#5 2023 Countdown: Ep. 157: Reading Comprehension Blueprint with Nancy Hennessy

Episode Transcript
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Melissa (00:00):
You're listening to Melissa and Laurie Love Literacy
.
Today we'll be talking to NancyHennessy, author of the Reading
Comprehension Blueprint.
We'll explore readingcomprehension processes and
products, reading strategies,the role of background knowledge
and vocabulary, and so muchmore.

Lori (00:20):
Welcome teacher friend.
I'm Laurie and I'm Melissa.
We are two literacy educatorsin Baltimore.

Melissa (00:27):
We want the best for all kids and we know you do too
Our district recently adopted anew literacy curriculum, which
meant a lot of change foreveryone, laurie and I can't
wait to keep learning aboutliteracy with you today.

Lori (00:44):
Hi everyone, welcome to Melissa and Laurie Love Literacy
.
Today we are talking all aboutreading comprehension.

Melissa (00:53):
And we have a great guest for this topic today.
We have Nancy Hennessy, who isan experienced teacher and
educator, but I think most ofthe audience will know her as
the author of the ReadingComprehension Blueprint, which
is why she's here to talk aboutcomprehension.
So welcome, nancy, thanks.
So much.

Nancy Hennessey (01:11):
I'm really thrilled to be here with you.
You're doing such wonderfulwork and providing resources for
teachers, which is so, soimportant.
As you know, I was a teacherand administrative for many
years in school, and so I knowhow important it is to share our
knowledge and what we'velearned over the years.
So, and of course, I lovetalking about comprehension.

(01:31):
For many, many years, I was adecoding queen, but recognized
and realized that I wasn'tpaying enough attention to
comprehension, and so that'sreally been my focus for the
last several years.

Lori (01:45):
Yeah, well, we are including this episode as one of
the culminations of a seriesabout reading science and we
really broke down you know theother side quote the other side
of the reading rope, and we wentbeyond phonics.
So I'm hoping that you couldstart us off with what is

(02:06):
comprehension.
Just a quick overview for thoselistening.

Yeah, well, I think that's a great place for
us to start.
I think for many of us, when wethink of comprehension, we
think about it in a verysolitary way, in an isolated way
, and I think it's important forall of us to begin thinking
about the fact that it's quitecomplex.
So I want to invite yourlisteners immediately to start

(02:33):
thinking about how do theydefine comprehension so that
they can make connections as wehave this conversation this
morning.
When I think aboutcomprehension, of course I turn
to the literature, I turn to theresearch, to the science, and
one of the individuals whosework I greatly admire is you,
katz, and recently he has spokento this issue in terms of its

(02:58):
complexity, and he andcolleagues have described it as
one of the most complexbehaviors that we engage in as
human beings.
So I think that's important tokeep in mind and then to move
from there and to be thinkingabout well, how does the
literature really describecomprehension?
You know, when I work witheducators, oftentimes what they
surface for me is something thatthey're teaching, for instance,

(03:19):
finding the main idea.
That's what comprehension is.
That's a product ofcomprehension.
But I think we need to gobroader than that, because
comprehension is not just asingle skill or strategy.
It really is the result ofmultiple skills and knowledge.
So I would like to share, then,the fact that the reading study

(03:40):
group described it asextracting and constructing
meaning, and I think that's thefocus, but it's much more than
that, I think as well.
But did you want to ask mesomething?
Look like you wanted to ask mesomething.

Lori (03:56):
Well, I was just thinking like I love the idea of thinking
of comprehension as complexright from the get-go.
Often I think that we know that, but sometimes it feels, I
think, more simple than it iswhen we're, I don't know, when
we're like thinking about how toteach it, but it's really not
something that I think you cannecessarily teach.

(04:18):
I think it's something you canhelp students think about, right
Like constructing that meaning.
So I'm just wondering if youwant to react to that or say
more.

Yeah Well, first of all, I think, right on
that, we need to always bethinking about the complexity,
because for many of us, if we'reskilled readers, when we come
to text it feels effortless.
It doesn't feel as if it takesa great deal of energy and
thought, we just automaticallymove through the text, but the
reality is it is quite effortfulfor many of our readers and in

(04:51):
terms of the complexity andteaching comprehension, I think
in order to do that, we have tounderstand.
You know what does it entail?
All right, and I turn toKassels and colleagues'
description of comprehension.
It really guides most of mywork and thinking.
And they talk about the factthat it's not a single entity.
So we have to think about thefact that there are multiple

(05:13):
models that we can turn to thatidentify the multiple
contributors to comprehension.
That's the first piece, I think.
And then, secondly, they talkabout the fact that it's the
orchestrated product.
Right, and we'll talk some moreabout product in a moment.
I think it's the orchestratedproduct of multiple linguistic

(05:35):
and cognitive processes andskills, right?
So there's a great deal that'sgoing into comprehension.
And then, lastly, they speak tothe fact that when we are
working with text and when we'reteaching our students to work
with text, we have to keep inmind that this is interaction
that goes on between thefeatures of the text and what

(05:55):
the reader is bringing and whatthe purpose is that we're
setting.
So that's a lot right, sort oflike whew.
You know, all of that needs togo into our thinking about
comprehension, and I don't thinkwe can teach comprehension per
se.
It's not a skill all right, butwe can teach our students and

(06:17):
help them develop thecontributors to comprehension,
particularly the languagecomprehension contributors that
are necessary to make meaning.
So I hope that helped orclarified maybe the perspective
that I'm using, using what thescience is telling us about
comprehension and its complexity.

Melissa (06:39):
Yeah, I'm wondering, nancy, if we can jump into that
products and processes, becauseI can't be really confusing.
I know that I can think aboutreading comprehension as like
okay, when I'm reading I amcomprehending, right, that's
what I'm trying to comprehendwhen I'm reading.
But then also there's that endproduct of I have comprehended

(06:59):
what I've read, right.
So as a teacher, it's hard tothink about it in both of those
ways.
Do you want to dig into that?

