Listen Wise: Teach Students to be Better Listeners

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Monica Brady-Myerov. Monica is an award-winning NPR journalist and the founder of ListenWise, which offers the only curated collection of NPR stories and podcasts tailored to the K-12 classroom. Monica is a visionary and thought leader in the listening space, speaking at multiple national education conferences each year, hosting webinars, and appearing on podcasts like this one to evangelize listening. And she's the author of the new book, which we're here to talk about today, Listen Wise, Teach Students to Be Better Listeners.

[00:49] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:51] SPEAKER_00:

Monica, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:53] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:55] SPEAKER_00:

So listening is one of those topics that I feel like I used to hear more about years ago. And I was a teacher and principal in Washington State. And at one time, we actually had a standardized test that assessed students' listening skills. And it was done away with. And since then, I haven't heard much about listening. But you're making the argument that listening is a crucial skill when we can teach, when we should be teaching.

[01:18]

Make the case for us. Why does listening matter so much?

[01:20] SPEAKER_01:

Well, listening is fundamental to reading and reading is fundamental to learning. So if you put those two together, you start to realize how important listening is to overall academic achievement. I mean, if you look just at the simple view of reading, it's a component of decoding and language comprehension. What's under language comprehension? A big factor of that is listening comprehension. And decoding and listening are necessary to learn how to read, but neither is sufficient for a student to be a good reader.

[01:51]

So that's one of the fundamental reasons why it's so key. And it's interesting you say that they did used to teach listening or test it rather on the state test. It was probably very subjective, a teacher reading out a passage and students responding to it. Well, since the advent of the Common Core, listening was elevated to an anchor standard, speaking and listening for all grade levels. And that's where I really sat up and took notice and realized, wow, listening is now being elevated to this position of importance in our education system. And I love audio.

[02:23]

I come from a background as a public radio reporter. At the time, eight, 10 years ago, I was creating stories, but I thought these stories could really play a role in education, help students understand content, get them excited about a subject, and also teach them how to be better listeners. So that all kind of came together for me about eight years ago. And then when the Common Core, as I said, once they elevated it, The SBAC tests still uses listening. They started it eight years ago. And in 22 states, test listening.

[02:56]

So from wherever you're tuning in from, if you're in California or Washington State actually is one of them as well, you do test listening in the third and eighth grades, maybe even the 11th grade. I think a lot of people don't realize that, to be honest. Sometimes the results are commingled with the other strands of testing in ELA. So it can be hard to see how your listening ability, your students' listening abilities is impacting your outcome. But trust me, it is impacting your outcome because it's being tested. So those are some of the reasons why it's important to practice listening.

[03:33]

Absolutely fundamental to reading. So for that younger grade two through five, six, seven, eight, and then for just being, you know, getting good results on your state tests if it's tested.

[03:44] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that may come as a surprise to a lot of people that it is tested. And you said the Smarter Balanced Consortium Common Core assessments, that's good to know. And definitely something that I think we tend to gloss over. So you said that listening is foundational to reading. Why do we tend to just skip over it and say, well, we don't need to teach listening. Let's just jump straight to reading, right?

[04:08]

Because that's the major skill that students are going to be called upon to demonstrate.

[04:12] SPEAKER_01:

I think it's because we send our kids to school hearing and listening to us, and we send them to school to learn how to read, write, and do math, do arithmetic. And that skill of listening is just assumed because they're hearing. Well, the reality is you do not get better at listening just by hearing or listening. You do have to practice it. And it hasn't been identified as a skill as such to be improved and to improve on. Part of that lies in the fact that there's been not a lot of research about how to improve listening and ways to demonstratively improve your listening, right?

[04:50]

So it can go back to, well, how do I know somebody is a good listener? And then you have to know, well, what are you giving to them that they're listening to that you know whether it's difficult or easy? So it's became this sort of chicken and egg. This is what happened for us when we started ListenWise because I was just started out as a website that was curating public radio stories and podcasts. But then the teachers kept saying, well, how difficult is this story to listen to? And how do I know if my students are improving?

