For The Love Of Literacy

Bruce
  • 4.3 (12)
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For the Love of Literacy provides podcasts about the exciting advances in literacy instruction, from morphology and orthography (the spelling system), to meaningful sight word memorization, and sentence construction and comprehension. We focus on the often overlooked aspects of literacy and their links to language development.  We tie learning to read, spell and writing to their roots in spoken language. This makes teaching and learning these abilities much easier because literacy learning is driven by language learning. The major components of spoken language plus vocabulary knowledge strongly predicting and largely determining growth in reading, spelling and writing.  Our guests are not just knowledgeable the links between language and language but know how to implement this learning in the classroom.   You will hear from noted researchers including Linnea Ehri, Marcia Henry and Peter Bowers as well as teachers who have developed lessons that engage students and enrich language abilities. Check back weekly to discover more Fulfilling Literacy Lessons and Clarifying conversations. Feel free to reach out to me at Bruce@ReadingShift.com. 

  1. Enriching Structured Literacy Through Integrated Word Study - Sarah Mitchell

    2d ago

    Enriching Structured Literacy Through Integrated Word Study - Sarah Mitchell

    Why do so many students continue to struggle with spelling and writing even after years of phonics instruction? In this episode, Sarah Mitchell explores the missing layer between decoding instruction and deeper literacy transfer: integrated word study. Drawing on research, classroom experience and practical teaching examples, Sarah explains how word-building using a six-layer “word study map” that develops sounds, meaning, spellings, connections, morphemes and sentences in the same lesson. The more connections a child has with a word the easier it is to recognize, comprehend and use it while writing. The conversation explores the implementation gap many teachers experience — understanding the theory but still feeling unsure how to apply it during real lessons — and introduces practical ways to make literacy instruction more connected, efficient and meaningful for older students. Sarah Mitchell  Author - Teaching Structured Literacy Series Contact Info: admin@teachingstructuredliteracy.com  Structured Literacy for Older Students:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/360409786946482  Founder - Morphology Hub Website: www.morphologyhub.com Social media: YouTube @sarahmitchell3941

    1h 3m
  2. Scripts, Sentences and Structures: Helping Students Unlock Meaning - Louise Hewitt, Meghan Hicks & Mary Beth Steven

    May 23

    Scripts, Sentences and Structures: Helping Students Unlock Meaning - Louise Hewitt, Meghan Hicks & Mary Beth Steven

    Teaching about morphemes (the meaningful components of words), sentence structure (syntax) and grammar (the framework for organizing words and sentences) isn’t hard, once you learn about two new resources: Mary Beth Steven’s Dramatic Scripts and Meghan Hicks and Louise Hewitt’s The Sentence Studio. In fact, you can learn about these vital components of language as you teach your students by using their scripts, sentence and text practices. Their common goal is to create insightful readers and articulate writers.  These educators recognize that word study, syntax and grammar go to the heart of reading comprehension and written expression. They also focus on responsive teaching that brings these topics alive through rich highly engaging activities. Mary Beth Steven book, Enhancing the Teaching of Morphology and Grammar with Dramatic Scripts for the Classroom, uses plays to build reading comprehension while creating a collaborative classroom. Meghan and Louise’s new instructional guide, The Sentence Studio, teaches grammar and syntax with fables and a groundbreaking BubbleMap analysis strategy. Educators and students discover the artistry of sentence structure while unlocking the meaning that lies within every sentence You can find more information about Mary Beth’s book on her classroom blog mbsteven.edublogs.org You can purchase The Sentence Studio and access free downloads and other supporting resources at Meghan and Louise’s website www.scienceofthesentence.com

    1h 5m
  3. Meet the Students (A.K.A. Humans) of the Boring (into words) Scholars Collective - Sara Leland & Students

    May 11

    Meet the Students (A.K.A. Humans) of the Boring (into words) Scholars Collective - Sara Leland & Students

    Title: Meet the Students / Humans of the Boring (into words) Scholars Collective Listen Sara Leland’s students, five humans who have dyslexia, ADHA and/or autism. With Sara’s guidance and support they grew to love literacy. They joined together and built a website www.boringscholarscollective.site. The boring scholars used their writing, creative and artistic skills to express their love of reading and writing through the website. Learn how they became word detectives, deeply investigating the spelling, meaning and history of words.  Sara shares how she develops a fascination for words in children who may have struggled with basic skills. She explains that the ultimate purpose of education is human development, helping children to grow into capable, curious, creative and empathic citizens. You’ll also learn how a philosopher views language, filled with metaphors and narratives, fueled by critical thinking.    Sara’s own website is:  www.wordscholars.net Sara can be contacted through the site or by email at:  sara.wordscholars@gmail.com