Yeah, and I think this is a different way to
think about it.
As an educator, I thinkoftentimes what we're thinking
about is the product, right?
Yes, can we get our students toa place where they can indicate
that they understood what theyread?
All right, so the product isreally the end result.
It's really what is it that thereader is taking away from the

(07:30):
reading of the text, or multipletexts?
All right, if we think a littlebit about the oral response
that we expect from studentswhen we ask them a question, or
the written response.
So if they're listening to, forinstance, if they're listening
to read aloud early on likestand up, molly Lou Mellon some
of you may know that little bookwhich is about a little

(07:53):
character who has many, manydifferences, and her grandmother
is really her advocate.
And so if we ask a questionlike what was her grandmother's
message, the response is theproduct.
It indicates whether or not thestudent, the reader, is walking
away with an understanding ofwhat that text was conveying.
That's a little different thanprocesses, because you know,

(08:19):
when we have a product, if wethink even about a production
line, all right, how do we getthe product?
Will you get it throughmultiple processes or
contributors to that, to thatproduct.
So what are the processes?
We're talking here aboutmultiple language and cognitive
processes.
So what does it take to be ableto respond to?

(08:41):
Oh, even if we were askingstudents something about why did
the founding fathers have tocompromise?
If we were reading, let's say,a middle school text about
American democracy, right?
So how do we get there?
Well, cain and Oak will tell usthat in order to get there, we
have to process the language ofthe text.

(09:03):
So, first of all, we want ourstudents to be able to read the
words, word recognitionimportant.
But now let's think a littlebit about language comprehension
.
So we want them to be able todo what Access the meaning of
the words.
So there's our vocabulary.
All right, we want them to beable to work out the syntactic
sense of the sentence, thatsentence comprehension.
We want them to be able tointegrate the meanings within

(09:26):
and between the sentences.
All right, that's a specialtype of inference.
And we want them to be able toincorporate, incorporate their
background knowledge so thatthey can arrive at what's not
explicitly stated in the text.
So the overall goal here is forthe student to have that
product, and it can be differenttypes of products, but an

(09:46):
overall goal.
The ultimate goal is a mentalconstruction of meaning, a
mental model and overallunderstanding that we take away
with us.
All right, I can go over.
I don't want to keep going.
If you want to ask me aquestion, I was going to go a
little further, but I'll stop.

Melissa (10:03):
I was just going to jump in and say I always felt as
a teacher this was the hardestpart for me, because it all
happens in their brains and youdon't know what's happening.

Lori (10:12):
I know.

Melissa (10:13):
It's invisible.
So, yeah, you get that productof whatever.
The answer is right or wrong,but you have no idea what.
Which one of those many thingsyou just listed Nancy kind of
may have tripped them up if theygot it wrong, you know, could
be so many things.

And this is why, when we begin to design
instruction and when I thoughtabout instruction, I designed
the blueprint, because it's anoverall picture of what does the
teacher have to consider asthey plan for instruction, of
course always taking intoaccount the read of the task,
the text and the context.
The other thing I want to sayabout this is in terms of what's

(10:50):
going on in their mind, becausewhen we talk about processes,
we're talking about theselanguage processes and skills,
but we're talking about you knowwhat's happening cognitively?
Well, they're identifying ideaunits.
So they're looking at themeaning of the words, they're
looking at the sentences,they're figuring out the who and
the do.
All right, what does thissentence tell me?

(11:12):
At the same time, what do theyhave to do?
They have to integrate theinformation within and between
the sentences.
So if I'm talking aboutdinosaurs and then in the next
sentence I say it and itreference backs to a specific
type of dinosaur, I have tounderstand that, that I'm still
talking about the dinosaurs.
So there are clue words, andthen, of course, we want the

(11:32):
reader to be monitoring andthinking about.
Does this make sense to me?
All right, and if it doesn't,what are the strategies?
What are the fix up strategiesI can use to kind of get over
that hurdle.
And then, of course, theincorporation of background
knowledge.
So processing on a larger levelhere we talk about integrative,

(11:53):
we talk about now acollaborative processing in
which the reader isincorporating that background
knowledge and then finallyarriving where, at that mental
model.
So this is quite complex, butan understanding of this gives
us a kind of a bird's eye viewinto that brain, into what's
actually happening in the mindof the reader and what might go

(12:16):
wrong.
So this is research thatsupports that when they have
difficulty with the product,oftentimes it's not the product,
it's the processes that arefaulty.

Melissa (12:27):
I know it's even more complex because it's different
for each child's, bringingsomething different to that text
, and then every text that theyencounter is different.
So the vocabulary is different,the knowledge is different for
the students and the texts, andso it's not going to be the same
every time you read a book.

Not at all.
So this is why I'm very much anadvocate and I believe you are
too of using the text that thestudents are reading in order to
develop these processes, skills, the knowledge that's necessary
to work with the text.
This is not isolated skill work, but this is actually looking
at what is my reader bringingand what is this text demanding.

(13:07):
Yeah, what am I asking them todo?

Lori (13:10):
Yeah, and it is so complicated.
But going back to that examplethat you gave Nancy, just very
practically thinking about thedinosaurs and the word it in the
next sentence and referringback to the dinosaurs and having
an understanding that the wordit is referring back, I mean,
when you ask the question, right, like what is it referring to?

(13:31):
The student has an opportunityto show that product.
But it could be a guess.
They could guess, right, wedon't know, like there's so many
invisible things.
We don't know their priorknowledge about dinosaurs or,
you know, is dinosaurs afamiliar term to them that
they're even being able toconnect it and a dinosaur, or is
that confusing to them?

(13:52):
And many other factors as well.
Right, I just keep thinkingabout the five pillars and how
in the pillars it seems so neatand clean in terms of like these
are the five things they need,but comprehension really seeps
over into all of the other ones.
So it's almost like it shouldbe a foundation instead of a

(14:14):
pillar, like I want to put it atthe bottom of the building.

Yeah, well, it is the goal.
Yeah, I know it is the goal.
And certainly I mean, when youthink about the reading rope, I
mean, if you just think aboutthat reading rope and you think
about those strands of wordrecognition and then the strands
of language comprehension, theyall do need to come together in
order for the reader to be ableto not only read the words but
make meaning simultaneously.

