February 28, 2025 • 47 mins
Episode 203 (from August 16, 2024)
Our guests today, authors Tricia Zucker and Sonia Cabell, discuss the concept of Strive-For-Five Conversations, which emphasizes the importance of multi-turn conversations between teachers and students. They explain that the goal is to stretch conversations beyond the typical question-response format and aim for at least five turns. The conversation explores the impact of conversations on brain development. They also provide practical tips for implementing Strive for Five in the classroom and engaging parents in the process.
Resources
- Strive for Five Conversations by Tricia Zucker and Sonia Cabell
- Using Strive-for-Five Conversations to Strengthen Language Comprehension in Preschool through Grade One
- Asking Questions is Just the First Step: Using Upward and Downward Scaffolds
- Going Nuts for Words: Recommendation for Teaching Young Students Academic Vocabulary
- Article on Teaching Together research: This article shows sending home materials scaffolds parent involvement and that the impact of rewards fades over time.
- Talking is Teaching Family Engagement Resources
We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.
Grab free resources and episode alerts! Sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lori (00:01):
Picture this You're in the middle of a captivating read,
aloud, eagerly awaiting yourstudents' responses to a great
question that you asked, but allyou get is a one-word answer.
It can be so frustrating.
Where do you go from there?
We've all been there asteachers.
Melissa (00:17):
Yeah, if you've experienced this like we have,
then you're probably curiousabout how you can encourage your
students to share more andstretch their thinking,
especially because we know thatthese language skills are super
important when kids are learninghow to read and to write.
Lori (00:34):
Tha nkfully, our guest today will teach us how to have
these very responsiveconversations
Melissa (00:39):
.
So, Tricia Zucker is aprofessor of pediatrics at
University of Texas in Houstonand Sonia Cabell is an associate
professor of reading educationat Florida State University.
They are the authors of the newbook Strive for Five
Conversations, a framework thatgets kids talking to accelerate
their language comprehension andliteracy.
(00:59):
Yep.
Lori (01:00):
Their book is part of Scholastic's Science of Reading
and Practice series, just likeours is, and it's so easy to
read and implement.
So whether you're a teacher, aparent or just really
enthusiastic about fosteringeffective communication skills
for students, this episode ispacked with insights you won't
want to miss.
Hi teacher friends.
(01:22):
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.
Melissa (01:31):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.
Lori (01:36):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.
Melissa (01:41):
Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.
Writing, lori, and I can't waitto keep learning with you today
.
Sonia Cabell (01:50):
Hi, sonia and Tricia, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, thank you for having us.
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Melissa (01:54):
Yeah, we're glad to have you back, sonia and Tricia,
for the first time, and soexcited to talk about your new
book.
We're going to jump right in.
So in your book, strive forFive Conversations, you say an
impactful conversation is onethat advances language skills,
and it can happen with just fiveturns or exchanges between you
(02:14):
and your students.
So can you start by justexplaining these five turns in a
conversation?
What does that actually mean?
What would that look like for ateacher?
What happens in each turn?
Like what?
Tricia Zucker (02:25):
does that actually mean?
What would that look like for ateacher?
What happens in each turn?
Yeah, it, um.
Strive for five really is apretty small shift, or just a
marginal shift for most teachers, because it's really taking the
good questions that you'realready asking and then
stretching that conversationjust a little bit further.
So rather than having theregular conversation that is, um
, you know, I ask a question,the child responds and I say
good job, and then I kind ofmove on, we just want to stretch
(02:46):
that conversation a little bitfurther to about five turns.
Might be more than five turns,but five is sort of a nice easy
number to remember and alsostrive for five rhymes.
So it was an easy way for a lotof the teachers that we coach
in our statewide projects to geta sense of okay, how long
should I keep this conversationwith a young learner going?
So, yeah, that's the generalidea and I'll walk through the
(03:08):
steps.
But I mean, sonia, is that agood way to?
Sonia Cabell (03:12):
Yeah, you know, there is not necessarily magic
in five.
You don't have to stop at fiveturns, but you do want to have
the ideas to have multi-turnconversations and to keep it
going.
And a lot of times in priorresearch we've seen that
teachers often don't even get tothe five conversation mark in
the same, you know, five turnmark in the conversation.
(03:35):
And we have to also say wedidn't make up the term strive
for five.
It's a term that's been usedand that was pioneered by David
Dickinson, who was a researcherat Vanderbilt, and so we have
used this term but reached outto him first to ask his opinion
about it.
So we were okay in using theterm.
(03:55):
But yeah, no, I think that I'moften asked about that, is it,
you know?
Is it five?
Should I stop at five?
You know?
But it's the multi-turnconversations.
Keeping it going is what'simportant.
Melissa (04:10):
Yeah, and it's so easy to stop.
I know when you're not thinkingabout it it's really easy to.
If the answer is right, youjust say great and we move on.
Or if it's wrong I know I was.
I had older students, so itoften just moved to another
student like, oh, that wasn'tquite right, we'll just move on
to somebody else.
So having that idea of justlike how do we keep this
conversation going with this onestudent one way or another,
(04:33):
it's really helpful to thinkabout that way.
Tricia Zucker (04:50):
Yeah, that is really one of the key nuggets of
strive for five is that oncewhen you are having a strive for
five and not all conversationsin a classroom can be strive for
five, because you really neverstop talking or finish any of
your transitions or that sort ofthing during the day.
But strive for five happensmaybe in read alouds or in
content area instruction.
It also can happen on theplayground.
It's any time that you arehaving an intentional
conversation.
It's five turns.
So the first turn usuallystarts with a teacher asking a
great open-ended question.
The second turn is a child'sturn to respond to that question
(05:11):
and the third turn iscontingent on what the child
said.
So if the child answerscorrectly, the teacher scaffolds
up, asks a more challengingquestion.
So add a little something, stepit up a notch.
But alternatively, if the childanswered incorrectly or didn't
quite seem to be understandingthe initial conversation
question, then the teacherscaffolds down.
We step it down a notch, makeit easier.
(05:32):
And then fourth turn goes backto the child.
It's their turn to respondagain.
You listen to what they saidand then you usually need to
close out that conversation atturn five as a teacher and just
build on what the child said,you recast their ideas or you
expand on what they said bybuilding just a little bit more
on the child's words, maybemodeling some sophisticated
(05:56):
vocabulary or grammar, butthat's it.
It's five turns where theteacher usually starts, child
teacher, child teacher.
And so if you're watching this,you can see I'm doing this
counting on my fingers, becausethat's what we often do when
we're coaching teachers, is weplay classroom videos and we
just count on our fingers howmany turns the conversation went
, so that we can strive to keepit going to at least five turns.
Sonia Cabell (06:16):
And I think one of the key things that that you
all hit upon Melissa, you mighthave said this is that
conversation happens with onechild.
This is a game changing thing.
This is what teachers have toldme really makes a difference.
You're trying to keep it goingwith that one child, not just
shifting to the next child, evenif you're talking about the
(06:38):
same thing.
So you ask a question, thechild answers and then, if it's
not quite right, you don't go toSally to see if Sally has the
answer to the same question.
You stick with that one studentand scaffold them.
Lori (06:52):
Something I'm thinking about, as you're both sharing,
is that idea of turn three beingthat pivotal point.
To me, it's the natural thingthat happens in classrooms is
turn one and turn two, and thenwhat I'm hearing you all say is
okay.
So at that point it either isjust like good job, it ends, or
we could go to another, liketypically we might go to another
(07:13):
student, or it's a littleawkward if the student who we're
talking to doesn't necessarilyknow, like right, have an answer
that we're like oh okay, Like Ineed to help them get on track.
So instead of kind of turningaway from that discomfort, we're
leaning into it and we'repracticing stretching it with
that student, and I know there'sbenefits for other students as
(07:36):
well that we're going to getinto, Cause I'm sure teachers
listening are thinking okay, sothis is, is this benefiting more
than just that one student I'mhaving the turn with?
But before we do, could youshare some specific examples of
what this looks like?
And if you're listening,there's so many examples in the
book, so a little plug for thebook, but I'll let you share.
Tricia Zucker (07:54):
Well, yeah, we'll share an example from a book.
Everyone knows the three littlepigs, but you're right, the
pivotal moment is turn three.
It's this idea of, rather thanyou know, turning to someone
else.
I stick with that child, evenif they gave an incorrect answer
, because it really builds trustand it shows that you're a
responsive conversation partner,who it's okay, it's a safe
(08:15):
place to say a wrong answer,because you are going to make
that child feel seen and heardand successful, even if you have
to keep stepping it down,stepping it down, stepping it
down for several conversationturns and we'll walk through a
little bit more of those.
But they can be really simpledownward scaffolds, like just
reframing that first bigquestion into a more simple, you
(08:36):
know, forced choice or either,or kind of question.
If that's not enough, step itdown again and give the child a
little hint where they kind offill in the last missing word of
the sentence and you knowthat's only a one word response,
but it's still.
It's still conversation andit's still supporting a child
who may have very limitedlanguage or be learning English.
And finally, if the child stilldoes not respond, you can just
(08:58):
model a correct answer, invitethem to repeat it.
And if they do not want torepeat it, no problem.
You just keep smiling andnodding and showing them that
that's okay.
Then you recast a little bit ofwhat happened and close out
that conversation, because thatreally does create this safe
space to not to not necessarilyknow how to respond to the
teacher's questions, but to seethat you know he or she took
(09:19):
care of me, like they carried methrough that conversation.
So, sonia, do you want to sort?
Sonia Cabell (09:27):
of walk through what that might look like if you
were in a book reading scenario.
Yes, so in a book readingscenario, the teacher is
preparing the guiding question.
So this is the question thatsets the stage for the
conversation to happen afterreading.
So this is the question whereteachers ask before reading.
I want you to think about thisquestion as I read, and an
(09:48):
example that we have from thethree little pigs is how do the
pigs feelings change during thestory?
So this is an open endedquestion, right, and an open
ended question means that thechild has to give more than a
one word answer for it to be acorrect response or an adequate
response and, in this particularquestion, also allows for maybe
(10:14):
multiple correct answers.
So so do you want to role playwith me, tricia?
Do you want to be the studentor the teacher?
Tricia Zucker (10:21):
Awesome, I'll be the student.