    1h 23m
  4. The Sentence Pathway to Decoding and Comprehension -- Xiuhong Tong & S. Hélène Deacon

    Apr 20

    The Sentence Pathway to Decoding and Comprehension -- Xiuhong Tong & S. Hélène Deacon

    If you have ever wondered why your students struggle with word reading, or read accurately but with limited comprehension, then you may want to flip your approach to reading instruction. Start at the sentence level by using Xiuhong Tong and Hélène Deacon’s groundbreaking Linguistics Pathways Model, which provides two parallel paths leading to reading comprehension. The first pathway leads to word recognition by morphological decoding. Deacon and Tong show how word reading and meaning arise from an awareness of how morphemes—the meaningful components that compose all words—are linked to graphemes. Unlike phonics decoding, students develop word reading, spelling and vocabulary knowledge in unison, which supports reading comprehension.  The second pathway is a syntax to sentence pathway. Syntax, the blueprint for creating and understanding sentences, is the layer of language that most directly supports reading comprehension and fluency. Together, words are not only read with meaning but as part of meaningful sentences – which largely determines text comprehension. Xiuhong Tong and S. Helene Deacon 2025. The Linguistic Pathways Model: Capturing the Multiple Dimensions of Reading Development. Reading Research Quarterly

    59 min
  5. Four Powerful Word, Sentence, Text and Cognitive Routines for Teaching Writing - Meghan Hicks

    Mar 20

    Four Powerful Word, Sentence, Text and Cognitive Routines for Teaching Writing - Meghan Hicks

    Meghan Hicks returns to talk about how teaching structure at the word, sentence, and text levels can help students make sense of the writing process. We often discuss literacy as a system and the importance of students understanding how it works. Meghan explains the broader system and how her students discover that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.  You’ll learn that syntax—how sentences are constructed from words, phrases and clauses—isn’t an abstract language concept. Rather, it is a straightforward way to improve reading comprehension and sentence construction. Meghan explains a simple sentence diagramming method that provides visual representations of sentence structure. Meghan also dives into the cognitive aspects of writing, starting with thinking. Students who can structure their thoughts are better able to structure their sentences. You learn about the four categories of thinking and how they influence students’ writing.   You can contact Meg at ThinkWriteReadCommunity@gmail.com  or visit the Think~Write~Read Community  Bruce Howlett's Seven Layers of Literacy Project - ReadingShift.com

    1h 5m
  6. Respecting the Social, Emotional & Academic Needs of Dyslexic Individuals -- Bonnie Feeney & Jen Petrich

    Mar 2

    Respecting the Social, Emotional & Academic Needs of Dyslexic Individuals -- Bonnie Feeney & Jen Petrich

    Bonnie Feeney, a dyslexic mother and Jen Petrich, her PhD neuroscientist daughter discuss dyslexia from a unique perspective—one of from a journey of personal discovery and the other from studying brain science. Hear how their journeys came together, enriching both their lives.  Learn the difficulties that dyslexics confront within and beyond the classroom. Dyslexics share more than a diagnosis and supporting them requires more than just a reading intervention. They deserve our respect and understanding.  For decades, Bonny experienced biases and judgments that included narrow instruction that didn’t develop her interest in language. Jen became a neuroscientist not to help her mother, but to understand neurodiversity and find methods that support students broadly. Bonny began to listen in on Jen’s tutoring sessions with students and realized that this type of word and sentence inquiry made sense to her.  A note from Jennifer Petrich: I would like to clarify a comment I made on this podcast episode that doesn’t reflect my true beliefs. In recounting someone else’s experience, I used language and framing that I no longer align with, including referring to a good IQ and not being dumb. I believe that measures like IQ do not define a person’s worth or fully capture their abilities, and I’m mindful that words we use—especially casually—can reinforce harmful assumptions. This was an unfiltered moment, and I’m committed to being more thoughtful and aware of my language and biases moving forward. Bruce Howlett’s Seven Layers of Literacy Approach: ReadingShift.com Literacy Dr website: https://www.theliteracydr.com D.O.T.S. course info and registration: https://www.theliteracydr.com/pd/dots Wednesdays with Literacy Dr (free drop-in) info and registration: https://www.theliteracydr.com/drop-in Literacy Dr videos: https://www.theliteracydr.com/videos List of Resources for Further Learning: https://cb29367d-4ec0-40b5-af0b-a46966ed9d5a.filesusr.com/ugd/2c8fa0_47cff29b89e34ae2bcf16d59670de2d7.pdf

    53 min
  7. Co-Creating a Community of Sentence Scholars - Rebecca Marsh & Meghan Hicks

