[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_01:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the podcast Natalie Wexler. Natalie is an education journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. She is the co-author of The Writing Revolution 2.0. She is the author of The Knowledge Gap, The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System and How to Fix It, which we have previously spoken about here on Principal Center Radio. And she is the author of the new book, Beyond the Science of Reading, Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning.
[00:46] Announcer:
And now our feature presentation.
[00:48] SPEAKER_01:
Natalie, welcome back to Principal Center Radio.
[00:50] SPEAKER_00:
Thanks, Justin. I'm delighted to be here.
[00:52] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I'm honored to have you because you have a pulse on what's going on in our profession and in society more broadly around reading instruction. And since we've last spoken, you have released a podcast called The Knowledge Matters Podcast. You also write widely. You have a newsletter called Minding the Gap. In all of that work, what did you see happening that culminated in Beyond the Science of Reading? Take us into kind of the origin story of this new book.
[01:23] SPEAKER_00:
Right. And just one minor correction. So the podcast I did is season one of the Knowledge Matters podcast. So there's actually season two out now, but mine was called Reading Comprehension Revisited, and it was season one. But yeah, well, so what led to the new book? I mean, one of the things that has happened in the five plus years since the knowledge gap came out is that the term, the science of reading has become quite ubiquitous.
[01:50]
And I'd never heard that when I wrote the book. And there's some great things about that movement and also some causes for concern. And so what I had been writing about, we actually need to define the science of reading to include all of the science related to reading and not just the science related to phonics instruction, which is often how it's represented in the media. And so I wasn't actually looking to write another book, but I did a blurb for somebody else's book and the editor, this is at ASCD, said they We're looking for someone to write a book on why the science of reading needs to go beyond phonics. And I said, OK, sign me up. You know, that is something I really feel is important to write about, because for one thing, if we just fix the phonics problem, quote unquote, and we don't also address some serious problems with the way reading comprehension is taught with skills in the foreground and content sort of taking a backseat.
[02:49]
What's likely to happen is kids will get to higher grade levels, able perhaps to decode complex text, but unable to understand it because they don't have the background knowledge and vocabulary. And at that point, and this has happened in the past, people who are skeptical of phonics might say, well, you see, they can decode that text, but they can't understand it. So phonics doesn't work. And of course, phonics does work. It's just not enough. And so at that point, we could see a reversal of all the progress we've made on phonics.
[03:17]
But I also wanted to go beyond that point because that kind of would have been the knowledge gap, you know, 2.0. And the other thing that I had been concerned about is, I mean, again, there are great aspects to this. Along with the science of reading movement, there's been a science of learning movement, a movement to bring the findings of cognitive science to educators who generally don't learn about them during their training or after their training. which has been great. And I've spoken at some of those conferences, but, um, and, and so there are things like retrieval practice and distributed practice and things like that, that we can talk about, but basically pedagogical approaches that really help students learn.
[04:04]
But all of those approaches, all of those principles assume that you are teaching either a transferable skill, like decoding words or, you know, math or whatever, or something substantive like history. And what I've been seeing or what's certainly been going on in a lot of elementary and sometimes middle school classrooms is that teachers are really focusing a lot of time on non-transferable skills, like making inferences. And there is no role for something like retrieval practice. If you're trying to teach a non-transferable skill, there's no way to apply these principles of cognitive science. I wanted to try to bring together these two movements because really the science of reading and broadly defined is a subset of the science of learning. They shouldn't be as separate as they've been.
[04:55]
So that's basically why I wrote the book.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01:
Wonderful, and I would certainly encourage anyone who's hearing this to go back and listen to our interview on the knowledge gap, which I think makes a very strong case for the importance of knowledge in reading comprehension and makes a strong case against a lot of these skill instruction. And not to rehash that argument too much, but you say in that book, if I'm recalling correctly, that a lot of what we think of as transferable skills aren't really transferable skills. They don't really exist. The ability to comprehend text is not a kind of generalized skill that we can teach in the abstract apart from what the reading is about, the specific content. Do I have that right?
[05:37] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. And something I've been thinking about lately is that there are differences between these comprehension skills and strategies, not necessarily the way that they're usually described, like strategies or sort of metacognitive things that you're consciously thinking about in skills or things that you try to practice to automaticity, I would say something different. I mean, something like making an inference is something that kids learn to do naturally. I mean, toddlers can make inferences. If you touch a hot stove, you can infer that if you do that again, you will get burned, right? So with something like making inferences, the question is, can you do this with particular texts that you are reading.
[06:21]
It's not that teachers should never help students make inferences or guide them to make inferences or never mentioned the word inference. That's fine. But just saying, okay, this week we're going to work on making inferences and it really doesn't matter what we're reading. As long as we're practicing making inferences, that's not going to work because that is not a transferable skill. I think there are some other skills like summarizing, which is really pretty much the same as finding the main idea. which is kind of semi-transferable.
[06:51]
I think just because you've learned to summarize one text doesn't mean you will automatically be able to summarize any other text. It's still going to depend to a large extent on whether you have the necessary background knowledge, vocabulary, et cetera, to understand that text. But I do think that it's worth teaching kids explicitly how to do something like summarizing text. There's a lot of evidence that that's very powerful in terms of helping them understand and retain information, but also it is not necessarily something kids learn to do naturally. And I think the best way, I mean, unfortunately we haven't been teaching that very well. We, I keep coming across statements like, well, just leave in the important stuff and leave out the unimportant stuff, but kids don't necessarily know what the important stuff is.
[07:39]
And so I think really the best way to teach something like summarizing, finding the main idea, et cetera, whatever you want to call it, is through explicit writing instruction where you guide kids to who is this text talking about, what are they doing, why, et cetera, and then putting that all together. And that needs to be not only explicitly taught, but it needs to be done collectively with a lot of practice before students are expected to be able to do it independently. So I would say that kind of strategy instruction done primarily through writing instruction is really crucial.
[08:15] SPEAKER_01:
Interesting. And I really appreciate the fact that you've written a whole book on each of these topics to help us understand, you know, because in some cases, these arguments get complex, but I think they're really crucial to understand. And I'm excited that you're bringing your lens on all of this to the science of learning, the science of reading. And I've had several science of learning authors here on Principal Center Radio, and we'll have others in the future. I've got a book on my desk right now that I'll be talking with someone about soon. But you say some of that doesn't apply quite directly to reading in the same way that it might apply to say math or science or another subject because the idea of retrieval operates differently.
[08:50]
Let's get into some of the big ideas about the science of learning, if we could. What are some of the big tent poles of the science of learning?
[08:58] SPEAKER_00:
The basic theory underpinning a lot of the principles of cognitive science-backed instruction is called cognitive load theory. And it explains why things like retrieval practice, which means retrieval, retrieving an item, you practice retrieving an item from long-term memory, why that is so helpful to learning. So it has to do with the way we take in new information and particularly the aspect of our consciousness called working memory, which is where we take in new information, try to make sense of it. And what cognitive load theory says is that it is very limited. Working memory can only juggle maybe four or five items of new information for about 20 seconds before it starts to become overwhelmed. And we don't have the capacity to understand what we're trying to take in.
[09:45]
And the best way around those limitations on working memory is long-term memory, which is potentially infinite. So if we can just withdraw items of information that we already have stored in long-term memory when we need them, that opens up more capacity in working memory to take in new information. This applies to all of learning, but it definitely applies to reading, which is a way of learning. And before kids are proficient readers, one of those burdens on working memory is going to be decoding the words, figuring out where to put the emphasis in the text. So reading can be more cognitively challenging than just listening before you're a proficient reader. So cognitive load theory explains, first of all, why it is so important to have information, long-term memory, how that helps with learning.
[10:36]
It also tells us if we use that lens to look at typical literacy instruction, it tells us that we've been making reading and writing a lot harder for kids than they really need to be. Because for one thing, with our approach, you know, putting skills in the foreground and leveled reading where kids are just reading about random topics as long as they're at their level. We're often asking kids to read and to write about subjects they're not actually familiar with, which means they have to try to juggle unfamiliar content in working memory along with the cognitive demands of reading and writing. And especially writing imposes a very heavy cognitive load. I mean, even if you're an experienced writer, It can be, you know, writing is not easy. And the other thing that cognitive science tells us is that because writing is so complex and so difficult, it really needs to be taught explicitly and broken into manageable chunks for kids, which we really don't do.
[11:37]
I mean, we ask even kindergartners to write at length in the expectation that they'll kind of just pick it up. If they just keep writing enough and they keep reading enough, they'll just figure out how to write, and most kids really don't. And teaching writing in a manageable way is actually, I would say, the most effective way, not just to teach kids how to write, but also to infuse instruction with the principles of cognitive science and more, because it can provide retrieval practice. When kids are writing, they are retrieving information from long-term memory. So it's making that information stickier and they're also elaborating on it. And we know that if you combine retrieval practice with elaboration, which is basically explaining it, you know, in your own words, especially that's really effective.
[12:27]
That's going to improve not just retention of information, but also understanding ability to analyze plus teaching kids explicitly how to write and to use the complex sentence structure of written language. things like subordinating conjunctions, et cetera, that's going to help with reading comprehension. Because if you understand how to use a subordinating conjunction in your own writing, you're a lot more likely to understand it in written text.