Sonia Cabell (10:24):
OK, so here's the question how did the pig's
feelings change during the story?
Tricia Zucker (10:32):
They are happy.
Sonia Cabell (10:35):
At the end, the pigs tricked the wolf and feel
happy.
But at the beginning, when thewolf kept knocking, did they
feel happy or scared?
They were scared.
Yes, the pigs were scared ofthe big bad wolf at the
beginning of the story.
So do you see how I, as theteacher, supported Tricia?
(10:57):
She had partially correctanswers it's not that it was
totally incorrect, right.
So she gives a response thatwhat cues you to go downward
scaffold or provide more supportis either no answer, an
incorrect answer, or a partiallycorrect answer.
And you can see, in this case Isupported her to get a more
complete answer.
Melissa (11:18):
I'm wondering, sonia, I think the harder thing to do is
what you do when they get theanswer right.
Right, Because I think you sortof.
Then where do you take it,because they already got the
answer correct?
So as a teacher, I feel like itfeels pretty natural what you
just did, like okay, you have apart of an answer.
I can see how I can get to thewhole answer with the next
(11:39):
question, but I don't know quitewhat to do.
You call that an upwardscaffold, right?
Sonia Cabell (11:45):
Yes, so providing that more challenge or more
support and actually Trisha'sresearch has shown that this is
teachers naturally do thisbetter.
They provide more support andchallenge.
That the upward scaffold iseasier for a teacher than a
downward scaffold is so whenyou're upward scaffolding,
you're providing more of achallenge, so let's start with
downward scaffold.
Is so when you're upwardscaffolding, you're providing
(12:06):
more of a challenge, so let'sstart with the same question.
So how do the pig's feelingschange during the story?
Tricia Zucker (12:12):
Well, they're scared of the wolf, but they're
happy they tricked him.
Sonia Cabell (12:17):
Yes, they were scared at first, but then happy
when they outsmarted the wolf.
How do you know?
The pigs felt happy.
Tricia Zucker (12:24):
Well, they're happy in the pictures.
Sonia Cabell (12:27):
Yes, they were happy and smiling on that last
page because they outsmarted thewolf.
So, as the teacher, you see theupward scaffold was how do you
know?
The pigs felt happy.
That provided more of achallenge for then the child to
take another response, right totake another turn.
(12:48):
But at the same time as theteacher, I was providing that
vocabulary word outsmarted.
So you can be providingextending what children are
saying, providing vocabularywords and scaffolding up all at
the same time.
Lori (13:06):
One thing that makes me feel, I think, more comfortable
with the idea of a one-on-oneand at least five turns, because
when I first I'll be honestwhen I first opened your book
and read about it, I was likeokay, after two I get a little
nervous because I'm not surewhat to do.
But one thing that I thinkmakes me feel really comfortable
is that I do this all the timein real life.
It's just, I think it'sdifferent thinking about it in
(13:29):
the scope of a classroom wheretypically it's the cutoff at the
two turns.
So I really appreciate theopportunity to hear the example
of scaffolding up andscaffolding for more support,
because I realize you know I dothis very naturally in
conversation with you, knowthose around me, especially with
my own child.
So if you know I'm justthinking teachers listening,
(13:50):
that might be something toreally kind of reflect on.
I know I've been reflecting onit since reading your book is
how I do this naturally anywaywith my own child, how I do this
naturally with conversationsI'm having, and it just it feels
different in a classroombecause it almost feels like
there's a little audience aroundyou when you're, when you're
doing it with a, with aone-to-one, and I'm just
(14:11):
thinking of the differentscenarios we might.
We might be doing this in right, like you had said, reading a
book.
So you're reading, you'rereading a book, and that's an
opportunity for students torespond, and then you might be
doing a one-to-one on, you know,on the playground, talking
about something.
So is there anything else youwant to share about the
different opportunities or thedifferent, I guess?
(14:34):
I guess opportunities would bethe best way to say it
Opportunities that we can use.
These strive for five plusconversations.
I'm going to add a plus.
Tricia Zucker (14:43):
Yeah, I mean I would say you're right it it it
feels very natural when it's anupward scaffold for the most
part, like even as adults, youenjoy talking to people at you
know dinner parties or whateverwho are easy conversationalists,
right, the part that's notnatural is the downward scaffold
and you've actually satprobably near that person at
Thanksgiving, right, and it'salso hard with adults to sort of
(15:05):
downward scaffold.
But that's the piece where asan educator it is your job to
have some strategies in yourtoolbox.
So some of the teachers that wecoach they like to almost have
like a little flashcard of thosedownward scaffolds because it's
the part that feels unnatural.
So you usually start withreframing that first question
from the big question to maybe amore forced choice or narrow
(15:25):
question.
If that's not enough, allow thechild that closed technique,
fill in the blank technique.
That's, you know, a very wellstudied technique that speech
language pathologists use and wewere trained by a speech
language pathologist in ourdoctoral program, and so this is
when we started to recognizelike, oh, there's some really
nice strategies you can use, andeven modeling if needed.
(15:48):
But yeah, it's not just ourresearch in Read Alouds but also
Jill Pentamonte and LauraJustice have studies that show
it's the downward scaffoldingthat's the hardest for teachers
and feels more challenging.
So as soon as you've got somestrategies and you're sort of
committed to that idea of likeI'm going to stick with you
through these five turns becausethis conversation counts, then
(16:10):
you're willing to start tryingout a variety of downward
scaffolds.
But yes, you do do this all thetime.
And the other thing is, whenkids start a conversation with
you, there are lots ofopportunities to strive for five
and it actually might end upbeing six turns because you know
technically they started so youmight get an extra turn going
(16:31):
there.
But yeah, there's so many waysto just keep a conversation
going.
Melissa (16:37):
Can you give an example of a conversation that a
student might start and how ateacher would then build on it?
Tricia Zucker (16:43):
Sure, so you all keep being the student.
And let's imagine it's likerecess or like sometime during
the classroom, like morningtransitions or whatever.
And I just you know, I alreadyknow you, I already like my
teacher, ms Cabell, and I say toyou I don't like going to the
dentist.
Sonia Cabell (17:02):
When I don't know what might happen somewhere, I
feel nervous.
I wonder if you're nervous togo to the dentist because you
don't know what might happenthere.
Do you feel nervous?
Yeah, how do you feel aboutgoing to the dentist?
Tricia Zucker (17:17):
I think I'm feeling pretty nervous.
I think I might have a cavitynot going to the dentist.
Sonia Cabell (17:24):
I think I'm feeling pretty nervous, I think
I might have a cavity.
So you can see there in thatback and forth there, that you
can provide emotional supportfor the child at the same time
as providing a language skills.
In fact, it's really hard toseparate that emotional support
for the child with the languageand the relationship you have
with the language enrichmentyou're doing.
In fact, you know, from birthto five, as children are, you
(17:47):
know, born and growing up,they're spending time with their
caregivers and their parents.
They're developing theselanguage skills and these
language abilities that dependon that warm, responsive
interaction.
It doesn't change becausethey've entered school.
They still need those warm,responsive interactions in order
(18:07):
to develop language, andteachers can increasingly give
models to students as part ofwhat they regularly do, as part
of their normal routine.
Lori (18:18):
Yeah, it's such a language , is such a connector thread,
and I think it's so importantthat we are giving teachers
tools to do this work.
This Strive for Five gives themthe tools to have conversations
about text, so within theclassroom, to have conversations
about what's happening in, whatthey're reading, watching,
learning about, and then alsoconversations for teachers to
(18:41):
have to get to know students atevery opportunity, so who they
are as a person, what they likeand love to do outside of school
, you know, bringing that, thatsocial, emotional learning
component in to the classroom,and it's such a good point.
This is such a well-roundedapproach.
Melissa (18:56):
And I would argue for parents too, because, as
everyone knows already, I have afive-year-old, but I try to do
this all the time, and bothright, like when we're reading
books at night.
I try to do some of this alittle bit because he's really
sleepy, um, but but I also justall the time, you know, when
he's done camp.
At the end of the day, we justhave these conversations and
they're they can be reallynatural conversations, but I'm
(19:17):
still thinking of my.
Okay, what's my next step instep in this conversation?
How do I, how do I push himrather than just saying it was
fine?
How do I push him to the nextlevel?
Sonia Cabell (19:26):
That's an extremely important point,
because teachers are I mean,parents are the first and most
important teachers that a childwill have.
So, tricia, I wonder if weshould talk about the teaching
together work, our currentresearch project.
Tricia Zucker (19:42):
Yeah, that would be fun.
And you know, and I just wantto like connect with you on a
really personal level, melissa,that's one of the things that
happens to me every time I, mykids, come home from something
how was blank and the?
I always get the same wordresponse, one word response of
fine.
And and I always think tomyself, I study conversations
(20:03):
and here I go again and againlike asking the same silly
question that I know leads tofine.
So that's the other thing is tobe really gracious with
yourself, whether you're aparent or a teacher.
Kids are going to kids, don'tcare.
If you had a sort of, you know,sloppy first question, it's okay
, just keep the conversationgoing and pick up the pieces and
(20:25):
, you know, ask something morespecific.
You know well, did you see anyof your friends at camp or at
practice today?
And that's a closed question.
So I'm still going to get a oneword response and I'm still
going to be like, why did I sayanother closed question?
But eventually you'll get itgoing and you'll get them
talking and so, and you know,the other fun thing for for
(20:47):
parents is you will live withthis child their whole life and
if you are lucky enough to havemany, many strive for five
conversations.
They'll give you feedback onthe types of questions that they
like or they hate on the typesof questions that they like or
they hate.
So I've learned from myteenagers that they hate one of
my favorite open-ended questions, which is so what's on your
mind?
They apparently think that thatis like a stab in the chest of
(21:12):
like well, nothing's on my mind,mom, I'm just sitting here.
So these are the things that,as parents, you'll learn what
your kid needs to really start astrive for five.
Lori (21:23):
I love that Well, and I imagine too, as a teacher, you
can take stock of your class tooand be like, okay, so these
kids are my, my very emotionalkids, who are completely
responding to you know what's onyour mind.
And then I have these otherkids over here who are like,
rolling their eyes, likeabsolutely not.
I would never answer thatquestion, but that would help
you get a little pulse check onyour class too.
