idea, they're pretty muchthe same thing. They're sort of
semi-transferrable. If youexplicitly teach kids how to
(17:04):
summarize a paragraph or atext, that doesn't mean they're
gonna be able to apply thoseskills to summarize anything
easily. If they have morebackground knowledge, it's
gonna be easier to summarizethat text. They have less
background knowledge, it can beharder. But if they have some
idea of what goes intosummarizing, they're definitely
a step ahead. So I do thinkthere's a reason to teach that
(17:27):
sort of thing explicitly. Theproblem is we've been teaching
it basically by saying, "Well,OK, just put in the important
stuff and leave out theunimportant stuff." And that's
not enough for most kids. Youreally have to help them
determine what's important.
Let's now move to makinginferences. It's not so much
like a transferable skill thatyou can explicitly teach. The
(17:50):
basics of making an inferenceis something that human beings
just do naturally, right? Imean, babies, toddlers make
inferences. That doesn't meanthey're gonna automatically,
naturally be able to make aninference about any text.
Susan Lambert (18:04):
Right, right, right.
Natalie Wexler (18:05):
But I don't think we need to sort of teach
the skill of making inferencesin the abstract. What we do
need to do is repeatedly, inthe context of whatever text
kids are reading, guide them tomake sure they're understanding
how to make inferences aboutthat text. And that they have
the background knowledge tomake those inferences. Because
(18:25):
no matter how good you are atmaking inferences, if you don't
have the requisite backgroundknowledge you're not gonna be
able to do it. It's not likethis idea is , "Well, we can
teach making inferences orwhatever for six weeks the way
they do in these studies andthen we're done." No. These are
(18:46):
things that need to becontinued across a child's
academic career, but not asdiscreet, like you're just
gonna learn to make inferencesand we'll use this text to
learn to do that, or whatever,but rather as a means to an end
of understanding a particulartext or a particular topic
(19:06):
repeatedly.
Susan Lambert (19:07):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. My
understanding of inference toohas developed just over the
course of the last 12 to 18months. Because if you think
about it, if you have a lot ofknowledge of a topic, you
automatically make an inferenceand you don't even realize that
you're making that inference.
And to sort of backtrack andunravel that and figure that
(19:28):
out, it's like, "Oh, oh."
Natalie Wexler (19:30):
Right. Right.
So many of these things, Ithink, as expert readers, we
don't do consciously. Andthat's where all of this
research on strategyinstruction began. They wanted
to figure out what are expertreaders doing sort of
unconsciously that we canextract, isolate, and try to
(19:50):
teach to inexpert readers ordeveloping readers. So that's
where it started, but at acertain point it adds to your
cognitive load. I think if youare focusing on the strategy,
or the skill, rather than thecontent, and you're thinking,
"OK, I have to make aninference now. Like how do I do
that again?" I think what makesa lot more sense is that kids
(20:14):
should know the term inference.
They should understand whatthat means. But I think it's
probably more effective to justask questions about a text, or
about a topic, that implicitlyrequires kids to make
inferences. And I've certainlyseen that work very well in
classrooms. They're gettinginto the habit, consciously or
not, of thinking, reading in aparticular way that involves
(20:38):
making inferences.
Susan Lambert (20:40):
I just had a connection too , with things
that you have said before,which is some of these, like
finding the main idea, makingan inference, cause-effect
relationships, that when youput the content first, and
those things come up to supportdeveloping knowledge of the
(21:02):
content, that's really the mosteffective means by which to
help support students. And tome then, this really relates to
what you're talking about interms of cognitive load. So, in
other words, you wanna focusthe kids on the text, and
what's in the text, and use thestrategies to help them learn
(21:22):
what's in the text. And thatcan release some of the
cognitive load for them.
Natalie Wexler (21:26):
Yes. And just add one thing about that. I
think that is a great summary.
You've probably heard me saythis many times, so I'm not
surprised that you cansummarize it. but
speaking of summarizing, so with something like, and
here I'm drawing on "TheWriting Revolution," one of
Judy Hochman's insights, whichI don't think Cognitive Load
(21:47):
Theory really had come intoexistence when she was creating
"The Writing Revolution"method, but she, through trial
and error, and instinct, Ithink the method incorporates a
lot of what cognitive sciencewould tell us about what works
best. And one of the thingsthat she emphasizes is that
when you are introducing a newwriting strategy, and I would
(22:07):
say writing strategies areprobably the most effective way
to teach all the things we tryto get at through reading
comprehension strategies, butwhen you're introducing a new
strategy, like summarizing, orusing subordinating
conjunctions, or whatever, youwant to introduce it in the
context of familiar material.
Maybe a holiday, Halloween,whatever. Or something that's
(22:28):
already been covered in thecurriculum. Because you don't
want kids to have to beunderstanding unfamiliar
content at the same timethey're trying to understand a
new writing strategy. So Ithink that is an attempt to
modulate cognitive load,whether or not you put it in
those terms. So unlike makinginferences, you can explain
(22:52):
what that means, but I don'tthink you have to have kids
practice making inferences inthe abstract before they can do
it in the context of somethingthey're reading. But I do think
with something likesummarizing, which is a lot
harder, it makes sense tointroduce it in the context of
some familiar material. Butthen, very quickly, once kids
have the basic idea, you wannastart having them apply that to
(23:15):
content that they're currentlylearning. Because it's gonna
really boost theirunderstanding, retention, and
ability to analyze whatever thematerial is that. Something
like summarizing is a hugeboost to comprehension.
Susan Lambert (23:30):
It's really interesting, because everybody
knows sort of the term "Firstwe learn to read, and then we
read to learn," which I thinkis a false dichotomy. But, we
talk in education a lot aboutlearning to read and then
reading to learn. We don't talkas much about learning to write
and writing to learn. Like thedistinctions between those two.
Natalie Wexler (23:53):
Yeah.
Susan Lambert (23:54):
How do you think about that?
Natalie Wexler (23:56):
That's interesting that you mentioned
that, because I recently wrotea post for my Substack
newsletter on these write tolearn studies. There's a strand
in writing research, or ineducation research, going back
to I believe the seventies on,about do students learn more
(24:19):
when they write about content?
And these studies have found,yes. There's a sort of moderate
boost. But results areambiguous. And sometimes you
get a negative result. Sosometimes writing about content
somehow decreases learning. Sowhy would that be? Well, the
missing piece here that I thinkhelps to explain why that might
(24:42):
be is writing is really hard.
