July 11, 2025 • 39 mins
Bonus Episode
In this episode, Melissa and Lori sit down with Freddy Hiebert, founder of Text Project, to dive deep into the critical role texts play in reading instruction. They explore how the types of texts provided to students not only shape their reading practice but also influence their self-perception as readers.
Freddy shares her expertise on understanding text features and the vital role of repetition in vocabulary acquisition. The conversation highlights how background knowledge supports comprehension and the thoughtful development of decodable texts to support early readers.
They also discuss exciting advancements like the use of AI for generating reading materials and the importance of designing engaging, relevant texts for middle and high school students.
Freddy unpacks the significance of morphological families, polysemy, and semantic mapping, stressing how teachers must grasp these complexities to support deeper word learning and understanding. She underscores the importance of offering students a diverse “text diet” to build vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Listeners will come away with fresh insights on creating engaging texts for diverse learners and innovative strategies for vocabulary teaching that combine context, repetition, and thoughtful text design.
Visit TextProject.org for more info.
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lori (00:01):
In today's episode we're talking to Freddie Hebert about
the function of text sets, whichare curated collections of text
that support decodingvocabulary and building
knowledge.
Melissa (00:12):
Whether you're working with early learners or older
readers, text sets are a gamechanger for comprehension
instruction.
Lori (00:22):
Hi teacher friends.
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.
Melissa (00:31):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.
Lori (00:36):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.
Melissa (00:41):
Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today
and writing, lori, and I can'twait to keep learning with you
today.
Lori (00:48):
Hi, freddie, welcome to the podcast.
We cannot wait to talk textswith you today.
Freddy Hiebert (00:54):
Well, I've been waiting a long time to talk to
you, and I'm just delighted tobe here.
Lori (01:00):
We've been waiting to talk to you too.
I know I was going to sayyou've been on our list for a
really long time, and every timeI feel like you're one of those
people who were like, well, shecould talk about this, and then
she could talk about this orshe could talk about that, and
then we ended up not asking youuntil now.
So we're so thrilled thatyou're finally here.
So you want to talk aboutPilates, right I do?
Melissa (01:26):
I want to talk about everything and anything with you
.
I want to talk about everythingand anything with you.
Well, actually, what we've beenthinking about lately is texts
so different types of texts, andyou know specifically different
readers at different stages oflearning to read and need
different types of texts, andyou are the founder of Text
Project, so a website that'scompletely focused on texts, and
we really thought this is itright.
Freddy Hiebert (01:45):
This is when we call up Freddie, because she
knows all about texts text canbe a lot of different kinds of
(02:07):
things, but to read involves atext, and what I see in the
reading professional developmentlandscape is just a lot on
strategies and not as much ontext.
And it turns out that the textswe give our kids define the kind
of practices practicing theyget.
So whatever the text is thatyou give a kid, it defines what
(02:31):
the task is for them.
It also begins to define theirviews of themselves like I can
do this or I can't do this, likeI can do this or I can't do
this.
So really a text is central towhat we do as teachers of
reading, and sometimes it mightseem, because texts are really
(02:56):
other than the teacher in theclassroom.
Building texts are one of themost expensive parts of the
whole reading equation right ininstruction, and so sometimes
we're given texts as teachersand we don't quite know what we
should do with them.
But what we've been doing atText Project is working hard to
(03:18):
give everybody extra text, extratext.
So whatever you've been given,we give you some text that I
regard to be there to give thereading volume to kids, because
to get good at this activereading you actually have to do
a whole lot of it.
Melissa (03:38):
Yeah, and I'm thinking too about I'm so glad you said
that about the text, becausethinking back to my early years
of teaching, when I wasn'tgiving any texts and I had to,
like, root around in closets tofind whatever I could, and it
was just whatever was there andI, you know, I don't even think
I knew at that time howimportant the texts were,
because I was just looking forsomething, anything we could
(03:59):
read.
But it really does make so muchsense, like that is the key is
what the texts are in front ofour students, and because texts
are such a visible part and sucha big part like for districts
and states to pay for.
Freddy Hiebert (04:17):
It turns out that texts become one of the
first places where there aremandates and policies of what
you can use in a classroom.
So we go from one kind of textto another text, to another kind
of text and I don't think we doenough conversation and
(04:39):
professional development aboutwhat the features of texts are
and what it is that a kid needsto be able to do to be
successful with a particulartext.
So that's always how I look ata text.
So what would you need to beable to do to read this text on
cats?
You know I love cats orwhatever cats.
(05:00):
You know I love cats orwhatever you know?
What would you need to knowabout linguistics?
You know the letter.
Sound correspondence is to beable to read it.
Or what would you need to knowabout?
You know how texts work?
So yeah, I think we actually.
You know there's a lot ofconversation about what I wasn't
(05:22):
taught.
There's a lot of conversationabout what I wasn't taught you
know, and reading is prettycomplicated.
So to cover it all is sometimeshard and sometimes we do cover
it and sometimes people forget.
But my point is that I don'tthink we talk a lot about what
the underlying requirements arefor reading texts at different
(05:45):
levels.
So, for example, if we werehaving a conversation as people
who teach English as a secondlanguage and those are folks who
work with typically youngadults who are hoping to go to
English-speaking countries forbaccalaureate degrees or, you
know, to get good at English forjob opportunities In that field
(06:08):
, there's a really defined modelof text.
So they're recognizing.
You know we talk about decodingthresholds, but there's
something that also occurs andthat's a vocabulary threshold.
So it turns out that all wordsaren't equal in the English
language, that some words do theheavy lifting by far and other
(06:36):
words are really necessary, butthey occur pretty occasionally.
Well, in the English, as aSecond Language model, they talk
a lot about the vocabularythreshold and that's something
that in the last 30 years inAmerican reading instruction,
we've really dropped the ball interms of having a clear model
(07:00):
of text.
We do now with decodables, butthen the question is, what
actually should define adecodable?
So we have a model underlyingdecodables at this point that is
called the lesson to text matchand what that basically is
saying is if a letter soundcorrespondence has been taught
(07:23):
in a lesson in the teacher'smanual, then it matches to a
word in the text and then wordswith that letter sound
correspondence are free in asense.
You can put them in.
But how many times do you haveto see certain patterns?
You know all patterns aren't asequal in terms of being learned
(07:47):
and furthermore, we also knowthat for young kids well, for
adults too learning concretewords happens a lot faster than
learning abstract words.
So you know, I mean, there'ssomething about the design of
decodables that sometimes wehaven't talked about too.
(08:08):
I mean, should there be somerepetition of words?
Right now, there are just a lotof exemplars of particular
patterns, but not necessarilyparticular words repeated with
that pattern.
And I find my pandemic projecthas been to attempt to learn my
(08:29):
native language, which is German.
You would probably think thatwith a name like Alfreda
Hildegard that I would have hadsome German background.
But one of the things that I'vereally learned and you know,
because it's German and I hadGerman, you know I heard German
in my home when I was a littleone, but because German forms
(08:50):
such an important part of ourEnglish, the basic words in
English, you know I've got somereal advantages.
Plus, I'm a reader of English,right.
But it turns out that singleword learning just doesn't
happen a lot.
It helps to see some words.