(21:45):
I love that idea, thinkingabout it in both senses, yeah.
Tricia Zucker (21:50):
Yeah Well, sonia and I have had a ton of fun
recently running a researchstudy called Teaching Together,
and it's part of a larger lineof research where, really since
around 2014-15, we've beenworking with various community
partners and trying to helpfamilies have more meaningful
conversations.
Sometimes we're doing sort ofscience experiments and talking
(22:10):
while we're doing STEMactivities with our museum
partner here in Houston.
Other times we're running morelike after-school family
engagement workshops.
One of our favorite ones iscalled Talking is Teaching, and
it's this idea that earlychildhood educators not only do
they have this really importantrole of helping parents to see
themselves as their child'sfirst and most important teacher
(22:31):
like Sonia said a few minutesago but also this idea that just
talking is teaching and talkingto your child is a way to help
get them ready for school andhelp them to succeed in school,
because you're helping to notonly model conversation
structures and grammar andsyntax and the basics, but
(22:51):
you're also able to modelvocabulary and hopefully get
your kids to tell some storiesthat really reflect your family
values or your family's beliefsabout things.
So talking is teaching is reallyone of the most important ideas
for families and it resonateswhenever we do this work with
families.
They feel this sense of almostrelief, of like, oh, that's like
(23:16):
I'm kind of doing enough if I'mtalking to them.
That's fabulous, it's a real.
It's a marginal shift again,but it is a good way to help
families tune in and unplug tohave a conversation.
So that's also a piece of thesefamily education workshops is
to just find sometimes it's fiveminutes is your initial goal,
(23:36):
and then 10 or 15 minutes whereyou've unplugged, there's no
devices and we are reallytalking to one another at home.
Or perhaps it's on the gobecause some conversations are
better had in the car, whereyou're not making that eye
contact.
Sometimes kids are more willingto open up if you're walking
next to them or just that's whatI was going to ask, tricia.
Lori (23:57):
I noticed that when I was in teaching fifth grade, I used
to take my students, uh,frequently we I was in a trailer
, so we would, although I thinknow they're called learning
cottages Um, they would.
We would walk often around thecampus for a little, you know,
fresh air, a little break inbetween classes and a quick
little loop.
And I found that oftentimes Ihad some amazing conversations
(24:20):
with kids who wouldn'tordinarily open up in a
face-to-face setting if we werejust moving and walking like
parallel next to each other.
So that is a thing I wasn'timagining that as a young
teacher.
Tricia Zucker (24:32):
Yeah it's so true .
It almost reminds me a littlebit of, like, the research on
parallel play and yeah,sometimes it's sort of just a
nice sort of scaffold intoconversations and it also allows
for some cultural andlinguistic diversity.
Right, like in some cultures,making eye contact with adult is
, it's a, you know, high, it's alittle higher stakes, so it
does.
(24:52):
Just giving yourself thatfreedom to experiment with
conversations with your students, I think really helps you to
iterate on where they feel mostcomfortable and where you feel
like you're you're likely to beable to plug into something they
really want to talk to youabout.
Sonia Cabell (25:07):
Yeah, like joining in and playing with them.
You can think about what arethey focused on right now and
focus on that same thing.
Have joint attention with themon that and ask them about that.
Talk to them about what they'refocusing on.
So if you follow their lead andfollow their interests, this
(25:27):
leads to those multi-turnconversations as well.
Now in our research study we'retrying to figure out when you
pair both the classroom and thehome conversations in the
classroom and at home, to whatextent does that strengthen
children's learning, not justthe conversations.
(25:50):
But Tricia has created asupplemental curriculum called
Pre-K on my Way that we'retesting out in the classroom
setting.
That incorporates the Strivefor Five procedure.
Testing out in the classroomsetting that it incorporates the
strive for five procedure orthe technique in it, as well as
the home pieces.
So we're trying to think abouthow much of both of those do you
need to help students,preschoolers, succeed.
Melissa (26:14):
I can't wait to hear what you all find for sure.
But I just love this becauseit's so manageable for a parent
to hear that this is going to behelpful for them, with their
student or with their child.
It can feel really daunting forparents.
I think to feel like I have toprepare my kid for kindergarten.
What do I have to?
I have to get them reading,even even teaching them all the
(26:35):
letter sounds.
Right.
That can feel daunting, butlike this feels like something
any parent can do with theirchild.
Right, I can figure out what tohave a conversation with them
about and we can do five turns.
This feels like something I cando.
Sonia Cabell (26:51):
And you're laying a critical foundation.
It's such an importantfoundation of language we don't
even realize it, but languageundergirds so much of what we do
as an, as an adult, but ingeneral, but like literacy, when
we're thinking about readingoutcomes and writing outcomes,
those language skills thatdevelop, start developing right
(27:12):
at birth, are just sofoundational to reading.
Um, and it's easy for us tokind of overlook that sometimes
because those skills are harderto measure in the preschool,
kindergarten time.
It's much easier to measurewhether you know a letter name
or a letter of sound, and whileknowing letter names and letter
sounds is also an essentialskill, it's easy to
(27:35):
underestimate how importantlanguage is.
Lori (27:37):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up.
I think I'd love to dive intothat.
But I have a really practicalquestion first, like speaking of
, you know, this being a veryefficient tool and very
practical tool, how much timeshould be spent on these
conversations?
And I also want to make surethat we address a potential
teacher concern that you knowthis is going to take,
(28:01):
especially at first, a littlebit more time and I'm not saying
a grand amount of time, butjust a little bit than we're
used to, if it's typically a twoturn back and forth, and this
is completely worth ourinvestment.
But I do wonder if teachers arelistening right now, thinking
well, what about the otherstudent's attention span?
What about this student'sattention span?
So I'm just wondering if youall can speak to how much time
(28:25):
and then maybe help settle anyconcerns that might be coming to
mind.
Tricia Zucker (28:32):
Well, unfortunately the research is
not at a point where we can tellyou here are the exact number
of minutes of strive for fivethat you're going to need for
all kids, or even for thisprofile of kid or that profile
of kid.
So it's not, there's not aformula here, but I will say
some very practical guidancethat Sonia and I have given is
(28:53):
to think about the settings inyour day that really lend
themselves to conversations andwhere you want to set a goal to
first try out Strive for Five.
So for a lot of teachers that'sa read-aloud, because a
read-aloud is a really easyplace to put a few sticky notes
on your book with the types ofnice, meaty or important guiding
questions Sonia was talkingabout.
Because if I preview thatguiding question before I read
(29:15):
the book and I preview anotherguiding question when I reread
the book, then I know I'm goingto answer that question after I
read and I'm going to ask two tothree kids to answer that same
guiding question, becausethey're all benefiting from
hearing one another's responses,because I chose an important,
meaty question right, animportant conversation topic.
(29:36):
So that would be one sort ofplace where I would highly
recommend you strive for five.
Every single read aloud is afterreading.
Have a few conversations withkids, but read the room right,
like if your kids are rollingaround on the back of the carpet
by the second kid that you'veasked that guiding question, to
don't ask the third kid, like,okay, let's get the wiggles out
(29:58):
and let's do our next thingright.
So read alouds are a favoriteand knowledge building
activities are another timewhere Strive for Five is a
wonderful place to set goals forreading.
So, sonia, set goals for Strivefor Five.
So, sonia, do you want toexplain maybe a way that you
might build knowledge withStrive for Five conversations?
Sonia Cabell (30:18):
Yeah, I think the, you know, in our book we really
use like that plants contextaround.
You know there's.
You know in the early gradesthey're doing a lot with
planting and you know watchingseeds grow etc.
And so when you think about thekinds of conversations that you
(30:40):
can easily have during thattime, they lend themselves to
these kinds of backs and backand forth strive for five
conversations.
And some of my research hasshown that teachers not more
naturally speak with childrenwith richer language models in
(31:00):
the science context.
And so I think that when Ithink about content area and I
think about where can we kind ofcapitalize on what teachers are
already doing?
Well, how can I strengthen that?
So I think about that sciencecontext as being a place where
teachers already want to explainmore, as being a place where
teachers already want to explainmore, add vocabulary, extend on
(31:21):
what children are saying,because they're trying to build
children's knowledge.
They're not sitting therethinking I need to build their
language, what vocabulary can Iadd?
They're trying to teach aconcept.
Right, you're trying to teach aconcept.
And so I would encourage thethinking about how do I scaffold
(31:44):
in the content area.
You know, setting would bereally important and I would say
too that it doesn't necessarily.
I don't think it's a takes moretime.
I think it's like arestructuring of the time you're
already using, because it'sjust kind of suggesting a
different way to have thediscussion.
It's suggesting like, stickwith that child a couple more
turns, which in reality thatfive turn conversation is less
than a minute long, not even.
(32:05):
And so those things, while itmight take some you know,
coaching like to get into thegroove of doing that, it's not
that it would necessarily takemore overall instructional time.
It will take time to learn andto do it as more of a regular
(32:26):
practice, but then again,conversations are what teachers
are having all day long withchildren anyway.
We're suggesting a marginalshift of how do you restructure
those conversations to addStrive for Five to your toolkit
of things that you're alreadydoing.
And we're not saying everyconversation has to be a Strive
for Five, but we are saying thatbe really intentional about
(32:49):
building on what children sayand scaffolding them, providing
more challenge and providingsupport for children who need it
.
Melissa (32:55):
I want to take this back because, Sonia, you started
to bring up some of theresearch and why we want to do
this, and I know we actuallyjust had a listener who asked
like, how do I build my studentsoral language skills in first
grade?
I was like, well, get ready.
But we're going to tell you.
But I can see how thisobviously is helping with oral
language skills.
But you also brought up thishas more benefits, even beyond
(33:16):
just their oral language.
So can we talk a little bitabout the research and why
teachers should want to do this?
Sonia Cabell (33:23):
Yeah, and when I say it has more benefit than
beyond their oral language, I'mthinking about the importance of
language for all functions oflife.
I was challenged by a friend ofmine who was a speech language
pathologist, who said, sonia,language isn't just for reading,
it's for everything.
And I'm like, yes, I know, butin my world it's for reading and
writing.
(33:43):
I get it, but so, even stickingwithin the reading and writing
frame, I'm defining the orallanguage broadly to be both
receptive and expressive.
