3 Simple Steps to Develop More Mental Velcro (SOR Summer Series Part 1)

You’re listening to episode number 197 of the Stellar Teacher Podcast.

Hey, teachers, and welcome to our Stellar Teacher Science Of Reading Summer Series. Let’s talk about that for some alliteration. So for the next seven weeks, I’m going to be releasing a bonus episode of the podcast every Thursday, where I’m going to share some really practical strategies and action steps that you can take to ensure that your literacy instruction is aligned to the Science Of Reading. Now, some of you might be thinking, Whoa, two podcast episodes in a week. That’s a lot of content for me to listen to, and digest and take in. But I also know that there are other listeners who are at the other end of the spectrum who are like, yay, two podcast episodes each week. That’s more for me to learn and implement. Now, regardless of which teacher you are, or if you’re somewhere in the middle, I hope that you find our summer podcast episodes, no matter how many you listen to, as a source of inspiration and knowledge as you continue to grow on your journey as an educator.

Back in April, I interviewed Melissa and Lori from Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. And one of the things we talked about at the end of the podcast was how sometimes it can be overwhelming for educators to learn something new. I’m sure you can reflect back on your own journey as an educator and think about seasons, where you’re like, oh, my gosh, it just seems like there’s so much to learn. And I think really considering that the science of reading has started to take center stage for the last few years, it really can feel like there’s a lot of new things to learn. And I know at times, I felt like I was starting all over again, I know there are more schools and districts that are adopting curriculum that is aligned with the science of reading. So your school might have a new curriculum or program that you need to learn. I know more educators are engaging in their own personal professional development and recognizing that there might be more effective ways for them to teach literacy. So you might be attending PD or listening to podcasts like this one, and really reflecting on your own practices. And I don’t know about you, but I see SOR related content all the time, all over Instagram, and even in the news, which I feel like is different from how things were a couple years ago. And even if you have been an SOR teacher for a long time, and this is something that you have always been aware of. The reality of being a teacher is that there is always something to learn that there are always things that we can do to get better. And that thought can sometimes be a lot.

So back to the Melissa and Lori episode. One of the things that they shared that really stuck with me was this idea “to go as slow as you need to, but fast as you can”. And I hope that you take that idea. And I hope that you let it be your mantra this summer and next school year, when it comes to expanding your content knowledge. And for you to learn how to increase your effectiveness as a literacy teacher, take your time, and go as slow as you need to, for things to make sense. And for you to develop the competence. You know, you don’t have to change everything. You don’t have to try and quickly learn everything this summer. You don’t have to do it all right away. But you do have to keep moving forward on your journey as a literacy teacher. And I hope that that means that you continue to learn about the science of reading and how it impacts all aspects of your literacy block. And I really hope that this summer you let our stellar teacher science of reading summer series be a part of your journey. We are here to share strategies and ideas, to break down topics and really explain them. And ultimately, I want you to feel empowered and equipped to have an SOR alligned classroom next year.

So let’s jump in. Now before I talk about today’s specific focus, which has to do with knowledge building, I always like to start off with an explanation of what the science of reading is, and why it’s important. Now, if you’re a regular listener of the podcast, then you usually hear me break down and share all about Scarborough’s reading rope, which is my favorite model. And if you aren’t familiar with Scarborough’s reading rope, then I’m going to link to an episode I did last summer, all about building background knowledge, and I break down that model in that specific episode. But there is another model that can also help us understand the science of reading. And so we’re going to switch things up a little bit, and we’re going to talk about the simple view of reading.

Now, the simple view of reading offers a straightforward formula to help you understand how reading comprehension works. And if you happen to enjoy math, then you’re really going to understand this concept. And I want you to imagine reading comprehension as the result of a multiplication formula. So we have word recognition times language comprehension equals reading comprehension. And here’s how it works. Reading Comprehension involves the ability to recognize and decode the words on a specific page. Whereas language comprehension is about understanding and making meaning from the words and the texts, whether we are reading them or listening to them. Now, according to this simple view of reading, both components are essential. And they really function like factors and the multiplication problem. So if either word recognition or language comprehension scores a zero, then reading comprehension falls to zero. So for example, if a student has perfect language comprehension, we’ll say scored is one, but they cannot recognize or decode any words, scored as a zero, then their overall reading comprehension is zero. And on the flip side, if a student can decode every single word will say that scored is a one, but they fail to understand the meaning language comprehension will be scored as a zero, and the result is the same zero for reading comprehension. And I think this model really illustrates that effective reading comprehension requires proficiency in both decoding and understanding the language comprehension side of things. Because without both a student’s ability to comprehend a text is significantly compromised.

So of course, you guys know as teachers, we are always looking for ways to improve both students word recognition and language comprehension skills. Well, one element of language comprehension is background knowledge. And in order for our students to understand what they read and hear, they have to have some prior knowledge about the topic. Now there’s a really great quote, and I know I’ve shared it before, but it is worth sharing again. And that comes from Marilyn J. Adams. And she says, prior knowledge about a topic is like mental Velcro. The relevant knowledge gives the words of the text places to stick and make sense, thereby supporting comprehension and propelling the reading process forward. And I love that visual of prior knowledge being like mental Velcro, and really helping information we read in a text stick to our brains.

So knowledge building during our literacy block is really important. And I’m going to share just three simple steps that you can take to help your students develop more mental Velcro. So the first thing that you want to do is before reading, or sharing a text with your students, you first need to identify the knowledge that your students would need to have in order to understand the text. And I think so often, when we think about knowledge, we limit our idea of it to things like facts, and details and information and stuff that you can look up in a book. And that is definitely important, right? We want to have our students to have some facts and details and just general information about the topic that they’re going to read. But knowledge is so much more than that. When we think about knowledge, we also want to consider things like text structure knowledge, do our students have the knowledge of understanding how a text is organized? And is that gonna help them anticipate what’s coming up next? Do they have word knowledge? Do they have enough knowledge of affixes and roots? To help them understand the words in the text? Do they have enough cultural knowledge? Are they able to connect with their reading to something that they have experienced in their everyday lives or something that they’ve previously read about? And also, we want to think about even things like strategy knowledge, you know, do students have tools to monitor their comprehension? Do they have tools to help them to code big multisyllabic words? Do they have tools to help them read the text fluently, reading a poem fluently is going to be very different than reading a nonfiction text fluently. So as you can see, there is a lot more to just knowledge that we need to consider as educators beyond just facts, details, and information. So you really want to take some time, look at the text that you’re reading and think about, okay, in addition to the content knowledge, what are other types of knowledge that would help my students have a more successful reading experience.

Once you’ve identified the types of knowledge that your students need to know, then you want to create a plan to help activate their prior knowledge. So it’s important to remember that all students are going to bring some sort of prior knowledge to a reading experience. And you really want to figure out what knowledge they already have. So that way, you can be strategic while you’re building their knowledge so that way, you’re not necessarily building knowledge that they already have, but you’re adding to it.

So a few things that you could do to activate your students knowledge is to do a couple of different activities before you begin reading. You could do things like give students a statement and ask them if they agree or disagree and explain why. So for example, you could give them the statement, if you’re gonna read a text that’s either about softball, baseball, or if it’s comparing the two of them, you could say, softball and baseball are the same sport, do you agree or disagree, and this would help your students recall any information they have prior knowledge experience they have with those sports, and the conversation that you have with your students would give you some insight into the prior knowledge that they are bringing into the reading experience. You could also ask your students to share about a personal experience that is related to the topic of the text, you could show your students a picture and ask them to notice the details and tell you what they know about the topic of the picture. You could use a KWL chart and have your students share what they know about the topic what they wonder. And then of course, you can circle back and have them share what they learned at the end.

You could even do things like tell your students what the genre or the structure of the text is going to be. And have them identify attributes or elements that they would expect to see in the text. You could even just ask them simple questions related to the topic. What do you think it would be like to live in blank during blank? How would you feel if you were blank? Do you remember when we learned about blank?

Now, those are a lot of different options. And you don’t necessarily need to do all of these things, every time you sit down to read, you just need to do some of them. And ultimately, we just want to get in the habit of activating our students prior knowledge, because it’s gonna really help us serve two purposes. First of all, it’s going to warm up your students brains and really get them ready to make those mental connections to what they already know and add to that mental Velcro. But it’s also going to serve as a tool for you to understand what your students already know, and knowledge areas that you might need to be intentional about highlighting or building during your reading experience.

Which leads me to the third step, which is to actually build the knowledge. While it’s important that we identify the knowledge our students will need to know that we help them activate their prior knowledge. We ultimately want to be really intentional about building our students knowledge during a reading experience. And first of all, I think it’s important for us to really recognize that knowledge building can happen in all genres. I think sometimes we limit our idea of knowledge to just knowledge is something that we acquire when we read nonfiction. But if we think about it, knowledge helps us understand how the world works. And we can help build that knowledge in any genre, whether it is fiction, nonfiction, informational poetry. So any reading experience, regardless of the genre, can be an opportunity for you to build knowledge for your students.