I'm not just saying youmemorize those words, but I'm
(09:12):
just saying, once you've figuredout a word and said it when
you're reading a text, it'sreally nice if they give you
another chance to actually tryout your hypothesis again and be
successful and somebody be ableto go, wow, way to go.
You know, you've got thisnailed.
Melissa (09:32):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
My son is just starting to readthose decodable texts and you
know he's like can I just readthe same one again?
I'm wondering if you can.
I'm curious about the texts onText Project and if you could
just give us a big overview ofthose texts.
And how are they connected toresearch?
What did you specifically wantto add to those texts that you
(09:55):
put on there?
Freddy Hiebert (09:57):
Well, thank you for giving me a chance to
describe what my life's work is.
So I've been doing research ontexts for a while and the texts
at Text Project.
There are texts at threedifferent levels and each level
of text represents a line ofresearch.
(10:18):
Now, one thing that's commonacross all the texts is a model
of text that is basicallylooking to have kids have some
repetition with words and alsoopportunities with, at the lower
(10:38):
levels, patterns that occur alot in words letter sound
patterns, morphological patternsas we move along.
So that's a really, reallyimportant part.
But what's even more important,that draws everything together
is all the texts are in sets.
And why would I do that?
Well, I'm really interested indeveloping background knowledge.
(11:03):
Become great readers, goodreaders or not very good readers
?
A lot of it can depend onschools, for particular groups
of kids, and for those kids,background knowledge is as
compelling as the linguisticknowledge that they need.
So I want texts that providebackground knowledge always.
(11:28):
And it turns out, you know, oneof the things I discovered very
early on in my research is thatit makes a lot more sense to
have words repeated in aninformational text than in a
narrative.
There's certain words you knowabout 94% of the words in all
texts come from the same smallgroup of words about 2,500
(11:50):
morphological families.
But my point is that if you'rewriting about, let's say,
basketball, about pivoting,you're going to repeat that term
In a story.
A narrative writer doesn'trepeat the same words to
describe their characters,traits or dispositions or their
(12:12):
movement.
Lori (12:13):
I'm so glad you gave an example, Freddie, because I was
going to ask you for that, butyou just did that and that
helped me clarify it so much.
You're so right.
Melissa (12:22):
And what a good one, right?
Because in a narrative, whensomeone pivots, they're not
going to keep pivoting, right?
They've already done thatExactly.
Freddy Hiebert (12:30):
So it actually turns out and you know I started
all of this long before AI, butnow, with my collaborators on
AI, I can generate even moretext and it turns out that AI is
fabulous in creatingappropriate informational text.
(12:50):
I mean, provided you tell yourAI the right thing.
Why not stories?
Well, it turns out that a lotof children's books, narrative
books, are heavily influenced bythe illustrations and the
artists and the writers ofchildren's books haven't
released a copyright, so they'renot available on the internet
(13:13):
for AI to harvest them.
So it turns out right now thatmight change.
You know, things might getdifferent, but right now
narrative stories can be veryderivative and repetitive and,
quite frankly, boring.
That's not the case withinformational text, you know.
So I can ask.
I'll tell you what I'm workingon right now.
I'm working on a little series,because I also do research on
(13:37):
vocabulary.
Lori (13:39):
I know, I was curious when you were going to mention that,
and vocabulary is really right.
Freddy Hiebert (13:44):
What makes text?
Pretty much it relates to thetopic and that's what makes text
, you know, compelling orchallenging or not.
And I'm doing a little seriesfor beginning readers on
polysemy.
Although I'm not calling itthat, I'm describing it as same
(14:05):
and not the same.
So, for example, bark and barkyou know there's dog barks,
there's bark on a tree and I canget great pictures of a dog
barking, you know, hanging ontothe bark of a tree and barking,
obviously not barking at thebark but barking at something up
(14:25):
there in the tree.
I'm into informational textbecause I'm really concerned
with automaticity.
I think that's a major thing,that American kids, if you don't
read enough, you don't becomeautomatic with those 2,500
morphological families.
And that should actually beanother conversation we have,
which would be about vocabulary.
(14:45):
So I'm not going to get intothe families too much, but it's
the common words that make upstories and also informational
text.
But I also want to point outthat it's information so that
you can repeat words.
That makes sense.
And it's also text in sets.
And why would I do that?
Well, I want kids to build aschemata, I want them to build
(15:10):
some background knowledge, butat the same time I want to
repeat words in differentcontexts.
But at the same time, I want torepeat words in different
contexts and research is showingthat that's really important
(15:32):
that you see a word in a verydifferent contextual and
syntactic situation.
That was really a major problemwith level text is that often
kids just saw a word in the samesyntactic construction, right.
And so what I've done is theseinformational texts.
So if I have four texts onsnakes, for example, for
beginning readers, or four textson different kinds of trees, I
(15:55):
can repeat the words trees orcones or scales you know, or
shape or size, or you know bonesin terms of snakes not bones of
trees but bones of snakes and Ican keep you know repeating
those and kids can see them indifferent contexts.
(16:15):
And again, it's a matter offeeling some success.
You know I transferred thisknowledge.
You know, and it's not a wordthat only sits in this one place
.
You know I can use some otherplace.
So does that give you an idea?
So the thing about our text is,each layer of text comes from a
line of research that I've done, but all of the texts are
(16:38):
around information and all thetexts are in sets.
When kids know a few key wordson an informational topic, even
if those words aren'tnecessarily in a text.
They're going to do better atcomprehending that content, you
know, because they've built somekind of an anchor network.
Melissa (17:01):
And you said just a few key words.
Freddy Hiebert (17:03):
Yeah, like, maybe on something like habitat.
You know you don't have to knowevery single word that might
show up, but if you know somewords around that topic, like
ecosystems, you know that that'sgoing to really help you.
I study what features of textsensure that kids are going to be
successful with it and whatmakes a text hard.
Lori (17:26):
Freddie, I'm wondering if you gave a really great example
about those beginning textsright that you're sharing, that
they have consistent patterns.
They have this reallyinteresting content and
important vocabulary that'sconnected in these text sets.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the middle grade texts and
like the maybe middle to highschool texts, and how they're
(17:50):
different and what they include?
Freddy Hiebert (17:52):
I'm incredibly interested in statistical
learning.
Okay that the number ofopportunities you've had to see
a word, including a differentcontext, is really going to
influence you.
So the problem that we havewith our kids isn't that they
can't figure out words,eventually it's how long it
takes them because they haven'tseen patterns.
(18:14):
You know the patterns in thewords and the words themselves,
you know.
So I did a lot of work on whatwords were important.
You know like I started out bytaking all the NAEP tests, the
National Assessment ofEducational Progress, grade four
tests, and I said what wouldyou need to know to be
(18:34):
successful with this?
And then I took all this as anystate test I could find and I
did the same thing and that'swhere I came up with there are
these 2,500 morphologicalfamilies.
They encompass about 6,000words because it's a family
right, it's like helpful helper,unhelpful like that.
(18:56):
And then I started constructingtexts and so topic reads for the
middle grades at Text Projectactually walks you through some
steps.
So it starts out like if a kidit has six levels, not like
level, like the Fontas andPinnell levels that you just
would throw books down thestairs and see where they land.