Maybe in some of these studiesyou had more inexperienced
writers. Writers who got lesssupport, less instruction. And
so, their working memory was sooverwhelmed by the effort of
trying to put their thoughtsinto a written form that they
(25:03):
did not get those learningbenefits. This is why it's so
important to bring together theScience of Learning and the
Science of not just Reading butLiteracy. And the flip side of
that is, I have repeatedly comeacross studies from cognitive
science that say they're aboutretrieval practice or
(25:23):
elaboration, but when you lookat what they asked students to
do, it was writing. Andretrieval practice has come to
be associated with testing. Itused to be called the testing
effect. And quizzes, tests,that is one great way to engage
in retrieval practice. But theiconic retrieval practice
experiment actually had collegestudents writing about an
article they had read.
Susan Lambert (25:44):
Very interesting.
Natalie Wexler (25:45):
And they found a really significant boost from
that. But that was collegestudents. Here's an interesting
thing. When those sameresearchers did the same
experiment with fourth graders,using fourth-grade level text
or whatever, they found thosefourth graders did not get that
learning benefit. I think thecollege students remembered 81%
of the concepts that they hadread about after writing about
(26:06):
it and tested a week later orwhatever. The fourth graders
remembered 9% of thoseconcepts. Because they did not
have the cognitive capacity toget the learning benefits. And
then those researchers did acouple more experiments. If you
gave the kids more support, oryou asked them not to write but
just to like memorizevocabulary words, you did find
(26:27):
that retrieval practice hadsignificant benefits for them,
as for the college students.
But it doesn't work to just askinexperienced writers to just
write down stuff that is notgoing to provide the cognitive
benefits.
Susan Lambert (26:41):
It reminds me of the differences between writing
instruction and writingactivities. Because I think a
lot of teachers in theelementary grades, from my
experience, are giving kidsopportunities to write with
little instruction. So, itwould go to say that the
cognitive load there is too bigfor them. Because you need to
(27:03):
break this down into somethingmuch more discreet.
Natalie Wexler (27:05):
Yes, absolutely. And you need to
start really at the sentencelevel, if that's what kids
need. And we barely try toteach that. And you need to
teach kids how to create linearoutlines for paragraphs and
essays, again to modulatecognitive load. 'Cause even if
you know how to constructsentences, writing at length
(27:27):
can impose a heavy cognitiveload of its own. But if you've
got a linear outline, thenyou've offloaded some of that
burden onto the paper, or thescreen, or whatever, and that
gives you more working memorycapacity for the writing
itself.
Susan Lambert (27:42):
Hmm , oh my goodness. So much here. And for
our listeners, I send over ourguests a series of questions,
just to sort of keep theconversation going. We went way
off script , didn't we?
Natalie Wexler (27:55):
Yes, we
did. But you know, it's still
good.
Susan Lambert (27:58):
It's so great. I am gonna bring us back a little
though. Because you have achapter in your book that's
titled "BringingScience-Informed Teaching to
Scale." And I'm really curiousabout what led you to include
that chapter?
Natalie Wexler (28:14):
Well, I think that is the ultimate question
in anything to do witheducation. I think maybe it was
Dylan Wiliam who said,"Everything works somewhere,
and nothing works everywhere."
Susan Lambert (28:26):
Oh , that's a good one.
Natalie Wexler (28:27):
How do you find an intervention or something
that works and bring it up toscale? Where not only a few
kids benefit, but masses ofchildren benefit. It's tricky.
And I think what I'm talkingabout is not impossible, but it
(28:48):
does take effort. It takesunderstanding. And, I do wanna
say, and I think this is one ofthe things I say in that
chapter, that I'm notnecessarily saying we should
tell teachers, "OK, you'veheard about the Science of
Reading. You have to figurethat out. Now there's also the
Science of Writing. And inaddition, Science of Learning.
And here are all theseprinciples, and you need to
figure them out. Understandthem, and figure out how to
(29:09):
apply them in your classroom."That is, I think, a crushing
burden. And I would not besurprised if teachers ran
screaming from a room whereanybody told them that. I think
that what our best chance ofsuccess is is, to first of all,
reliably identify goodcontent-rich curricula,
beginning in kindergarten,including literacy curricula
(29:32):
that cover topics in scienceand social studies. And then
some of them may not have thesupport they need, especially
with regard to writing, forpeople to really get the full
benefit of that content. Somarrying a content-rich
curriculum with an approachwith explicit writing
instruction, that's embedded inwhatever the content is that
(29:54):
you're teaching, at any gradelevel, that can bring students
and teachers all the benefits,and possibly more, of cognitive
science-informed teaching. Butit may be more appealing
because I think t hose teachersknow that they need help with
writing instruction. It'sreally hard. Teachers generally
(30:15):
don't get much training i n howto teach it. And if they give
any writing assignments,they're probably aware that
many of their students needhelp and they're not sure what
to do. So I think if you say,not necessarily, "Here's
cognitive science, and you'regonna apply that in your
classroom," but saying, "Here'ssome help with writing
instruction, across thecurriculum," and I think they
(30:36):
will see, and I saw this happenin a district that I visited,
that it's not just aboutwriting. It carries over to all
sorts of other things. Readingcomprehension. And one reason
for that is a big barrier toreading comprehension is the
syntax. The sentence structureof written language. But if you
teach kids how to use complexsentence structure in their own
writing, subordinatingconjunctions, whatever, they're
(30:57):
in a much better position tounderstand it in their reading.
It also makes their orallanguage sort of richer and
more sophisticated. Language isconnected to thinking. If you
can talk and write in a moresophisticated way, that
reflects that you are thinkingin a more sophisticated way. So
there are all these benefitsthat come along with effective
writing instruction.
Susan Lambert (31:18):
That's lovely.
So I wonder what you thinkreaders will like most about
this book?
Natalie Wexler (31:24):
Well, I hope that they will see the
connections, and they willappreciate these connections,
between things that don'talways get connected. Like they
may have heard about retrievalpractice, but if they're
teaching reading in anelementary classroom and
they're trying to teach readingcomprehension, they may not
(31:45):
have understood why retrievalpractice can't really be
applied there. 'Cause there'snothing to practice retrieving.
So I think I'd like teachers,and also those in the cognitive
science world, to see thatthese barriers that we have
erected between certainlyreading and writing are kind of
(32:06):
artificial. And need to comedown. But also between reading,
writing, and learning. Thisstuff is all connected. And I
hope that they will appreciatehearing that. Every literacy
teacher also needs to be acontent teacher. And vice
versa. Every content teacherneeds to be a literacy teacher.