Tricia and I structured theStrive for Five book around
Scarborough's reading rope,which Hollis Scarborough
developed in 2001 or publishedin 2001.
(34:03):
And so we're including thingslike vocabulary, background
knowledge, verbal reasoning,language structures and literacy
knowledge, like knowledge ofgenres, and so all of those
things in the languagecomprehension side go into, you
know, are integrated intoreading alongside of the word
(34:27):
recognition skills.
Tricia Zucker (34:29):
There's some other research that I'll just
talk briefly about.
I could really nerd it up onthis for a little while because
I think it is just so compelling.
There was some work done atHarvard and MIT Romero led this
study but what they did is theylistened to kids' conversations
(34:52):
throughout day-long recordingsand took really simple
statistics from these data thequantity of words that kids
heard and the quality of theconversations they heard with
adults.
And quality just means you knowjust sort of the count of
conversations.
And what they found is socompelling.
They find that not only doesquality and not quantity predict
(35:16):
kids standardized vocabularyand language outcomes that,
sonia's right, they reallymatter for reading and for life.
But they also put these littlepreschoolers in MRI scanning
machines to look at how theirbrains were developing, and they
found healthier braindevelopment in the regions that
are responsible for languagewhen kids have heard a lot of
(35:37):
conversations.
So it's one of those thingswhere you know it, just like.
It makes me so happy whenresearch shows things that
you've.
Research like this shows, likethe mechanism that you've
demonstrated behaviorally right,like your talk, really adds up.
It's truly affecting children'sbrain development, and one of
my colleagues, dana DeMaster, isconducting a similar study
(35:58):
where she's got toddlers,younger kids, many of whom were
born prematurely.
She's putting them in MRImachines and again same sort of
thing more responsive caregiverswho pay attention to kids'
signals and have those back andforth conversations.
Those babies, those littletoddlers, have healthier brain
development again, in not onlythe language comprehension
regions but also the portions ofyour brain that are responsible
(36:22):
for some of our self-regulationand attention control,
inhibition, which are thingsthat, as parents and teachers,
we all care about that abilityto be able to regulate our
behavior.
So I really love some of thatmore like brain research, and I
love working withneuroscientists.
I am not one, but it's justreally fun to see your talk adds
up and it matters for kids'development, and so that's some
(36:47):
of the research that I findreally compelling.
I will also say that we've donesome past studies with my
colleague, susan Landry, leadingthis work, where what we find
when we randomize students inpreschool and early grades to
receive classroom support aloneor home support alone or a
combination of the two, wealways find better outcomes when
(37:08):
parents and teachers areworking together.
It's very intuitive findings,but it's nice to have that data
to show.
You know, kids really benefitwhen all of their caregivers are
doing things like having theseresponsive back and forth
conversations.
And you know there's a lot ofways that you can do this in
your classroom and there's a lotof ways you can support your
families in having moremeaningful conversations at home
(37:31):
.
So I would say the challenge isto just not try to get it
perfect, not sort of count Wasit five turns?
But the challenge is to thinkokay, what can I do to stretch
this conversation and keep itgoing a little bit more with
each child and each day ifpossible?
And actually that's going backto your earlier question how
(37:52):
often should we be doing Strivefor Five?
If you were to actually sort ofkeep a tally of how often you
have a strive for five with eachstudent in your classroom at
the beginning of the year it'svery hard and especially if
you're new to strive for fivesit's really hard.
But if you set a goal foryourself to incrementally add
more students each day to yourstrive for five, you'll find
(38:14):
that by the end of the yearyou're able to really have a
meaningful back and forthconversation with almost every
student every day.
And so that's the goal, notjust for language and literacy
and knowledge building, but forthat relational component.
Melissa (38:29):
I'm wondering if you all have any tips for parents or
to get parents, like, have youhad seen any success with
schools that have taught this toparents or brought the parents
in, just because you talkedabout how important it is to
have that that had them workingtogether?
So I know that's what I wouldask as a teacher as well how do
(38:50):
I get the parents on board?
How do I do that?
Tricia Zucker (38:53):
Yeah, we run.
We recently ran a study thatwas funded by the National
Science Foundation and sofocused on STEM learning, with
families and teachers workingtogether, as well as with our
children's museum supporting us,and what we found is it's a lot
easier for parents to haveconversations when you tell them
activities to do, right.
So whether that's plantingseeds, that may or may not work,
(39:15):
depending on where you live I'min Houston.
It is so hot here right nowthat would be a horrible
activity to suggest to parentsright now, but there's like
right now we're texting familiesgames that you can play with
ice right Indoor activitieswhere it's all about having
meaningful conversations.
We find that if you either sendfamilies a little model of what
(39:36):
that conversation might looklike or a video of that you know
, text it to them, whatever itis, that works really well for
parents to be able to havemeaningful conversations because
they have sort of your tipsheet of here's some good
conversations to ask.
The other thing that we do andit's a little bit more expensive
, but again you see really nicebenefits from this is giving
families some kits to take home.
After you do a parent-childworkshop or after you have a
(40:00):
family engagement event.
Send families home with a dozenlittle links that they can use
to do non-standard measurementaround their house and give them
a tip sheet for how you couldscaffold conversations around
this really simple tool ofmeasuring how tall you are or
how long the pencil is in yourhome.
And so, yeah, our researchshows a greater effect or
(40:22):
greater impact on parentinvolvement and learning when
you provide those sorts ofscaffolds, those materials, than
if you send them home with justideas and tip sheets.
Parents already know that theyshould be involved in learning
and they want to.
They just need ideas and tipsto do this in ways that they can
really embed into their busyfamily schedules.
So keeping it simple and givingsome materials is probably the
(40:46):
best advice we see from ourresearch.
Sonia Cabell (40:49):
I love that, trisha, and all the things you
said.
In addition, the parent and theteacher can foster the
relationship with the parent.
It's the teacher that's drivingthese things, so not some like
random person from the districtthat they don't know, but rather
the teacher and therelationship that she fosters
with the parents is importantfor them to say, yeah.
(41:10):
The teacher says I need, I needto be working on this.
So I think that thatrelationship is critical.
How teachers foster that withparents?
Lori (41:18):
That's so important.
I'm so glad you brought that uptoo, because I'm thinking about
what you both said.
And as a teacher I felt like Ireally wanted to make those
great connections with familiesand caregivers and oftentimes I
think we thought a direct lineor I thought a direct line to
the parent or caregiver was areally good option.
(41:40):
And I'm not saying it's not,but I do think your most
valuable entry point and yourmost accessible entry point is
the student in front of you.
And if you can build a greatrelationship with the student
who's with you every single day,right Seven hours a day,
they're going to go home and belike oh, Ms Sappington really
cares about how well I did insoccer over the weekend.
(42:01):
She was asking about that.
Or Ms Sappington was asking mequestions when we were reading
the Three Little Pigs and shehelped me work through something
that I didn't know and helpedme understand it a lot better.
No, not in those exact words byany means, but that, to me,
sets the teacher up for successwith having that positive home
(42:23):
relationship as well, becauseyou're already in a positive
light, your foot's already inthe door without you having said
a word.
So then, when you make thatconnection to the caregiver or
the parent.
It's going to be a lot better,a lot smoother, a lot, you know,
a lot more positive than thanlike a cold call, if you will.
(42:43):
So I kind of like think Ithought about it while you were
both both speaking.
I like thinking about it inthat way and just kind of
thinking of another way oraccess point to access families,
to make the student'sexperience really great families
to make the student'sexperience really great.
Tricia Zucker (43:04):
Yeah, I think that is such a great way to
think of it is not only are youa person of trust as a teacher
to that child, but you are aperson of trust to the whole
family and that's a weighty roleto carry.
And it means too, that when youdo run family engagement events,
parents will listen to yourfeedback so much more than other
people that don't have thattrust built up.
And so this also means that ifyou're hosting a family
(43:29):
engagement event at your school,you can really move the needle
by walking around the room andgiving that feedback.
There's ample meta-analyticresearch by Todd Grindle and
colleagues showing that if youjust host the event, there's no
effect on child outcomes.
But if teachers that person oftrust circulate and give
feedback it's both the warmfeedback as well as like try
(43:53):
this or ask your child that thatmoves the needle and then you
start to see an improvement inchild outcomes.
So it's really taking advantageof that moment to connect,
because you are a reallyimportant person, not just to
the kiddo but to the wholefamily.
Melissa (44:08):
All right, everybody, we're gonna remind everyone your
book is Strive for FiveConversations a framework that
gets kids talking to acceleratetheir language comprehension and
literacy.
We all have it.
Is there anything you want toshare about the book that we
haven't shared already?
Where they can find the book?
Anything else?
Tricia Zucker (44:29):
Well, I would say we'll also give you for your
show notes a couple of freearticles on some of our past
research around that TeachingTogether line of research.
It's really wonderful to beable to just think about, okay,
how do I move that familyengagement forward in a
thoughtful way, as well as somelinks to like that Talking is
(44:49):
Teaching website from ouruniversity.
Sonia Cabell (44:52):
Yeah, that's great .
Thank you, and I want to give ashout out.
Our book is in the same seriesas this book the Science of
Reading and Practice series,isn't it so fun?
Yeah, you're scrunchie on myscrunchie.
My Melissa and Lori LoveLiteracy scrunchie.
So I just want to say it's inthe same, the same and I really
(45:14):
I think what you did with yourbook is really smart and taking
the you know, I really I thinkwhat you did with your book is
really smart and taking the youknow Q&A kind of style based on
your podcast and being able tothen direct people to like and
you can learn more looking atthis and this and this podcast.
So the really really smart book.
Lori (45:30):
Yeah Well, when we, when we write book two, we will
include this, this podcast, in.
It Sounds good.
Yeah Well, this is awesome.
I know you can get your bookpretty much anywhere Scholastic,
Teacher Store, Amazon and yourlocal bookstore but we're just
so grateful that you wrote itbecause I know it's helped me
(45:50):
kind of get over the hump of twoturn conversations.
So I know it's helping so manyother teachers out there too.
We're really grateful.
Sonia Cabell (45:58):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us.
Melissa (46:03):
Tricia Zucker and UT Health Houston received a
research grant from ScholasticInc.