[05:16]

And I realized that there was no way to test listening skills online. This was before the SBAC came out with their assessment. And even after it did, we're still the only way to practice it. So we created the first ever multiple choice online auto scored listening quiz. It seems simple, but it didn't exist before. And we identified eight key skills that every listener should be thinking about and practicing on.

[05:42]

So can you identify the main point? Can you make an inference from listening? Do you understand vocabulary, word, and context? This all may sound familiar, right? Because it's very similar to reading. But there had not been a lot of study and research and writing about building this key skill, listening.

[06:00]

And I think that's why it's not addressed in our system beyond those very early learning to read years. When in fact, as students grow older, the research shows the relative importance of listening comprehension increases because it takes until middle school to reach the point where reading comprehension outpaces listening comprehension. So our students can listen better than they can read all the way through to middle school. And yet we're not providing them with any audio resources to learn content, background knowledge, stretch their vocabularies. Like there's so many ways you could be using audio content to do this that we aren't because I think we just think, well, everyone can listen and, you know, we don't really need to focus on it that much. There's so much more we could be doing.

[06:47] SPEAKER_00:

So, Monica, what you're describing is listening as a teachable skill rather than what I think we normally think of it as, which is a strength or maybe a preference or maybe a learning style. You know, and I know that there's been a lot of discussion about learning styles over the past few decades. And that theory has been largely debunked in terms of, you know, some people being auditory learners and some people being visual learners. You know, that's not really true. Instead, you're saying listening is a skill that can be taught and practiced and assessed?

[07:19] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And we should all be focused on it because the research shows 80% of what we learn through listening. We listen to a book a day. We speak a book a week, but we listen to a book a day. Think about how much time that is. So in my book, Listen Wise, Teach Students to Be Better Listeners, I go into some really class activities.

[07:43]

It's a book that you can take into your classroom and start using tomorrow to do everything from developing your own student's listening profile to using metacognitive strategies around listening and really practical class activities around building listening skills. But a lot of it begins with just the awareness that the student's have control over this skill and that they can improve it by doing particular things like thinking about, are they doing using their precise listening skills for specific details or strategic, you know, for the main point, there are ways that you can just practice that. So then they can think just as you would say in other kinds of building skills, you know, listening is the same. You've got to break it down. Not all listening is the same. And the more the teacher can understand that you can sort of break it down into the components of listening, the easier it will be to teach.

[08:37]

And as you said, you know, learning styles or not, I know it's controversial over whether that's true, but again, like we all learn through listening and we know that in our ability to improve our reading, that this is crucial as well. And I really think of listening is the missing piece of the literacy puzzle. You know, for 20 years, our NAEP scores have been stagnant, right? Fourth grade, listening skills, eighth grade listening are below proficient. Yet think of all the innovations we've had in reading, decoding and reading, reading, reading. Well, think about the simple view of reading.

[09:12]

It is decoding and language comprehension, which has listening. So in my view, we're getting closer to being able to prove this correlation to be true, to be a causation that if you improve your listening, you will improve your reading.

[09:25] SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's exciting because, you know, as you said, I mean, students spend much more time listening than they do reading, you know, for the most part that, you know, kids spend basically all day listening. And as adults, we spend all day listening. And to think of that as a fixed ability, it sounds like is holding us back. Is that the mindset that, or the belief that you encounter in presenting this idea to audiences that listening ability is is fixed? Because we express it as a frustration, like, oh, my kid is not a good listener, or this student is not a good listener, doesn't follow directions, articulated as a fixed ability. Is that what you encounter in presenting this idea to people that don't understand that it's a teachable skill?

[10:07] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. The thing I hear most is from teachers, my students don't listen. They don't listen to me ever. And they don't feel that they know how to change that behavior. And that it is not a fixed ability at all. You can improve listening just by telling a good story.