And think about, "Are the kidsunderstanding this text? What
(32:27):
vocabulary do I want them tofocus on and retain? And how
about writing, what writingactivities could I do that are
embedded in this content thatwill increase their
understanding and retention ofthe information?"
Susan Lambert (32:39):
Well, I want to bring a question from our
listener mailbag. This onecomes from Laurel D., A coach
specialist in Pennsylvania. Andshe really wants to know how to
bring colleagues over to aScience of Reading approach.
And she asks this, "How can oneperson do this within their
school? Make meaningful changewithout getting burnt out?"
Natalie Wexler (33:04):
So one of the things I learned in the writing
of this book was there's aneducation journalist named
Holly Korbey who has anexcellent Substack newsletter
called "The Bell Ringer." Andshe has also been writing about
cognitive science and teachingand learning in the United
States. And she had a profileof a principal at a school in
the Midwest, I guess it was anelementary school, who
(33:31):
requested anonymity. And herequested anonymity because he
was aligning instruction in hisschool with the Science of
Learning, but apparently, it'sthe education method that dare
not speak its name .
And he said, "Their scores hadincreased, but he couldn't get
other schools interested inwhat they were doing." But, one
of the things he said was, "Wedon't call it the Science of
(33:54):
Learning. We just do it." And Ithink in some ways that makes
sense. Because I think whatconvinces teachers is when they
see results. I think if youintroduce them to a bunch of
scientific principles, I'm notsaying you shouldn't, but if
people are skeptical, I thinkthat just doing it and seeing
(34:17):
what happens can often be abetter way of bringing them
around. Of course it helps ifyou're a principal, if you're a
school leader, district leader.
As an individual teacher,there's a limit to what you can
do. Another thing that HollyKorbey has written about is
teachers who are the only onesin their building feeling like
they really can't talk aboutit, because they don't always
(34:38):
get a good reception from theircolleagues. So maybe just
trying these things in your ownclassroom, to the extent that
you can, and talking aboutwhat's happening in your
classroom. Getting some otherteachers interested in maybe
coming and taking a look, a ndthey might wanna try it a s
well.
Susan Lambert (34:57):
I think that's great advice. And thanks Laurel
for the question. Natalie, anyfinal thoughts for our
listeners before we let you go?
Natalie Wexler (35:07):
Following up on that last question, I would
just sort of encourageclassroom teachers who might be
listening to just try some ofthis. One way to identify
whether your curriculum is seton content is if you ask kids
to write about something that'sin the curriculum and they
(35:29):
don't have enough informationto write anything coherent,
that's a sign that you need tosupplement the curriculum.
Bring some more content in tosee what happens. It takes a
little while. You gotta getused to it. The kids gotta get
used to it. So maybe try itmore than once. But just be
open to approaching things in adifferent way, and and seeing
(35:51):
what happens.
Susan Lambert (35:52):
Great advice.
We're looking forward to yournew book coming out. We don't
know if it's gonna be out bythe time this episode drops,
but for sure it'll be on apre-order. And we will make
sure we link our listeners inthe show notes to that.
Natalie Wexler (36:04):
Great, thank you.
Susan Lambert (36:05):
Thank you again.
We really appreciate you,Natalie.
Natalie Wexler (36:08):
Well, it's always a pleasure, Susan.
Thanks for having me .
Susan Lambert (36:15):
That was Natalie Wexler, education writer and
author. Her new book is "Beyondthe Science of Reading:
Connecting Literacy Instructionto the Science of Learning."
We'll have a link in the shownotes. We'll also have a link
to Natalie's website,nataliewexler.com, where you
can learn more about herSubstack: Minding the Gap and
(36:35):
Season 1 of the KnowledgeMatters podcast, which she
hosted. And if you'd like tohear more from Natalie, we'll
also link to her pastappearances on this show, on
these episodes. She talks aboutsome of her previous work,
including her books, "TheKnowledge Gap" and "The Writing
Revolution," which sheco-authored with Judith C.
(36:56):
Hochman. Next time on Scienceof Reading: The Podcast, we're
continuing our reading rebootwith a focus on language and
language development. Dr.
Tiffany Hogan is going tounpack the key components and
complexities of language, andshe'll delve into developmental
language disorder.
Tiffany Hogan (37:14):
Just like we know that if a child has severe
difficulties in learning toconnect letters and sounds, we
would characterize that asDyslexia. On the other hand, on
the other side I will say, ofthat simple view of reading, if
they have difficulty inlearning language, then we see
they have that difficultycalled Developmental Language
Disorder, that's associatedwith language comprehension.
(37:36):
And importantly, there's a highoverlap between these two, but
there's not a one-to-onecorrelation.
Susan Lambert (37:41):
That fascinating conversation will be right in
this feed in two weeks. Also,be sure to check out the latest
episode of the Beyond My Yearspodcast. Host Ana Torres just
led an in-depth conversationabout how to actually be
coachable, and get the most outof feedback from other
educators.
Ana Torres (38:01):
For those newer educators that may have a hard
time with that, what's yourmessage about handling critical
feedback?
Serena Klosa (38:10):
I would say those people who are in a position to
get feedback, try todepersonalize it. As the person
receiving feedback, try not totake everything personal. I
used to say, "Every kick in thebutt is a boost up ."
Ana Torres (38:23):
I like that. I like that.
Serena Klosa (38:24):
OK. You might get kicked in the behind, and it
may hurt, but it's a boost up.
Susan Lambert (38:29):
That's available now in the Beyond My Years
feed. We'll also have a link inthe show notes. Remember to
subscribe to Science ofReading: The Podcast on the
podcast app of your choice, andshare it with your friends and
colleagues. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you (38:42):
undefined
by Amplify. I'm Susan Lambert.
Thank you so much forlistening.
These barriers that we have erected between
reading and writing are kind ofartificial. And need to come
down. But also between reading,writing, and learning. This
stuff is all connected.
Susan Lambert (00:15):
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science
of Reading (00:17):
The Podcast from Amplify. I hope your new year
has gotten off to a greatstart! And I hope you're
excited to return to our Season9 reading reboot. All season
long, we're reexamining andbuilding on foundational
literacy concepts. So far,we've explored the fundamental
(00:39):
differences between standardsand curriculum. We've rethought
comprehension. We've revisitedthe critical role of text diet
and so much more. Today, I'mthrilled to welcome back
education writer and authorNatalie Wexler, whose brand new
book is "Beyond the Science ofReading: Connecting Literacy
(00:59):
Instruction to the Science ofLearning." Natalie will help us
unpack the fundamentals andlatest research on learning
science. We'll also reach backinto our mailbag to tackle
another fabulouslistener-submitted question.