Dr Zucker has creatorshiprights in the developing talkers
language model licensed from UTHealth Houston to Scholastic
Inc, and Dr Zucker and Cabellreceived royalties from a book
published with Scholastic Incand compensation for speaking
engagements.
To stay connected with us, signup for our email list at
(46:27):
literacypodcastcom, join ourFacebook group and follow us on
Instagram and Twitter.
Lori (46:34):
If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share
with a teacher friend or leaveus a five-star rating and review
on Apple Podcasts.
Melissa (46:44):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or its employees.
Lori (46:55):
We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to
learn with us.
Picture this You're in the middle of a captivating read,
aloud, eagerly awaiting yourstudents' responses to a great
question that you asked, but allyou get is a one-word answer.
It can be so frustrating.
Where do you go from there?
We've all been there asteachers.
Melissa (00:17):
Yeah, if you've experienced this like we have,
then you're probably curiousabout how you can encourage your
students to share more andstretch their thinking,
especially because we know thatthese language skills are super
important when kids are learninghow to read and to write.
Lori (00:34):
Tha nkfully, our guest today will teach us how to have
these very responsiveconversations
Melissa (00:39):
.
So, Tricia Zucker is aprofessor of pediatrics at
University of Texas in Houstonand Sonia Cabell is an associate
professor of reading educationat Florida State University.
They are the authors of the newbook Strive for Five
Conversations, a framework thatgets kids talking to accelerate
their language comprehension andliteracy.
(00:59):
Yep.
Lori (01:00):
Their book is part of Scholastic's Science of Reading
and Practice series, just likeours is, and it's so easy to
read and implement.
So whether you're a teacher, aparent or just really
enthusiastic about fosteringeffective communication skills
for students, this episode ispacked with insights you won't
want to miss.
Hi teacher friends.
(01:22):
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.
Melissa (01:31):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.
Lori (01:36):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.
Melissa (01:41):
Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.
Writing, lori, and I can't waitto keep learning with you today
.
Sonia Cabell (01:50):
Hi, sonia and Tricia, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, thank you for having us.
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Melissa (01:54):
Yeah, we're glad to have you back, sonia and Tricia,
for the first time, and soexcited to talk about your new
book.
We're going to jump right in.
So in your book, strive forFive Conversations, you say an
impactful conversation is onethat advances language skills,
and it can happen with just fiveturns or exchanges between you
(02:14):
and your students.
So can you start by justexplaining these five turns in a
conversation?
What does that actually mean?
What would that look like for ateacher?
What happens in each turn?
Like what?
Tricia Zucker (02:25):
does that actually mean?
What would that look like for ateacher?
What happens in each turn?
Yeah, it, um.
Strive for five really is apretty small shift, or just a
marginal shift for most teachers, because it's really taking the
good questions that you'realready asking and then
stretching that conversationjust a little bit further.
So rather than having theregular conversation that is, um
, you know, I ask a question,the child responds and I say
good job, and then I kind ofmove on, we just want to stretch
(02:46):
that conversation a little bitfurther to about five turns.
Might be more than five turns,but five is sort of a nice easy
number to remember and alsostrive for five rhymes.
So it was an easy way for a lotof the teachers that we coach
in our statewide projects to geta sense of okay, how long
should I keep this conversationwith a young learner going?
So, yeah, that's the generalidea and I'll walk through the
(03:08):
steps.
But I mean, sonia, is that agood way to?
Sonia Cabell (03:12):
Yeah, you know, there is not necessarily magic
in five.
You don't have to stop at fiveturns, but you do want to have
the ideas to have multi-turnconversations and to keep it
going.
And a lot of times in priorresearch we've seen that
teachers often don't even get tothe five conversation mark in
the same, you know, five turnmark in the conversation.
(03:35):
And we have to also say wedidn't make up the term strive
for five.
It's a term that's been usedand that was pioneered by David
Dickinson, who was a researcherat Vanderbilt, and so we have
used this term but reached outto him first to ask his opinion
about it.
So we were okay in using theterm.
(03:55):
But yeah, no, I think that I'moften asked about that, is it,
you know?
Is it five?
Should I stop at five?
You know?
But it's the multi-turnconversations.
Keeping it going is what'simportant.
Melissa (04:10):
Yeah, and it's so easy to stop.
I know when you're not thinkingabout it it's really easy to.
If the answer is right, youjust say great and we move on.
Or if it's wrong I know I was.
I had older students, so itoften just moved to another
student like, oh, that wasn'tquite right, we'll just move on
to somebody else.
So having that idea of justlike how do we keep this
conversation going with this onestudent one way or another,
(04:33):
it's really helpful to thinkabout that way.
Tricia Zucker (04:50):
Yeah, that is really one of the key nuggets of
strive for five is that oncewhen you are having a strive for
five and not all conversationsin a classroom can be strive for
five, because you really neverstop talking or finish any of
your transitions or that sort ofthing during the day.
But strive for five happensmaybe in read alouds or in
content area instruction.
It also can happen on theplayground.
It's any time that you arehaving an intentional
conversation.
It's five turns.
So the first turn usuallystarts with a teacher asking a
great open-ended question.
The second turn is a child'sturn to respond to that question
(05:11):
and the third turn iscontingent on what the child
said.
So if the child answerscorrectly, the teacher scaffolds
up, asks a more challengingquestion.
So add a little something, stepit up a notch.
But alternatively, if the childanswered incorrectly or didn't
quite seem to be understandingthe initial conversation
question, then the teacherscaffolds down.
We step it down a notch, makeit easier.
(05:32):
And then fourth turn goes backto the child.
It's their turn to respondagain.
You listen to what they saidand then you usually need to
close out that conversation atturn five as a teacher and just
build on what the child said,you recast their ideas or you
expand on what they said bybuilding just a little bit more
on the child's words, maybemodeling some sophisticated
(05:56):
vocabulary or grammar, butthat's it.
It's five turns where theteacher usually starts, child
teacher, child teacher.
And so if you're watching this,you can see I'm doing this
counting on my fingers, becausethat's what we often do when
we're coaching teachers, is weplay classroom videos and we
just count on our fingers howmany turns the conversation went
, so that we can strive to keepit going to at least five turns.
Sonia Cabell (06:16):
And I think one of the key things that that you
all hit upon Melissa, you mighthave said this is that
conversation happens with onechild.
This is a game changing thing.
This is what teachers have toldme really makes a difference.
You're trying to keep it goingwith that one child, not just
shifting to the next child, evenif you're talking about the
(06:38):
same thing.
So you ask a question, thechild answers and then, if it's
not quite right, you don't go toSally to see if Sally has the
answer to the same question.
You stick with that one studentand scaffold them.
Lori (06:52):
Something I'm thinking about, as you're both sharing,
is that idea of turn three beingthat pivotal point.
To me, it's the natural thingthat happens in classrooms is
turn one and turn two, and thenwhat I'm hearing you all say is
okay.
So at that point it either isjust like good job, it ends, or
we could go to another, liketypically we might go to another
(07:13):
student, or it's a littleawkward if the student who we're
talking to doesn't necessarilyknow, like right, have an answer
that we're like oh okay, Like Ineed to help them get on track.
So instead of kind of turningaway from that discomfort, we're
leaning into it and we'repracticing stretching it with
that student, and I know there'sbenefits for other students as
(07:36):
well that we're going to getinto, Cause I'm sure teachers
listening are thinking okay, sothis is, is this benefiting more
than just that one student I'mhaving the turn with?
But before we do, could youshare some specific examples of
what this looks like?
And if you're listening,there's so many examples in the
book, so a little plug for thebook, but I'll let you share.
Tricia Zucker (07:54):
Well, yeah, we'll share an example from a book.
Everyone knows the three littlepigs, but you're right, the
pivotal moment is turn three.
It's this idea of, rather thanyou know, turning to someone
else.
I stick with that child, evenif they gave an incorrect answer
, because it really builds trustand it shows that you're a
responsive conversation partner,who it's okay, it's a safe
(08:15):
place to say a wrong answer,because you are going to make
that child feel seen and heardand successful, even if you have
to keep stepping it down,stepping it down, stepping it
down for several conversationturns and we'll walk through a
little bit more of those.
But they can be really simpledownward scaffolds, like just
reframing that first bigquestion into a more simple, you
(08:36):
know, forced choice or either,or kind of question.
If that's not enough, step itdown again and give the child a
little hint where they kind offill in the last missing word of
the sentence and you knowthat's only a one word response,
but it's still.
It's still conversation andit's still supporting a child
who may have very limitedlanguage or be learning English.
And finally, if the child stilldoes not respond, you can just
(08:58):
model a correct answer, invitethem to repeat it.
And if they do not want torepeat it, no problem.
You just keep smiling andnodding and showing them that
that's okay.
Then you recast a little bit ofwhat happened and close out
that conversation, because thatreally does create this safe
space to not to not necessarilyknow how to respond to the
teacher's questions, but to seethat you know he or she took
(09:19):
care of me, like they carried methrough that conversation.
So, sonia, do you want to sort?
Sonia Cabell (09:27):
of walk through what that might look like if you
were in a book reading scenario.
Yes, so in a book readingscenario, the teacher is
preparing the guiding question.
So this is the question thatsets the stage for the
conversation to happen afterreading.
So this is the question whereteachers ask before reading.
I want you to think about thisquestion as I read, and an
(09:48):
example that we have from thethree little pigs is how do the
pigs feelings change during thestory?
So this is an open endedquestion, right, and an open
ended question means that thechild has to give more than a
one word answer for it to be acorrect response or an adequate
response and, in this particularquestion, also allows for maybe
(10:14):
multiple correct answers.
So so do you want to role playwith me, tricia?
Do you want to be the studentor the teacher?
Tricia Zucker (10:21):
Awesome, I'll be the student.
Sonia Cabell (10:24):
OK, so here's the question how did the pig's
feelings change during the story?
Tricia Zucker (10:32):
They are happy.
Sonia Cabell (10:35):
At the end, the pigs tricked the wolf and feel
happy.
But at the beginning, when thewolf kept knocking, did they
feel happy or scared?
They were scared.
Yes, the pigs were scared ofthe big bad wolf at the
beginning of the story.
So do you see how I, as theteacher, supported Tricia?
(10:57):
She had partially correctanswers it's not that it was
totally incorrect, right.