[10:22]

There's research that shows if you are using a compelling narrative story, you improve listening. If you are using story in a group and you're all listening to the same thing, you're building empathy. You're building background knowledge. And now there are new innovations that help that ListenWise is using. and that's the Lexile framework for listening. So we all know Lexile and reading.

[10:44]

We paired up with Metametrix, the makers of the Lexile reading measure, to create the Lexile framework for listening. And this is taking a giant step forward in the belief that I have that listening is the missing piece of the literacy puzzle, because now there is an audio measure. So every story on ListenWise on our website has a number similar to a text would have a Lexile reading number, a text number. And now a teacher can say, okay, this is my grade level of the student. So these audio clips from podcasts can be used to address these kinds of students. And then these are more difficult.

[11:22]

So I'm going to use those with my high school students. So that's very exciting to be able to start to define what is difficult listening, because I think this is where teachers get into not knowing how do we even begin? Well, pick easy things for them to listen to and that are compelling and interesting, and then use some of the strategies I outline in the book to practice it in the classroom. Now, the next step in this is going to be the student measure. So, you know, we're working on building the student Lexile listening measure to to measure the listening proficiency of each student, similar to the reading proficiency. Then teachers will be able to have the power to know the level of the student, know the level of the listening, just like they would in text, and then pair them properly for the best instructional outcome.

[12:08]

And what's exciting is Lexile put this audio measure, this framework for listening, on the same scale as the reading Because they believe, too, from all the research that they are very intimately linked. So I hope in the near future, we'll be able to say, here's your reading level on Lexile. Here's your listening level. We see you're stronger here and weaker there. And we're going to prescribe this kind of intervention for you.

[12:30] SPEAKER_00:

So I can really see this changing the way reading is taught, the way that intervention for struggling readers is approached, rather than approaching it in an isolated fashion where listening is just not thought of as a skill. And maybe sometimes, you know, we read to the student thinking that that's getting around their needs. their reading difficulty. If I think about testing, often a testing accommodation is we read things aloud to the student to get around a disability or a difficulty that they might have with reading. But you're saying if the difficulties that a student is having with reading have a common root in difficulties with listening, that may not make the most sense in terms of... We may need to address some listening skills that are at the heart of that.

[13:14]

Is that the case?

[13:17] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think the important thing I'd add here is that listening while reading is also key in this connection between the two. So yes, listening helps students become better listeners, expose them to other vocabulary words, but the real power comes when you pair listening while reading. That impacts fluency. Every story on ListenWise has a interactive transcript so that the words are highlighted as they're read. And not many audio books have this. Audio books are often maybe you're holding the book and reading it as you hear it, but it's not highlighting and actively showing you this word sounds like this, is spelled like this.

[13:56]

And then on our website, you can play it over and over, or you could slow down the audio by 20%. And it's all authentically spoken because these stories are coming straight out of podcasts made for kids and from NPR radio stories. But pairing reading with text is a very, very powerful solution for reading. And a study of third graders showed that when they were using this reading while listening app, they showed improvement over the control group. They had a significant word count per minute improvement in the treatment group compared to the control group. Because that gets at this fact that reading while listening increases accuracy and improves comprehension.

[14:37]

You're learning new words. You're recognizing sounds and letters. That's so important around the science of reading and the phonemic awareness of it. All of those things can be accomplished by then pairing listening while reading. And you may think, well, okay, that's good for younger students. But what's really surprised me is, you know, ListenWise is a grades 2 to 12 product.

[14:57]

And 11th graders, 12th graders, they want to see the transcript too. They're still watching it. So they're absorbing this information. The way things are spelled, the way things are said as they're listening and you don't get tripped up. So when you're reading, you come to a word you don't know and your brain stops and you're trying to figure it out. What does it mean?