    Feb 15

    Co-Creating a Community of Sentence Scholars - Rebecca Marsh & Meghan Hicks

    “Just thinking about grammar and syntax raises my anxiety.” Whether you share that reaction or you just feel shaky on some aspects of writing and sentence structure, you aren’t alone. Such a complex topic is not mastered in a one-and-done class. Yet it takes intellectual courage to become a student again and not to give up, especially when we are already acknowledged experts in our professions. In these days of mandated curricula, it isn’t easy to step out of the paradigm that currently dictates how education unfolds; but these two educators, Rebecca and Meghan, have found that it is still possible to create a community of true scholarship with your students—whether youths or adults. Meghan Hicks talks about “The Boy’s Writing Group” where her teenage students uncover the power of written communications and self-expression.  The Boys learn to review and revise their sentences as a group, discovering how writing gives them a voice to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings. Unlocking the power of sentences enriches students and teachers’ lives This is particularly important in the age of limited interest in book reading, mindless Internet scrolling, social media and AI.   You can contact Meg at ThinkWriteReadCommunity@gmail.com or visit the Think~Write~Read Community  You can contact Rebecca at editforclarity@gmail.com.

    1h 1m
  8. Spelling-Meaning Connections for Memory and Comprehension - Kimberly Murphy with Peter Bowers

    Jan 18

    Spelling-Meaning Connections for Memory and Comprehension - Kimberly Murphy with Peter Bowers

    “Spell what you mean, not just what you hear,” is researcher and speech pathologist Kim Murphy’s advice to students. While spelling instruction often focuses on pronunciation, spelling-meaning instruction makes so much more sense to students and their teachers. Graphemes (letter patterns) and morphemes, the meaningful core of every written word, spell words in predictable and consistent ways, even as their pronunciation shifts.   Joined by Peter Bowers, creator of Structured Word Inquiry, Kim shows that yes, English spelling is complex, but it doesn’t have to be confusing. In fact, students enjoy learning spelling-meaning connections, as they make sense and are easier to memorize and recall accurately when writing.  Kim and Pete also explain why spelling lists pale in comparison to morphological word sums and matrices, which organize the spelling of words around a common base. As a bonus, Kim shows how spelling-meaning connections benefit reading comprehension.  Bruce@ReadingShift.com ReadingShift.com  Kim Murphy: Contact Kim at The Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center in Richmond, VA.  Perfetti, C., & Stafura, J. (2014). Word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 22-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.827687 Free access link https://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/perfettilab/pubpdfs/WordKnowledge.pdf This article describes the Reading Systems Framework, in which the lexicon, or word knowledge, is a central connection point between word identification with reading comprehension. Aligned with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007; Perfetti & Hart, 2002), the lexicon is seen as a ‘pressure point’ in the reading system. Murphy, K.A., & Justice, L.M. (2019). Lexical-level predictors of reading comprehension in third grade: Is spelling a unique contributor? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28(4), 1597-1610. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_AJSLP-18-0299  Free access link https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=cdse_pubs This study examines the contributions of lexical-level skills to reading comprehension, and whether spelling adds anything unique to the prediction of reading comprehension. Spelling was scored using binary (correct-incorrect) and non-binary (partially correct) methods. Results showed that spelling uniquely predicted reading comprehension, above and beyond the contribution of word recognition and vocabulary combined when scored using Correct Letter Sequences. This highlights the importance of including assessment of spelling skills when evaluating children for reading comprehension difficulties. Murphy, K.A., & Diehm, E.A. (2020). Collecting words: A clinical example of a morphology-focused orthographic intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(3), 544-560.  https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00050 This paper describes a morphology-focused orthography intervention for children with word-level reading and spelling difficulties, using Structured Word Inquiry. Results comparing pre- and post-test scores showed that children improved in reading and/or spelling, and that their largest gains were in spelling affixes correctly. The study supports the use of interventions that integrate morphology with orthography and phonology to improve children’s literacy skills.

    1h 8m
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4.3
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

For the Love of Literacy provides podcasts about the exciting advances in literacy instruction, from morphology and orthography (the spelling system), to meaningful sight word memorization, and sentence construction and comprehension. We focus on the often overlooked aspects of literacy and their links to language development.  We tie learning to read, spell and writing to their roots in spoken language. This makes teaching and learning these abilities much easier because literacy learning is driven by language learning. The major components of spoken language plus vocabulary knowledge strongly predicting and largely determining growth in reading, spelling and writing.  Our guests are not just knowledgeable the links between language and language but know how to implement this learning in the classroom.   You will hear from noted researchers including Linnea Ehri, Marcia Henry and Peter Bowers as well as teachers who have developed lessons that engage students and enrich language abilities. Check back weekly to discover more Fulfilling Literacy Lessons and Clarifying conversations. Feel free to reach out to me at Bruce@ReadingShift.com. 

Information

  • Creator
    Bruce
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 For The Love Of Literacy
  • Show Website
    For The Love Of Literacy

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