So she gives a response thatwhat cues you to go downward
scaffold or provide more supportis either no answer, an
incorrect answer, or a partiallycorrect answer.
And you can see, in this case Isupported her to get a more
complete answer.
Melissa (11:18):
I'm wondering, sonia, I think the harder thing to do is
what you do when they get theanswer right.
Right, Because I think you sortof.
Then where do you take it,because they already got the
answer correct?
So as a teacher, I feel like itfeels pretty natural what you
just did, like okay, you have apart of an answer.
I can see how I can get to thewhole answer with the next
(11:39):
question, but I don't know quitewhat to do.
You call that an upwardscaffold, right?
Sonia Cabell (11:45):
Yes, so providing that more challenge or more
support and actually Trisha'sresearch has shown that this is
teachers naturally do thisbetter.
They provide more support andchallenge.
That the upward scaffold iseasier for a teacher than a
downward scaffold is so whenyou're upward scaffolding,
you're providing more of achallenge, so let's start with
downward scaffold.
Is so when you're upwardscaffolding, you're providing
(12:06):
more of a challenge, so let'sstart with the same question.
So how do the pig's feelingschange during the story?
Tricia Zucker (12:12):
Well, they're scared of the wolf, but they're
happy they tricked him.
Sonia Cabell (12:17):
Yes, they were scared at first, but then happy
when they outsmarted the wolf.
How do you know?
The pigs felt happy.
Tricia Zucker (12:24):
Well, they're happy in the pictures.
Sonia Cabell (12:27):
Yes, they were happy and smiling on that last
page because they outsmarted thewolf.
So, as the teacher, you see theupward scaffold was how do you
know?
The pigs felt happy.
That provided more of achallenge for then the child to
take another response, right totake another turn.
(12:48):
But at the same time as theteacher, I was providing that
vocabulary word outsmarted.
So you can be providingextending what children are
saying, providing vocabularywords and scaffolding up all at
the same time.
Lori (13:06):
One thing that makes me feel, I think, more comfortable
with the idea of a one-on-oneand at least five turns, because
when I first I'll be honestwhen I first opened your book
and read about it, I was likeokay, after two I get a little
nervous because I'm not surewhat to do.
But one thing that I thinkmakes me feel really comfortable
is that I do this all the timein real life.
It's just, I think it'sdifferent thinking about it in
(13:29):
the scope of a classroom wheretypically it's the cutoff at the
two turns.
So I really appreciate theopportunity to hear the example
of scaffolding up andscaffolding for more support,
because I realize you know I dothis very naturally in
conversation with you, knowthose around me, especially with
my own child.
So if you know I'm justthinking teachers listening,
(13:50):
that might be something toreally kind of reflect on.
I know I've been reflecting onit since reading your book is
how I do this naturally anywaywith my own child, how I do this
naturally with conversationsI'm having, and it just it feels
different in a classroombecause it almost feels like
there's a little audience aroundyou when you're, when you're
doing it with a, with aone-to-one, and I'm just
(14:11):
thinking of the differentscenarios we might.
We might be doing this in right, like you had said, reading a
book.
So you're reading, you'rereading a book, and that's an
opportunity for students torespond, and then you might be
doing a one-to-one on, you know,on the playground, talking
about something.
So is there anything else youwant to share about the
different opportunities or thedifferent, I guess?
(14:34):
I guess opportunities would bethe best way to say it
Opportunities that we can use.
These strive for five plusconversations.
I'm going to add a plus.
Tricia Zucker (14:43):
Yeah, I mean I would say you're right it it it
feels very natural when it's anupward scaffold for the most
part, like even as adults, youenjoy talking to people at you
know dinner parties or whateverwho are easy conversationalists,
right, the part that's notnatural is the downward scaffold
and you've actually satprobably near that person at
Thanksgiving, right, and it'salso hard with adults to sort of
(15:05):
downward scaffold.
But that's the piece where asan educator it is your job to
have some strategies in yourtoolbox.
So some of the teachers that wecoach they like to almost have
like a little flashcard of thosedownward scaffolds because it's
the part that feels unnatural.
So you usually start withreframing that first question
from the big question to maybe amore forced choice or narrow
(15:25):
question.
If that's not enough, allow thechild that closed technique,
fill in the blank technique.
That's, you know, a very wellstudied technique that speech
language pathologists use and wewere trained by a speech
language pathologist in ourdoctoral program, and so this is
when we started to recognizelike, oh, there's some really
nice strategies you can use, andeven modeling if needed.
(15:48):
But yeah, it's not just ourresearch in Read Alouds but also
Jill Pentamonte and LauraJustice have studies that show
it's the downward scaffoldingthat's the hardest for teachers
and feels more challenging.
So as soon as you've got somestrategies and you're sort of
committed to that idea of likeI'm going to stick with you
through these five turns becausethis conversation counts, then
(16:10):
you're willing to start tryingout a variety of downward
scaffolds.
But yes, you do do this all thetime.
And the other thing is, whenkids start a conversation with
you, there are lots ofopportunities to strive for five
and it actually might end upbeing six turns because you know
technically they started so youmight get an extra turn going
(16:31):
there.
But yeah, there's so many waysto just keep a conversation
going.
Melissa (16:37):
Can you give an example of a conversation that a
student might start and how ateacher would then build on it?
Tricia Zucker (16:43):
Sure, so you all keep being the student.
And let's imagine it's likerecess or like sometime during
the classroom, like morningtransitions or whatever.
And I just you know, I alreadyknow you, I already like my
teacher, ms Cabell, and I say toyou I don't like going to the
dentist.
Sonia Cabell (17:02):
When I don't know what might happen somewhere, I
feel nervous.
I wonder if you're nervous togo to the dentist because you
don't know what might happenthere.
Do you feel nervous?
Yeah, how do you feel aboutgoing to the dentist?
Tricia Zucker (17:17):
I think I'm feeling pretty nervous.
I think I might have a cavitynot going to the dentist.
Sonia Cabell (17:24):
I think I'm feeling pretty nervous, I think
I might have a cavity.
So you can see there in thatback and forth there, that you
can provide emotional supportfor the child at the same time
as providing a language skills.
In fact, it's really hard toseparate that emotional support
for the child with the languageand the relationship you have
with the language enrichmentyou're doing.
In fact, you know, from birthto five, as children are, you
(17:47):
know, born and growing up,they're spending time with their
caregivers and their parents.
They're developing theselanguage skills and these
language abilities that dependon that warm, responsive
interaction.
It doesn't change becausethey've entered school.
They still need those warm,responsive interactions in order
(18:07):
to develop language, andteachers can increasingly give
models to students as part ofwhat they regularly do, as part
of their normal routine.
Lori (18:18):
Yeah, it's such a language , is such a connector thread,
and I think it's so importantthat we are giving teachers
tools to do this work.
This Strive for Five gives themthe tools to have conversations
about text, so within theclassroom, to have conversations
about what's happening in, whatthey're reading, watching,
learning about, and then alsoconversations for teachers to
(18:41):
have to get to know students atevery opportunity, so who they
are as a person, what they likeand love to do outside of school
, you know, bringing that, thatsocial, emotional learning
component in to the classroom,and it's such a good point.
This is such a well-roundedapproach.
Melissa (18:56):
And I would argue for parents too, because, as
everyone knows already, I have afive-year-old, but I try to do
this all the time, and bothright, like when we're reading
books at night.
I try to do some of this alittle bit because he's really
sleepy, um, but but I also justall the time, you know, when
he's done camp.
At the end of the day, we justhave these conversations and
they're they can be reallynatural conversations, but I'm
(19:17):
still thinking of my.
Okay, what's my next step instep in this conversation?
How do I, how do I push himrather than just saying it was
fine?
How do I push him to the nextlevel?
Sonia Cabell (19:26):
That's an extremely important point,
because teachers are I mean,parents are the first and most
important teachers that a childwill have.
So, tricia, I wonder if weshould talk about the teaching
together work, our currentresearch project.
Tricia Zucker (19:42):
Yeah, that would be fun.
And you know, and I just wantto like connect with you on a
really personal level, melissa,that's one of the things that
happens to me every time I, mykids, come home from something
how was blank and the?
I always get the same wordresponse, one word response of
fine.
And and I always think tomyself, I study conversations
(20:03):
and here I go again and againlike asking the same silly
question that I know leads tofine.
So that's the other thing is tobe really gracious with
yourself, whether you're aparent or a teacher.
Kids are going to kids, don'tcare.
If you had a sort of, you know,sloppy first question, it's okay
, just keep the conversationgoing and pick up the pieces and
(20:25):
, you know, ask something morespecific.
You know well, did you see anyof your friends at camp or at
practice today?
And that's a closed question.
So I'm still going to get a oneword response and I'm still
going to be like, why did I sayanother closed question?
But eventually you'll get itgoing and you'll get them
talking and so, and you know,the other fun thing for for
(20:47):
parents is you will live withthis child their whole life and
if you are lucky enough to havemany, many strive for five
conversations.
They'll give you feedback onthe types of questions that they
like or they hate on the typesof questions that they like or
they hate.
So I've learned from myteenagers that they hate one of
my favorite open-ended questions, which is so what's on your
mind?
They apparently think that thatis like a stab in the chest of
(21:12):
like well, nothing's on my mind,mom, I'm just sitting here.
So these are the things that,as parents, you'll learn what
your kid needs to really start astrive for five.
Lori (21:23):
I love that Well, and I imagine too, as a teacher, you
can take stock of your class tooand be like, okay, so these
kids are my, my very emotionalkids, who are completely
responding to you know what's onyour mind.
And then I have these otherkids over here who are like,
rolling their eyes, likeabsolutely not.
I would never answer thatquestion, but that would help
you get a little pulse check onyour class too.
(21:45):
I love that idea, thinkingabout it in both senses, yeah.
Tricia Zucker (21:50):
Yeah Well, sonia and I have had a ton of fun
recently running a researchstudy called Teaching Together,
and it's part of a larger lineof research where, really since
around 2014-15, we've beenworking with various community
partners and trying to helpfamilies have more meaningful
conversations.
Sometimes we're doing sort ofscience experiments and talking
(22:10):
while we're doing STEMactivities with our museum
partner here in Houston.
Other times we're running morelike after-school family
engagement workshops.