[15:15]

Very hard to just go with the flow and keep reading. When you're listening, it's entirely different. It is you're immersed in the experience. You're able to you know, make guesses and inferences out of the clues that you're hearing and the story goes on without you. I mean, the other thing I'd say is that's what makes it such an, I call listening an equalizer because everybody is listening to the exact same story. Unlike when you're using a text that has been leveled down for some readers and you're all getting the same content, but you're not actually hearing the exact same thing.

[15:49]

Whereas in listening with these types of supports, you're all listening to the same thing. This is super important for our English learners, and that's an area we can talk about as well, how important listening is to learning another language.

[16:03] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, let's definitely come back. I think we're really onto something fascinating here about differentiation and providing accommodations and providing scaffolds. It sounds like you're saying that when we have students both listen and read at the same time, and the transcript kind of lights up each word as it appears, you're saying rather than paraphrase that down to a lower reading level, which I know software is available that does that, text libraries are available where there are similar passages at different reading levels that have different complexity, different vocabulary. rather than cut down the complexity and cut down the vocabulary for students who would find that more challenging you're scaffolding everyone by providing that audio so that as you said they don't get tripped up decoding the word if they need to go back and you know have a definition of that word they can often you know on a phone you can click on a word and get a definition of it instantly and i find myself doing a couple of these things that you're describing like

[16:59]

with television, right? I watch television, I watch movies with the captions on, and I cannot stand to watch anything now with the captions off because I just miss half of what they're saying. Like the volume's wrong, you know, you got to turn it up too loud, and then other things are too loud. But just the nuance that I pick up with captions on is just at a completely different level. And for students...

[17:19]

to not have that advanced vocabulary removed, I think could do a lot for us. Because how often do we respond to a student's challenges by challenging them less? Are we going to catch up a student who doesn't know the bigger words that they ultimately will need to know by not exposing them to them? Are we sabotaging what they really truly need to master that vocabulary? Let's talk more about English language learners, because this is an area where the knowledge base within the profession tends to be very isolated. There are people who have expertise in L and people who do not.

[17:54]

Take us into some of the evidence around listening and language acquisition.

[17:59] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Before I do, I want to jump back. And this idea that you're exposing students to a higher level of vocabulary is research-based, that when students are younger, up until middle school, you can listen two to three grade levels higher than you can read. So by not exposing them, to these higher level academic vocabulary words, you're really missing an opportunity there. And this holds true too for English learners. And as you say, not everybody feels comfortable of how to help English learners.

[18:27]

They're in every one of our classrooms though. And listening is a great way to do it because it can expose them to vocabulary. It stretches their receptive vocabulary. In English language learning, you talk about BICs and CALPs and their conversation comes easily. But the more academic conversations, the really the biggest challenge and often the biggest hurdle for ELs for reclassification. And when you're listening to a podcast on ListenWise or in public radio, wherever you want to find them, they have that kind of language that they need exposure to.

[19:00]

And the authentic way things are spoken and the variety of accents and voices paired then with the interactive transcripts so they can see the words. It is a very, very powerful tool and one that we hear from our teachers all the time that sometimes we get interest from an English learner specialist saying, I want to bring this into the classroom. And the general education teacher sees it and says, wait a second, that's just perfect for all my students as well. Because at least on ListenWise, we have...

[19:31]

English, ELA, science, social studies topics that you're teaching in grades 2 to 12. And you can deliver it through listening and meet the needs of your ELs as well as your general education students. But it is interesting how when you're learning to speak another language, it all begins with listening, right? And that is a part. They are quizzed on it. Our students who are classified as ELs are tested every year on listening.

[19:54]

And practicing that, again, should be thought of the same way you would practice the skill for a general education student. So there's a lot of, I think, ways, creative ways that you could be using this in a classroom that has both populations. And you could also scaffold it with the way we have interactive, I mean, sorry, we have the quizzes, we have the written transcripts, we have graphic organizers, ways to highly, highly scaffold for your English learner. And on our platform, ListenWise, you can then use the same assignment with less scaffolding. But it gets back to that point you made earlier, Justin. It's the same story.