(14:38):
So, yes, I think it's you, kat,some in the article on
rethinking comprehension thatspoke to this very topic.
You know it's not a skill andwhy have we been thinking about
it as a skill and thatseparation out?
Certainly the work of theNational Reading Panel was
incredibly important, buteverything evolves and we have

(15:01):
to continue to be thinking aboutthe fact that comprehension is
not equal to or the same as,vocabulary or those other
pillars that are represented.
It is the end goal, yeah.

Lori (15:13):
Yeah, yeah, such a good point.
We talked to Hugh about thatarticle and we loved that
conversation.

It was so helpful, so helpful to
understand Such a rich articleand, of course, he's spoken to
this in multiple venues now,including yours, and, yeah, he's
a resource that I frequentlylook to.
I think one of the things thatwe've not paid enough attention
to is this language base forcomprehension, the fact that,

(15:43):
really, what we're doing whenwe're working with our students
in terms of comprehension ishelping them move from this oral
language base and we'retranslating for them what it
looks like in writing.
Right, and it's all dependentupon what it is that they're
bringing and how we continue todevelop their language
competencies.

Lori (16:01):
Yeah, and keeping text at the center of that is so
important.

Oh, absolutely Absolutely.
But the reality is, if we wantour students to be able to work
with the academic language oftext, with academic text, as
they move through the grades, wehave to be working directly
with the text and the focus hasto be on what's that text
telling us.
Because, after all, what iscomprehension all about?
It's all about learning, it'sabout acquiring knowledge, right

(16:30):
?
So I think it's Susan Newmanwho wrote an article talking
about knowledge and that it'scomprehension in disguise.
So I think so, so importantthat we keep our eye on the ball
.
I mean, in the blueprint, Ihave asked teachers to think
about content goals as well asliteracy, skills goals and

(16:53):
objectives.
I don't.
I think certainly many of thenew curricula that have come out
that are focused on knowledgeare doing that, but I don't
think that's something thatwe've typically done in the past
.
We've been very focused on theskills and strategies and kind
of mixed up those two terms aswell.

Melissa (17:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're guilty of that, lori andI.
We have hey me too.

I can put my hand up for lots of things that
I didn't do in the way that Iwould do them now.

Lori (17:22):
So yeah, yeah, we actually had a recent episode talking
about that because we felt weput it in our quote hot topic
series, because we felt like itwas so important and a topic
that is very frequentlymisunderstood, you know,
including by us, and I thinkthat might be a great place to
go.
Next, nancy, if you're willing.

(17:43):
Like, where do strategies fit?
And if there is so muchresearch for strategies which we
know there's research forstrategies then why aren't they
the focus right?
Like, why is the focus keepingthe text at the center and using
the strategies to access that?

Yeah, well, I think it's a great question and
I think it's one that we allcontinue to ask ourselves,
because perhaps we have ahistory of teaching reading
strategies.
I do as well, I think.
I think, first of all, clarityof terms is really critical.
If we think about the fact,skilled readers come to text and

(18:21):
they're fairly automatic aboutmaking meaning, reading words
and making meaning, it's not tosay they don't sometimes
encounter a hurdle that theyhave to overcome, but oftentimes
those who are struggling withreading or less skilled, do need
a strategy, do need a way tointeract with the text, or even

(18:42):
us occasionally, perhaps readinga text that's very unfamiliar
for us, we have to access.
I think about readingscientific journals.
Right, we have to access.

Lori (18:50):
I know that's what I was thinking too.
I don't even know that topic,but I still need my strategies
for that.

Yes, yes.
So I think we need to bethinking about strategies as a
means to an end.
Of course they're intentional.
They're not necessarilyautomatic.
We need to be modeling them, weneed to be providing practice
and, hopefully, opportunity forgeneralization, but they are not
the be all and the end all.

(19:16):
I mean they are intended to getthe student to a place where
they have skill, which isautomatic, so that we can just
come to text and read.
However, they are a fallbackwhen, in fact, we are having
difficulty with the text.
I think the other thing we haveto be doing is thinking through

(19:36):
how we differentiate strategies.
I think there's been a majorfocus on strategies for product
and not so much strategies forprocess or what I would consider
language skills.
So if I think about strategiesfor product, certainly main idea

(19:58):
is one that pops into my mind.
There's an old, old strategycalled RAP.
Read the paragraph, askyourself these questions, put it
in your own words.
I think a newer version of thatis getting the gist.
That's very focused on product.
But the student who reallydoesn't have that skill?
It would be important to begiving them a strategy to help

(20:20):
them get through the text, butthe purpose here is that that
will become automatic.
I think it's Danielle McNamarathat talks about strategies made
automatic or skills.
I think that's important tokeep in mind Versus thinking
about strategies for process.
All right, well, 10 weeks, 5weeks, being able to figure out

(20:42):
the meaning of a word, forinstance, using an independent
word learning strategy likemorphology, it's really more
focused on developing a languageskill or process.
If we're not there, we can'tgive the student the meaning of
or remind them of.
The student needs toindependently do that, so we can

(21:03):
model that and hope that thatwill become.
The other differentiation Iwould make here is strategies we
use as teachers, instructionalroutines and I think this is
this has gotten muddied.
I think that sometimes we don'tmake those differentiations and
keep in mind what the purposeis.
So, teacher strategies,instructional routines,

(21:23):
activities different than thosewe're teaching our students in
order to make their way throughthe text, I always think the
focus has to be on the text.
It's always about what am Itaking away from this text?
How can I develop thecapability of working through
that text and, one by one,aggregating those idea units so

(21:48):
that I have a big picture, ideaof what happened in that text?
Yeah, I hope that helped.
Oh and, by the way, I didlisten to Dr Peter Affleck back
talk about this differentiation,and also Tim Shanahan, so I'm
on board with them.

Melissa (22:09):
Yeah, you definitely echoed some of those.

Well, when you , when you really continue to
read the literature and keepthinking about this, there's a
consensus.
I think yeah.

Melissa (22:21):
And I think that we often.
It's so black and white often,where it's like you either teach
strategies or you don't teachstrategies, and it's like it's
not a, it's not one of the other.
Right, it's not strategies orknowledge.

right, we're doing both and it's not one,
that's right, it's not one ofthe other, but.
But I continue to think aboutthe fact that why do we want our
students to comprehend text?
We want them to learn, we wantthem to take away knowledge, all
right.
And so how do we get there?
How do we get there?

(22:53):
There's a difference betweenhow we get there and that
ultimate product, and so we haveto keep that in mind.

Melissa (22:59):
Yeah, Absolutely so let's talk about the blueprint
now.
We buried the lead a littleright.

Let's talk about the blueprint.

Melissa (23:11):
So I mean we've we've mentioned several times in the
past it's been about 20 minuteshow complex this it is to teach
comprehension.
So you made this blueprint tosort of help teachers make some
sense of it and the things tothink about.
So yeah, we can't wait to hearabout it.

Yeah Well, I kept.
I kept thinking about thevaried models, all right, and
what the science was telling us,and this kind of process versus
product approach.
And so you know, I was reallyinspired by the reading rope, by
how a scarborough's work, thelanguage comprehension, but also

(23:49):
some of the other models, thesimple view and Chuck Perfetti's
work and so on.
And so I kept thinking how canI represent this in a way that
makes sense to teachers?
And I have to tell you that theorigin of the blueprint really
was my work with Louisa Moth'swhen I was a national trainer,
one of the first trainers forlanguage essentials for teachers

(24:11):
of reading and spelling, andthen she and I were oh it was a
phenomenal, wonderfulopportunity and she gave me the
opportunity to work with her onthe second edition, module six,
which was all aboutcomprehension.
So really the this thinking grewout of that and then work with
teachers.
I developed, actually, ablueprint, training, and people
kept saying, wow, blueprint,what does that look like?

(24:34):
So I want to say upfront theblueprint is not cast in
concrete.
It continues to evolve based onthe science.
So what is it?
It's a master plan, it's aframework.
You know, if you're going toconstruct a comprehension house,
you need a blueprint.
All right, it's not a lessonplan, it's not a unit Unit
organizer.
It's a big picture and you canderive your unit organizer and

(24:58):
your lesson plans from it.
All right, it does align withthe science.
It is flexible from theperspective of you know, the
teacher has to be thinking aboutthe students they're working
with.
Lori said this earlier and sodid you, melissa.
You know kid, kiddos aredifferent.
So it's flexible in terms ofthe students you're working with

(25:19):
, the text you're working withand so on, and it asks teachers
to think about, to think about.
All right, if I need to includevocabulary, well, what
questions should I be askingmyself about how I designed
vocabulary instruction, allright.
So that's big picture on it,okay.
So it begins by asking teachersto think about planning for

(25:45):
planning or preparing forinstruction, and then by
identifying what are the bigideas you want your students to
take away.
What are the criticalunderstandings?
So the question that theteachers are asked to respond to
is what do you want yourstudents to know and understand?
All right.
And that then moves into okay,if that's what you want your

(26:06):
students taking away, all right.
Then what do your goals looklike?
What's your purpose forteaching?
What are your content goals andobjectives?
All right.
And then what are your literacyskills?
Those goals and objectives?
So, as Tim Shanahan said,double outcomes for reading,
okay, both knowledge and contentas well as skill, right.

(26:27):
And then it also inherentwithin that and we can talk a
little bit more about this isthe types of readings that your
students would be using.
All right.
And then you move into theactual reading.
The blueprint then moves intothose contributors, all right.
That really align with, again,the models, particularly the
reading rope.
And so you know, it's abouttext reading.

(26:48):
What do you have to have inplace in order to understand the
text?
So, vocabulary right, sentencecomprehension.
You have to understand textstructure.
By the way, a specialized typeof background knowledge.
You have to have backgroundknowledge and then you need to
be thinking about expression ofunderstanding, levels of

(27:09):
understanding.
How do you move your studentsfrom you know a literal to
inferential understanding?
And, coupled with each one ofthose contributors, there are
questions.
So the questions for vocabularyare which words will you teach?
Which ones will youintentionally teach?
You can't teach them all howand when?
Which words will you,incidentally, on purpose teach,

(27:30):
because you need to continue todevelop the oral language for
your students, all right, aswell as develop vocabulary
through reading.
How and when will you do that?
How about independent worklearning strategies like
morphology and context?
How and when will you teachthose?
And then, how will you developwork consciousness as kind of
overall interest and word?

(27:52):
Now, I didn't arrive at thosequestions by myself.
I read the literature onvocabulary, I read the experts
on vocabulary.
So every one of thosecontributors which reflect those
levels of language processingor language comprehension have
similar questions.
Right, and then, runningthroughout the blueprint is a
bidirectional arrow that callsattention to the fact that you

(28:16):
have to teach your kids tomonitor comprehension.
If they're not doing that andyou need to give them, by the
way, strategies for getting overthe hurdles.
So, for instance, the strategyfor vocabulary is to use
independent word learningstrategies.
Right, not just reread.
All right, that's not enough.
Use what you know about words.

(28:38):
Oh, I can use my knowledge ofmorphemes, so maybe the context
will give me the meaning and soon, and also some flexibility in
terms of before, during andafter instruction.
That's up to the teacher.
It's determined by the reader,the text and the task you're
asking them to do.
So, again, it's a framework,it's an overall look at

(28:58):
comprehension.
It's a lot.
I work with teachers.
I say to them, one bite at atime, right, and be thinking
about what is it that you needto do for the reader that you're
working with?
Yeah, so that's the blueprint.

Lori (29:15):
I'm so glad that you mentioned I will.
I'm so glad that you walked usthrough it, thank you, and that
bidirectional arrow I wanted tojust kind of name something that
you know.
When I was teaching using astrategy, I was thinking, oh,
let's try to master main idea,which we know we can't.
I was thinking very much inthat, like before, during and

(29:44):
after space, and I think in myteacher brain I associated that
with very skill basedinstruction and I really
appreciate you calling out that.
You know it is not somethingthat is one time we do it before
, one time we do it during, wedo it after.
It is just kind of happeningall throughout and maybe we're

(30:07):
going back into text and we knowthis as adult readers.
But I think sometimes, as we tryto make it very concrete and
kind of like Melissa said in thebeginning, I think or maybe you
said it, nancy very black andit's not.
And I just appreciate youcalling out before, during and
after there, because that, Iknow, made such a difference for

(30:27):
me when I was reading theblueprint.
I was like, oh, yeah, I'm goingto go back to you know, what I
know is true, which is more thanone thing can be true at once.
And we're always going before,before, during and after, and
we're building knowledge all thetime and we're building
vocabulary and all of thosethings.
And we're building vocabularyin all of those places before,

(30:50):
during and after, like it's notjust during.