One of our favorite ones iscalled Talking is Teaching, and
it's this idea that earlychildhood educators not only do
they have this really importantrole of helping parents to see
themselves as their child'sfirst and most important teacher
(22:31):
like Sonia said a few minutesago but also this idea that just
talking is teaching and talkingto your child is a way to help
get them ready for school andhelp them to succeed in school,
because you're helping to notonly model conversation
structures and grammar andsyntax and the basics, but
(22:51):
you're also able to modelvocabulary and hopefully get
your kids to tell some storiesthat really reflect your family
values or your family's beliefsabout things.
So talking is teaching is reallyone of the most important ideas
for families and it resonateswhenever we do this work with
families.
They feel this sense of almostrelief, of like, oh, that's like
(23:16):
I'm kind of doing enough if I'mtalking to them.
That's fabulous, it's a real.
It's a marginal shift again,but it is a good way to help
families tune in and unplug tohave a conversation.
So that's also a piece of thesefamily education workshops is
to just find sometimes it's fiveminutes is your initial goal,
(23:36):
and then 10 or 15 minutes whereyou've unplugged, there's no
devices and we are reallytalking to one another at home.
Or perhaps it's on the gobecause some conversations are
better had in the car, whereyou're not making that eye
contact.
Sometimes kids are more willingto open up if you're walking
next to them or just that's whatI was going to ask, tricia.
Lori (23:57):
I noticed that when I was in teaching fifth grade, I used
to take my students, uh,frequently we I was in a trailer
, so we would, although I thinknow they're called learning
cottages Um, they would.
We would walk often around thecampus for a little, you know,
fresh air, a little break inbetween classes and a quick
little loop.
And I found that oftentimes Ihad some amazing conversations
(24:20):
with kids who wouldn'tordinarily open up in a
face-to-face setting if we werejust moving and walking like
parallel next to each other.
So that is a thing I wasn'timagining that as a young
teacher.
Tricia Zucker (24:32):
Yeah it's so true .
It almost reminds me a littlebit of, like, the research on
parallel play and yeah,sometimes it's sort of just a
nice sort of scaffold intoconversations and it also allows
for some cultural andlinguistic diversity.
Right, like in some cultures,making eye contact with adult is
, it's a, you know, high, it's alittle higher stakes, so it
does.
(24:52):
Just giving yourself thatfreedom to experiment with
conversations with your students, I think really helps you to
iterate on where they feel mostcomfortable and where you feel
like you're you're likely to beable to plug into something they
really want to talk to youabout.
Sonia Cabell (25:07):
Yeah, like joining in and playing with them.
You can think about what arethey focused on right now and
focus on that same thing.
Have joint attention with themon that and ask them about that.
Talk to them about what they'refocusing on.
So if you follow their lead andfollow their interests, this
(25:27):
leads to those multi-turnconversations as well.
Now in our research study we'retrying to figure out when you
pair both the classroom and thehome conversations in the
classroom and at home, to whatextent does that strengthen
children's learning, not justthe conversations.
(25:50):
But Tricia has created asupplemental curriculum called
Pre-K on my Way that we'retesting out in the classroom
setting.
That incorporates the Strivefor Five procedure.
Testing out in the classroomsetting that it incorporates the
strive for five procedure orthe technique in it, as well as
the home pieces.
So we're trying to think abouthow much of both of those do you
need to help students,preschoolers, succeed.
Melissa (26:14):
I can't wait to hear what you all find for sure.
But I just love this becauseit's so manageable for a parent
to hear that this is going to behelpful for them, with their
student or with their child.
It can feel really daunting forparents.
I think to feel like I have toprepare my kid for kindergarten.
What do I have to?
I have to get them reading,even even teaching them all the
(26:35):
letter sounds.
Right.
That can feel daunting, butlike this feels like something
any parent can do with theirchild.
Right, I can figure out what tohave a conversation with them
about and we can do five turns.
This feels like something I cando.
Sonia Cabell (26:51):
And you're laying a critical foundation.
It's such an importantfoundation of language we don't
even realize it, but languageundergirds so much of what we do
as an, as an adult, but ingeneral, but like literacy, when
we're thinking about readingoutcomes and writing outcomes,
those language skills thatdevelop, start developing right
(27:12):
at birth, are just sofoundational to reading.
Um, and it's easy for us tokind of overlook that sometimes
because those skills are harderto measure in the preschool,
kindergarten time.
It's much easier to measurewhether you know a letter name
or a letter of sound, and whileknowing letter names and letter
sounds is also an essentialskill, it's easy to
(27:35):
underestimate how importantlanguage is.
Lori (27:37):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up.
I think I'd love to dive intothat.
But I have a really practicalquestion first, like speaking of
, you know, this being a veryefficient tool and very
practical tool, how much timeshould be spent on these
conversations?
And I also want to make surethat we address a potential
teacher concern that you knowthis is going to take,
(28:01):
especially at first, a littlebit more time and I'm not saying
a grand amount of time, butjust a little bit than we're
used to, if it's typically a twoturn back and forth, and this
is completely worth ourinvestment.
But I do wonder if teachers arelistening right now, thinking
well, what about the otherstudent's attention span?
What about this student'sattention span?
So I'm just wondering if youall can speak to how much time
(28:25):
and then maybe help settle anyconcerns that might be coming to
mind.
Tricia Zucker (28:32):
Well, unfortunately the research is
not at a point where we can tellyou here are the exact number
of minutes of strive for fivethat you're going to need for
all kids, or even for thisprofile of kid or that profile
of kid.
So it's not, there's not aformula here, but I will say
some very practical guidancethat Sonia and I have given is
(28:53):
to think about the settings inyour day that really lend
themselves to conversations andwhere you want to set a goal to
first try out Strive for Five.
So for a lot of teachers that'sa read-aloud, because a
read-aloud is a really easyplace to put a few sticky notes
on your book with the types ofnice, meaty or important guiding
questions Sonia was talkingabout.
Because if I preview thatguiding question before I read
(29:15):
the book and I preview anotherguiding question when I reread
the book, then I know I'm goingto answer that question after I
read and I'm going to ask two tothree kids to answer that same
guiding question, becausethey're all benefiting from
hearing one another's responses,because I chose an important,
meaty question right, animportant conversation topic.
(29:36):
So that would be one sort ofplace where I would highly
recommend you strive for five.
Every single read aloud is afterreading.
Have a few conversations withkids, but read the room right,
like if your kids are rollingaround on the back of the carpet
by the second kid that you'veasked that guiding question, to
don't ask the third kid, like,okay, let's get the wiggles out
(29:58):
and let's do our next thingright.
So read alouds are a favoriteand knowledge building
activities are another timewhere Strive for Five is a
wonderful place to set goals forreading.
So, sonia, set goals for Strivefor Five.
So, sonia, do you want toexplain maybe a way that you
might build knowledge withStrive for Five conversations?
Sonia Cabell (30:18):
Yeah, I think the, you know, in our book we really
use like that plants contextaround.
You know there's.
You know in the early gradesthey're doing a lot with
planting and you know watchingseeds grow etc.
And so when you think about thekinds of conversations that you
(30:40):
can easily have during thattime, they lend themselves to
these kinds of backs and backand forth strive for five
conversations.
And some of my research hasshown that teachers not more
naturally speak with childrenwith richer language models in
(31:00):
the science context.
And so I think that when Ithink about content area and I
think about where can we kind ofcapitalize on what teachers are
already doing?
Well, how can I strengthen that?
So I think about that sciencecontext as being a place where
teachers already want to explainmore, as being a place where
teachers already want to explainmore, add vocabulary, extend on
(31:21):
what children are saying,because they're trying to build
children's knowledge.
They're not sitting therethinking I need to build their
language, what vocabulary can Iadd?
They're trying to teach aconcept.
Right, you're trying to teach aconcept.
And so I would encourage thethinking about how do I scaffold
(31:44):
in the content area.
You know, setting would bereally important and I would say
too that it doesn't necessarily.
I don't think it's a takes moretime.
I think it's like arestructuring of the time you're
already using, because it'sjust kind of suggesting a
different way to have thediscussion.
It's suggesting like, stickwith that child a couple more
turns, which in reality thatfive turn conversation is less
than a minute long, not even.
(32:05):
And so those things, while itmight take some you know,
coaching like to get into thegroove of doing that, it's not
that it would necessarily takemore overall instructional time.
It will take time to learn andto do it as more of a regular
(32:26):
practice, but then again,conversations are what teachers
are having all day long withchildren anyway.
We're suggesting a marginalshift of how do you restructure
those conversations to addStrive for Five to your toolkit
of things that you're alreadydoing.
And we're not saying everyconversation has to be a Strive
for Five, but we are saying thatbe really intentional about
(32:49):
building on what children sayand scaffolding them, providing
more challenge and providingsupport for children who need it
.
Melissa (32:55):
I want to take this back because, Sonia, you started
to bring up some of theresearch and why we want to do
this, and I know we actuallyjust had a listener who asked
like, how do I build my studentsoral language skills in first
grade?
I was like, well, get ready.
But we're going to tell you.
But I can see how thisobviously is helping with oral
language skills.
But you also brought up thishas more benefits, even beyond
(33:16):
just their oral language.
So can we talk a little bitabout the research and why
teachers should want to do this?
Sonia Cabell (33:23):
Yeah, and when I say it has more benefit than
beyond their oral language, I'mthinking about the importance of
language for all functions oflife.
I was challenged by a friend ofmine who was a speech language
pathologist, who said, sonia,language isn't just for reading,
it's for everything.
And I'm like, yes, I know, butin my world it's for reading and
writing.
(33:43):
I get it, but so, even stickingwithin the reading and writing
frame, I'm defining the orallanguage broadly to be both
receptive and expressive.
Tricia and I structured theStrive for Five book around
Scarborough's reading rope,which Hollis Scarborough
developed in 2001 or publishedin 2001.
(34:03):
And so we're including thingslike vocabulary, background
knowledge, verbal reasoning,language structures and literacy
knowledge, like knowledge ofgenres, and so all of those
things in the languagecomprehension side go into, you
know, are integrated intoreading alongside of the word
(34:27):
recognition skills.
Tricia Zucker (34:29):
There's some other research that I'll just
talk briefly about.