[12:52] SPEAKER_01:
And Natalie, one thing that you have advocated for quite a few years now that I think is really entering the public consciousness is the idea of content-rich literacy curriculum or interdisciplinary curriculum that might cover science, social studies, but it's an ELA curriculum that has content in it. That idea has really taken off What have you seen that relates to the science of learning coming out of that work? Because I have to say, I think that'll be one of the enduring contributions of the knowledge gap that people realize. This is why we need content, not random topics, not here's a passage and then tomorrow we'll have a different passage about something completely different, but purposeful units that are designed to build students' content knowledge in literacy. So in the years since we first spoke about the knowledge gap, my kids have been through a curriculum like that.
[13:44]
And I can say firsthand, They come home excited to talk about the content that they are learning as they are learning the literacy skills as they're getting to be stronger and stronger readers and writers. And that's a very exciting thing. So catch us up a little bit on more about the science of learning around that.
[14:02] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you for crediting me with helping this movement to spread. I really think the book came out at a good time because It came out sort of simultaneously with the development of these knowledge-building elementary literacy curricula. If the book had come out 10 years before, people might have said, well, this is interesting, but what can I do about it? Now there is something you can do. And I love the fact that you mentioned that your kids are coming home excited about what they're learning about, because I do think that is a huge strength of these knowledge-building curricula. They're not only good for kids, but kids really like them.
[14:34]
They enjoy them. They like learning about stuff. And I don't think that any of them sort of consciously or they don't sort of advertise themselves as this is the science of learning. It's more, well, this is science of reading. And most of them do also have foundational skills, components that will teach phonics systematically, et cetera. And I'd say that some of them do a good job, consciously or not, of incorporating the principles of cognitive science.
[15:01]
You know, the one I'm most familiar with is core knowledge language arts. And I've sat in on many classes where The teacher may be saying, what we're reading about today, does this remind you of something else that you learned about maybe last week, last month, last year? And that is a kind of retrieval practice. And sometimes kids will come up with that information themselves. That reminds me of this thing we learned about. And so that's great.
[15:26]
I will say some of them may rely too much on kids sort of learning stuff through inquiry without enough explicit instruction. And I think that most of them probably don't provide enough explicit instruction in writing, starting at the sentence level, but they all do provide rich content. And that is the foundation that you can work with. And so, I mean, you can acquaint teachers with the principles of cognitive science and they can apply those principles to that content. What I argue in the new book is that probably the most effective way to get enable teachers to do that is to combine a content-rich curriculum with a method like The Writing Revolution, which is one of the books that I've co-authored. And it only works if you combine it with a content-rich curriculum.
[16:21]
When you do, it really turbocharges the effectiveness of that curriculum. I've seen this. One of the things I did for the new book was I visited a high poverty district in Louisiana that was using the Louisiana guidebooks curriculum, which is content rich, but did not provide explicit enough writing instruction. So they, this district worked with the writing revolution to adapt the writing revolution to their curriculum. And what I saw was really amazing that kids were not only learning to write, but they were learning their oral language was more sophisticated. They were just learning more and they were more excited about their learning.
[16:59]
So I think there's a lot of potential there. And I think teachers know that writing instruction is something that they need help with. So I think they'll be more receptive maybe to a message that is, listen, we can help you teach your kids to write, as opposed to, okay, so you've got the science of reading you have to deal with, and also maybe the science of writing. And then there's the science of learning too. I mean, that's a lot, and it's asking a lot of teachers to just apply those principles. to their curriculum and instruction.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01:
I wonder if we could talk a little bit more about explicit instruction in writing, because I think we have the idea that students need explicit instruction in phonics. We have the idea that students need content to think about and to think with. What do they need in terms of explicit instruction? What are some examples of what they need to be explicitly taught to succeed in writing and to grow in their ability to write?
[17:54] SPEAKER_00:
It starts with, as I mentioned, I mean, it doesn't end with the sentence level, but there are many high school, college students who probably aren't totally familiar with what makes a sentence a sentence. It's a basic concept, but it's not a simple one. Subject predicate expresses a complete thought. Well, what does it mean to express a complete thought? Just sort of giving the definition for many students is not going to be enough. The kind of instruction that works both for that and for other things is something called deliberate practice, really, which is, again, a cognitive science concept.