[20:31]

That's what's so exciting to me. It's the same story. And it's saying everyone should hear the same thing, but I'm going to give you additional supports because you're still learning to speak English, or I'm going to give you fewer supports and make it more challenging to practice your listening skills.

[20:46] SPEAKER_00:

So Monica, you have a chapter in the book on podcasting and you have been podcasting since before it was cool. This is my third podcast and I've been doing this one for over five years. I remember when to listen to a podcast, you had to synchronize your iPod, which was not a phone. by plugging it in with a cable, which is an old fashioned device that we used to use before everything was wireless. You know, so podcasting has been around forever. There are tens of thousands of episodes out there and and NPRs are transcribed and you have many thousands of them in your platform with all the tools that we've been discussing.

[21:23]

What can podcasting look like within K-12 education, not only to provide students access to great content, but as a learning activity in terms of creating podcasts?

[21:34] SPEAKER_01:

It is a great way to demonstrate understanding and one that kids love. You know, I have a whole chapter on how to do it. And it's the last chapter in the book because it's the culmination of building good listening skills is all the learning that you're going to do in how to be a better listener can build into this project of creating a podcast. Maybe it's a commentary. Maybe it's a PSA you'll share with the school. Or maybe it's just recording a couple students talking about a book that they both read.

[22:04]

in place of a book report. There are so many things and ways that students can demonstrate their learning through podcasting. And it's super, super easy because the tools are primarily free, as you know, and they're And they're portable. They're on your phone. And I think it really drops the walls of the classroom, too, because you can ask somebody to record themselves on their phone and then email you the audio. You could take your phone and interview people, your parents, your family.

[22:32]

I mean, I've heard student podcasts doing a family history where they interviewed their relatives and learned about their immigration story. Very, very powerful stories. And kids love it. I mean, the numbers of podcast listeners has gone through the roof in the past couple of years and it just keeps rising. So my guess is your students are already listening to podcasts and thinking about them and they can easily do it themselves. It's also something that's a great group activity.

[22:58]

I know you may not think of that right away, but like, you know, you said to me, Justin, you have a producer, right? Most podcasters are not solo. You have to Put your students into groups, have them take on roles, researching, making up lists of questions of who they're going to interview, doing the recording. Then it's always best to transcribe the recording. Then you have to write the script. Think of all the standards you're hitting with these activities.

[23:23]

So that by the end, when they have produced their final podcast, they have learned so much and it's been deeply ingrained in them because of all the steps they have to go through to produce a podcast.

[23:35] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Listen Wise, Teach Students to Be Better Listeners. And Monica, if people want to learn more about your work or your company and the platform and the services that you provide to schools, tell us a little bit about that and where people can find more information online.

[23:50] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you can go to listenwise.com and sign up for a free trial. you will get a free trial of premium for 30 days, but then you'll also get a free account to ListenWise because it is free for teachers. So a large collection of audio, all of the current events that we have every school day, plus listening discussion questions, that's free for teachers always. But we would also recommend to see all the scaffolds that I've talked about today to try out premium either for yourself or you can also select a school trial. So listenwise.com.

[24:20]

Check it out.

[24:21] SPEAKER_00:

Oh, you have a daily current event.

[24:23] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You know, teachers love it. It's there's so much happening in the world that's related to what is in the curriculum. And so some of it is just news that they're talking about. But, you know, recognizing the Armenian genocide, you know, the 40th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, these points in history or these scientific discoveries landing on Mars, they all relate to what teachers are teaching. So we are highly curating them.

[24:47]

select the right ones to be using in school. And they're new every day of the school year. So check those out. Those are free as a free ListenWise user.

[24:54] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Monica, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[24:58] SPEAKER_01:

It's been wonderful to talk with you. Thank you.

[25:00] Announcer:

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