I could really nerd it up onthis for a little while because
I think it is just so compelling.
There was some work done atHarvard and MIT Romero led this
study but what they did is theylistened to kids' conversations
(34:52):
throughout day-long recordingsand took really simple
statistics from these data thequantity of words that kids
heard and the quality of theconversations they heard with
adults.
And quality just means you knowjust sort of the count of
conversations.
And what they found is socompelling.
They find that not only doesquality and not quantity predict
(35:16):
kids standardized vocabularyand language outcomes that,
sonia's right, they reallymatter for reading and for life.
But they also put these littlepreschoolers in MRI scanning
machines to look at how theirbrains were developing, and they
found healthier braindevelopment in the regions that
are responsible for languagewhen kids have heard a lot of
(35:37):
conversations.
So it's one of those thingswhere you know it, just like.
It makes me so happy whenresearch shows things that
you've.
Research like this shows, likethe mechanism that you've
demonstrated behaviorally right,like your talk, really adds up.
It's truly affecting children'sbrain development, and one of
my colleagues, dana DeMaster, isconducting a similar study
(35:58):
where she's got toddlers,younger kids, many of whom were
born prematurely.
She's putting them in MRImachines and again same sort of
thing more responsive caregiverswho pay attention to kids'
signals and have those back andforth conversations.
Those babies, those littletoddlers, have healthier brain
development again, in not onlythe language comprehension
regions but also the portions ofyour brain that are responsible
(36:22):
for some of our self-regulationand attention control,
inhibition, which are thingsthat, as parents and teachers,
we all care about that abilityto be able to regulate our
behavior.
So I really love some of thatmore like brain research, and I
love working withneuroscientists.
I am not one, but it's justreally fun to see your talk adds
up and it matters for kids'development, and so that's some
(36:47):
of the research that I findreally compelling.
I will also say that we've donesome past studies with my
colleague, susan Landry, leadingthis work, where what we find
when we randomize students inpreschool and early grades to
receive classroom support aloneor home support alone or a
combination of the two, wealways find better outcomes when
(37:08):
parents and teachers areworking together.
It's very intuitive findings,but it's nice to have that data
to show.
You know, kids really benefitwhen all of their caregivers are
doing things like having theseresponsive back and forth
conversations.
And you know there's a lot ofways that you can do this in
your classroom and there's a lotof ways you can support your
families in having moremeaningful conversations at home
(37:31):
.
So I would say the challenge isto just not try to get it
perfect, not sort of count Wasit five turns?
But the challenge is to thinkokay, what can I do to stretch
this conversation and keep itgoing a little bit more with
each child and each day ifpossible?
And actually that's going backto your earlier question how
(37:52):
often should we be doing Strivefor Five?
If you were to actually sort ofkeep a tally of how often you
have a strive for five with eachstudent in your classroom at
the beginning of the year it'svery hard and especially if
you're new to strive for fivesit's really hard.
But if you set a goal foryourself to incrementally add
more students each day to yourstrive for five, you'll find
(38:14):
that by the end of the yearyou're able to really have a
meaningful back and forthconversation with almost every
student every day.
And so that's the goal, notjust for language and literacy
and knowledge building, but forthat relational component.
Melissa (38:29):
I'm wondering if you all have any tips for parents or
to get parents, like, have youhad seen any success with
schools that have taught this toparents or brought the parents
in, just because you talkedabout how important it is to
have that that had them workingtogether?
So I know that's what I wouldask as a teacher as well how do
(38:50):
I get the parents on board?
How do I do that?
Tricia Zucker (38:53):
Yeah, we run.
We recently ran a study thatwas funded by the National
Science Foundation and sofocused on STEM learning, with
families and teachers workingtogether, as well as with our
children's museum supporting us,and what we found is it's a lot
easier for parents to haveconversations when you tell them
activities to do, right.
So whether that's plantingseeds, that may or may not work,
(39:15):
depending on where you live I'min Houston.
It is so hot here right nowthat would be a horrible
activity to suggest to parentsright now, but there's like
right now we're texting familiesgames that you can play with
ice right Indoor activitieswhere it's all about having
meaningful conversations.
We find that if you either sendfamilies a little model of what
(39:36):
that conversation might looklike or a video of that you know
, text it to them, whatever itis, that works really well for
parents to be able to havemeaningful conversations because
they have sort of your tipsheet of here's some good
conversations to ask.
The other thing that we do andit's a little bit more expensive
, but again you see really nicebenefits from this is giving
families some kits to take home.
After you do a parent-childworkshop or after you have a
(40:00):
family engagement event.
Send families home with a dozenlittle links that they can use
to do non-standard measurementaround their house and give them
a tip sheet for how you couldscaffold conversations around
this really simple tool ofmeasuring how tall you are or
how long the pencil is in yourhome.
And so, yeah, our researchshows a greater effect or
(40:22):
greater impact on parentinvolvement and learning when
you provide those sorts ofscaffolds, those materials, than
if you send them home with justideas and tip sheets.
Parents already know that theyshould be involved in learning
and they want to.
They just need ideas and tipsto do this in ways that they can
really embed into their busyfamily schedules.
So keeping it simple and givingsome materials is probably the
(40:46):
best advice we see from ourresearch.
Sonia Cabell (40:49):
I love that, trisha, and all the things you
said.
In addition, the parent and theteacher can foster the
relationship with the parent.
It's the teacher that's drivingthese things, so not some like
random person from the districtthat they don't know, but rather
the teacher and therelationship that she fosters
with the parents is importantfor them to say, yeah.
(41:10):
The teacher says I need, I needto be working on this.
So I think that thatrelationship is critical.
How teachers foster that withparents?
Lori (41:18):
That's so important.
I'm so glad you brought that uptoo, because I'm thinking about
what you both said.
And as a teacher I felt like Ireally wanted to make those
great connections with familiesand caregivers and oftentimes I
think we thought a direct lineor I thought a direct line to
the parent or caregiver was areally good option.
(41:40):
And I'm not saying it's not,but I do think your most
valuable entry point and yourmost accessible entry point is
the student in front of you.
And if you can build a greatrelationship with the student
who's with you every single day,right Seven hours a day,
they're going to go home and belike oh, Ms Sappington really
cares about how well I did insoccer over the weekend.
(42:01):
She was asking about that.
Or Ms Sappington was asking mequestions when we were reading
the Three Little Pigs and shehelped me work through something
that I didn't know and helpedme understand it a lot better.
No, not in those exact words byany means, but that, to me,
sets the teacher up for successwith having that positive home
(42:23):
relationship as well, becauseyou're already in a positive
light, your foot's already inthe door without you having said
a word.
So then, when you make thatconnection to the caregiver or
the parent.
It's going to be a lot better,a lot smoother, a lot, you know,
a lot more positive than thanlike a cold call, if you will.
(42:43):
So I kind of like think Ithought about it while you were
both both speaking.
I like thinking about it inthat way and just kind of
thinking of another way oraccess point to access families,
to make the student'sexperience really great families
to make the student'sexperience really great.
Tricia Zucker (43:04):
Yeah, I think that is such a great way to
think of it is not only are youa person of trust as a teacher
to that child, but you are aperson of trust to the whole
family and that's a weighty roleto carry.
And it means too, that when youdo run family engagement events,
parents will listen to yourfeedback so much more than other
people that don't have thattrust built up.
And so this also means that ifyou're hosting a family
(43:29):
engagement event at your school,you can really move the needle
by walking around the room andgiving that feedback.
There's ample meta-analyticresearch by Todd Grindle and
colleagues showing that if youjust host the event, there's no
effect on child outcomes.
But if teachers that person oftrust circulate and give
feedback it's both the warmfeedback as well as like try
(43:53):
this or ask your child that thatmoves the needle and then you
start to see an improvement inchild outcomes.
So it's really taking advantageof that moment to connect,
because you are a reallyimportant person, not just to
the kiddo but to the wholefamily.
Melissa (44:08):
All right, everybody, we're gonna remind everyone your
book is Strive for FiveConversations a framework that
gets kids talking to acceleratetheir language comprehension and
literacy.
We all have it.
Is there anything you want toshare about the book that we
haven't shared already?
Where they can find the book?
Anything else?
Tricia Zucker (44:29):
Well, I would say we'll also give you for your
show notes a couple of freearticles on some of our past
research around that TeachingTogether line of research.
It's really wonderful to beable to just think about, okay,
how do I move that familyengagement forward in a
thoughtful way, as well as somelinks to like that Talking is
(44:49):
Teaching website from ouruniversity.
Sonia Cabell (44:52):
Yeah, that's great .
Thank you, and I want to give ashout out.
Our book is in the same seriesas this book the Science of
Reading and Practice series,isn't it so fun?
Yeah, you're scrunchie on myscrunchie.
My Melissa and Lori LoveLiteracy scrunchie.
So I just want to say it's inthe same, the same and I really
(45:14):
I think what you did with yourbook is really smart and taking
the you know, I really I thinkwhat you did with your book is
really smart and taking the youknow Q&A kind of style based on
your podcast and being able tothen direct people to like and
you can learn more looking atthis and this and this podcast.
So the really really smart book.
Lori (45:30):
Yeah Well, when we, when we write book two, we will
include this, this podcast, in.
It Sounds good.
Yeah Well, this is awesome.
I know you can get your bookpretty much anywhere Scholastic,
Teacher Store, Amazon and yourlocal bookstore but we're just
so grateful that you wrote itbecause I know it's helped me
(45:50):
kind of get over the hump of twoturn conversations.
So I know it's helping so manyother teachers out there too.
We're really grateful.
Sonia Cabell (45:58):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us.
Melissa (46:03):
Tricia Zucker and UT Health Houston received a
research grant from ScholasticInc.
Dr Zucker has creatorshiprights in the developing talkers
language model licensed from UTHealth Houston to Scholastic
Inc, and Dr Zucker and Cabellreceived royalties from a book
published with Scholastic Incand compensation for speaking
engagements.
To stay connected with us, signup for our email list at
(46:27):
literacypodcastcom, join ourFacebook group and follow us on
Instagram and Twitter.
Lori (46:34):
If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to share
with a teacher friend or leaveus a five-star rating and review
on Apple Podcasts.
Melissa (46:44):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or its employees.
Lori (46:55):
We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to
learn with us.
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