Let's now welcome back, NatalieWexler. Natalie Wexler, thank
(01:19):
you so much for joining us ontoday's episode.
Natalie Wexler (01:22):
Delighted to be here, as always, Susan
Susan Lambert (01:26):
I was gonna say, again, and for those of you
that are new listeners, you maynot recognize Natalie Wexler,
but she is a friend of thepodcast. And I think this is
your third appearance. Is thatthe right word?
Natalie Wexler (01:39):
Yes, I suppose, if not everybody's seeing me,
but I am appearing. At leastvia audio. And yeah, I think it
is the third time.
Susan Lambert (01:46):
It's really exciting. You launched this
podcast into existence wayback. Several years ago. I
can't even remember how longago it was, but it was right
after you published your veryfirst book. Is that right? When
you published your first book,"The Knowledge Gap" ?
Natalie Wexler (02:02):
Yeah, that came out in August 2019. And it was
a month or two later, I think,that I was the first guest on
the podcast.
Susan Lambert (02:10):
And since then, you've also done , in the book
publishing world, you've done"The Writing Revolution," part
one and part two.
Natalie Wexler (02:20):
Yeah, the first edition came out in 2017, so
actually before "The KnowledgeGap."
Susan Lambert (02:26):
Oh, true . Yes .
Natalie Wexler (02:27):
But we came out with "The Writing Revolution
2.0" in I think July of 2024.
So pretty recently.
Susan Lambert (02:34):
Congratulations! Very exciting. And I will tell
you that there is almost noplace that I go across the
country, no district, noschool, no classroom, that
doesn't know about your work.
For sure either on "TheKnowledge Gap" or on "The
Writing Revolution." That'spretty amazing, isn't it?
Natalie Wexler (02:52):
It's totally mind boggling . It is not at
all what I was expecting. Andit's been incredibly gratifying
to have so many people be awareof, and often embracing, the
messages in those books.
Susan Lambert (03:05):
And the great thing about those books is they
both sort of go together,right? So this idea of
knowledge building, superimportant, and the idea of
extending knowledge building byincorporating that into what
you're doing in writing is alsopretty exciting.
Natalie Wexler (03:22):
Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, it is allconnected. And we've been
treating these things asseparate.
Susan Lambert (03:27):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (03:27):
But they're really not.
Susan Lambert (03:29):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And you're joining us
today because you have a newbook out called "Beyond the
Science of Reading (03:36):
Connecting Literacy Instruction to the
Science of Learning." So why anew book? And tell us a little
bit about it.
Natalie Wexler (03:46):
Well, I actually was not planning to
write another book. I felt likethat was exhausting. I'm not
sure I can do it again. And wewere sort of in the middle of
"The Writing Revolution 2.0,"but I had blurbed a book by
someone else, and the publishersaid, right after I sent in the
endorsement, "We're looking forsomeone who might be interested
(04:08):
in writing a book on why theScience of Reading needs to go
beyond phonics. Do you knowanyone who..." And that is an
issue that had been on my mindfor some time. When I wrote The
Knowledge Gap, I don't thinkI'd ever heard anybody use the
term Science of Reading. Maybethe first time was your
podcast, I don't know. Butcertainly when I was writing
(04:31):
the book, that was not a termthat people were using. And it
has since become one. Not thatthe Science of Reading is
limited to science relating tophonics instruction, but the
spotlight has really beentrained on problems with
phonics instruction. H owphonics instruction doesn't
(04:52):
line up to the science ondecoding or on word
recognition, foundationalskills. And it was a little
frustrating to me, because ofcourse there is a lot of
science relating to otheraspects of reading, like
comprehension. And literacygenerally, like writing. And
that was sort of gettingdefined out of the Science of
Reading in a way. I think itwas leading to the idea that if
(05:15):
we just fix that phonics part,everything's gonna be fine. So
I definitely wanted to addressthat. But I went beyond what
they asked, because I have hadsort of one foot in the Science
of Reading world and another int he Science of Learning, o r
cognitive science world. AndI've noticed both of these
(05:37):
movements, the Science ofLearning, cognitive science
movement, has been smaller, has gotten less attention than
the Science of Readingmovement. But both of these
movements are d oing greatthings. Bringing news o f what
science tells us about learningand about reading to educators.
But I saw that there was adisconnect between these two
(05:59):
movements. And that the Scienceof Learning community, they too
were kind of just focusing onphonics. If you're doing a good
job of teaching phonics, thenyour instruction is in line
with t he Science of Learning.
But they were overlooking theways in which the typical
approach to teaching readingcomprehension and writing, the
way those approaches actuallyconflict with what cognitive
science tells us about howpeople learn to do those
(06:22):
things.
Susan Lambert (06:22):
Can you talk a little bit more about cognitive
science, and what it tells usabout learning? I know we're
gonna get into maybe readingand writing and relationship to
that. But generally, when yousay the Science of Learning,
what does that, at a metalevel, sort of mean to you?
Natalie Wexler (06:39):
Well, it's hard to summarize it in an elevator
speech
Susan Lambert (06:46):
An elevator pitch
Natalie Wexler (06:46):
Yeah, an elevator pitch. But I will try.
So, there are a number ofprinciples of learning and
teaching that have accumulateda lot of evidence behind them,
going back to maybe the 1970sor so. And basically, there are
things like, for example,retrieval practice. So
retrieval practice means thatthe more you try retrieving an
(07:10):
item of information that youhave somewhere in long-term
memory, but you've maybeslightly forgotten it.
Recalling that informationmakes it easier to retrieve in
the future. And I think that isa sort of fundamental
principle. And then there arevariations on it. Like it's
good to sort of mix things up,and that's called distributed
practice or stretch. That kindof this practice out over a
(07:32):
period of time spaced practice.
