Reading Road Trip International Dyslexia Association Ontario

Season 2 of Reading Road Trip closes out with a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Buckingham. Kate and Jennifer dig into reading science - what do teachers really need to know? From syllable types to comprehension strategies, linguistic terms to cognitive science, this episode distinguishes between what is a "need to know" and what is "nice to know." 
 
Dr. Jennifer Buckingham is the director of strategy and senior research fellow at MultiLit, and is the founder and director of the Five from Five Literacy Project.
 
Show Notes:

Jennifer's research report, Need to Know or Nice to Know, explores many of the topics discussed in the episode
Kate also mentioned Jennifer's blog Don't Discard Comprehension Strategies
Jennifer brought up Dr. Daniel Willingham's blog, Can Children be Taught to Comprehend What They Read?

 

In this week's episode, Kate chats with Dr. Steve Graham about all things writing. Dr. Graham highlights the importance of handwriting and spelling, and unpacks evidence-based strategy instruction to build strong writers.
 
Show Notes: 

Steve is an author and editor of many books, including Best Practices in Writing Instruction and Writing Better
Steve and his co-author Dolores Perin explore many of the evidence-based strategies discussed in this episode in Writing Next, a meta-analysis on effective writing instruction
Learn more about Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) at thinkSRSD, or with the books Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students or Building Comprehension in Adolescents

Kate chats with Dr. Jack Fletcher this week, unpacking all things dyslexia: Risk factors and prevention, dyslexia vs dysteachia, instructional tips, wait-to-fail, and dyslexia myths and misconceptions.
 
Show Notes:
Learn more about some of the articles Jack mentioned:

The importance of early reading intervention (Lovett et al., 2017)
Problems with dyslexia identification models (Scientific American)
Helping children with significant reading problems (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2023)
Identifying and teaching students with significant reading problems - including 18 common misunderstandings of dyslexia (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2020-2021)
The role of instruction in learning to read: Preventing reading failure in at-risk children (Foorman et al., 1998)
The Good Behaviour Game 
Anxiety and reading (Grills-Taquechel et al., 2012)

Kate chats with Clara Fiorentini this week. Tune in to explore novels in the classroom: how class novel studies fit into structured literacy, how complex text can be scaffolded, using "read-alikes" to choose texts, and avoiding the perils of "extractitis" - don't miss this thoughtful conversation about chapter books!
Clara is the president of the Literacy Association of Ireland and a lecturer in initial teacher education at Marino Institute of Education. She is wrapping up her Ph.D. research on current trends in Irish preschool literacy practice. Catch Clara at her blog, on Instagram, and on Twitter.
 
Show Notes:

Clara talks about the Matthew effect, an influential paper from Dr. Keith Stanovich that highlights that with early reading, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Take a look at the open-access paper here.
Dr. Tim Shanahan has several blogs about the importance of using complex text in reading instruction.
Clara mentions Reading for Pleasure from the Open University - see more here.
The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction, an article by Nell Duke, Alessandra Ward and David Pearson, can be found here.
Learn more about book tastings on Clara's blog.

This week Kate talks to Kristin Conradi Smith, Tammy Williams, and Ellen Frackelton about research-based comprehension strategies for the classroom, including considerations for text selection and preparation, common pitfalls to avoid and “use it tomorrow” ideas. Bottom line: no more strategy of the week!
 
Show Notes:

Kristin, Ellen and Tammy co-wrote the open-access article "No More Strategy of the Week": Considerations for Connecting Comprehension Instruction Back to the Book. Find it here.
In this PaTTAN webinar, Hugh Catts discusses the multidimensional nature of reading comprehension sharing how educators need to frame reading comprehension and provide meaningful instruction.
Dr. Catts also wrote this article for American Educator, Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension
Kristin mentions this video from Reading Rockets, where Dr. Sharon Walpole walks through comprehension as building meaning and not finding the correct answer
Bookworms is a free set of instructional resources mentioned in the episode
Ellen brings up this blog post by Dr. Tim Shanahan, where he highlights that "reading comprehension should be taught with texts that are worth reading, texts from which we want students to gain knowledge."

In this week's episode, Kate welcomes Kareem Weaver for a candid conversation about the role of literacy in equity, and some myths and misconceptions as strive for the goal of literacy for all.
 
Kareem Weaver is a co-founder and executive director of FULCRUM and is also the Oakland NAACP's Second Vice President and Chair of its Education Committee. Kareem's advocacy is featured in the film The Right to Read. Mr. Weaver was an award-winning teacher and administrator. He has undergraduate degrees from Morehouse College and a Master's in Clinical Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina. Mr. Weaver believes in the potential of all students, the brotherhood of man, and the importance of service above self.