And remember, building knowledge doesn’t mean that our students are able to regurgitate and remember a long list of facts and details, and can recall the definition of related vocabulary words. Ultimately, when we think about this idea of building knowledge, it means that our students are developing an understanding of the topic that they’re reading, that they’re able to synthesize ideas that they’ve encountered across multiple texts, that they have enough knowledge that they can form opinions about what they are reading, that they can evaluate what they are reading, they have enough knowledge to be an active participant in the reading process. And they can really think critically about what it is that they are reading. So that’s the sort of knowledge that we really want to think about.

Now a few things that you can do to build knowledge. And this is where I think it gets fun. This is where it takes a reading experience from something that is two dimensional and makes it really much more three dimensional and engaging and interesting for our students. So you can show students visuals that are related to the text, bring in pictures, maps, artifacts, real life objects, or things that will help bring the text to life. Also be really intentional about explicitly teaching vocabulary words and word parts. You know, we want to make sure our students have enough word knowledge to be able to understand the topic of the text. Similarly, we also want to explicitly teach text structure. And that’s actually something I’m gonna be talking about a lot in next week’s episode, so making sure our students understand how texts are organized. So that way they can pay attention to the content and not be distracted by either sentence structure or paragraph structure. But I think one of the really easiest ways to be intentional about building knowledge is to do thematic planning or use related text sets. And that simply means that we are selecting texts for our students to read based off of the content, as opposed to selecting texts that are based off of the standard or strategy. And I remember when I was in the classroom, I chose my texts based off of the standard I was teaching. So maybe on Monday, we were going to do a lesson on main idea. So I would look for a text that had a really strong main idea. On Tuesday, we were going to practice summarizing, so I would find a text that could be easily summarized. On Wednesday, we’d focus on context clues. So I would look for a text that had words that were used in context. But this approach meant that throughout the week, my students might be reading about ecosystems on Monday, fast food assembly lines on Tuesday, and types of weather on Wednesday, no connection at all to the topics because we were so heavily focused on the standards. But rather than selecting texts based on standards, we want to start to think about the knowledge that we want to build in our students, then all of a sudden, our text selection becomes so much more intentional. So maybe on Monday, you’re still going to focus on main idea, but you’re going to select a text that describes what an ecosystem is. On Tuesday, you can still focus on summarizing, but instead of switching topics, maybe you reread the same text, or you choose a text that helps students understand the food chain within an ecosystem. On Wednesday, you focus on context clues, but your text focuses on predator and prey relationships. And again, rather than introducing a new text every day, maybe you reread the same text two to three times throughout the week. And you look for new information and apply new comprehension skills with each read. Because the goal is not necessarily to teach our students a long list of standards or comprehension strategies. But the goal is to empower them to really deeply understand the topic of the texts that they are reading. So there is absolutely a lot of power when you select texts based on the knowledge you want your students to build. And maybe you’re thinking okay, but what knowledge do I want my students to build?

A really good way to identify some of those topics is to really start with your science and social studies standards really think about what topics do my students need to understand. And I think one of the really cool things about building knowledge is that it is empowering and engaging for our students. Because we are giving a lot more purpose and meaning to their reading experiences.

Inside the stellar literacy Collective, we are constantly trying to provide our teachers with resources that are going to make it easy for them to align their instruction with the science of reading and put a lot of these things in practice. And last year, one of our members, Laura shared that she was using our nonfiction science texts on biomes with our students to do a little extra review at the end of the year. And one of the things she shared is we have been doing the content unit on biomes as a shared reading, and my kids are super engaged. Several kids have begun a passion project inspired by what they have read. And it has been a great way to see them transferring what they have learned about text structure, text features, and author’s claim. And I loved this because we want students to understand key reading skills like text structure and text features. But we also want students to develop core content knowledge like science and social studies concepts. And ultimately, we want students to be engaged and inspired to continue learning on their own. And those things can happen when we are intentional about focusing on knowledge.

So just to recap, three things that you can do to focus more on knowledge in your classroom. First of all, identify the knowledge that is needed in order for students to understand the text. Activate students prior knowledge, aka their mental velcro before you begin reading, and then build background knowledge before during and after reading. And if you are looking for resources to help you do that, then of course, let me invite you to join us inside the stellar literacy collective. This year we are adding thematic units that are aligned to science and social studies for third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade. So if you love the idea of having related text sets with lessons all ready for you then jump on the waitlist so that way you can be notified when doors open up later this summer. You can learn more at stellarteacher.com/waitlist. And don’t forget to tune in Monday for our regular episode and then come back next Thursday for the next episode in our Stellar Teacher Science Of Reading Summer Series. Until then, have a great week!

Thanks so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed today’s episode and are finding value in this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribe and leave a five star positive review. This helps me spread the word to more and more teachers just like you. Don’t forget to join me over on Instagram @thestellarteachercompany. And you can also find links and resources from this episode in the show notes at stellarteacher.com. I’ll see you back here next week.