Episode 048: Knowledge Party with Natalie Wexler

Today on Vrain Waves we have an exciting and somewhat earth shaking interview from Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of The Knowledge Gap. She walks us through the contributing research and education history that led her to write the book, and some strategies for schools to set the foundation for student success. From her website: “Education journalist Natalie Wexler focuses on two ideas that have solid evidence behind them but have been mostly overlooked by schools and reformers: immersing children from less-educated families in knowledge about the world, and linking that knowledge to writing instruction.”

Connect with Natalie Wexler

Website: nataliewexler.com | Twitter: @natwexler | Books: The Knowledge Gap, The Writing Revolution

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Intro (00:58)
- 4 times less likely to graduate if not reading on grade level by 3rd grade
- NYT Article: Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States
- Typical time spent in 3rd grade on reading: 2 hours; 16 min on social studies, 19 min on science (2012)
- Reading comprehension cannot be broken down into discrete skills
- Daisy Christodoulou - Books; (bonus: Check out her stuff on Comparative Judgment for assessment!)
Natalie Wexler’s view on the Promise of Public Education (5:25)
- Functioning democracy needs a citizenry that can understand events and how to edit and fact check the information that they’re exposed to
What is The Knowledge Gap (06:55)
- We’ve treated reading like it’s a set of discrete skills while letting content knowledge take a back seat
- Most important factor for successful reading comprehension: how much background knowledge and vocabulary you already have
The Baseball Study and reading comprehension (09:42)
2 Parts of Reading: Decoding and Comprehension (11:27)
- Cognitive Scientists and Teachers have come to opposite conclusions - decoding needs direct and explicit instruction and comprehension will come along with more exposure to content
- Language at the Speed of Sight, 271–274
- Dan Willingham (Vrain Waves Episode with Dr. Willingham)
Whose knowledge? (16:13)
- Common core history and content knowledge (18:32)
- Supplemental materials language on content in common core
Underestimating student ability and having high expectations (22:10)
Student choice (24:13)
- Behavior and content knowledge (26:01)
- The Matthew Effect in Reading
- Cognitive Load theory - novices and experts - Slides from Daniel Braithwaite
- “Leveled texts lead to leveled lives.” - Alfred Tatum
History of the role of content in reading instruction (28:35)
Alternatives to leveled groupings (31:08)
- Listening comprehension exceeds reading comprehension
- Written language is more complex than spoken language
The importance of exposing struggling readers to grade level texts (34:07)
The importance of facts and knowledge in the age of Google (36:42)
- Burden on working memory (see cognitive load theory)
The Curse of Knowledge (38:19)
- Doug Lemov: “Those of us on the privileged side of the knowledge gap have no idea how we got here.”
- Importance of pre-assessment
Misinterpretation of Bloom’s Taxonomy (40:35)
- Taxonomy, not a hierarchy
- Skipping lower levels is not appropriate
- Quote from the book: “That graphic has led many educators to conclude that the ‘lower-order’ tasks should be passed over as quickly as possible, or even eliminated, because they’re inferior to those at the top. In fact, Bloom meant that knowledge and comprehension are prerequisites for higher-order thinking, and that teachers should never ask students to start analyzing or evaluating a topic until first ensuring they have a solid understanding of it.”
The Writing Revolution (42:33)
- Writing builds and solidifies knowledge as well as demonstrating knowledge
- Retrieval Practice / The Testing Effect
- The Protege Effect
- Knowledge is like velcro
- Sentence frames with ending conjunctions for prompts
Balance between free writing & content-based writing (47:40)
- Judith Hochman - The Hochman Method
Role of the teacher in the modern classroom, PD (48:54)
- Delivering curriculum instead of creating curriculum
- Ongoing PD around content delivery, not skills in isolation
- Provide information and then guide them through thinking about that information with opportunities for desirable difficulty
Closing & Take Aways (53:00)
- NatalieWexler.com / Forbes.com contributor
- Quote: “It’s not so much that particular bits of information are vital in and of themselves—although some certainly are. It’s more that people need to have enough facts in their heads to have what one commentator has called ‘a knowledge party’—a bunch of accumulated associations that will enable them to absorb, retain, and analyze new information. Education certainly shouldn’t end with facts. But if it doesn’t begin there, many students will never acquire the knowledge and analytical abilities they need to thrive both in school and in life.”

Other Resources as well as some relevant citations from The Knowledge Gap:

Amplify Science of Reading Podcast
Shanahan: Should We Teach Students at their Reading Level
Why Minimally Guided Techniques Do Not Work, Kirschner et al
Teaching Content is Teaching Reading - YouTube Video, Dan Willingham

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