It's right.
It's not that these things allfit in these little boxes.
Yeah, I mean you know, I mean,if we, if we think about this, I
mean we're consistently, it'sit's difficult because I think,
as teachers, it's it's easierfor us to think, oh, now I'm
working on this, and now I'mworking on this, and now, and,
and yes, sometimes we need to bevery directed and explicit

(31:15):
about certain aspects of reading.
All right, but the reality is,all of these contributions to
comprehension are integrated andthey're working together with
one another, and so it's reallyhard to tease out.
You know, how do you tease outvocabulary from background
knowledge?
Very difficult to do, right.
So how do you tease out Syntax,syntactical knowledge, this

(31:42):
ability to work with sentence,the order of word and sentence
from word meaning, the wordmeaning changes dependent upon
where it is in the sentence.
So, so, so this understandingthat, yes, we can think about
these contributors individually,but the reality is they're all
working together and we need tobe flexible in our approach to

(32:05):
to working with the text.
Yeah, that's a great point,gloria.
Yeah, I'm glad that helped.
Yeah, it really did.

Lori (32:11):
I appreciate that and for anyone listening, I know Nancy
just walked us through verygracefully the blueprint.
But we will make sure that weprovide something for you to be
able to either know where to getit or to be able to see it
yourselves.
So we will do that for you, forsure.

Yeah, yeah, great, that will be helpful.
I know I can talk about it, butit's very helpful to have the
visual and that's why I createda visual for it.

Melissa (32:40):
I even pulled it up for myself here.
Oh, you did.

Yeah, yeah, well, sometimes I do that.
I had a slide ready just incase for myself.
So the other thing I want tosay is that you know, I
developed the blueprint reallyfor K8.
All right, but it is adaptablefor those students who are
struggling in upper grades andthe reality is for middle and
high school teachers.
There are some things I wouldadd to the blueprint and I'm

(33:07):
thinking about that for thefuture specific to, for instance
, disciplinary literacy.
All right, because as studentsmove up through the grades, you
know and we think about techstructure, for instance, you
know there are somecharacteristics of science texts
, social studies texts and so on, and we know, you know, Tim

(33:30):
Shanahan and some others havedone some work in this area, as
well as others.
So for those who are listeningand interested in the blueprint,
know that that's on the horizon.

Lori (33:42):
Oh, that's exciting, Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, so anyway, all right.
So that's the blueprint.
That's the blueprint I wantedto say yeah, okay.

Lori (33:52):
Well, I'm wondering, nancy , if we could get like really
practical.
I mean, I know we have thisblueprint, but if we're putting
our teacher head on and we'rethinking, okay, I am.
I know you said in our justbefore we hopped on that you
taught fifth grade and I did tooI'm wondering if we could think
about fifth graders.
Let's just think about fifthgraders.

(34:12):
I'm a fifth grade teacher.
I'm planning for a readinglesson.
What should I be thinking about?
I have a fifth grade text infront of me.
Melissa, you want to name afifth grade text for us?

Melissa (34:24):
The Phantom Toll Booth.

All right, phantom Toll Booth.
Okay, I haven't read that textin a very long time.

Lori (34:32):
I think there's some crazy vocabulary like a doldeck,
doldeckahedron.
Am I sound?

not thing right, doldeckahedron, oh okay,
yeah, yeah, I may even have thattext somewhere in a closet.
I have lots of teachingmaterials.
Yeah Well, I think when we stepback, the first thing that I
would encourage people to do istake a look at the blueprint,
look at those questions and thenbegin to think about either

(34:59):
unit organizers or lessonorganizers that can align.
I've provided those.
I always want to start with thecritical understanding.
Why are we reading that text?
What's the big idea?
What's the criticalunderstanding that I want my
student to walk away with?
That's the content goal.
Really, I can pull the contentgoal from that critical

(35:20):
understanding.
Maybe there's some essentialquestions I would develop.
Then I already have identifiedmy reading and I'm hoping that
this reading does the followingthings for me.
That'll help me develop theacademic language that I want my
fifth graders to have.
An academic language haseverything to do with a little
bit more sophisticatedvocabulary you just referenced a

(35:43):
word that would be a little bitmore sophisticated.
The sentences are going to be abit more complex and
complicated.
The discourse structure it'sgoing to vary, there's going to
be increasing nuance as we movethrough the grade, and so on.
I'd also want to be certainthat there's opportunities to
develop all those contributors Ijust talked about, and that

(36:05):
really connects back to academiclanguage I'd also be thinking
about in addition to the phantomtoll booth and the enduring
understanding, am I using someother texts that are also
focused on that knowledge base?
That what it is that I'm takingaway from that particular book?

(36:25):
I don't want to read that bookin isolation and then move on to
something totally different.
Once I get that in mind, don'tforget about access for the
kiddos who can't read the book.
That's really important.
I want to identify thevocabulary words that I need to

(36:46):
teach.
That's a little difficult.
I think Maddie McEwn calls thata stealthy process because we
don't have an exact formula foridentifying those words.
But we can think to ourselveswhat's critical to understanding
the text.
There's some words that we cangenerate, some other words, some

(37:08):
growth in vocabulary, theimportance of growth, the
importance of understanding thetext.
Once I've done that, then Ihave to have a simple routine
and a complex routine.
I have to be thinking throughinstructional strategies.
I also want to look at thesentences in the text.
Is there a sentence or two thatI want to pull out beforehand

(37:29):
to have some conversation about,because it's long or it's got a
lot of embedded clauses or it'swritten in passive voice versus
active?
I want to be thinking aboutthat and helping students know
how to deconstruct sentences.
I want to be thinking aboutalso the text structure.

