Science of Reading: The Podcast

Susan Lambert is joined by emeritus professor of psychology and education and the University of Oxford, Charles Hulme, D.Phil., and founder of Left Side Strong LLC, MaryKate DeSantis. They dive into the critial connection between oral language development and reading comprehension. They also explore exactly what oral language development is, how to screen children for deficits in oral language abilities, and the most effective strategies educators can use for intervention.
Show notes: 
Join our Science of Comprehension Symposium: amplify.com/comprehensionsymposium
Submit your comprehension questions!
Access free resources on our companion professional learning page. 
Connect with Charles on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Charles.
Connect with MaryKate on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Left Side Strong LLC.
Listen to our episode with Wesley Hoover, Ph.D.
Listen to our episode with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
Listen to our episode with Tiffany Hogan, Ph.D.
Listen to Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
Join our Facebook group.
Read Book Language: What It Is, How Children Can “Get It”.
Connect with Susan Lambert.
Quotes:
"Language comprehension is really what leads us to reading comprehension." —MaryKate DeSantis
"We talk about learning to read, but we also need to talk about reading to learn. A lot of what we learn in our lives is through reading, and reading is certainly a powerful drive of vocabulary and language development." —Charles Hulme, D.Phil.
"Language skills are unconstrained, meaning the sky's the limit. As long as you continue to engage in any sort of way, your language skills can continue to develop throughout your lifetime." —Susan Lambert
Timestamps*:
00:00 How language skills shape reading success
06:00 Defining reading comprehension
08:00 Reading is language. Without language, there would be no reading.
12:00 Importance of language skills for comprehension
16:00 Our main purpose in life is to communicate with others
21:00 Development of language skills
23:00 Moving the needle on literacy achievement
28:00 How students can help develop students' language capacity
31:00 Screening to assess oral language skills
35:00 Why early language instruction is effective and sustainable
39:00 Key takeaways
41:00 Focusing on language is worth the time
43:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Phil Capin, Ph.D., assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They explore why recommended reading comprehension practices aren't widely implemented in schools, and what educators can do to change that. Together, they also discuss how knowledge building is foundational to reading comprehension, how writing is a powerful tool in supporting reading comprehension, and why we should structure reading instruction based on what happens before, during, and after reading.
Show notes:
Register for our Science of Reading Symposium: http://www.amplify.com/comprehensionsymposium
Submit your questions on comprehension: http://www.amplify.com/sor-mailbag
Access free resources at our professional learning page: https://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning/
Connect with Phil Capin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-capin-02105550
Read Hugh Catts' article, "Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension": https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1322088.pdf
Read Catherine Snow's article, "Reading for Understanding": https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1465.html
Learn more about Dolores Durkin's report, "What Classroom Observations Reveal about Reading Comprehension Instruction": https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED162259
Read How People Learn: https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/9853/chapter/1
Listen to the podcast episode with Nancy Hennessy: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s3-09-deconstructing-the-rope-vocabulary-with/id1483513974?i=1000520380191 
Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast: http://at.amplify.com/bmy 
Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
Quotes:
"We've underestimated the value of writing in supporting reading comprehension." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.
"Reading and writing rely on a lot of the same language processes, and writing supports the consolidation of knowledge." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.
"Students should engage with meaningful problems, and they should have a reason for learning." —Phil Capin, Ph.D.
Timestamps*:
00:00 Introduction
04:00 Phil Capin's career path
08:00 Reading comprehension is the byproduct of a constellation of competencies
11:00 The complexity of comprehension
16:00 Dolores Durkin's findings on comprehension testing vs. teaching
22:00 Students should engage with meaningful problems
24:00 Comprehension instruction is organized by before, during, and after reading.
27:00 The value of writing for comprehension
31:00 Where comprehension strategies could be helpful
39:00 How much time should teachers dedicate to strategy instruction?
41:00 The strongest predictor of whether you're going to understand the text is the knowledge you bring.
46:00 Every teacher is a reading teacher
48:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by educational consultant Nancy Chapel Eberhardt, who explains why focusing on syntax at the sentence level is just as important for comprehension as word-level decoding. Together, Nancy and Susan also discuss how syntax helps students process meaning while reading, why we should start early and teach syntax to students from the beginning, and a more functional approach to syntax.
Show notes:
Register to join our Science of Comprehension Symposium.
Submit your questions on comprehension!
Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn. 
Read Nancy’s article “Syntax: Somewhere Between the Words and Text.”
Learn more about Nancy’s book Syntax: Knowledge to Practice.
Learn more about the Syntax online course. 
Listen to last week’s syntax-focused episode, with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
Listen to the podcast the episode with Nancy Hennessy, M.Ed.
