S6 E21 - Why Exposure is a Poor Substitute for Learning

The word exposure gets thrown around a lot in schools, especially when a student is behind in phonics or spelling. In this episode, Jocelyn takes a hard look at that belief and explains why presence in a lesson is not the same as learning, particularly for skills that are biologically secondary, like reading and writing.  This episode covers: 

• why exposure is not learning for secondary skills
• what explicit teaching demands of attention and practice
• how misuse of the term exposure clouds decisions
• where whole-class text work fits and when it does not
• why working memory limits should guide task design
• how to use data to decide groupings and next steps
• when to apply exposure without expectation in early years
• practical ways to target phonics and spelling gaps

Has something in this episode resonated with you? Get in touch!

Are your students good readers, but poor spellers? If so, you are not alone. Spelling Success in Action addresses phonics, orthography, and morphology to give students a well-rounded understanding of how our language system works. 

Find out how you can help your students move beyond guessing and memorisation at https://www.jocelynseamereducation.com/spelling2

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Episode Transcript

Jocelyn (01:16):
Well, hello.
Welcome to this episode of theStructured Literacy Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn, and I amrecording here in Burnie, the
home of the Palawa people.
Welcome to episode 21 of thisseason.
We have a scenario that I'msure is familiar to every
listener.
You have a student or a coupleof students who clearly do not

(01:39):
have the foundational knowledgethat their peers do.
We know that they're behind.
We know that we can't be allthings to all students.
We hope that by including thestudent in the present lesson
that they'll pick something up.
We tell ourselves, or someoneelse tells us, that the student

(02:01):
is getting exposure to thecontent and that this will be
beneficial for their learning.
This is an idea that we hearoften when it comes to phonics
in particular.
A Year 1 or 2 student mighthave significant gaps in their
basic code knowledge, butthey're given the same
instruction as their peers.

(02:22):
This decision is oftenaccompanied by the words, we
will give them exposure.
Now, when I challenge thisidea, the number one question
I'm asked is, but how will theycatch up if they aren't exposed
to grade appropriate content?
And my response is usually thisquestion: talk to me about how

(02:43):
they're catching up now, talk tome about what their data is
showing.
Before we explore the ins andouts of instructional decisions,
we need to unpack some detailsabout human cognition and how we
all learn.
Firstly, let's consider thatknowledge and skill can be

divided into two categories: biologically primary and (03:03):
undefined
biologically secondary.
Biologically primary skills arelearned by being part of a
community, by being with otherhumans, by what we could say is
exposure.
Biologically secondaryknowledge and skill will not be
learned unless it is explicitlytaught.

(03:26):
Now let's think about what itmeans to be explicitly taught
something.
When we are explicitly taughtsomething, we have our attention
intentionally directed towardssomething.
We hold it in our minds, wethink about it, we do it, we
practice, we're given feedback,we adjust, we get better, and

(03:47):
over time we consolidatelearning into long-term memory.
We build schema and we becomeautomatic.
What I've described is anactive process.
We have to think, we have tofocus, and we have to do the
heavy lifting of applyingcognitive effort in a way that

(04:11):
leads to learning.
Let's contrast this to exposure.
Exposure means that we arephysically present when
something happens or is said.
Exposure means that thestimulus has entered our sensory
register.
Our eyes have noticed, our earshave noticed.
When we have merely beenexposed to something, it sits in

(04:35):
our sensory register for just acouple of seconds and then
disappears before it'scompletely forgotten.
From the moment you woke upthis morning until this moment
when you're listening to thisepisode, you have had exposure
to thousands of stimuli and youdon't remember any of it.
Exposure does not result inlearning, not for skills and

(05:00):
knowledge that are biologicallysecondary.
So why do we use this term whenwe think about instruction?
I think there's a couple ofreasons.
The first one is a hangoverfrom our whole language and
balanced literacy roots.
Even if we were not directlytaught that immersion leads to
learning, it's a deepunconscious belief in our

(05:24):
profession that so many of ourdecisions are built on.
If we say it, if we show it, ifwe create an immersive,
engaging experience, studentswill learn.
It just doesn't work.
And particularly doesn't workfor things that aren't naturally
acquired.
Reading and writing, as weknow, are absolutely not

(05:48):
naturally acquired anddeveloped.
The other reason that I thinkthis word is used is because
it's a term that I see often inresearch papers.
Researchers describe the numberof exposures that a student has
had in a study.
What they really mean is thenumber of times that a student

(06:09):
has engaged with content, nothow many times a student has
been present when something hasoccurred.
So there's a problem in thatthis word exposure is used by
different people to meandifferent things.
One of the ways that we cansupport ourselves and our team
is to be more precise in thelanguage we use.

(06:32):
If we mean engagement, we needto say engagement.
If we mean repetitions, we needto say repetitions.
If we mean exposure in thatwe're going to provide an
experience that students may ormay not grab hold of and pick
up, then we need to use theright word for that.
Let's return to our classroomscenario.

(06:54):
We have a student in Year 1, 2,3, 4, or beyond who's missing
foundational knowledge such asphonics.
We have them participate in alesson designed for their peers
who have this knowledge or aredeveloping this knowledge in an
appropriate way.
We have them in the lesson inthe name of exposure.

(07:16):
We give them what we call"extra scaffolding" in inverted
commas.
We walk them step by stepthrough every single aspect of
the lesson or the task.
They write things down, lookingto an adult or another student
for confirmation or modellingbefore every step.