(37:50):
Are there any nuance in phantomTolbooth?
It's narrative, right, is itnarrative?
Yeah, I thought it wasnarrative.
I really haven't looked at itin a long time.

Melissa (37:59):
I recognize the title.

Lori (38:00):
Good memory.

Is there any nuance?
I mean, we can go with a simplestory grammar map, but we want
to go a little bit beyond that.
What was the purpose?
What are the features that wecan pull out?
Are there signal words?
There are lots of differentthings we can be thinking about.
Then, of course, what's thebackground of it?
What's specific to that textthat's going to help the student
make meaning of that text?

(38:26):
How do we want them to expresstheir understanding?
I think we have to be thinkingthrough, we have to become the
reader and we have to engage inthe reading and be thinking
through.
Does the curriculum that wehave, just the program that we
have, address all of thesedifferent things?
Do we have to begin tosupplement for our students or

(38:48):
elaborate on?
No program is perfect.
There are many wonderfulprograms, but almost always I
mean this is why we're teachersAlmost always we have to be
thinking about.
What else might I have to do,knowing my reader?
Yeah, was that helpful.
Yeah, I mean yeah.

Lori (39:06):
It really is.

Yeah, I did think about.
I have an example in theblueprint about Kayla reading a
placard in a science museumabout dinosaurs.
Because her class was readingabout dinosaurs, denotopia and
so on and kind of thinkingthrough, her teacher was asking
her to write a summary of whatshe was learning in that science

(39:31):
museum about a specificdinosaur and she picked a
specific one.
Well, she had to understand theprecise vocabulary.
What did extinct mean?
What's prehistoric mean?
She had to be thinking aboutwhat's the difference between
meat eaters and plant eaters?
And then these long sentencesand I gave you the example of
the it sentence before Did sheunderstand the it?

(39:54):
So all of that is going intothe ability and every text is
going to be a little bitdifferent, but there are some
general things we can bethinking about.

Lori (40:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's so helpful.
I'm thinking too like whenyou're thinking about texts I
know we gave a book as anexample but also the surrounding
texts for that book, or coretext or whatever we would want
to call it, the texts that wemight use to build knowledge, or
yes, yes Can be that they don'thave to be a book.

(40:27):
It could be a video, a song, anarticle, right.
I just I want to make sure wesay that because it's so.
I think sometimes it's easy toget in that box again of like
text.
We need a whole nother book.
Well, I mean the Phantom ToeBooth, if we're going back to
that example, that's all aboutwordplay.
I know the.

(40:49):
I've been in classrooms andI've seen kids watching Abbott
and Costello's who's on First asa text to support their
understanding of wordplay beforethey dive into the Phantom Toe
Booth.
Oh, that's cool, yeah, yeah,and it's really neat and they
totally get it and that's agreat way to prepare students to

(41:12):
read, right.

Well, it comes back to this whole idea of
background knowledge and I callit the ABCs activating and
assessing, kind of figuring outwhat kiddos are bringing.
But also then, how do you build?
And there are multiple ways, asyou're just saying, to build.
So certainly, text sets booksaround particular theme, very

(41:36):
helpful.
But authentic artifacts arehelpful as well, and so you're
bringing to mind an example thatI often use.
If you're reading about the busboycott, all right, and we're
reading about Rosa Parks andothers, what is it that we can
use?
Pictures of the actual bus, theseating on the bus, the arrest

(42:00):
record, the fingerprint record,I mean these are really
important.
And videos can be criticallyimportant as well.
And I love the example of songsand raps and so on, because
I've heard teachers say you knowthat they've used those, and
kids all immediately make theseconnections and it's sort of
like, wow, I can't believe theyjust made that connection.

(42:23):
So, but you know beingpurposeful about what we choose,
yeah, yeah.
So there's no doubt that thistakes a great deal of thinking
and planning and again I'll comeback to.
Let's look at our curriculum,let's look at our program, let's
look at what we're doing wellin terms of what the blueprint
points out as contributors, andlet's look at maybe what we

(42:46):
haven't addressed and how can wego about supplementing.

Melissa (42:50):
Nancy, can I ask you a quick question?
Well, not a quick question, butdiving into something you've
mentioned a couple of timesalready, which is about goals.
Just because I know Lori and Iget questions about this quite a
bit, because I know when I wasin the classroom, your, your
learning goal for the day, hadto be posted on your board.
You know that's why youradministrator came around to
check on and had to be alignedto a standard.

(43:11):
And if I was doing that, it wasoften it became this you know,
skill or started really skilldriven, you know like find the
main idea, because that's in astandard.
So that becomes my learninggoal.
But you kind of brought uphaving this two goals.
Can you?
Can you dive into that a littlebit more of like how teachers
would go about finding goals?

Yeah, yeah, Well, um well, sometimes the
curriculum or program willprovide those right.
They will provide a goodstarting point.

Lori (43:40):
Yeah, my gosh.
I would prefer that if,speaking honestly, that was like
the, the bane of my existence.
I hated writing those theobjectives every day.
I really didn't like it frombeing honest, it was frustrating
.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think you know.
If you know what your big ideayou're enduring understanding is
, you can develop essentialquestions from that, all right.
So you can.
You can take something like I'mworking with a colleague right
now on an activity book thatwill supplement the blueprint
and there's lots of activitiesin it and she's in, she's yeah,

(44:16):
and she's in classroom.
So good to have a teacherworking with someone who hasn't
been in classroom for a while.
Understand it, but I'm nothaving that day to day
experience and she is.
So you know.
For instance, those are duringunderstandings.
One of the ones that we'vegiven an example of in the
activity book is personal,around personal identity.