And then there's things likeelaboration, or sometimes it's
called elaborative rehearsal,where explaining things, coming
up with examples of things thatreally helps with comprehension
of information. And so thereare conferences I've been to,
and lots of books out there,and articles sort of listing
(07:54):
these principles and why theywork. And that is actually
another point that I think iscrucial. There's something
called Cognitive Load Theory,which really explains why these
things are so helpful tolearning. And that has to do
with the way we take in newinformation. Basically it's
called working memory, which isthe aspect of our consciousness
(08:15):
where we're trying to makesense of new information. And
it's very limited. It can onlyhold maybe four items for 20
seconds before it starts tobecome overwhelmed. And the
best way around that is to haveinformation stored in long-term
memory and to be able toretrieve it. 'Cause if you can
retrieve some relevantinformation, whether you're
reading, or listening, orwhatever, that is going to
(08:38):
expand your capacity in workingmemory to take in new
information. So if you'rereading about baseball, or
listening to a radiobroadcaster, if they still have
those things of describing abaseball game and the
terminology, you know what adouble play is or whatever, you
don't have to look it up orwhatever. You can just attend
to that information. And so I'dsay that, overall, what these
(09:02):
principles of cognitive sciencedepend on is knowledge. They're
all sort of geared to enablingstudents to retain information
in long-term memory. Be able toretrieve it easily, so that
they can analyze it and thinkabout it in various ways. And
so that's the basics ofcognitive science, as applied
(09:24):
to teaching and learning.
Susan Lambert (09:26):
That's super helpful. And it reminds me that
we've done a couple of episodeson this. So, most recently, we
had Greg Ashman on to talkabout Cognitive Load Theory.
And then we had another episodetoo with Peter Brown, "Make It
Stick." Do you remember thatbook, Natalie?
Natalie Wexler (09:43):
Yes, I do.
Yeah. That's sort of thegranddaddy of these books that
are, I forget when it came out,but it was at least 10 years
ago or more . And since then,there have been more and more
books. Greg Ashman is amongthem. ButI, list them in the
new book, some of them in oneparagraph, and there are like
eight different titles that Icould come up with almost off
(10:05):
the top of my head. So there'sno shortage of books aimed at
acquainting teachers with thesethings. I don't know how much
it's really penetrated. It'spenetrated more, I think, in
some other countries, likeEngland and Australia. But it's
been a little slower to get offthe ground here in the United
States.
Susan Lambert (10:22):
So was that when the interest to take all that
information that we know abouthow we learn and sort of
intersect it with what's thislook like in literacy? Reading
and writing?
Natalie Wexler (10:35):
Yeah, well, one of the things I've noticed is
that when I go to theseconferences, etc., that the
discussion of cognitive loadand the Science of
Learning-informed teachingreally focuses on things like
science, math. Maybe history tosome extent. But not so much on
reading. And certainly not onreading comprehension, or
(10:55):
writing. There's been verylittle research applying
Cognitive Load Theory to thosethings. But I was sitting there
thinking, or reading thesebooks and thinking, "Well, how
does this apply to what I knowabout how reading comprehension
and writing are taught?" And soone thing I noticed was, if you
look at those things throughthe lens of Cognitive Load
(11:16):
Theory. And the idea that ifyou're trying to juggle too
much new information in workingmemory, you're gonna lose your
ability to comprehend, orretain, information. We're
making reading and writing muchharder for kids than they need
to be, because we are askingthem to apply skills like
finding the main idea, orsummarizing, or whatever to
(11:39):
topics that they may or may notknow anything about. The way
literacy instruction isorganized is there's a focus on
a skill. The teacher may modelthe skill on a text on one
topic, but then kids aresupposed to go off and practice
it on texts on other topics. Orwrite about other topics that
they may have limited, verylimited, information about. And
(12:01):
so they're not only juggling inworking memory, the cognitive
demands of reading, andespecially writing, which if
you are not yet a proficientreader and writer, those
cognitive demands are veryheavy.
Susan Lambert (12:12):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (12:13):
But they're also trying to deal with
content that they may notreally know anything about. And
so that makes it harder to readand write. It also makes it
harder to use reading andwriting as ways of learning and
deepening knowledge, whichclearly they are, but the other
thing that I noticed is there'sbeen very little application of
(12:34):
Cognitive Load Theory towriting. Surprisingly. Because
we know writing imposes acrushing cognitive load. If
you're not an experiencedwriter, even if you are. In
addition to asking kids oftento write about topics they may
not know much about, like in aseparate writing curriculum or
whatever, we don't explicitlyteach them to write, we spend
much more time trying to, withgreater and lesser degrees of
(12:59):
success, teach them to read,but we kind of expect them to
just pick up writing. And thatreally, for most kids, it does
not happen. And if you thinkabout the cognitive load that
they're encountering, thatreally helps explain why. And
it also deprives writing of itspotential power as a lever for
(13:19):
deepening and reinforcingknowledge of content.
Susan Lambert (13:23):
Let's go back to the reading piece. Because when
we think about and we talkabout either the Simple View of
Reading or Scarborough'sReading Rope, there's two
elements to it. This wordrecognition side are the
foundational skills. I hear alot of folks talking about
these things are important,because we want to develop them
(13:45):
to automaticity, thefoundational reading skills,
right? We wanna develop thoseto automaticity, so that kids
can use their cognitive energyto put to the upper part of
Scarborough's Rope or thelanguage comprehension element.
So is that a small step intoapplying Cognitive Load Theory
into what it takes to become aproficient reader?
Natalie Wexler (14:07):
Yes. And I have seen in both camps, on the
Science of Learning side, theScience of Reading side, I have
seen people make that point.
And it's a completely validpoint. You are not gonna have
the cognitive capacity forcomprehension analysis, etc.,
if you are expanding so muchcognitive effort on just
(14:28):
figuring out what the wordsare. So, yeah, we have made
progress there.
Susan Lambert (14:32):
Yes. That's great. But I think your point
is that the same applies to theupper part of the rope, or the
other element of the SimpleView of Reading. This sort of
language is that there's thingswe can do to support kids in
developing backgroundknowledge, or building
background knowledge, thatwould actually help them be
(14:52):
better readers or writers,right?
Natalie Wexler (14:54):
Yes. And I'm glad you raised that, this
isn't so much in the bookbecause I've continued to think
about it and it's too late toadd things to the book, But I
think, first of all, we'renever going to have some of
these skills practiced toautomaticity. And I think there
has been an idea out there fora long time for kids to master
(15:15):
some of these comprehensionskills, like making inferences
or finding the main idea. Andthen they will just sort of do
those things automatically. Orthey'll be metacognitive, which
is not supposed to beautomatic, but that is a
conscious monitoring of yourcomprehension. I don't wanna
(15:39):
get into this, but I'm not surethat there's a huge difference
between those metacognitivestrategies and the supposedly
automatic skills, because Ithink really expert readers
when they're reading, they'renot consciously saying, "Well,
I wanna visualize now." Or "I'mgonna ask myself questions
now." It does become kind ofautomatic, but not in the way
that decoding is. I think thatit's not so much that you can
(16:05):
practice this on a simple text.