(07:36):
Essentially, they are doingwhat they're told or they're
copying.
At the end of the task, theyhave something on the paper or
the board, and it may even becorrect, but have they learned
something?
To answer this question, let'sgo back to my description of
being taught somethingexplicitly.

(07:58):
Earlier I said, when we areexplicitly taught something, we
have our attention intentionallydirected towards the learning.
We hold it in our minds, wethink about it, we do it, we
practice, we get feedback, weadjust, we get better over time.
What I've described is anactive process.

(08:20):
We have to think, we have tofocus and do the heavy lifting
of cognitively processing whathas happened.
And if you're thinking, oh,have I accidentally skipped back
in the episode?
No, you haven't.
I'm repeating this for areason.
For our struggling student,let's compare this explanation

(08:43):
of the active process oflearning with their experience.
We've directed their attentiontowards something, but they
haven't necessarily held it intheir mind.
They haven't done the cognitiveheavy lifting that is needed to
encode knowledge into long-termmemory and build schema.

(09:04):
Often, at best, what we'reseeing is that the student has
complied.
They've done what we asked themto, they've copied.
Whether that copying is bywatching someone and literally
copying what they do or writingdown what someone tells them to
write, but they haven't thoughtfor themselves because they

(09:27):
couldn't.
It is this point that separatesexperiences that do and do not
lead to learning.
When I taught preschool,four-year-old preschool, I often
provided experiences that Icalled exposure without
expectation.
That meant that I knew,particularly here in Tasmania,

(09:49):
where our preschool children arefive most of the time, at some
point during that year, that wehad students who were able to
hook on to what we were doing.
They were excited, they wereready, but there were others who
just weren't there in the samespot.
So I provided exposure tothings like full stops and
finger spaces.

(10:10):
And indeed, I taught phonics ina very developmentally
appropriate way within aplay-based program, don't worry
anyone who's early years.
But I wasn't expecting that ofeveryone.
I don't see a problem withexposure without expectation.
What I do see is a very realissue with exposure with

(10:30):
expectation.
Whether we are evaluating theeffectiveness of a program or
practice, or whether we aremaking a decision about the
suitability of a lesson for aparticular student, this
question of cognitive heavylifting and active engagement is
the deciding factor aboutwhether it's okay or not.

(10:52):
If the gap between thestudent's current knowledge and
the skill and what is requiredto complete the task is too big,
the load on working memory issimply too high.
It then becomes impossible forthe student to learn
effectively.
There are just too many thingsthey have to process in working

(11:15):
memory.
I appreciate that what I'msharing here might be
challenging.
I also appreciate that thereare many scenarios and nuances
to consider.
For example, what if you have astudent who comes to your
school without the foundationalknowledge needed to read and
spell the same words as theirpeers?

(11:36):
Now the student doesn't haveany particular learning
challenges, they seem to have astrong memory based on what
you've seen.
Should you keep them with therest of the class for spelling
and reading, or should they begiven different work?
My response is that if thestudent can manage the work,
that they aren't stressed, theycan actively engage in what

(11:57):
you're teaching, and that whenyou check in on their progress,
you can see real growth in theirdata, well, then keep them with
everyone else.
The answer to this also dependson the what you are teaching.
If you're teaching a text-basedunit focused on a narrative
text, then we will provideadjustment so that the student

(12:21):
can access and engage withage-appropriate learning.
There's no question aboutage-appropriate text and
learning in that top part of therope.
That is where we're dealingwith comprehension, vocabulary,
language devices, and structure.
Students might need adjustmentto access text and to record

(12:41):
their ideas, but they can thinkand they can talk with their
peers.
When it comes to the bottom ofthe rope, however, the nuts and
bolts of written language, whereeach bit needs to be learned to
mastery before adding the nextbit, then that's where it's a
different story.
It's here in this area ofliteracy, as with the basics of

(13:04):
number, that we need to be supertargeted in our approach.
As you sit with what I've sharedhere and think about how it
does or doesn't align with yourexperience and what you're being
told by others, think about thestudents who you know are
struggling, the ones whose datais just not moving, the ones

(13:24):
who, if we are really honest, weknow aren't being served.
Remember at the start of theepisode, I said when I'm asked
this question about how willthey catch up, my response is to
ask the question, talk to meabout how they're catching up
now.
It is the data that helps usevaluate the appropriateness and

(13:47):
effectiveness of our decisions.
This is not an ideologicalconversation.
This is about student learningand about saying the only
acceptable outcome here is thatthe student is learning and we
will do what is necessary tomake that happen.
Make your decisions, not basedon what I've said here today.

(14:10):
This isn't a "Jocelyn said so Ihave to" situation.
But make your decisions by whatit takes to move the needle for
the students.
Do your own reading about howhumans learn.
Look up information processingtheory, read about cognitive
load theory and how fragileworking memory is.

(14:31):
Do all of that and then come tothe decision that is best for
the students, not the decisionthat is easiest for the adults.
Making decisions for studentlearning that respond to their
needs is hard.
We have one of the most complexjobs and workplaces anywhere.

(14:56):
You have 20, 25, 30 littlepeople in front of you, and
they're still little people evenin the upper grades of primary
school.
We have all of these studentswho need different things often
at different times, and thejuggle can feel really hard.
But if we make student learningthe true north of decision

(15:18):
making, it helps us to stripaway the yeah- buts and the
Mildred conversations, and "butthis person told me." Think
about what is best for thestudent and honour your role in
crafting the learningenvironment for them.
And it will be ok.
That's all from me for thisepisode of the Structured

(15:39):
Literacy Podcast.
Until next time, happyteaching.
Bye.