(44:38):
Who am I?
For?
Kindergarten and eighth grade,we've contrasted how you can
pull that through, all right,the various grades and she's
developed all the essentialquestions.
So the essential questions arealways there, all right, and
they're kind of guiding what itis that we're doing, and then
the lesson plans will referenceback to those, but maybe more

(44:58):
specific in terms of developingthe vocabulary, the sentence
comprehension, you know thebackground knowledge and so on
throughout.
So I think that's the way thatwe're thinking about goals and
objectives.
Now I've seen teachers do thisgrade by grade.
In fact, one of the ways that Ideveloped the blueprint further

(45:20):
developed the blueprint was byworking with teachers in a
private school setting, allright, where, in fact, we had
the freedom to develop our owncurriculum, all right.
And we worked grade by grade,all right across the grade
levels, identifying what wascurrently being taught in the
ELA classes, what was beingtaught in science, what was
being taught in social studies,what?

(45:41):
And their social studies waskind of an embedded club in
which students actuallyexperience different time
periods.
All right, what was being donein art?
And then we looked at standardsand we looked at state
curriculum and then weidentified across the grade
levels, what those big ideaswould be, so that guided unit

(46:03):
development.
Then, all right.
Now I realize teachers don'talways have that freedom, but
they do have the freedom oflooking at what it is they're
currently using and can theybegin to collect ideas around.
What do we want our students tolearn from this and what are
some of the strategies andskills that we need to embed in
order to develop those processesand skills?

(46:25):
Yeah, so, yeah, it's difficultbecause the standards the
standards do take over sometimes, don't they?
And so, trying to make aconnection back to the standards
I wanna acknowledge isimportant, but the standards
aren't perfect either.
Yeah, so I don't know if thathelped or not.

(46:45):
I hope it helped.

Lori (46:47):
It helps.
We get that question a wholelot.
We always get inboxed like oh Ihave to write objectives and
how does this work, and sothat's really helpful to think
about.

Yeah, yeah, well, to be thinking about.
If I just pulled out vocabulary, for instance, and I selected a
number of words to teach forvocabulary, all right, and those
words would have to connectback to the big ideas, they
would be critical tounderstanding what the big ideas
and those essential questionsare, all right, and then
thinking through, how do Iintroduce the words?

(47:19):
So my objective might be tointroduce the words using a
simple routine.
All right, and we can talk moreabout that.
But a simple routine shouldalways, always contain
definitionally contextualinformation, always.
And then, secondly, all right,my objective on another day
might be to further developdepth of knowledge about that
particular word, because ifyou're intentionally teaching a

(47:40):
word, then you're teaching itfor depth, it's not like
incidental, all right.
So, and what would that routinelook like?
That routine would includeprocessing and practice
activities, so the developmentof word maps, or maybe using
something in a sentence, or Imean there are a number of
things we could answeringquestions about.

(48:00):
You know, there are a number ofthings we could talk about in
terms of a more complex routine.
So understanding that you knowvocabulary, for instance, needs
to be taught one, theintroduction, but then to the
processing and practice and theobjectives then could align with
that.
Yeah.

Lori (48:20):
Yeah, I think the part where it gets tricky is that
they're like you know,vocabulary and knowledge, and
I'm gonna put them all togetherfor the sake of this
conversation.
Yeah, yeah, they'reunconstrained skills, so I think
that that's where it gets kindof tricky.
It's hard to say that a studenthas quote achieved this goal or

(48:44):
mastered these skills when, ina different context, they might
struggle.
But I think then that's the keyright Is that we change the
context on them.
It's the same reader, we knowthe information that we've given
them, but the context or thetext is different.
Can you speak to that?

Well, I think, for instance, if I'm thinking
about vocabulary, right, thisability to transfer my knowledge
of vocabulary to another texthas everything to do with having
taught that word well.
It's not about simply givingstudents a definition or asking
them to just write a word in asentence.
It has everything to do withthe active processing of the

(49:26):
word and the activities that goalong with that.
If you haven't done that work,then they're not going to be
able to take that word andtransfer it, all right.
The other thing is withbackground knowledge.
This whole idea of criticalunderstandings in a mental model
has to do exactly with what youjust said.
It has to do with the fact thatif I change the context, all
right, and now I'm reading atext about something different,

(49:51):
but the theme is the same or thecritical understanding is the
same, I'm able to make aconnection.
Even though I recognize thedifference.
I'm able to make a connection.
So Don Compton at FSU, lauraStacey, amy Elliman, who's at
MTSU a number of years ago butthey just recently published a

(50:11):
paper on this did a study atthis private school, actually
AIM Academy, all right outsidePhiladelphia, where they took a
look at the fact that in thehumanities club, that social
studies-based club.
They were teaching students, ofcourse, across the curriculum
too, but they were focused onthat teaching students about big
ideas, that related todifferent time periods, and

(50:34):
looking at innovation all right.
And how innovation, the effectsof innovation and how
innovation can you know, changethe way we think and do things,
and so on.
Looking at the printing press asan innovation in a certain time
period, and then looking atTwitter and making the

(50:54):
comparisons between and seeingwhether or not students could
actually transfer that knowledge.
And they did all right.
So if we teach it, well, if weuse more than, as I said before,
one source, all right.
If we're using multiple sourceswhether that's text, video,
whatever those sources are andwe continue to build that over
time that's the other thingabout background knowledge.

(51:14):
When you look at the generalprinciples for this, people like
Susan Newman will say you needto review, you need to build
over time, you need to revisit.
This is one of the reasons whyin our activity book, we revisit
.
We give examples of revisitingthe same theme or big idea in
kindergarten and then in eighthgrade.

Melissa (51:33):
So I don't know if that was exactly the response you
wanted, but yeah, it'sinteresting, lori and I talk
about this a lot where peopleoften want to teach everything
at the same time.
If you're teaching about aparticular period of history,
like, let's teach that in socialstudies in third grade, we'll
teach the books in third gradeat the same time, so they're

(51:53):
getting it all at the same timeand we're always like, well,
don't you wanna do what you justsaid, nancy, where it's like,
yeah, they hear about it alittle bit in third grade and
then they build on it when theyhear about it more in social
studies when they get to fifthgrade, and they keep hearing it
over and build on theirknowledge, instead of just you
get it once and it's done.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
So this idea that we'recontinually learning, that we're
having these experiences and wekeep building our schema, if
you wanna call it that, ourknowledge base in that
particular area, which allows usto be more sophisticated in our
learning, right?

Lori (52:29):
So, yeah, I also think it's like how we naturally learn
, like in real life.
Yes, yes, kind of mimics, likeI don't learn everything about.
I just read a historicalfiction book and many of the
elements were about the DustBowl and the Great Depression.
Well, the last time I've readabout the Great Depression was,

(52:52):
I don't know, six months agowhen I read the young adult book
, but not Buddy.
And then before that was waybefore maybe, I watched a
documentary, but it wasn't likeI didn't sit down and in three
months learn everything aboutthe Great Depression.
And also it gives me time, justspeaking for myself, like it
gives me time to sit and reflecton what I've learned, make

(53:13):
those authentic connections, usethe vocabulary, use the
knowledge, try it out inconversation.
It just feels authentic.
And I know I'm not citing anyresearch on that, just my own
but we do get that question alot like oh, should I move this
module to align with this?

(53:34):
And I just think it's our kindof our thoughts as teachers like
oh well, we really wantstudents to learn all they can
about it.
I think it's well intentionedand well meaning.
I don't think it's needed.

Yeah, it's putting things in boxes again.
Oh, check, we've done that,yeah.
What you're making me thinkabout is even the way that we
acquire vocabulary.
So it's incremental, isn't it?
It's bit by bit.
It's not the little guy or gal,and I've used this example as
well.
What's their concept of dogwhen they're two years old,

(54:11):
three years old, five years old,10 years old, 15 years old?
Think about how that semanticnetwork, which is really a
knowledge network, keepsexpanding over time because of
our interactions and experience.
The same is true with, let's say, these bigger ideas being
introduced, for instance, earlyon, to the idea of activists,

(54:35):
revolutionaries.
I always think about the bookDear Benjamin Bannaker.
It's one of my favorite books.
I don't know if you know thebook, but he lived at the same
time as Thomas Jefferson.
He was a free African-Americanmale, he was an astronomer, he
wrote an almanac and hechallenged Thomas Jefferson.
He wrote a mollettor about thefact that he own slaves.

(54:55):
And yet what had he written?
All men are created equal.
That idea of being an activistor revolutionary, you carry that
through.
You can think about Rosa Parksand you can just keep going with
that to current day.
That revisiting and thatconnection, I think, is really

(55:15):
important.
We can't learn it all at once.
This is not how we learn, yeah,it's incremental, bit by bit,
and it becomes more and moremulti-dimensional as a result.
Yeah, yeah.

Lori (55:27):
I'm so glad we talked about that.

Yeah, you said something very important about
being able to express what it isthat you're learning about,
Whether it's vocabulary,sentence structure, background.
We need to give our studentsopportunity to talk about and
then demonstrate at that leveltheir understanding.
Not just big picture, main idea, but do you tell me all you

(55:50):
know about this particular word?
I mean, if you go for a depthand I keep using vocabulary, but
we could use other things butif you go for a depth of
knowledge, what is it that youexpect that student to be able
to tell you back?
Not just the definition, thesynonyms, the antonyms, the
figurative use, the phonology,the orthography of the language,

(56:11):
perhaps the morphology.
I mean, it's this depth that wewant for our students to have,
but it is acquired over time.
We continue to work at it.

Lori (56:21):
Yeah, Okay, absolutely yeah.

Melissa (56:25):
Yeah, well, nancy, we talked about a very complex
topic in a short period of time,but I'm wondering, before we
close out is there anything thatwe did not hit on that you want
to make sure our listeners hearbefore we wrap things up?

Well, I do just want to come to it.
We had talked a great dealabout vocabulary.
I want to be talking about thebackground knowledge piece as
well and how important that isand the multiple ways in which
background knowledge reallyfacilitates our learning.
I also want to separate outthis idea of everything we know
knowledge, everything we knowfrom background knowledge, which

(57:05):
is really very specific to thetext at hand.
At the same time, all we knowin terms of text comprehension
also includes our semantic, oursyntactic knowledge, our
linguistic knowledge.
Sometimes I think all of thisgets muddied and I really want

(57:26):
very much for teachers to bethinking about knowledge in a
very broad way, in terms ofeverything we're acquiring.
This is the purposeful learningand so on, but then also
stepping back and saying there'slinguistic knowledge that
students need, the ability, thelexical knowledge, the semantic,
the syntactic knowledge, aswell as this background
knowledge and these experiencesthat we've had, and all of that

(57:49):
is important and needs to beintegrated as we work with text.

Lori (57:54):
Yeah, Wow, we couldn't agree more.

Yeah Well, I know, I know you couldn't agree
more, so anyway.
So is there anything else youwanted to ask me?

Lori (58:09):
I mean, we could go all day, nancy, but we will restrain
ourselves because you'vealready very kindly given us a
whole hour of your time.
Yeah, and I think listeners,it's such a good time to pause
and reflect, like if I were alistener right now and I'd be
thinking about my curriculum inparticular and how it helps

(58:32):
students become complexcomprehenders, and I'd be
thinking about the texts andexactly what you said around,
like what processes arehappening and what skills are
happening within and trying toidentify those.
It's just such a great momentto pause and reflect on what

(58:57):
materials do I have and what arethey doing for my students.
As we and I know, this isn'thappening in the summer.
This, this episode's launchingin the summer, so teachers, I
think, have that time tohopefully do a little reflecting
.
So we're we're excited thatthey, that you've given them so
much to think about.

Well, I'm really thrilled that I had this
opportunity, and I could go onand on forever, as you can tell.
And, yes, I purposefully askedthe listeners at the beginning
to be thinking about how, whatthey surfaced in terms of their
knowledge of comprehension, andso hopefully they're taking away
something that is useful forthem in terms of how they go
about working with theirstudents, because that's that's,

(59:38):
that's the bottom line beingable to work with our students
and move them along in terms oftheir reading proficiency and
their ability to learn, so thatthey take away knowledge.

Lori (59:47):
Yeah, oh well, thank you so much yeah.

Thank you for being here, nancy.
Yeah, thank you, nancy.
Thank you, thank you, bye, bye.

Lori (59:58):
Thanks for listening.
Literacy Lovers, To stayconnected with us, sign up for
our email list atliteracypodcastcom.

Melissa (01:00:06):
And to keep learning together.
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