You can practice finding themain idea, it will become
automatic, and then you will beable to apply that skill to any
text. However, I think there'sa distinction between
transferable skills andnon-transferable skills that I
think is important.
Susan Lambert (16:21):
Yeah.
Natalie Wexler (16:22):
So decoding, like riding a bike, is a
transferrable skill. For themost part. It doesn't matter
what bike you're riding, theprinciples remain the same. No
matter what word you'redecoding, you should be able to
apply them and figure out whatthat word is. The two that I
would like to focus on aremaking inferences and finding
(16:43):
the main idea. Let's takefinding the main idea first. I
don't think it's completelytransferrable, but I'd say it's
also summarizing. I would callit summarizing, finding the
main idea, they're pretty muchthe same thing. They're sort of
semi-transferrable. If youexplicitly teach kids how to
(17:04):
summarize a paragraph or atext, that doesn't mean they're
gonna be able to apply thoseskills to summarize anything
easily. If they have morebackground knowledge, it's
gonna be easier to summarizethat text. They have less
background knowledge, it can beharder. But if they have some
idea of what goes intosummarizing, they're definitely
a step ahead. So I do thinkthere's a reason to teach that
(17:27):
sort of thing explicitly. Theproblem is we've been teaching
it basically by saying, "Well,OK, just put in the important
stuff and leave out theunimportant stuff." And that's
not enough for most kids. Youreally have to help them
determine what's important.
Let's now move to makinginferences. It's not so much
like a transferable skill thatyou can explicitly teach. The
(17:50):
basics of making an inferenceis something that human beings
just do naturally, right? Imean, babies, toddlers make
inferences. That doesn't meanthey're gonna automatically,
naturally be able to make aninference about any text.
Susan Lambert (18:04):
Right, right, right.
Natalie Wexler (18:05):
But I don't think we need to sort of teach
the skill of making inferencesin the abstract. What we do
need to do is repeatedly, inthe context of whatever text
kids are reading, guide them tomake sure they're understanding
how to make inferences aboutthat text. And that they have
the background knowledge tomake those inferences. Because
(18:25):
no matter how good you are atmaking inferences, if you don't
have the requisite backgroundknowledge you're not gonna be
able to do it. It's not likethis idea is , "Well, we can
teach making inferences orwhatever for six weeks the way
they do in these studies andthen we're done." No. These are
(18:46):
things that need to becontinued across a child's
academic career, but not asdiscreet, like you're just
gonna learn to make inferencesand we'll use this text to
learn to do that, or whatever,but rather as a means to an end
of understanding a particulartext or a particular topic
(19:06):
repeatedly.
Susan Lambert (19:07):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. My
understanding of inference toohas developed just over the
course of the last 12 to 18months. Because if you think
about it, if you have a lot ofknowledge of a topic, you
automatically make an inferenceand you don't even realize that
you're making that inference.
And to sort of backtrack andunravel that and figure that
(19:28):
out, it's like, "Oh, oh."
Natalie Wexler (19:30):
Right. Right.
So many of these things, Ithink, as expert readers, we
don't do consciously. Andthat's where all of this
research on strategyinstruction began. They wanted
to figure out what are expertreaders doing sort of
unconsciously that we canextract, isolate, and try to
(19:50):
teach to inexpert readers ordeveloping readers. So that's
where it started, but at acertain point it adds to your
cognitive load. I think if youare focusing on the strategy,
or the skill, rather than thecontent, and you're thinking,
"OK, I have to make aninference now. Like how do I do
that again?" I think what makesa lot more sense is that kids
(20:14):
should know the term inference.
They should understand whatthat means. But I think it's
probably more effective to justask questions about a text, or
about a topic, that implicitlyrequires kids to make
inferences. And I've certainlyseen that work very well in
classrooms. They're gettinginto the habit, consciously or
not, of thinking, reading in aparticular way that involves
(20:38):
making inferences.
Susan Lambert (20:40):
I just had a connection too , with things
that you have said before,which is some of these, like
finding the main idea, makingan inference, cause-effect
relationships, that when youput the content first, and
those things come up to supportdeveloping knowledge of the
(21:02):
content, that's really the mosteffective means by which to
help support students. And tome then, this really relates to
what you're talking about interms of cognitive load. So, in
other words, you wanna focusthe kids on the text, and
what's in the text, and use thestrategies to help them learn
(21:22):
what's in the text. And thatcan release some of the
cognitive load for them.
Natalie Wexler (21:26):
Yes. And just add one thing about that. I
think that is a great summary.
You've probably heard me saythis many times, so I'm not
surprised that you cansummarize it
speaking of summarizing
here I'm drawing on "TheWriting Revolution," one of
Judy Hochman's insights, whichI don't think Cognitive Load
(21:47):
Theory really had come intoexistence when she was creating
"The Writing Revolution"method, but she, through trial
and error, and instinct, Ithink the method incorporates a
lot of what cognitive sciencewould tell us about what works
best. And one of the thingsthat she emphasizes is that
when you are introducing a newwriting strategy, and I would
(22:07):
say writing strategies areprobably the most effective way
to teach all the things we tryto get at through reading
comprehension strategies, butwhen you're introducing a new
strategy, like summarizing, orusing subordinating
conjunctions, or whatever, youwant to introduce it in the
context of familiar material.
Maybe a holiday, Halloween,whatever. Or something that's
(22:28):
already been covered in thecurriculum. Because you don't
want kids to have to beunderstanding unfamiliar
content at the same timethey're trying to understand a
new writing strategy. So Ithink that is an attempt to
modulate cognitive load,whether or not you put it in
those terms. So unlike makinginferences, you can explain
(22:52):
what that means, but I don'tthink you have to have kids
practice making inferences inthe abstract before they can do
it in the context of somethingthey're reading. But I do think
with something likesummarizing, which is a lot
harder, it makes sense tointroduce it in the context of
some familiar material. Butthen, very quickly, once kids
have the basic idea, you wannastart having them apply that to
(23:15):
content that they're currentlylearning. Because it's gonna
really boost theirunderstanding, retention, and
ability to analyze whatever thematerial is that. Something
like summarizing is a hugeboost to comprehension.
Susan Lambert (23:30):
It's really interesting, because everybody
knows sort of the term "Firstwe learn to read, and then we
read to learn," which I thinkis a false dichotomy. But, we
talk in education a lot aboutlearning to read and then
reading to learn. We don't talkas much about learning to write
and writing to learn. Like thedistinctions between those two.
Natalie Wexler (23:53):
Yeah.
Susan Lambert (23:54):
How do you think about that?
Natalie Wexler (23:56):
That's interesting that you mentioned
that, because I recently wrotea post for my Substack
newsletter on these write tolearn studies. There's a strand
in writing research, or ineducation research, going back
to I believe the seventies on,about do students learn more
(24:19):
when they write about content?
And these studies have found,yes. There's a sort of moderate
boost. But results areambiguous. And sometimes you
get a negative result. Sosometimes writing about content
somehow decreases learning. Sowhy would that be? Well, the
missing piece here that I thinkhelps to explain why that might
(24:42):
be is writing is really hard.
Maybe in some of these studiesyou had more inexperienced
writers. Writers who got lesssupport, less instruction. And
so, their working memory was sooverwhelmed by the effort of
trying to put their thoughtsinto a written form that they
(25:03):
did not get those learningbenefits. This is why it's so
important to bring together theScience of Learning and the
Science of not just Reading butLiteracy. And the flip side of
that is, I have repeatedly comeacross studies from cognitive
science that say they're aboutretrieval practice or
(25:23):
elaboration, but when you lookat what they asked students to
do, it was writing. Andretrieval practice has come to
be associated with testing. Itused to be called the testing
effect. And quizzes, tests,that is one great way to engage
in retrieval practice. But theiconic retrieval practice
experiment actually had collegestudents writing about an
article they had read.
Susan Lambert (25:44):
Very interesting.
Natalie Wexler (25:45):
And they found a really significant boost from
that. But that was collegestudents. Here's an interesting
thing. When those sameresearchers did the same
experiment with fourth graders,using fourth-grade level text
or whatever, they found thosefourth graders did not get that
learning benefit. I think thecollege students remembered 81%
of the concepts that they hadread about after writing about
(26:06):
it and tested a week later orwhatever. The fourth graders
remembered 9% of thoseconcepts. Because they did not
have the cognitive capacity toget the learning benefits. And
then those researchers did acouple more experiments. If you
gave the kids more support, oryou asked them not to write but
just to like memorizevocabulary words, you did find
(26:27):
that retrieval practice hadsignificant benefits for them,
as for the college students.
But it doesn't work to just askinexperienced writers to just
write down stuff that is notgoing to provide the cognitive
benefits.
Susan Lambert (26:41):
It reminds me of the differences between writing
instruction and writingactivities. Because I think a
lot of teachers in theelementary grades, from my
experience, are giving kidsopportunities to write with
little instruction. So, itwould go to say that the
cognitive load there is too bigfor them. Because you need to
(27:03):
break this down into somethingmuch more discreet.
Natalie Wexler (27:05):
Yes, absolutely. And you need to
start really at the sentencelevel, if that's what kids
need. And we barely try toteach that. And you need to
teach kids how to create linearoutlines for paragraphs and
essays, again to modulatecognitive load. 'Cause even if
you know how to constructsentences, writing at length
(27:27):
can impose a heavy cognitiveload of its own. But if you've
got a linear outline, thenyou've offloaded some of that
burden onto the paper, or thescreen, or whatever, and that
gives you more working memorycapacity for the writing
itself.
Susan Lambert (27:42):
Hmm , oh my goodness. So much here. And for
our listeners, I send over ourguests a series of questions,
just to sort of keep theconversation going. We went way
off script , didn't we?
Natalie Wexler (27:55):
good
Susan Lambert (27:58):
It's so great. I am gonna bring us back a little
though. Because you have achapter in your book that's
titled "BringingScience-Informed Teaching to
Scale." And I'm really curiousabout what led you to include
that chapter?
Natalie Wexler (28:14):
Well, I think that is the ultimate question
in anything to do witheducation. I think maybe it was
Dylan Wiliam who said,"Everything works somewhere,
and nothing works everywhere."
Susan Lambert (28:26):
Oh , that's a good one.
Natalie Wexler (28:27):
How do you find an intervention or something
that works and bring it up toscale? Where not only a few
kids benefit, but masses ofchildren benefit. It's tricky.
And I think what I'm talkingabout is not impossible, but it
(28:48):
does take effort. It takesunderstanding. And, I do wanna
say, and I think this is one ofthe things I say in that
chapter, that I'm notnecessarily saying we should
tell teachers, "OK, you'veheard about the Science of
Reading. You have to figurethat out. Now there's also the
Science of Writing. And inaddition, Science of Learning.
And here are all theseprinciples, and you need to
figure them out. Understandthem, and figure out how to
(29:09):
apply them in your classroom."That is, I think, a crushing
burden. And I would not besurprised if teachers ran
screaming from a room whereanybody told them that. I think
that what our best chance ofsuccess is is, to first of all,
reliably identify goodcontent-rich curricula,
beginning in kindergarten,including literacy curricula
(29:32):
that cover topics in scienceand social studies. And then
some of them may not have thesupport they need, especially
with regard to writing, forpeople to really get the full
benefit of that content. Somarrying a content-rich
curriculum with an approachwith explicit writing
instruction, that's embedded inwhatever the content is that
(29:54):
you're teaching, at any gradelevel, that can bring students
and teachers all the benefits,and possibly more, of cognitive
science-informed teaching. Butit may be more appealing
because I think t hose teachersknow that they need help with
writing instruction. It'sreally hard. Teachers generally
(30:15):
don't get much training i n howto teach it. And if they give
any writing assignments,they're probably aware that
many of their students needhelp and they're not sure what
to do. So I think if you say,not necessarily, "Here's
cognitive science, and you'regonna apply that in your
classroom," but saying, "Here'ssome help with writing
instruction, across thecurriculum," and I think they
(30:36):
will see, and I saw this happenin a district that I visited,
that it's not just aboutwriting. It carries over to all
sorts of other things. Readingcomprehension. And one reason
for that is a big barrier toreading comprehension is the
syntax. The sentence structureof written language. But if you
teach kids how to use complexsentence structure in their own
writing, subordinatingconjunctions, whatever, they're
(30:57):
in a much better position tounderstand it in their reading.
It also makes their orallanguage sort of richer and
more sophisticated. Language isconnected to thinking. If you
can talk and write in a moresophisticated way, that
reflects that you are thinkingin a more sophisticated way. So
there are all these benefitsthat come along with effective
writing instruction.
Susan Lambert (31:18):
That's lovely.
So I wonder what you thinkreaders will like most about
this book?
Natalie Wexler (31:24):
Well, I hope that they will see the
connections, and they willappreciate these connections,
between things that don'talways get connected. Like they
may have heard about retrievalpractice, but if they're
teaching reading in anelementary classroom and
they're trying to teach readingcomprehension, they may not
(31:45):
have understood why retrievalpractice can't really be
applied there. 'Cause there'snothing to practice retrieving.
So I think I'd like teachers,and also those in the cognitive
science world, to see thatthese barriers that we have
erected between certainlyreading and writing are kind of
(32:06):
artificial. And need to comedown. But also between reading,
writing, and learning. Thisstuff is all connected. And I
hope that they will appreciatehearing that. Every literacy
teacher also needs to be acontent teacher. And vice
versa. Every content teacherneeds to be a literacy teacher.
And think about, "Are the kidsunderstanding this text? What
(32:27):
vocabulary do I want them tofocus on and retain? And how
about writing, what writingactivities could I do that are
embedded in this content thatwill increase their
understanding and retention ofthe information?"
Susan Lambert (32:39):
Well, I want to bring a question from our
listener mailbag. This onecomes from Laurel D., A coach
specialist in Pennsylvania. Andshe really wants to know how to
bring colleagues over to aScience of Reading approach.
And she asks this, "How can oneperson do this within their
school? Make meaningful changewithout getting burnt out?"
Natalie Wexler (33:04):
So one of the things I learned in the writing
of this book was there's aneducation journalist named
Holly Korbey who has anexcellent Substack newsletter
called "The Bell Ringer." Andshe has also been writing about
cognitive science and teachingand learning in the United
States. And she had a profileof a principal at a school in
the Midwest, I guess it was anelementary school, who
(33:31):
requested anonymity. And herequested anonymity because he
was aligning instruction in hisschool with the Science of
Learning, but apparently, it'sthe education method that dare
not speak its name
And he said, "Their scores hadincreased, but he couldn't get
other schools interested inwhat they were doing." But, one
of the things he said was, "Wedon't call it the Science of
(33:54):
Learning. We just do it." And Ithink in some ways that makes
sense. Because I think whatconvinces teachers is when they
see results. I think if youintroduce them to a bunch of
scientific principles, I'm notsaying you shouldn't, but if
people are skeptical, I thinkthat just doing it and seeing
(34:17):
what happens can often be abetter way of bringing them
around. Of course it helps ifyou're a principal, if you're a
school leader, district leader.
As an individual teacher,there's a limit to what you can
do. Another thing that HollyKorbey has written about is
teachers who are the only onesin their building feeling like
they really can't talk aboutit, because they don't always
(34:38):
get a good reception from theircolleagues. So maybe just
trying these things in your ownclassroom, to the extent that
you can, and talking aboutwhat's happening in your
classroom. Getting some otherteachers interested in maybe
coming and taking a look, a ndthey might wanna try it a s
well.
Susan Lambert (34:57):
I think that's great advice. And thanks Laurel
for the question. Natalie, anyfinal thoughts for our
listeners before we let you go?
Natalie Wexler (35:07):
Following up on that last question, I would
just sort of encourageclassroom teachers who might be
listening to just try some ofthis. One way to identify
whether your curriculum is seton content is if you ask kids
to write about something that'sin the curriculum and they
(35:29):
don't have enough informationto write anything coherent,
that's a sign that you need tosupplement the curriculum.
Bring some more content in tosee what happens. It takes a
little while. You gotta getused to it. The kids gotta get
used to it. So maybe try itmore than once. But just be
open to approaching things in adifferent way, and and seeing
(35:51):
what happens.
Susan Lambert (35:52):
Great advice.
We're looking forward to yournew book coming out. We don't
know if it's gonna be out bythe time this episode drops,
but for sure it'll be on apre-order. And we will make
sure we link our listeners inthe show notes to that.
Natalie Wexler (36:04):
Great, thank you.
Susan Lambert (36:05):
Thank you again.
We really appreciate you,Natalie.
Natalie Wexler (36:08):
Well, it's always a pleasure, Susan.
Thanks for having me .
Susan Lambert (36:15):
That was Natalie Wexler, education writer and
author. Her new book is "Beyondthe Science of Reading:
Connecting Literacy Instructionto the Science of Learning."
We'll have a link in the shownotes. We'll also have a link
to Natalie's website,nataliewexler.com, where you
can learn more about herSubstack: Minding the Gap and
(36:35):
Season 1 of the KnowledgeMatters podcast, which she
hosted. And if you'd like tohear more from Natalie, we'll
also link to her pastappearances on this show, on
these episodes. She talks aboutsome of her previous work,
including her books, "TheKnowledge Gap" and "The Writing
Revolution," which sheco-authored with Judith C.
(36:56):
Hochman. Next time on Scienceof Reading: The Podcast, we're
continuing our reading rebootwith a focus on language and
language development. Dr.
Tiffany Hogan is going tounpack the key components and
complexities of language, andshe'll delve into developmental
language disorder.
Tiffany Hogan (37:14):
Just like we know that if a child has severe
difficulties in learning toconnect letters and sounds, we
would characterize that asDyslexia. On the other hand, on
the other side I will say, ofthat simple view of reading, if
they have difficulty inlearning language, then we see
they have that difficultycalled Developmental Language
Disorder, that's associatedwith language comprehension.
(37:36):
And importantly, there's a highoverlap between these two, but
there's not a one-to-onecorrelation.
Susan Lambert (37:41):
That fascinating conversation will be right in
this feed in two weeks. Also,be sure to check out the latest
episode of the Beyond My Yearspodcast. Host Ana Torres just
led an in-depth conversationabout how to actually be
coachable, and get the most outof feedback from other
educators.
Ana Torres (38:01):
For those newer educators that may have a hard
time with that, what's yourmessage about handling critical
feedback?
Serena Klosa (38:10):
I would say those people who are in a position to
get feedback, try todepersonalize it. As the person
receiving feedback, try not totake everything personal. I
used to say, "Every kick in thebutt is a boost up ."
Ana Torres (38:23):
I like that. I like that.
Serena Klosa (38:24):
OK. You might get kicked in the behind, and it
may hurt, but it's a boost up.
Susan Lambert (38:29):
That's available now in the Beyond My Years
feed. We'll also have a link inthe show notes. Remember to
subscribe to Science ofReading: The Podcast on the
podcast app of your choice, andshare it with your friends and
colleagues. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you (38:42):
undefined
by Amplify. I'm Susan Lambert.
Thank you so much forlistening.
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