In this crossover episode Susan Lambert joins host Ana Torres and Classroom Insider Eric Cross from sister podcast, Beyond My Years. Together, the trio dive into the idea that all educators contribute to—and thus must invest in—student literacy development, regardless of the content they teach. Throughout the conversation, they discuss how all teachers are literacy teachers, offer four simple tips for developing academic language in any classroom, and explore why Susan still doesn't feel like a "seasoned educator" despite over 30 years in education. Finally, Ana and Eric discuss what they learned and Eric shares his top three takeaways from Susan.

Show notes:

• Subscribe to Beyond My Years https://at.amplify.com/bmy
• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning
• Connect with:
  • Susan Lambert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-edd-b1512761/
  • Ana Torres: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anayansi-ana-torres-m-ed-26a10654/
  • Eric Cross: https://www.ericcross.org/
• Resources:
  • Science of Reading: A New Teacher’s Guide
  • Scarborough’s Reading Rope
  • The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Follow us on Instagram @amplify.education

Quotes:

“Reading and writing and understanding language is not just an English language arts teacher's responsibility. It's the responsibility of every educator to communicate their discipline and the words and the concepts from their discipline to their students.” —Susan Lambert

“[The Science of Reading movement] is not being led by one person or another person. … I'm part of a greater community, and to know that I play a certain role or part in that community actually gives me a lot of inspiration on days when it's really, really hard.” —Susan Lambert

“Any teacher in a classroom, no matter what content area they teach, is teaching something about language.” —Susan Lambert

“The more that we can sharpen our tools and our skillset to be those teachers of literacy, the faster we're going to see improvements in learning in our classrooms. They're not two separate things.” —Eric Cross

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, literacy coach (and podcast host in her own right) Amie Burkholder joins us to discuss her new book, Literacy Unlocked: How to Implement the Science of Reading With Young Learners. Amie talks through the origins of the book, how she structured it to be really actionable for educators, and what she hopes educators will take away from it. Amie and Susan also discuss some of the biggest recent changes to the Science of Reading movement, the areas Amie most often sees educators struggle when making the switch to research-based literacy instruction, and some tips educators can implement today—including a walkthrough of a classroom activity targeting phonemic awareness.

Show notes:

• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page: http://amplify.com/science-of-reading/professional-learning
• Connect with Amie:
  • Instagram: @literacy.edventures
  • Listen to Amie’s podcast: Route2Reading
• Resources:
  • Book: Literacy Unlocked: How to Implement the Science of Reading With Young Learners
  • Download the Science of Reading: A New Teacher's Guide today!
    amplify.com/sorguide
• Join our community Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/scienceofreading
• Connect with Susan Lambert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-lambert-edd-b1512761/

Quotes:

“Look to those that you trust to guide you.” —Amie Burkholder

“If you try to change everything you're doing, you're not going to do anything well. Pick one area of your literacy block you’re really gonna nail. Once you nail that—add another one.” —Amie Burkholder

“I want [the book] to follow the research, but I want it to be simple enough for teachers to execute, [and] also engaging enough for kids to want to do it.” —Amie Burkholder

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Amie Burkholder?
07:00 Literacy Unlocked: How to Implement the Science of Reading with Young Learners
11:00 Book Structure
12:00 Phonemic awareness classroom activity walkthrough
16:00 Learning while writing the book
17:00 Strategy for getting the most out of conferences
18:00 Favorite conferences
19:00 Biggest changes to the science of reading movement
20:00 Recommendation for people diving into the research for the first time
22:00 Implementation: Biggest struggle for teaching making the shift
24:00 Ideal takeaway from the book
25:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, top literacy scholar Tim Shanahan, Ph.D., returns to discuss his new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It. During his conversation with Susan Lambert, he outlines what existing research says about leveled reading—and why it’s not effective. He also shares how the misuse of theory can lead to ineffectual conclusions, makes a case for the efficacy of more explicit instruction, and provides a few simple tweaks teachers can make to classroom instruction that can make a big difference for their students.

Show notes:

• Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new companion professional learning page.
• Resources:
  • Book: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It
• Join our community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

“This notion of trying to match kids to books and get everybody to their right level is, at the very least, wasteful. It's not benefiting kids.” —Tim Shanahan, Ph.D.

“We're spending an awful lot of time doing a lot of work that is not only not paying off, but it's probably holding a lot of kids back.” —Tim Shanahan, Ph.D.

“Maybe we should be having kids read some of these texts more than once. Maybe we should be doing some of our fluency work, not after we did the comprehension work, but ahead of time.” —Tim Shanahan, Ph.D.

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Tim Shanahan?
03:00 Most proud of as a researcher
05:00 Most proud of in education policy work
06:00 First book: Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives
07:00 Motivation to write: Addressing instructional levels
14:00 Relevance of misuse of theory
17:00 Leveled instruction isn’t effective
21:00 Self-reflections in the writing process
22:00 Parallels to verbal learning
24:00 What can teachers do?
26:00 Fluency and reading things twice
32:00 Grade level teaching opens opportunities
33:00 The future of literacy development
39:00 What is happening in American schools?
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute