The Science of Reading and the power of knowledge

The Science of Reading has shown repeatedly and definitively that background knowledge is much more than a nice-to-have when it comes to literacy. In fact, it’s a must.

One recent independent study led by Sonia Q. Cabell, Ph.D., and Hyejin Hwang, Ph.D., conducted two trials of more than 1,200 kindergarten students. Reading comprehension tests revealed that students who used a knowledge-building curriculum, such as Amplify CKLA, showed statistically significant positive effects on both social studies knowledge and vocabulary, even over just one semester.

So here’s what teachers need to know about the knowledge-building students require, starting early, to develop foundational literacy skills for life.

The power of knowledge and language comprehension, in action

Read the following passage.

Start by putting your clay on the bat as close to the center as possible, then turn your wheel on at full speed. After adding water often enough to keep the clay glossy, adjust it until it’s barely wobbling, then cone it up and center it further. Cone down and then open the clay. Lower your wheel speed to halfway and start pulling the walls. Compress the floor, and then start shaping. When you’re happy with your shape, use your wire tool to remove it from the bat, and set it aside to start drying before you trim, glaze, and fire it.

If you were ever trained in pottery, you probably understood a lot of that. If you weren’t, you could likely read the words and sense the tone, but most of the content would not make sense (Cone up? Cone down?) or stick in your mind at all.

That’s exactly how background knowledge powers reading comprehension.

The knowledge gap

Elementary students confront disparities in their background knowledge every day. Some have houses full of books and summers full of trips. One kid has a pet turtle, another celebrates Diwali, another grew up in the family restaurant. As you can probably imagine, they’d all get and retain a wide range of understanding from passages about, say, amphibians, alfredo sauce, and the Alps.

Not all foundational literacy instruction is built to access the knowledge students bring to the classroom, or to grow the knowledge they need to understand what they’re reading.

What’s more, having less background knowledge is correlated with socioeconomic status, with students who come from lower income families generally having less background knowledge than those who come from higher-income families. That’s how we know that knowledge is also an equity issue.

The role of writing instruction

Writing instruction grounded in the content of a knowledge-based curriculum can be a crucial contributor to knowledge-building, according to Wexler. It can help teachers:

Identify which gaps in background knowledge are holding a given student back.
Instruct students at higher grade levels, even if students reach those levels with gaps in background knowledge.
Boost learning across subjects.
Improve the quality of student writing itself, because it’s grounded in a topic they can say something about.
Foster comprehension by familiarizing students with the complex syntax of written language in their own writing.

The power of knowledge to connect

Big picture: Connecting to a student’s background knowledge can help unlock their full potential as a reader, writer, and member of the classroom and school community.

Allison Rice, elementary ELA curriculum coach for Kansas City Kansas Public Schools, tells this story about a girl in her class: “All through Unit 1 and halfway through Unit 2, she had not really participated or spoken in class, until they got to the lesson on Diwali. She celebrates Diwali. And all of a sudden, she had 1,000 things to contribute. Then her parents came in, they had never been into the school, and they finally felt welcomed and comfortable enough to come in and share about their culture, and the whole grade level had a huge party.”

This student was able to use her culture—and her knowledge—to create community in her classroom. “Here’s this little girl,” says Rice, “who for the first time has felt seen and reflected.”

Literacy resources for teachers and more

Webinar series: The More They Know: How building knowledge powers reading success

Free digital download: Learn why and how to build background knowledge among your students

Science of Reading: The Symposium

Accelerating learning in science with the Science of Reading

The Science of Reading: it’s not just for Language Arts.

As host Eric Cross and expert guest Susan Lambert discuss in this Science Connections webinar, the Science of Reading also provides a powerful foundation for science learning.

Here’s what they had to say about bringing evidence-based literacy strategies into the science classroom.

The role of literacy in science literacy

Strictly speaking, the Science of Reading refers to the vast body of research we now have—and put into practice—on the systematic, explicit, and cumulative instruction required for students to learn to read.

“There is a misconception that when we’re talking about the Science of Reading, we’re just talking about reading.”—Susan Lambert, Amplify’s Chief Academic Officer for Elementary Humanities

In fact, we’re talking about comprehensive literacy, which encompasses all the essential—and interdependent—components of literacy, including background knowledge, vocabulary, and both comprehension and expression.

In other words, it’s the listening, speaking, reading, and writing that scientists do in the real world—and that students do to engage with and connect to science learning. As we discussed in this post, developing students’ literacy in science helps them develop scientific literacy. And science literacy allows students to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and strategic questioners—in science and beyond.

Integrating science and literacy in the classroom

What do these literacy strategies look like in practice? Eric puts them to use regularly—and here’s how you can, too.