[18:32]
And it doesn't mean just doing the same thing over and over again, but it means having, and it can apply to any complex skill, having a teacher or a coach break down that skill for you, could be playing the violin or playing tennis, and breaking down that skill into manageable chunks and then giving students practice repeatedly with the chunk that they need to master and giving prompt targeted feedback. And so, for example, understanding what makes a sentence a sentence as opposed to a fragment of a sentence. One of the strategies in the writing revolution is to give students just groups of words with no punctuation, no capitalization, and they need to just figure out which of these is a fragment, which is a sentence. And if you do that enough, you kind of get it into your bones or into your muscle memory or whatever, you get a gut level sense of what makes a sentence a sentence.
[19:27]
And at the same time, if that activity is embedded in content that students are learning about, it can also be a powerful way to reinforce knowledge because the next thing they have to do after identifying, well, these are fragments, there's a sentence, is to add information that turns the fragments into complete sentences. And to do that, they need to retrieve information from long-term memory and put it in their own words. So that's just one example of explicit instruction. There are many different other sentence-level activities, but I don't want to just talk about the sentence-level activities in the writing revolution because it really goes through argumentative essays. And another thing that needs to be explicitly taught is how to create a clear linear outline for a paragraph or an essay. And again, that's to modulate cognitive load, because even if you know how to construct a sentence, if you're writing at length, it's still a burden on working memory to think, wait a minute, what was I going to say next?
[20:27]
Did I already say that? And if you've offloaded that to a screen or a piece of paper, You don't have to juggle that in working memory and you can devote more of your cognitive capacity to the writing. Well, I think this is a perennial problem, maybe not just in the education world, but just things get simplified and reduced to, I mean, these are complex things and it's sort of inevitable that when they get out in the world, some of the complexity tends to get lost. And I think, I mean, as I mentioned before, an example of that is science of reading getting defined as just like more phonics, which is definitely not what science of reading advocates are calling for. I mean, they want better phonics instruction, not two hours a day of it. And I think that, you know, having this label and having it reduced to something that's oversimplified creates opposition or, you know, it becomes a target for
[21:25]
People who, well, I mean, with some justification, two hours a day of phonics is going to really turn kids off reading. And I agree with that. And I think science of reading advocates would agree with that. But it somehow has gotten reduced to this is what they want. And I worry somewhat that the science of learning, same kind of thing could happen. And it becomes some simplified version of it becomes a kind of punching bag for people who have doubts about it.
[21:54]
I don't think that the science of learning has gotten big enough in the United States that you've seen that really happen yet here. But I think it is happening in some other countries like England and Australia that are a little further ahead with the science of learning movement.
[22:10] SPEAKER_01:
It can essentially become a straw man that's easy to attack if we're not careful about how we talk about it or if we reduce it to too narrow a set of issues. I'm reminded of what happened when the Common Core State Standards came out and they quickly became a sticker that was put on every book that was sold at any kind of education event. The book was the same, but it quickly had a Common Core sticker slapped on the front of it.
[22:37] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. And along those lines, we now have a problem with some stickers or whatever saying knowledge building being attached to or a label being attached to some curricula that don't actually do a great job of building knowledge.
[22:52] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah. So how can we be critical consumers and how can we be on guard in both our attention to claims about and in favor of the science of learning as well as criticisms of the science of learning? How do we Like, how do we avoid the pendulum swings and get this right and not just, you know, go back into some old debate that's been happening for decades?
[23:14] SPEAKER_00:
Well, I think what may be really crucial, but I don't, I mean, I don't know that it will happen is to have curricula that are grounded in these principles so that it's not just a label. In fact, it might be best not to have that label. You know, I was reading an interview with a principal who, wanted to remain anonymous who had brought science of learning principles into his school. But he said, well, we don't call it that. We just do it. And I think maybe that's what we need.
[23:47]
We need a really good curricula, reliable ways to identify them that include the content and incorporate practices that are grounded in science of reading and the science of learning. and ideally incorporate principles of writing instruction that make sense as well. So not that that's all you need. Teachers also do need to understand the reasoning behind those principles, the why. But I don't think that teachers should be expected to take scientific principles and just apply them on a daily basis to their classroom instruction because that's really hard. you know, basic research or scientific research is not designed to be immediately translated into classroom practice.
[24:37]
But curriculum designers who know what they're doing could just absorb that knowledge and translate it into effective classroom practice.
[24:48] SPEAKER_01:
So the book is Beyond the Science of Reading, Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning. Natalie, if people want to subscribe to your newsletter, listen to podcasts that you've done, learn more about your books, where's the best place for them to go online?
[25:02] SPEAKER_00:
Oh, the best place would be my website, which is nataliewexler.com. And there's a link there to subscribe to the newsletter, which is free and lots of other information.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01:
Well, thank you so much for joining me again on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Justin.
[25:16] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