(19:19):
But the first, the level A,were texts that had the most 300
most frequent words or mostfrequent families, and there
were always words that were rareon that topic.
(19:39):
So I'm not saying they werelike Dick and Jane books.
They're books like on sportsand fashion and anime and jazz.
They're books on things thatare worth middle graders knowing
about, knowing about.
(20:01):
So I moved up from the 300 mostfrequent words all the way up to
the 2,500 morphologicalfamilies.
So there are about what thereare, I don't know 16 different
topics, something like that perlevel, four texts per topic.
And again I want to repeat, I'mnot generating instructional
programs.
I'm generating material forteachers to have access to, to
(20:26):
give their kids additionalreading opportunities.
I'm not somebody who writes,you know, copious curriculum
guides.
I'm that, just isn't me.
Melissa (20:39):
And I was going to say too this is not like you would
give a student a test and theyare level A.
So now you're going to givethem the level A books that are
on yours.
You're saying you labeled themas level A, b, c because they
very specifically increase inthe number of words.
That are probably many things.
Freddy Hiebert (21:00):
They increase along the way, and there
actually is an assessment onTextProject to establish where
you should put kids.
And I also do research with mywonderful colleagues at Stanford
on ROAR, r-o-a-r.
Okay, and they've been pilottesting a word it's called the
(21:21):
core vocabulary assessment.
So that vocabulary assessmentis actually going to help you
pinpoint also what kids need to,where they need to be.
So, yeah, you don't foreverthen see these texts.
I want to just be really clearthat these are texts for
particular opportunities.
Do I think they're great forsummer reading?
(21:43):
We actually do have a programcalled Summer Reads that are
based around the same ideas,around topics that you know
might be interesting, likesummer holidays or, you know,
summer sports, things like that.
Okay, so you know you're notstaying in level A for the rest
(22:03):
of your life.
We could have another sessionon just talking about why we
kept thinking we could do thatfor so long.
Yeah, I never thought we coulddo it or should do it, but
that's a whole nother story,okay, so in the high school
we've just that's where Istarted and we've got uh, we've
(22:24):
got another series called FYI.
Now those are single texts toget background knowledge for
particular books.
Okay, like, I was really alwaysfascinated.
There are a lot of stories inAmerican history about the red
coats and so I get fascinated,like why would they wear red
(22:47):
coats?
That just doesn't seem like anadvantage when you're on a
battlefield.
So I did background knowledgeon that, I mean.
So I've done some that are justsingle text but they're
clustered around topics.
There's also one called storiesof words, okay, where we look
at the history like how did wecome up with?
(23:11):
When you get a new invention,where do the words come from?
You know, like, does somebodysit there and go?
We'll call this this.
Well, typically what we do iswe actually use the words we
already have and give them newmeaning.
Or we put new words together,like space suit or astronaut.
(23:31):
You know we'll take Greek wordsoften and that helps us a lot.
But we'll take existing wordsand give them new meanings, like
the word mouse.
You know we've given that worda whole new meaning.
So what I'm saying is all thetexts in the middle grades, all
of them are around this modelthat you have to have additional
(23:51):
practice with those 2,500morphological families if you're
going to be a good reader.
So those morphological familieswill get you to about 94, 95%
of the text, but then you haveto have enough bandwidth left to
figure out additional words.
That's where you use yourmorphology, your decoding and so
(24:14):
on, but without automaticity ata certain point you're dead in
the water, freddie.
Lori (24:21):
I know if I was a listener right now I would be so curious
about these words that aregoing to get us to this like 94%
automaticity here that I reallyneed to know.
Can you help teachersunderstand where they should
start with these words?
I know you said you've donesome work.
How do we get these words?
How do we know what to do ifwe're listening?
Freddy Hiebert (24:41):
Well, I've been really reluctant to put out a
list of the 2,500 morphologicalfamilies, why?
It actually breaks my heartwhen I hear about little first
graders or kindergartner kidsbringing home parts of the Dolch
list and having to learn wordsin isolation Flashcards, these
(25:04):
words.
The thing about families is youhave to start developing a
sense of a family and you alsohave to develop sense of
polysemy, which means multiplemeanings of words.
So the more frequent a wordexcept for the and of, the more
(25:25):
meanings it's likely to have,for example, a word like S-E-T.
Okay, so I've been reluctant togive the families, but you know
what I have done reluctant togive the families, but you know
what I have done.
I have semantic maps of all2,500 morphological families in
(25:46):
something called the CoreVocabulary Project so you can
learn about the words.
And I also don't want to getteachers like into the thing,
like they go from word one toword two, to word three, to word
four, to word five.
That's not what I'm saying.
A lot of the words they'rewords that in the main you're
going to find in text, but thething that we haven't been doing
(26:07):
is attending to what percentageof the other words are there in
text and are they more thanfive or six percent?
And are they more than five orsix percent?
And as a teacher, I mean thisis something you should be
taught, I think in teacher ed isto be able to look at a text
and to be able to say, in thistext there are some pretty rare
(26:32):
words.
Okay, like you know, if you seethe word ripple, there are a lot
of really strange Anglo-Saxonverbs like shun or ripple or,
you know, spun.
Ok, there are a lot of those,and it's not that you can't use
decoding with some of that, butas a teacher I need to be able
(26:55):
to look at it and to say, forexample, I'm working on this
piece on pivoting in basketballand you know, when I look at the
text I can tell you thatoffense and defense are
important words, an intentionalfoul is important.
Okay, those would be thingsthat I might want to focus on.
(27:15):
The rest of the words, you cantake a look to see.
You'll know whether they'rewords that are often in text.
So, like, a word like pivotisn't going to be in text a lot
(27:37):
with pivot.
Lori (27:38):
Yes, all those words you mentioned are really, really
important.
There's also the word, a wordthat might show up, that is very
decodable and also really likeI think might have multiple
meanings.
If we're saying pick right, soset a pick I don't know if you
talk, if you talk about that atall in basketball, but I mean, I
think that that's somethingthat is like, oh, if, if I'm a
kid reading it, just the wholephrase right.
(27:58):
Like you said, set is a wordthat might have multiple
meanings.
Pick has multiple meanings andthat phrase together means
something very specific for thatsport and that's something to
really take into considerationas the teacher as well.
Yeah, exactly.
Freddy Hiebert (28:14):
What I've maintained for a long time is
that we've never treated thesystems that make up English as
something to actually address inour vocabulary instruction.
By that I don't mean like youhave to memorize that you know
we've got a Greek, french andAnglo-Saxon.
(28:35):
I'm not meaning that.
I'm meaning we haven't talkedto kids about the differences in
how we build words, and alsothat a lot of words in English
are polysemous, and that's areally important idea.
That's why I'm writing thislittle series for the little
guys right, like Bark and Barkand Row and Row, because rows is
(28:57):
something they probably youknow, they know about ROW.
So so yeah, I'm reallyreluctant to put out a list.
You know, I could just imaginesomeday.
I mean, it would just be so sadfor me if my legacy was the
Freddie list.
Lori (29:15):
I get that.
So what you're saying is likethis the schema of these words
matter and the multiple meaningsmatter, and we all know that,
right Cause we, just as adults,we have encountered that so much
and we've seen students beconfused.
And I hear you.
I think that's.
That's really noble.