Use phenomena to activate and gauge prior knowledge. The more you know, the better you comprehend text and the faster you learn—so exploring familiar observable events (frying eggs, seeing your breath on a cold day) can engage students and accelerate their comprehension from the jump.
Provide multilingual resources. “Being intentional about providing access to resources in the languages our students speak is critical,” said Eric. “The data shows that the more proficient students become in their native language, the more proficient they become in a new one.”
Get students writing (and speaking, and editing). Eric has his students document their experiments and observations in (digital) notebooks and online portfolios. They also share with and present to each other, he said, “so they’re seeing other students’ writing styles and syntax and what details they include, and they can go back and update their own.” And, since it’s a year-long process, “by the time they’re done, they have this beautiful website that showcases their work.” (Amplify Science’s Student Investigation Notebooks also fit the bill!)
Work across subjects. The Common Core recommends that, by 4th grade, 50% of texts read should be non-fiction. That’s why Eric coordinates with ELA teachers to read one text about metabolism, for example, each examining it through different lenses. “When you’re able to work together with another content teacher, it’s like magic,” he said. (And in elementary school, you’re the other content teacher!)
Run science seminars. Students use evidence to explain their thinking. “For students who need extra support, you can have pre-written sentence frames so that they’re able to participate,” Eric said. “Even when they’re listening to other students speaking, that’s helping them develop language skills. You watch them be able to listen, speak, engage in debate, and disagree without being disagreeable, which we know as adults is a valuable skill.”

For more of Eric’s strategies, watch the webinar: Science Connections: Accelerating Learning in Science with the Science of Reading.

Even more to explore

Webinars:

Curriculum: Amplify Science

Amplify blog:

Managing the change that matters most: Implementing the Science of Reading with Integrity

Integrating literacy in the science classroom

“Science or literary instruction? You don’t have to choose!”

MTSS: The key to success

What helps students succeed in reading? It’s not just one tool, or even one toolkit. Ideally, they’ve got a whole ecosystem—from the latest science to bedtime stories—supporting them in learning to read.

So it makes sense that a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is critical to literary instruction in the classroom.

What exactly is an MTSS? How does it align with the Science of Reading? And how do they help you support your students?

MTSS, literacy instruction, and the Science of Reading

First, a broad definition.

A Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is a comprehensive framework designed to provide systematic and differentiated support to all students. The tiered approach includes universal interventions for all learners, targeted interventions for those at risk, and intensive interventions for students with specific needs. The goal of an MTSS is to use data-driven decision-making and personalized support to improve academic, behavioral, and emotional outcomes for every student.

And that’s exactly what an MTSS does in the context of literacy instruction. An MTSS operates on the premise that readers have diverse requirements, and it aims to proactively identify and address these needs through a multi-tiered approach.

That’s where it intersects with the Science of Reading. As you know, the Science of Reading refers to the pedagogy and practices that extensive research has found to be most effective for teaching children to read. When implemented in a classroom, the Science of Reading is part of a system—one that aligns with a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS).

What’s the difference between an MTSS and RTI?

MTSS vs. RTI: You’ve probably heard these systems mentioned in similar contexts. But just like new readers, we’ve got to learn our letters.

RTI stands for Response to Intervention, so its very name shows that it’s a response to an identified problem. Actually, it’s a series of academic responses that use data to pinpoint and address the specific challenges of struggling students.

An MTSS and an RTI are similar in that “they are both problem-solving models,” notes Brittney Bills, Ph.D., elementary school principal at Blair Community Schools, speaking with host Susan Lambert on Amplify’s Science of Reading: The Podcast.

And they can be intertwined. But they are not interchangeable. In fact, an RTI is part of an MTSS framework—not the other way around. Also:

An MTSS starts with all students. “With the MTSS model, the universal tier is the first intervention for all students,” says Bills, referring to the curriculum, instruction, and assessments provided to all students at a given grade level. Bills says we can ask: “What does our data demonstrate that our students need within that universal tier? And how can we apply evidence-based practices, as they relate to the Science of Reading, to beef up opportunities for our students there first? Then it’s a layering-on of supports and problem-solving at those other layers, the targeted and intensive tiers, after that.”
An MTSS supports prevention. Again, we start universal, then identify issues. Though an RTI is necessary and effective, an MTSS has the aim, and the capacity, to both get at-risk readers back on track and prevent the need for intervention down the line.

The four defining parts of an MTSS

Now, let’s break down the four key components that define an MTSS:

Screening: An MTSS begins with screening to identify students’ proficiency in foundational literacy skills. Screening helps you pinpoint potential challenges in literacy early on, making it possible to tailor interventions for individual students and head problems off at the pass.
Progress monitoring: An MTSS helps you regularly assess and track students’ literacy progress, allowing you to adjust instructional strategies based on real-time data and evolving needs.
Establishing a multi-level prevention system: The multi-level prevention system allows you to adapt to accommodate diverse learning styles and precise learning needs. This personalized approach both supports those at risk and helps build an inclusive classroom where every reader can thrive.
Making data-based decisions: An MTSS gives you the data you need—and guides you in analyzing it—to make the precise adjustments that support every student’s literacy journey.

An MTSS is a dynamic approach that recognizes that every student is different—and that to provide each with what they need to learn to read, teachers need systems of support, too.

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