Your comprehension questions answered, with Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.
Transcripts and additional resources:
Meet Our Guest(s):
Nathaniel Swain, Ph.D.
Nathaniel Swain is a Teacher, Instructional Coach, and Writer. He produces a blog for teachers called Dr. Swain’s Cognitorium and is cohost of the Chalk Dust Podcast with Rebecca Birch. Nathaniel works directly with schools and systems through an online learning platform called Luminary.
He founded a community of educators committed to the Science of Learning: Think Forward Educators. He also has a best-selling book, Harnessing the Science of Learning: Success Stories to Help Kickstart Your School Improvement.
Meet our host, Susan Lambert
Susan Lambert is chief academic officer of literacy at Amplify and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.
As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. A former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, she’s dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.
Quotes
“What we’re trying to do is create meaningful text experiences. … The strategies are background, the powerhouse behind the work we’re doing, but the star of the show is the language and the text.”
“Humans are geared, whenever they’re encountering language or knowledge, to try and make meaningful connections. Depending on what they’re already thinking about or what they already know, they’re actually going to come to that text with a very different starting point.”
“If you ever feel like your comprehension work only allows students to produce or perform something on a particular day in which you’ve just read that text, then you may be missing the opportunity to weave meaningful text together.”
“The problem with treating language as if it’s just a set of tick boxes that you can just tick off, is that students need a meaningful reason to hold on to that language. They have to use it or they’ll lose it.”
“If you worry so much about which strategy to use and therefore reduce the amount of text exposure to just short paragraphs to practice that strategy, then I think you might miss out on the opportunity to build up that text representation.”
“When we’re teaching reading comprehension, really let the text be the center of what we’re doing.”