I love that you're willing tostand strong there.
Freddy Hiebert (29:35):
Okay, let's get to high school.
I think we still have an issueand I'm starting to write some
more texts now around theautomaticity issue for high
school.
That's where these basketballtexts come in.
And you know I have another onethat I like a lot.
I have a series called TeenReads and that all of those teen
reads are built on the model ofthe 2,500 most frequent words
(30:02):
and typically there are twowords per hundred in all the
stuff I write.
That are rare words and thoserare words are always repeated.
So if you've spent time figuringit out, you get another
opportunity.
But again, the texts help youwith automaticity.
But in the case of high schoolkids, we've got to attend to
(30:22):
their sense of relevance andinterest.
If you start with text from theget-go, that's too hard.
That moves at a pace for kidswho come to school with a fair
amount of literacy.
You've gone for what by thetime you're in high school, how
(30:43):
many days have you gone to thisplace where you're not very
successful?
And does it help to just seetexts where you can't read, like
maybe where you're 85 to 90accurate?
Well, what happens?
We're seeing large numbers ofteachers who are actually
reading the text for the kidsand the research will show that
(31:06):
the teachers are getting betterat reading out loud.
But I'm dubious that that's youknow.
I mean, it can help kids learnsome things, but it's not going
to make them independent readers, and that my aim is.
I want to give kids anopportunity.
These aren't dumbed down texts.
None of these are dumbed downtexts.
Lori (31:25):
No, I mean I would read them.
They're engaging and they'revery respectful to each age
group that you're targeting.
And I, yeah, and I really thinkthat I mean I plan to use them
with my own child this summer.
You know that I think thatthey're really helpful, they're
engaging and they're reallyuseful.
Like I'm thinking, if I'm ateacher listening and I'm a
(31:46):
classroom teacher and I've beengiven a curriculum and I do have
these, you know, complex ordifficult texts that I need to
engage with my students in atier one curriculum, I'm still
thinking that these texts haveso much use and value because I
can align topics right so I canextend text, set knowledge with
(32:09):
a volume of reading about atopic.
I'm thinking you know, firstgrade students are learning
about animals or animal habitatsand science.
Those snake books are perfect,right, Pull those on out and
snake texts are perfect, Ishould say, and I think that
there are so many opportunitiesto be creative here with what
you've done, whether or not youhave, you know, texts already
(32:32):
included in your curriculum oryou're, you know, potentially
just looking for maybe someadditional lessons in small
group to maybe practice fluency,maybe practice automaticity.
So I don't know.
I'm wondering if you can reactto that a little bit, freddie.
Well, the intent.
Freddy Hiebert (32:48):
I mean, when you look at a bio of me, I'm I'm
interested in the vocabulary andhow it impacts fluency and how
it grows kids' backgroundknowledge.
And if you came in and theyjust kept giving you hard text,
you know you need some respite.
(33:09):
You need somebody whounderstands that.
You know you have to have anopportunity to have something
you can read and remember.
We're always putting in rarewords, we're always putting in
topics that I think are relevantfor kids and, being fairly
immature myself, I guess I kindof pick things that and I do a
(33:36):
lot of research to figure outwhat's appropriate.
I do a lot of research.
Melissa (33:41):
I just I really love this idea of a text diet.
I think we talk about it.
I think we in education oftenare like, okay, decodable texts
are like the thing now, right.
So then some people take thatthe whole way the other way and
say, like Some people take thatthe whole way the other way and
say like all they should bereading is decodable texts in K1
, maybe even second grade, right, and we know that that's not
(34:02):
the case and especially theyneed to be hearing read-alouds
of really rich texts.
So they're getting thatvocabulary and, you know,
chances to read other authentictexts as they're ready for them.
So it makes a lot of sense tome in K-2 world.
(34:22):
I'm really glad you're bringingthis up because I do think, like
you said, it often is like,okay, well, once they've learned
to decode, then it's complextext and, like you said, I mean,
if they're not where they needto be for reading, that can be
daunting for them.
So how do we support studentsto be able to read those texts?
And I'm hearing what you'resaying is like your texts are
(34:44):
examples of texts that studentswould be able to read, other
texts where they feel successful, learn new vocabulary that's
going to help them when they getthose complex texts.
Freddy Hiebert (34:57):
One of the things that I'm adamant about in
this work is that we do a lotof semantic mapping, where kids
get to see the knowledge thatthey're building.
And in the book that I'mwriting right now I actually
illustrate semantic mapping withdecodable text.
(35:17):
And you know I have writtenabout because Linnea Erie, who
was the architect of theEpidemic Awareness and Phonics
part of the National ReadingPanel, she used a text, a set of
texts called ready readers thatwere basically level texts, and
(35:39):
one of my graduate studentsalso used those texts and
ordered them according to acurriculum.
So what I've been arguing isthat you know, don't throw away
those books.
Use them topically aroundcertain common patterns in those
books.
Those books, if they're Englishwords, they're going to be some
(36:00):
phonetically regular words.
You just have to find them andput it topically right.
Lori (36:05):
I'm so glad to hear you say that, Freddie, because
that's how, when Melissa and I.
That's an idea that Melissa andI had and shared it in our book
as well.
So it's nice to hear you saythat we're on the right track.
It's always nice to hear anesteemed person share that we're
on the right track.
Freddy Hiebert (36:21):
Well, it's not just that you're on the right
track.
There's actually evidence.
So a graduate student atUniversity of Connecticut and
this is the papers in ReadingResearch Quarterly looked at
interventions that use decodabletext and use level text this is
a meta-analysis and found thatthere wasn't a significant
difference between the two, andthe best results were when you
(36:44):
use both.
Okay so so this isn't just likeit's a good idea.
This is an example ofevidence-based and I think that
that's really.
You know, it's important toknow that a diet involves
different things, but I thinkanything, even the most
seemingly bland decodable text,has to be recognized as having
(37:07):
some knowledge that kids whodon't know a lot about reading
that's what they're learning,right.
Melissa (37:12):
Well, is there anything else you wanted to share about
any of your texts, or anyinformation our listeners would
want to know?
Freddy Hiebert (37:20):
Well, I'm always looking for new ideas for
things.
Like I said, I have a recentset of texts that we've just put
on Text Project and keepremembering I put the texts out
there.
They're based on research andthen I hope real publishers will
do some of it and um, and we'vejust put on a series of um
(37:44):
they're called word roots andthey're a little well.
Some of these are actuallystories and it turns out if you
give um ai specific things towrite a story about, you can get
some pretty interesting stories.
Um, but they're um on the threelevels of English.
You know, uh, stories aboutGreek words, um stories about um
(38:05):
.
There's a great I like the.
There's a story about the greatmispronouncer.
You know words aroundpronunciation I.
That that is just fun, and soI'm always looking for things
like that.
I mean, I was.
I'm writing this new book andall of a sudden it came to me
like how would I tell kids about?
How could I teach them aboutpolysemy in a really interesting
(38:28):
way?
You know so.
So thanks for what you guys do.
Lori (38:33):
You're amazing, oh my gosh Right back at you.
Thank you for all that you do.
I mean, the number of books andall of the things that you've
done is just incredible.
I don't even know how you'vedone that.
That's unimaginable.
So thank you for all thatyou've contributed.
Melissa (38:48):
Yeah, and sharing all of this with for teachers to use
, is, I mean so helpful.
Freddy Hiebert (38:52):
Thank you, Thank you very much.
You guys take care.
I hope to see you againsometime.
Melissa (39:00):
To stay connected with us, sign up for our email list
at literacypodcastcom, join ourFacebook group and follow us on
Instagram and Twitter.
Lori (39:10):
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 (39:20):
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 (39:32):
We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to
learn with us.
In today's episode we're talking to Freddie Hebert about
the function of text sets, whichare curated collections of text
that support decodingvocabulary and building
knowledge.
Melissa (00:12):
Whether you're working with early learners or older
readers, text sets are a gamechanger for comprehension
instruction.
Lori (00:22):
Hi teacher friends.
I'm Lori and I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.
Melissa (00:31):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.
Lori (00:36):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.
Melissa (00:41):
Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today
and writing, lori, and I can'twait to keep learning with you
today.
Lori (00:48):
Hi, freddie, welcome to the podcast.
We cannot wait to talk textswith you today.
Freddy Hiebert (00:54):
Well, I've been waiting a long time to talk to
you, and I'm just delighted tobe here.
Lori (01:00):
We've been waiting to talk to you too.
I know I was going to sayyou've been on our list for a
really long time, and every timeI feel like you're one of those
people who were like, well, shecould talk about this, and then
she could talk about this orshe could talk about that, and
then we ended up not asking youuntil now.
So we're so thrilled thatyou're finally here.
So you want to talk aboutPilates, right I do?
Melissa (01:26):
I want to talk about everything and anything with you
.
I want to talk about everythingand anything with you.
Well, actually, what we've beenthinking about lately is texts
so different types of texts, andyou know specifically different
readers at different stages oflearning to read and need
different types of texts, andyou are the founder of Text
Project, so a website that'scompletely focused on texts, and
we really thought this is itright.
Freddy Hiebert (01:45):
This is when we call up Freddie, because she
knows all about texts text canbe a lot of different kinds of
(02:07):
things, but to read involves atext, and what I see in the
reading professional developmentlandscape is just a lot on
strategies and not as much ontext.
And it turns out that the textswe give our kids define the kind
of practices practicing theyget.
So whatever the text is thatyou give a kid, it defines what
(02:31):
the task is for them.
It also begins to define theirviews of themselves like I can
do this or I can't do this, likeI can do this or I can't do
this.
So really a text is central towhat we do as teachers of
reading, and sometimes it mightseem, because texts are really
(02:56):
other than the teacher in theclassroom.
Building texts are one of themost expensive parts of the
whole reading equation right ininstruction, and so sometimes
we're given texts as teachersand we don't quite know what we
should do with them.
But what we've been doing atText Project is working hard to
(03:18):
give everybody extra text, extratext.
So whatever you've been given,we give you some text that I
regard to be there to give thereading volume to kids, because
to get good at this activereading you actually have to do
a whole lot of it.
Melissa (03:38):
Yeah, and I'm thinking too about I'm so glad you said
that about the text, becausethinking back to my early years
of teaching, when I wasn'tgiving any texts and I had to,
like, root around in closets tofind whatever I could, and it
was just whatever was there andI, you know, I don't even think
I knew at that time howimportant the texts were,
because I was just looking forsomething, anything we could
(03:59):
read.
But it really does make so muchsense, like that is the key is
what the texts are in front ofour students, and because texts
are such a visible part and sucha big part like for districts
and states to pay for.
Freddy Hiebert (04:17):
It turns out that texts become one of the
first places where there aremandates and policies of what
you can use in a classroom.
So we go from one kind of textto another text, to another kind
of text and I don't think we doenough conversation and
(04:39):
professional development aboutwhat the features of texts are
and what it is that a kid needsto be able to do to be
successful with a particulartext.
So that's always how I look ata text.
So what would you need to beable to do to read this text on
cats?
You know I love cats orwhatever cats.
(05:00):
You know I love cats orwhatever you know?
What would you need to knowabout linguistics?
You know the letter.
Sound correspondence is to beable to read it.
Or what would you need to knowabout?
You know how texts work?
So yeah, I think we actually.
You know there's a lot ofconversation about what I wasn't
(05:22):
taught.
There's a lot of conversationabout what I wasn't taught you
know, and reading is prettycomplicated.
So to cover it all is sometimeshard and sometimes we do cover
it and sometimes people forget.
But my point is that I don'tthink we talk a lot about what
the underlying requirements arefor reading texts at different
(05:45):
levels.
So, for example, if we werehaving a conversation as people
who teach English as a secondlanguage and those are folks who
work with typically youngadults who are hoping to go to
English-speaking countries forbaccalaureate degrees or, you
know, to get good at English forjob opportunities In that field
(06:08):
, there's a really defined modelof text.
So they're recognizing.
You know we talk about decodingthresholds, but there's
something that also occurs andthat's a vocabulary threshold.
So it turns out that all wordsaren't equal in the English
language, that some words do theheavy lifting by far and other
(06:36):
words are really necessary, butthey occur pretty occasionally.
Well, in the English, as aSecond Language model, they talk
a lot about the vocabularythreshold and that's something
that in the last 30 years inAmerican reading instruction,
we've really dropped the ball interms of having a clear model
(07:00):
of text.
We do now with decodables, butthen the question is, what
actually should define adecodable?
So we have a model underlyingdecodables at this point that is
called the lesson to text matchand what that basically is
saying is if a letter soundcorrespondence has been taught
(07:23):
in a lesson in the teacher'smanual, then it matches to a
word in the text and then wordswith that letter sound
correspondence are free in asense.
You can put them in.
But how many times do you haveto see certain patterns?
You know all patterns aren't asequal in terms of being learned
(07:47):
and furthermore, we also knowthat for young kids well, for
adults too learning concretewords happens a lot faster than
learning abstract words.
So you know, I mean, there'ssomething about the design of
decodables that sometimes wehaven't talked about too.
(08:08):
I mean, should there be somerepetition of words?
Right now, there are just a lotof exemplars of particular
patterns, but not necessarilyparticular words repeated with
that pattern.
And I find my pandemic projecthas been to attempt to learn my
(08:29):
native language, which is German.
You would probably think thatwith a name like Alfreda
Hildegard that I would have hadsome German background.
But one of the things that I'vereally learned and you know,
because it's German and I hadGerman, you know I heard German
in my home when I was a littleone, but because German forms
(08:50):
such an important part of ourEnglish, the basic words in
English, you know I've got somereal advantages.
Plus, I'm a reader of English,right.
But it turns out that singleword learning just doesn't
happen a lot.
It helps to see some words.
I'm not just saying youmemorize those words, but I'm
(09:12):
just saying, once you've figuredout a word and said it when
you're reading a text, it'sreally nice if they give you
another chance to actually tryout your hypothesis again and be
successful and somebody be ableto go, wow, way to go.
You know, you've got thisnailed.
Melissa (09:32):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
My son is just starting to readthose decodable texts and you
know he's like can I just readthe same one again?
I'm wondering if you can.
I'm curious about the texts onText Project and if you could
just give us a big overview ofthose texts.
And how are they connected toresearch?
What did you specifically wantto add to those texts that you
(09:55):
put on there?
Freddy Hiebert (09:57):
Well, thank you for giving me a chance to
describe what my life's work is.
So I've been doing research ontexts for a while and the texts
at Text Project.
There are texts at threedifferent levels and each level
of text represents a line ofresearch.
(10:18):
Now, one thing that's commonacross all the texts is a model
of text that is basicallylooking to have kids have some
repetition with words and alsoopportunities with, at the lower
(10:38):
levels, patterns that occur alot in words letter sound
patterns, morphological patternsas we move along.
So that's a really, reallyimportant part.
But what's even more important,that draws everything together
is all the texts are in sets.
And why would I do that?
Well, I'm really interested indeveloping background knowledge.
(11:03):
Become great readers, goodreaders or not very good readers
?
A lot of it can depend onschools, for particular groups
of kids, and for those kids,background knowledge is as
compelling as the linguisticknowledge that they need.
So I want texts that providebackground knowledge always.
(11:28):
And it turns out, you know, oneof the things I discovered very
early on in my research is thatit makes a lot more sense to
have words repeated in aninformational text than in a
narrative.
There's certain words you knowabout 94% of the words in all
texts come from the same smallgroup of words about 2,500
(11:50):
morphological families.
But my point is that if you'rewriting about, let's say,
basketball, about pivoting,you're going to repeat that term
In a story.
A narrative writer doesn'trepeat the same words to
describe their characters,traits or dispositions or their
(12:12):
movement.
Lori (12:13):
I'm so glad you gave an example, Freddie, because I was
going to ask you for that, butyou just did that and that
helped me clarify it so much.
You're so right.
Melissa (12:22):
And what a good one, right?
Because in a narrative, whensomeone pivots, they're not
going to keep pivoting, right?
They've already done thatExactly.
Freddy Hiebert (12:30):
So it actually turns out and you know I started
all of this long before AI, butnow, with my collaborators on
AI, I can generate even moretext and it turns out that AI is
fabulous in creatingappropriate informational text.
(12:50):
I mean, provided you tell yourAI the right thing.
Why not stories?
Well, it turns out that a lotof children's books, narrative
books, are heavily influenced bythe illustrations and the
artists and the writers ofchildren's books haven't
released a copyright, so they'renot available on the internet
(13:13):
for AI to harvest them.
So it turns out right now thatmight change.
You know, things might getdifferent, but right now
narrative stories can be veryderivative and repetitive and,
quite frankly, boring.
That's not the case withinformational text, you know.
So I can ask.
I'll tell you what I'm workingon right now.
I'm working on a little series,because I also do research on
(13:37):
vocabulary.
Lori (13:39):
I know, I was curious when you were going to mention that,
and vocabulary is really right.
Freddy Hiebert (13:44):
What makes text?
Pretty much it relates to thetopic and that's what makes text
, you know, compelling orchallenging or not.
And I'm doing a little seriesfor beginning readers on
polysemy.
Although I'm not calling itthat, I'm describing it as same
(14:05):
and not the same.
So, for example, bark and barkyou know there's dog barks,
there's bark on a tree and I canget great pictures of a dog
barking, you know, hanging ontothe bark of a tree and barking,
obviously not barking at thebark but barking at something up
(14:25):
there in the tree.
I'm into informational textbecause I'm really concerned
with automaticity.
I think that's a major thing,that American kids, if you don't
read enough, you don't becomeautomatic with those 2,500
morphological families.
And that should actually beanother conversation we have,
which would be about vocabulary.
(14:45):
So I'm not going to get intothe families too much, but it's
the common words that make upstories and also informational
text.
But I also want to point outthat it's information so that
you can repeat words.
That makes sense.
And it's also text in sets.
And why would I do that?
Well, I want kids to build aschemata, I want them to build
(15:10):
some background knowledge, butat the same time I want to
repeat words in differentcontexts.
But at the same time, I want torepeat words in different
contexts and research is showingthat that's really important
(15:32):
that you see a word in a verydifferent contextual and
syntactic situation.
That was really a major problemwith level text is that often
kids just saw a word in the samesyntactic construction, right.
And so what I've done is theseinformational texts.
So if I have four texts onsnakes, for example, for
beginning readers, or four textson different kinds of trees, I
(15:55):
can repeat the words trees orcones or scales you know, or
shape or size, or you know bonesin terms of snakes not bones of
trees but bones of snakes and Ican keep you know repeating
those and kids can see them indifferent contexts.
(16:15):
And again, it's a matter offeeling some success.
You know I transferred thisknowledge.
You know, and it's not a wordthat only sits in this one place
.
You know I can use some otherplace.
So does that give you an idea?
So the thing about our text is,each layer of text comes from a
line of research that I've done, but all of the texts are
(16:38):
around information and all thetexts are in sets.
When kids know a few key wordson an informational topic, even
if those words aren'tnecessarily in a text.
They're going to do better atcomprehending that content, you
know, because they've built somekind of an anchor network.
Melissa (17:01):
And you said just a few key words.
Freddy Hiebert (17:03):
Yeah, like, maybe on something like habitat.
You know you don't have to knowevery single word that might
show up, but if you know somewords around that topic, like
ecosystems, you know that that'sgoing to really help you.
I study what features of textsensure that kids are going to be
successful with it and whatmakes a text hard.
Lori (17:26):
Freddie, I'm wondering if you gave a really great example
about those beginning textsright that you're sharing, that
they have consistent patterns.
They have this reallyinteresting content and
important vocabulary that'sconnected in these text sets.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the middle grade texts and
like the maybe middle to highschool texts, and how they're
(17:50):
different and what they include?
Freddy Hiebert (17:52):
I'm incredibly interested in statistical
learning.
Okay that the number ofopportunities you've had to see
a word, including a differentcontext, is really going to
influence you.
So the problem that we havewith our kids isn't that they
can't figure out words,eventually it's how long it
takes them because they haven'tseen patterns.
(18:14):
You know the patterns in thewords and the words themselves,
you know.
So I did a lot of work on whatwords were important.
You know like I started out bytaking all the NAEP tests, the
National Assessment ofEducational Progress, grade four
tests, and I said what wouldyou need to know to be
(18:34):
successful with this?
And then I took all this as anystate test I could find and I
did the same thing and that'swhere I came up with there are
these 2,500 morphologicalfamilies.
They encompass about 6,000words because it's a family
right, it's like helpful helper,unhelpful like that.
(18:56):
And then I started constructingtexts and so topic reads for the
middle grades at Text Projectactually walks you through some
steps.
So it starts out like if a kidit has six levels, not like
level, like the Fontas andPinnell levels that you just
would throw books down thestairs and see where they land.
(19:19):
But the first, the level A,were texts that had the most 300
most frequent words or mostfrequent families, and there
were always words that were rareon that topic.
(19:39):
So I'm not saying they werelike Dick and Jane books.
They're books like on sportsand fashion and anime and jazz.
They're books on things thatare worth middle graders knowing
about, knowing about.
(20:01):
So I moved up from the 300 mostfrequent words all the way up to
the 2,500 morphologicalfamilies.
So there are about what thereare, I don't know 16 different
topics, something like that perlevel, four texts per topic.