Read Maryellen MacDonald’s article “Book Language: What It Is, How Children Can ‘Get It’.”
Listen to Season 2 of Amplify’s Beyond My Years podcast.
Join our community Facebook group.
Connect with Susan Lambert.
Quotes:
"Syntax is somewhere between the individual words and the meaning of the text. It's the processing piece that's going on there." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt
"Syntax isn't just for older kids anymore. Syntax is really something that we can start promoting, developing, encouraging, embracing from the beginning." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt
"I actually think that as teachers embrace this idea of syntax, they're going to have a lot of fun with it. It's way more fun to talk about the meanings of words than to just decode them." —Nancy Chapel Eberhardt
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Diving deeper into syntax, with Nancy Chapel Eberhardt
08:00 Comprehension is lifting the meaning out of text
11:00 Sentence-level abilities make as large a contribution as word reading for comprehension
14:00 The difference between syntax and grammar
20:00 Why syntactical knowledge is so helpful in the  comprehension process
24:00 Prosody helps us with our fluency with reading
30:00 Syntax is somewhere between the individual words and the meaning of the text
33:00 We've gone through several generations of students who aren't being taught syntax
37:00 It's  more fun to talk about the meanings of words
39:00 Start teaching syntax by thinking about the most essential build block
45:00 Connecting words are meaningless in the absence of other words
53:00 By spending more time instructing on syntax, we will reach more of our students.
56:00 Closing: Syntax is something we can start promoting, developing, encouraging, and embracing from the beginning.
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by research scientist and professor Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D., who explains why syntax instruction may be the missing piece in our mission to improve comprehension outcomes for all students. Together, Julie and Susan discuss why syntax is the part of the language system that matters for comprehension, how the same systematicity and rule governance that you find in teaching phonics also exists in syntax, and how explicit syntax instruction could be the next breakthrough in evidence-based literacy education.
Show notes:
Register to join our Science of Comprehension Symposium: amplify.com/comprehensionsymposium
Submit your questions on comprehension!
Connect with Julie Van Dyke on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Julie Van Dyke's research on her website.
Watch an interview about Syntax Comes First: Understanding How Syntax Is the Backbone of Comprehension
Watch Dr. Van Dyke's webinar: Finding the Missing Link in Reading Comprehension. 
Access recent Perspectives issues via the IDA. 
Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
Join our community Facebook group.
Connect with Susan Lambert.
Quotes:
"In English, syntax is word order. Syntax is the relationship between the entities in a sentence." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
"If you want to increase comprehension, you need to be explicit in syntax because that's the part of the language system that matters for comprehension." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
"Comprehension is the glue between the words. It's the process of gluing the words together, each word as you go." —Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Syntax and comprehension with Julie Van Dyke, Ph.D.
06:00 Nervousness around syntax instruction
11:00 Comprehension is the glue between words
15:00 The difference between grammar and syntax
19:00 How the brain learns language and how syntax is related to that learning
24:00 Oral language is much less complicated than written language
30:00 Explaining regressions
33:00 The need to be explicit in syntax instruction
36:00 How we develop fluency as syntax
44:00 Closing thoughts: Syntax can move the needle on the nation's report card
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Affiliated Scholar at the Stern Center for Language and Learning, Melissa Farrall, Ph.D., to discuss understanding assessment. Melissa explains why it's beneficial for every educator to understand the fundamentals of assessment, especially comprehension assessment. Together, Melissa and Susan discuss the relationship between reading comprehension and language comprehension, why reading comprehension can be challenging to assess, and how, in a perfect world, educators would be trained both in the Science of Reading and assessment.
Show notes:
Submit your questions on comprehension!
Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page.
Connect with Melissa Farrall on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Chall's Stages of Reading Development.
Read Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition
Read The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom
Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
Join our community Facebook group.
Connect with Susan Lambert. 
Quotes:
"My view of reading comprehension is that it is thinking guided by print." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
"If we supplement our evaluation with measures of listening comprehension, we can then get a sense of an individual's ability to make meaning." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
"In a perfect world, we would have not just evaluators, but educators who are trained both in the Science of Reading and in assessment so that we can all sit at the same table and participate." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Exploring comprehension assessment, with Melissa Farrall
07:00 The legacy of Jean Chall's research on the developmental stages of reading
10:00 "Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition"
17:00 Comprehension is thinking guided by print
21:00 Different ways of assessing reading comprehension
27:00 Kintsch's construction-integration model
30:00 Word recognition
33:00 Reading comprehension is not easily quantified
38:00 How background knowledge affect the meaning-making process
41:00 The two modalities of language comprehension
45:00 How today's educators might think differently about comprehension instruction
48:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute