Writing as an Integral Part of the Science of Reading

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Therese Pickett:

As students are learning writing, they need to have that modeling. They need to have lots of guided practice. They need to have independent practice. They need to revisit those skills over and over and over again.

Narrator:

You just heard from education and writing expert Therese Pickett, strategic implementation success manager with Voyager Sopris Learning^®. Ms. Pickett is our guest today on EDVIEW360.

Pam Austin:

Hello, this is Pam Austin. Welcome back to the EDVIEW360 podcast series. We are so excited to have you with us today. I'm conducting today's podcast from my native New Orleans, LA. Today, we are excited to welcome a respected literacy expert and writing advocate, Voyager Sopris Learning's own Therese Pickett. We asked Therese to be our guest today because of her vast knowledge and experience with writing as a critical part of the science of reading.

Therese has served in several roles here at Voyager Sopris Learning for more than 18 years. She provides professional learning opportunities in literacy and the intricacies of writing. She has presented widely at conferences on best practices in teaching research-based strategies and writing and literacy skills. Before joining Voyager Sopris Learning, she held positions as a consultant for the St, Clair County RESA and a junior high school special education teacher, as a high school English and history teacher, and she also taught English as a foreign language in Austria. We've always been impressed with the depth of her knowledge when it comes to writing and the science of reading, so we're thrilled she's agreed to talk to us today. Welcome, Therese. 

TP:

Thank you, Pam.

PA:

You know I've heard you say that writing is the most challenging literacy skill to teach and learn. Can you tell us why?

TP:

Sure, you know there are so many skills that go into writing. Whether students are writing sentences, paragraphs, stories, essays, there are just so many that students need to know. They need to know how to form letters, write words, know how words function together in sentences, how to structure a paragraph or an essay, the components that go into narrative writing. And if students have deficiencies or struggle in any one of those skills, it affects other skills, right? And so, teachers have a really big challenge on their hands trying to teach students how to write well.

PA:

So, we're not just looking at the end product of writing. I've heard you list so many things, sentences, letter formation. So, it's more than that end product, right?

TP:

Correct and even just writing that end product of a sentence, think about what goes into that, besides knowing how to write words and form those letters, you have capitalization, punctuation, grammar, syntax, word choice, and we can even divide those skills into sub-skills themselves.

PA:

All right. So, your answer leads right into the next question that I have for you. You know what is that connection of teaching writing and the science of reading, because all of these sub-skills you're talking about makes me think about the science of reading. How can teachers understand that reciprocal skill, the nature of the two, science of reading and writing? How are they connected and how can teachers prepare to be able to get their students ready for writing?

TP:

Well, I love that question, Pam, because that is the big question, right? How do we connect reading and writing? What skills go into reading and writing? And we know that the science of reading includes the science of writing, research, right? So, the science of reading explains how our brains learn language skills and specifically addresses reading and writing.

And we know, in order to read, students need to learn the phonemes, the sounds, those phoneme-grapheme correspondences. And if students learn the sounds of our language and learn those letter patterns that spell those sounds and be able to read words, they should know the patterns for writing words and they pick those up and they transfer that into writing. Students also have to understand how those words work together in sentences, and through the science of reading we can teach students how words work together. And if they can do that in reading and understand the structure of sentences, then they can transpose that into writing. Now, that does not mean that these skills are a natural transfer from reading to writing, right? They need to be explicitly taught. But all of those strands of their Reading Rope teaches those discrete skills that students can then put into their expressive language.

PA:

I love the way you say how the words work together in a sentence, because they do, right? That's a wonderful way of looking at it. So, I want you to tack on some of the research. You've talked about the science of reading. You talked about subskills and how some students have deficits. What does the research tell us about how reading and writing support each other? You gave us a little bit of a clue. Can you dive more deeply into that?

TP:

Of course. When we think about the research outside of the science of reading, there are many studies that show that having students write about what they learn increases reading comprehension. The biggest body, the biggest piece to look at, is the meta-analysis done by Stephen Graham and Michael Hebert. And when we look at that meta-analysis that you know, meta-analysis looks at many, many, many studies not just one or two, but many and all of those studies showed that having students take notes, having them summarize, having them answer questions in writing about what they're reading and learning about, strengthens their reading comprehension. It forces students to make connections in their brain and think about what they've read in a new way, right? So, having students take notes we all know we've all done it. When you go to the grocery store and you forgot your list, right? But you wrote your list down, you remember almost everything that was on that list. So, writing about what you've read helps you remember it better, but it also helps you comprehend. And comprehension is not just remembering, it's remembering, understanding, and being able to do something with that information. And then, summarizing helps students remember what was most important and think about what was most important in what I read. Having students create questions and answer questions and compose something based on what they read helps them think about that knowledge in new ways and make connections to other things that they have learned and experiences in their life. 

PA:

So, all about making those connections with reading and writing. You know, you mentioned Graham et al., I just want you all to know that he will be coming to an upcoming podcast with us very soon. So, make sure you join us for that podcast to learn more about that research.

But, diving in a little bit more, we're talking about the reading and writing connection and we know with the science of reading we use the words explicit and systematic, and I've heard you use the word explicit for writing as well. So, I'm supposing we can tack on that systematic adjective as well. You know, with regards to Scarborough's Rope, thinking about the Reading Rope, how and why must they be integrated? You gave us some clues. Expound on that just a little bit more.

TP:

Thanks for asking, Pam. So, with the Reading Rope the language skills needed for reading have been broken into those strands and we have those foundational reading skills at the bottom in word recognition and those higher skills and language comprehension skills at the top of the Reading Rope and we can think about writing in the same way. Those foundational writing skills of letter formation and writing words and putting those words together in sentences is part of that transcription. And think about word-recognition skills and transcription skills right in the Reading Rope. We have phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, phoneme grapheme correspondences, reading words and creating a sight word lexicon, so that students don't have to spend their cognitive energy thinking about those foundational skills. And that translates to transcription right. When students want to write words, they need to think about the sounds that are in those words and instead of blending sounds together to read the word, we're now segmenting those sounds. So, students have to have strong phonological and phonemic awareness to be able to do that and then they need to put those sounds in writing by writing the graphemes. So, those are reciprocal skills. Students need to know the sounds and they need to know the letters that make those sounds, whether they're reading or writing. At the same time, they also need to work on those language comprehension skills. So, when students are reading, they are learning language comprehension skills, they're building background knowledge, they're working with vocabulary and building their vocabulary morphologies included in that as well. Of course they learn sentence structure, structure of text. And when students are writing they need to be able to use those same skills. So, they need to know what words to use. They need to choose precise vocabulary so that the reader understands what they wrote. They need to know the structure of sentences and how words function together in sentences and how we arrange those words. So, thinking about syntax and grammar. And, of course, they need to have background knowledge about the topic to come up with good ideas for their writing. And, we learn so much background knowledge through reading. So, there's a connection there.
Again, they're reciprocal in some cases and in some cases those skills are related, but again they don't transfer naturally. So, writing is not a natural thing in the history of mankind, right? Writing is new on the timeline of humankind and so those skills need to be systematically, explicitly taught to students in a logical order of skills, starting with letter formation and words and moving to sentence structure and sentence variety and sentence fluency. And if students can't write a good sentence, they can't write a good paragraph, right? So, students have a hard time with all of these discrete skills. So, teachers must teach them explicitly, directly, lots of modeling, a lot of guided practice, before we move to independent practice.

PA:

Awesome, you know, building that skill of writing really does rely on that focus of the Scarborough’s Reading Rope itself. Those foundational skills you said they were reciprocal and I love when you mentioned that cognitive energy. We can focus that cognitive energy if those foundational skills are ready for students to use and access immediately, if they're firm there, then that cognitive energy can go to those higher-order skills. And I just want to recap on what those are, Therese, if I forget any, please tell me. You mentioned the understanding of sentence structure, that word order, the understanding of the structure of text itself, and you know what? You don't get it by osmosis, right? 

TP: 

Right, you have to teach it directly and explicitly.

PA: 

Did I miss anything there? 

TP:

We talked about background knowledge and vocabulary and morphology.

PA:

So many layers, so many layers. Thank you so much for sharing that.

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PA:

There's something else I want you to share. You've talked about those foundational reading skills, which is great, but getting students to move from that sentence-level understanding, from that basic sentence writing, to more complex sentence writing, understanding that text structure, when we're moving from paragraph writing to multiparagraph writing and essay writing, how do we guide students from the foundational level to writing at that more complex level?

TP:

Pam, I'm so glad you asked that because these skills can be sometimes concurrently taught. As we're teaching new sentence structures, we can move to paragraphs and to essays and still continue to go deeper and teach students more sophisticated sentence patterns, more sophisticated transition sets, so that their writing becomes deeper. It becomes more interesting to read when you have longer sentences and the sentence structure is varied and they can meet grade-level standards. But if students don't master more foundational skills of writing sentences, they may understand the structure of a paragraph, they might have a topic sentence and a supporting detail and maybe some evidence, but you're going to have paragraphs with short, choppy sentences and we see this all the time.

I was a middle school and a high school teacher and we see secondary students who write paragraphs and every sentence is a short, choppy subject predicate, dot, dot, dot sentence, right? “My favorite whatever is …” Or, “I went to summer camp. It was good. I did this. I did that …” And so, the sentences don't become more sophisticated, they just write more of them in a paragraph, right? And if students don't master writing solid paragraphs, it's very difficult to move to essay-level writing. Again, they might understand the structure of an essay, that there's an introduction and body paragraphs and a conclusion. But again, your paragraphs do not grow in sophistication. An so, we really need to continue to teach varied sentence structures.

To teach in secondary the topic sentence is not usually the first sentence of a paragraph in a textbook. So, we need to teach students that in reading, where is that main idea? It may not be at the beginning anymore, but also in writing, that is a strategy writers use to hone in on the main point by putting it at the end of the paragraph. And we need to teach students that there are more sophisticated transition sets for opinion and argument writing other than one reason, another reason, the final reason, right? So, we want that to grow. But if students don't master the sentence structure first and varied sentence structures, then they're not going to have really proficient paragraphs or essays.

PA:

So much to consider. Well, I'm thinking right now, a shift to the various populations of students in education that we work with. How does writing instruction support all populations of students? I'm thinking about your general ed students, those students with IEPs, English language learners, gifted and talented, and how about those emergent young scholars as well? 

TP:

That is a big challenge for teachers, right? A teacher in a core classroom might have students who are in most of those populations. Obviously, our emergent young scholars aren't going to be in a secondary classroom but in a kindergarten classroom. You are going to have students who are in special education or who are just learning English for the first time, or who are well-advanced and are writing already when they come to kindergarten. So, how do you address all of those? Well, one way to do it is as teachers teach writing skills. Let's just take writing a sentence. They can teach a strategy or teach a concept to the whole class and then form small learning groups. And of course, at the elementary school it's natural to form smaller learning groups and really differentiate for each of those populations. So, let's say we're presenting and teaching a certain sentence structure to the class and adding new grammatical forms to that sentence structure. The teacher can do that whole class in a mini lesson, short modeling it. And then, the next time, as the teacher moves to guided practice and they're starting to release students to try their own sentences, they can form some small learning groups and perhaps those students who are more advanced in writing could write some other sentence structures and longer sentences, while the students who need more differentiation and scaffolding get more scaffolding from the teacher. Perhaps they have a sentence starter or perhaps they're allowed to draw pictures of the words they want first, and that really supports all learners and our emergent young scholars.

I love working with our little ones and a question I always get from especially kindergarten teachers is: “Well, my students can't even hold a pencil yet.

How are they supposed to be writing full sentences at this point in the year?”

And the answer is if we look at the stages of print development you know, if you've ever had interactions with 3, 4, 5, 6-year-olds they come up and they show you a piece of paper and it's scribbles right or random letter strings, and they say: “Oh, I wrote a story.” And that is writing to them. They are writing something that symbolizes those words and they know what it means and they can tell you. It just doesn't look like conventional writing yet. And so, we can have our emergent young scholars writing in whatever stage of development they are at, while the teacher is modeling the conventional adult way of writing. But it's so important for them to see themselves as writers and as they learn better letter formation and writing words, those sentences can still be taught, those types of sentences and all of the discrete skills that go into that.

PA:

So, this is my takeaway, and I've been listening here to what you've been sharing is that writing: It varies and it's based on student need and ability. So, that's my little summation. And I heard over and over again model guided practice, independent practice. That sure sounds like gradual release. Is that what we're talking about, Therese?

TP:

It sure is, because we know, as we talked about earlier, that writing is difficult. It has to be practiced over and over again. And I love analogies. Anybody who knows me knows I love analogies.

So, when I think about building those discrete skills and helping students learn to write better and become more automatic with those foundational skills, I think of learning to play a musical instrument. So, even if you've never played the piano, you have probably seen a TV show where someone is taking piano lessons. And when you learn to play the piano, you don't automatically play a song. First, you first have to learn what the keys are, right? What are all those keys? What notes are those? You have to learn how to read the music and read those notes. You have to learn where the C is in the middle right, and then you learn to play something very simple like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

You don't go straight to a piano concerto and there are a lot of skills between “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and a piano concerto. You have to learn fingering and then you learn chords and so on. And it's the same with writing. Those skills build over time. But proficient writers and even professional writers who write novels and are famous for their writing and have won awards for their writing, still go back and look at sentence structure and word choice and how they use the literary elements if they're writing narrative and so on. And you still have to practice those skills. So, as students are learning writing, they need to have that modeling. They need to have lots of guided practice. They need to have independent practice. They need to revisit those skills over and over and over again.

PA:

So, writing is not simple, as you said. It's not just go forth and write, express yourself. There is explicit, direct instruction. Well, can you name a resource or a tool that might be available that teachers can use to help build this skill of providing that instruction for students?

TP:

I sure can. So, when I was in the classroom, I really loved using strategies from Step Up to Writing, and one of the reasons why Step Up to Writing has been successful is that it really has consistency across strategies, across classrooms within a building, across grade levels, and all the way from K to 12. So, there's a consistency in the graphic organizers that are used. You know one thing that I have noticed and I've heard, I work with many districts across the country and have for, as you said, more than 18 years now, and what I hear from teachers is: “I don't have all the tools I need, and so I had to go out to the Internet to find things. Back in the old day, we went to the teacher store and we bought the book of graphic organizers.” They asked their friend down the hallway and people call things different names, they use different organizers, and that inconsistency can hinder many of our students from being successful.

I'll give you an example as I was teaching my middle schoolers, they came up from different elementary buildings into sixth grade, and my sixth-graders had a tendency to call the last sentence of a paragraph by different names. Some thought it was a closing sentence, some thought it was a concluding sentence, and some even called it a conclusion, which is the last paragraph of an essay, right? So, they all had different names because their teachers before me all called that last sentence a different name, and that inconsistency of people calling things different names can really affect our struggling students. our students who have memory or processing issues. Our students who have language deficits maybe they have an IEP for language deficits and our English language learners. And so, we really need to have more of a consistency, And so, Step Up has consistency, also with color coding, which teaches the structure of informative and opinion and narrative text. So, that's why I really liked it. I had success with that in my classroom as well.

PA:

Thank you so much. I want to mention to our listeners that you've organized a free sample of Step Up to Writing for all listeners. Just go to the registration page for this podcast and you'll find a link that will allow you to download all of the examples here that you mentioned, this particular sample, so you can take a look at it yourself. You know, Therese, I want to ask you: Where can our listeners learn more about writing and the science of reading?

TP:

Yes, so there are some great resources out there that you can find, and we talked about Stephen Graham and Michael Hebert's work. And So you can find that. And, of course, Pam, you mentioned that Steve Graham will be on the next podcast. So, EDVIEW360 has a lot of blogs and podcasts on writing that came previous to this one, so those are fantastic. And then Steve Graham's and Michael Hebert's meta-analysis of the research on teaching writing to improve reading comprehension can be found in Writing to Read from the Alliance for Education and it’s so interesting for anyone interested in true literacy success.

PA:

This has been Pam Austin for EDVIEW360. I hope you'll join us in January for another informative podcast, and be sure to check out our webinars and blogs too, at voyagersopris.com/edview360. Until next time, thanks for joining us.

Narrator:

This has been an EDVIEW360 podcast. For additional thought-provoking discussions, sign up for our blog, webinar, and podcast series at voyagersopris.com/edview360. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts and to help other people like you find our show. Thank you.