And again I want to repeat, I'mnot generating instructional
programs.
I'm generating material forteachers to have access to, to
(20:26):
give their kids additionalreading opportunities.
I'm not somebody who writes,you know, copious curriculum
guides.
I'm that, just isn't me.
Melissa (20:39):
And I was going to say too this is not like you would
give a student a test and theyare level A.
So now you're going to givethem the level A books that are
on yours.
You're saying you labeled themas level A, b, c because they
very specifically increase inthe number of words.
That are probably many things.
Freddy Hiebert (21:00):
They increase along the way, and there
actually is an assessment onTextProject to establish where
you should put kids.
And I also do research with mywonderful colleagues at Stanford
on ROAR, r-o-a-r.
Okay, and they've been pilottesting a word it's called the
(21:21):
core vocabulary assessment.
So that vocabulary assessmentis actually going to help you
pinpoint also what kids need to,where they need to be.
So, yeah, you don't foreverthen see these texts.
I want to just be really clearthat these are texts for
particular opportunities.
Do I think they're great forsummer reading?
(21:43):
We actually do have a programcalled Summer Reads that are
based around the same ideas,around topics that you know
might be interesting, likesummer holidays or, you know,
summer sports, things like that.
Okay, so you know you're notstaying in level A for the rest
(22:03):
of your life.
We could have another sessionon just talking about why we
kept thinking we could do thatfor so long.
Yeah, I never thought we coulddo it or should do it, but
that's a whole nother story,okay, so in the high school
we've just that's where Istarted and we've got uh, we've
(22:24):
got another series called FYI.
Now those are single texts toget background knowledge for
particular books.
Okay, like, I was really alwaysfascinated.
There are a lot of stories inAmerican history about the red
coats and so I get fascinated,like why would they wear red
(22:47):
coats?
That just doesn't seem like anadvantage when you're on a
battlefield.
So I did background knowledgeon that, I mean.
So I've done some that are justsingle text but they're
clustered around topics.
There's also one called storiesof words, okay, where we look
at the history like how did wecome up with?
(23:11):
When you get a new invention,where do the words come from?
You know, like, does somebodysit there and go?
We'll call this this.
Well, typically what we do iswe actually use the words we
already have and give them newmeaning.
Or we put new words together,like space suit or astronaut.
(23:31):
You know we'll take Greek wordsoften and that helps us a lot.
But we'll take existing wordsand give them new meanings, like
the word mouse.
You know we've given that worda whole new meaning.
So what I'm saying is all thetexts in the middle grades, all
of them are around this modelthat you have to have additional
(23:51):
practice with those 2,500morphological families if you're
going to be a good reader.
So those morphological familieswill get you to about 94, 95%
of the text, but then you haveto have enough bandwidth left to
figure out additional words.
That's where you use yourmorphology, your decoding and so
(24:14):
on, but without automaticity ata certain point you're dead in
the water, freddie.
Lori (24:21):
I know if I was a listener right now I would be so curious
about these words that aregoing to get us to this like 94%
automaticity here that I reallyneed to know.
Can you help teachersunderstand where they should
start with these words?
I know you said you've donesome work.
How do we get these words?
How do we know what to do ifwe're listening?
Freddy Hiebert (24:41):
Well, I've been really reluctant to put out a
list of the 2,500 morphologicalfamilies, why?
It actually breaks my heartwhen I hear about little first
graders or kindergartner kidsbringing home parts of the Dolch
list and having to learn wordsin isolation Flashcards, these
(25:04):
words.
The thing about families is youhave to start developing a
sense of a family and you alsohave to develop sense of
polysemy, which means multiplemeanings of words.
So the more frequent a wordexcept for the and of, the more
(25:25):
meanings it's likely to have,for example, a word like S-E-T.
Okay, so I've been reluctant togive the families, but you know
what I have done reluctant togive the families, but you know
what I have done.
I have semantic maps of all2,500 morphological families in
(25:46):
something called the CoreVocabulary Project so you can
learn about the words.
And I also don't want to getteachers like into the thing,
like they go from word one toword two, to word three, to word
four, to word five.
That's not what I'm saying.
A lot of the words they'rewords that in the main you're
going to find in text, but thething that we haven't been doing
(26:07):
is attending to what percentageof the other words are there in
text and are they more thanfive or six percent?
And are they more than five orsix percent?
And as a teacher, I mean thisis something you should be
taught, I think in teacher ed isto be able to look at a text
and to be able to say, in thistext there are some pretty rare
(26:32):
words.
Okay, like you know, if you seethe word ripple, there are a lot
of really strange Anglo-Saxonverbs like shun or ripple or,
you know, spun.
Ok, there are a lot of those,and it's not that you can't use
decoding with some of that, butas a teacher I need to be able
(26:55):
to look at it and to say, forexample, I'm working on this
piece on pivoting in basketballand you know, when I look at the
text I can tell you thatoffense and defense are
important words, an intentionalfoul is important.
Okay, those would be thingsthat I might want to focus on.
(27:15):
The rest of the words, you cantake a look to see.
You'll know whether they'rewords that are often in text.
So, like, a word like pivotisn't going to be in text a lot
(27:37):
with pivot.
Lori (27:38):
Yes, all those words you mentioned are really, really
important.
There's also the word, a wordthat might show up, that is very
decodable and also really likeI think might have multiple
meanings.
If we're saying pick right, soset a pick I don't know if you
talk, if you talk about that atall in basketball, but I mean, I
think that that's somethingthat is like, oh, if, if I'm a
kid reading it, just the wholephrase right.
(27:58):
Like you said, set is a wordthat might have multiple
meanings.
Pick has multiple meanings andthat phrase together means
something very specific for thatsport and that's something to
really take into considerationas the teacher as well.
Yeah, exactly.
Freddy Hiebert (28:14):
What I've maintained for a long time is
that we've never treated thesystems that make up English as
something to actually address inour vocabulary instruction.
By that I don't mean like youhave to memorize that you know
we've got a Greek, french andAnglo-Saxon.
(28:35):
I'm not meaning that.
I'm meaning we haven't talkedto kids about the differences in
how we build words, and alsothat a lot of words in English
are polysemous, and that's areally important idea.
That's why I'm writing thislittle series for the little
guys right, like Bark and Barkand Row and Row, because rows is
(28:57):
something they probably youknow, they know about ROW.
So so yeah, I'm reallyreluctant to put out a list.
You know, I could just imaginesomeday.
I mean, it would just be so sadfor me if my legacy was the
Freddie list.
Lori (29:15):
I get that.
So what you're saying is likethis the schema of these words
matter and the multiple meaningsmatter, and we all know that,
right Cause we, just as adults,we have encountered that so much
and we've seen students beconfused.
And I hear you.
I think that's.
That's really noble.
I love that you're willing tostand strong there.
Freddy Hiebert (29:35):
Okay, let's get to high school.
I think we still have an issueand I'm starting to write some
more texts now around theautomaticity issue for high
school.
That's where these basketballtexts come in.
And you know I have another onethat I like a lot.
I have a series called TeenReads and that all of those teen
reads are built on the model ofthe 2,500 most frequent words
(30:02):
and typically there are twowords per hundred in all the
stuff I write.
That are rare words and thoserare words are always repeated.
So if you've spent time figuringit out, you get another
opportunity.
But again, the texts help youwith automaticity.
But in the case of high schoolkids, we've got to attend to
(30:22):
their sense of relevance andinterest.
If you start with text from theget-go, that's too hard.
That moves at a pace for kidswho come to school with a fair
amount of literacy.
You've gone for what by thetime you're in high school, how
(30:43):
many days have you gone to thisplace where you're not very
successful?
And does it help to just seetexts where you can't read, like
maybe where you're 85 to 90accurate?
Well, what happens?
We're seeing large numbers ofteachers who are actually
reading the text for the kidsand the research will show that
(31:06):
the teachers are getting betterat reading out loud.
But I'm dubious that that's youknow.
I mean, it can help kids learnsome things, but it's not going
to make them independent readers, and that my aim is.
I want to give kids anopportunity.
These aren't dumbed down texts.
None of these are dumbed downtexts.
Lori (31:25):
No, I mean I would read them.
They're engaging and they'revery respectful to each age
group that you're targeting.
And I, yeah, and I really thinkthat I mean I plan to use them
with my own child this summer.
You know that I think thatthey're really helpful, they're
engaging and they're reallyuseful.
Like I'm thinking, if I'm ateacher listening and I'm a
(31:46):
classroom teacher and I've beengiven a curriculum and I do have
these, you know, complex ordifficult texts that I need to
engage with my students in atier one curriculum, I'm still
thinking that these texts haveso much use and value because I
can align topics right so I canextend text, set knowledge with
(32:09):
a volume of reading about atopic.
I'm thinking you know, firstgrade students are learning
about animals or animal habitatsand science.
Those snake books are perfect,right, Pull those on out and
snake texts are perfect, Ishould say, and I think that
there are so many opportunitiesto be creative here with what
you've done, whether or not youhave, you know, texts already
(32:32):
included in your curriculum oryou're, you know, potentially
just looking for maybe someadditional lessons in small
group to maybe practice fluency,maybe practice automaticity.
So I don't know.
I'm wondering if you can reactto that a little bit, freddie.
Well, the intent.
Freddy Hiebert (32:48):
I mean, when you look at a bio of me, I'm I'm
interested in the vocabulary andhow it impacts fluency and how
it grows kids' backgroundknowledge.
And if you came in and theyjust kept giving you hard text,
you know you need some respite.
(33:09):
You need somebody whounderstands that.
You know you have to have anopportunity to have something
you can read and remember.
We're always putting in rarewords, we're always putting in
topics that I think are relevantfor kids and, being fairly
immature myself, I guess I kindof pick things that and I do a
(33:36):
lot of research to figure outwhat's appropriate.
I do a lot of research.
Melissa (33:41):
I just I really love this idea of a text diet.
I think we talk about it.
I think we in education oftenare like, okay, decodable texts
are like the thing now, right.
So then some people take thatthe whole way the other way and
say, like Some people take thatthe whole way the other way and
say like all they should bereading is decodable texts in K1
, maybe even second grade, right, and we know that that's not
(34:02):
the case and especially theyneed to be hearing read-alouds
of really rich texts.
So they're getting thatvocabulary and, you know,
chances to read other authentictexts as they're ready for them.
So it makes a lot of sense tome in K-2 world.
(34:22):
I'm really glad you're bringingthis up because I do think, like
you said, it often is like,okay, well, once they've learned
to decode, then it's complextext and, like you said, I mean,
if they're not where they needto be for reading, that can be
daunting for them.
So how do we support studentsto be able to read those texts?
And I'm hearing what you'resaying is like your texts are
(34:44):
examples of texts that studentswould be able to read, other
texts where they feel successful, learn new vocabulary that's
going to help them when they getthose complex texts.
Freddy Hiebert (34:57):
One of the things that I'm adamant about in
this work is that we do a lotof semantic mapping, where kids
get to see the knowledge thatthey're building.
And in the book that I'mwriting right now I actually
illustrate semantic mapping withdecodable text.
(35:17):
And you know I have writtenabout because Linnea Erie, who
was the architect of theEpidemic Awareness and Phonics
part of the National ReadingPanel, she used a text, a set of
texts called ready readers thatwere basically level texts, and
(35:39):
one of my graduate studentsalso used those texts and
ordered them according to acurriculum.
So what I've been arguing isthat you know, don't throw away
those books.
Use them topically aroundcertain common patterns in those
books.
Those books, if they're Englishwords, they're going to be some
(36:00):
phonetically regular words.
You just have to find them andput it topically right.
Lori (36:05):
I'm so glad to hear you say that, Freddie, because
that's how, when Melissa and I.
That's an idea that Melissa andI had and shared it in our book
as well.
So it's nice to hear you saythat we're on the right track.
It's always nice to hear anesteemed person share that we're
on the right track.
Freddy Hiebert (36:21):
Well, it's not just that you're on the right
track.
There's actually evidence.
So a graduate student atUniversity of Connecticut and
this is the papers in ReadingResearch Quarterly looked at
interventions that use decodabletext and use level text this is
a meta-analysis and found thatthere wasn't a significant
difference between the two, andthe best results were when you
(36:44):
use both.
Okay so so this isn't just likeit's a good idea.
This is an example ofevidence-based and I think that
that's really.
You know, it's important toknow that a diet involves
different things, but I thinkanything, even the most
seemingly bland decodable text,has to be recognized as having
(37:07):
some knowledge that kids whodon't know a lot about reading
that's what they're learning,right.
Melissa (37:12):
Well, is there anything else you wanted to share about
any of your texts, or anyinformation our listeners would
want to know?
Freddy Hiebert (37:20):
Well, I'm always looking for new ideas for
things.
Like I said, I have a recentset of texts that we've just put
on Text Project and keepremembering I put the texts out
there.
They're based on research andthen I hope real publishers will
do some of it and um, and we'vejust put on a series of um
(37:44):
they're called word roots andthey're a little well.
Some of these are actuallystories and it turns out if you
give um ai specific things towrite a story about, you can get
some pretty interesting stories.
Um, but they're um on the threelevels of English.
You know, uh, stories aboutGreek words, um stories about um
(38:05):
.
There's a great I like the.
There's a story about the greatmispronouncer.
You know words aroundpronunciation I.
That that is just fun, and soI'm always looking for things
like that.
I mean, I was.
I'm writing this new book andall of a sudden it came to me
like how would I tell kids about?
How could I teach them aboutpolysemy in a really interesting
(38:28):
way?
You know so.
So thanks for what you guys do.
Lori (38:33):
You're amazing, oh my gosh Right back at you.
Thank you for all that you do.
I mean, the number of books andall of the things that you've
done is just incredible.
I don't even know how you'vedone that.
That's unimaginable.
So thank you for all thatyou've contributed.
Melissa (38:48):
Yeah, and sharing all of this with for teachers to use
, is, I mean so helpful.
Freddy Hiebert (38:52):
Thank you, Thank you very much.
You guys take care.
I hope to see you againsometime.
Melissa (39:00):
To stay connected with us, sign up for our email list
at literacypodcastcom, join ourFacebook group and follow us on
Instagram and Twitter.
Lori (39:10):
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 (39:20):
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 (39:32):
We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to
learn with us.
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