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Season 9, Special episode

Science of Reading Essentials: Comprehension

In this special Essentials episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert digs into the archives to find reading comprehension insights from experts Hugh Catts, Ph.D.; Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D.; and Reid Smith, Ph.D. Listeners will get a foundational introduction to the complexities of reading comprehension and come away with an understanding of how to reframe comprehension as an outcome rather than a skill, choose the right texts and ask the right questions, and cultivate long-term memory and knowledge recall.

Three people are shown in separate circular frames: an older woman, a younger man, and an older man, against a patterned background with books, pencils, and light bulbs.

Meet Our Guest(s):

Hugh Catts

Hugh Catts

Hugh Catts, Ph.D., studies the early identification and prevention of reading disabilities. Catts is a former board member of the International Dyslexia Association and former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. He has received the Samuel T. Orton Award (the International Dyslexia Association’s highest honor) and the Honors of the Association Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for his career contributions to these disciplines. His current research concerns the early identification of reading and language difficulties and the nature and assessment of reading comprehension problems.

Sharon Vaughn

Sharon Vaughn

Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D., serves as the Manuel J. Justiz Endowed Chair in Education and the Executive Director of the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, an organized research unit that she founded with a Make-A-Wish gift the Meadows Foundation family. She’s the recipient of numerous awards, including the University of Texas Distinguished Faculty and Research Award (which she was the first woman to receive), the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Special Education Research Award, the American Educational Research Association’s Special and Inclusive Education Research Distinguished Researcher Award, and the Jeannette E. Fleischner Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Learning Disabilities from CEC. She is the author of more than 40 books and 350 research articles, six of which have met the What Works Clearing House Criteria for their intervention reports. She has conducted technical assistance in literacy in more than 10 countries and 30 state Departments of Education and has worked as a literacy consultant on more than 50 technical assistance projects.

Reid Smith

Reid Smith

Reid Smith, Ph.D., is an elementary school teacher and curriculum leader at a school in Australia. He holds a doctorate from La Trobe University’s Science of Language and Reading Lab, where his research focused on the contribution of background knowledge to the act of reading. He is also co-CEO of Ochre Education, a not-for-profit organization committed to closing educational gaps by providing teachers with free, high-quality curriculum materials.

Meet our host: Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is Chief Academic Officer of Literacy at Amplify and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. A former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, she’s dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Access the Listening Guide—and other free, high-quality resources—at our brand new professional learning page.
Join our community Facebook Group.
Transcript

Quotes

“ For the most part, if we're paying attention, if we can read words efficiently and know what they mean and have background knowledge, it yields comprehension.”

—Sharon Vaughn

“ Some people say that the purpose of reading is comprehension. It's not the purpose of reading. The purpose of reading is whatever you're comprehending it for.”

—Hugh Catts

 ”We often forget that an important consideration to comprehending text is actually the text itself. A rigorous, interesting, full-of-rich-information text is going to yield a different kind of interaction between the reader than something that is super easy, or a text that might be patterned, or what we might call a leveled text.”

—Susan Lambert

“[There’s] a strong literature base that tells us that one of the differences between poor readers and strong readers is their ability to notice when there are inconsistencies in the text, and have strategies that they can employ to resolve those inconsistencies.”

—Reid Smith

“This Essentials episode does not answer everything about comprehension. All we're doing here is building a foundation, understanding that comprehension isn't a skill, it's complex.”

—Susan Lambert

Season 9, Special Episode

Science of Reading Essentials: Writing

In this special Essentials episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert pulls from past episodes of the podcast to give you everything you need to know about science-based writing instruction. Experts include Steve Graham, Ed.D.; Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.; Natalie Wexler; and Judith Hochman, Ed.D. Listeners will walk away from this episode with a solid foundation for creating a classroom of confident and capable writers, and gain a better understanding of the connection between reading and writing, the role of handwriting and spelling, the power of sentences, and the importance of applying cognitive load theory to writing. Download our discussion guide to fuel a professional learning session!

A collage of four adults, two women at the top and a woman and a man at the bottom, set against a patterned background with icons of books, pencils, and light bulbs.

Meet Our Guest(s):

Judith Hochman, Ed.D.

Judith Hochman, Ed.D.

Judith C. Hochman is the former head of The Windward School and the founder of the Windward Teacher Training Institute in White Plains, New York, as well as the former superintendent of the Greenburgh Graham Free School District in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. She is the founder of The Writing Revolution, a not-for-profit organization which disseminates evidence-based strategies for writing instruction. Hochman is the author of Basic Writing Skills: A Manual for Teachers and co-author of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (2017, 2024).

Natalie Wexler

Natalie Wexler

Natalie Wexler is the author of Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning. She is also the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It and the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades. She has a free Substack newsletter called Minding the Gap, and she was the host of Season One of the Reading Comprehension Revisited podcast from the Knowledge Matters Campaign. More information is available at her website, www.nataliewexler.com.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D., (Harvard University) is a professor at the School of Education, University of California at Irvine. She was a former classroom teacher in San Francisco. Her scholarship focuses on understanding language and literacy development and effective instruction for children from diverse backgrounds. Her areas of research include reading comprehension, reading fluency, listening comprehension and oral language, dyslexia, higher-order cognitive skills, written composition, and reading-writing relations. She has worked extensively with monolingual children and multilingual children from various linguistic backgrounds including English, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Kiswahili. Her research has been supported by over $60 million in grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Science Foundation. Her work was recognized by several awards, including the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by former President Barack Obama, the Developing Scholar Award, and the Robert M. Gagne Outstanding Student Research Award. She is an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow, and serves as the editor-in-chief for Scientific Studies of Reading and the chair of the California Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel (RDRSSP), appointed by the California State Board of Education.

Steve Graham, Ed.D.

Steve Graham, Ed.D.

Steve Graham is a Regents’ and Warner Professor at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. For 47 years, he has studied how writing develops, how to teach it effectively, and how it can be used to support reading and learning. In recent years, he has been involved in the development and testing of digital tools for supporting writing and reading through a series of grants from the Institute of Educational Sciences and the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. His research involves the development of writers with special needs in both elementary and secondary schools, much of which occurs in urban schools. Graham has received many awards for his contributions to literacy and was selected to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2018. He is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, Division 15 of the American Psychological Association, and of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is chief academic officer of literacy at Amplify and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

A woman with short, light blonde hair, wearing clear glasses, a black top, and a beaded necklace, smiles at the camera in front of a blurred outdoor background.

Transcripts and additional resources:

Access the listening guide—and other free, high-quality resources—at our brand new professional learning page.
Join our community Facebook group
Transcript

Quotes

“The Science of Reading encapsulates decades of research about both reading and writing—because if writing was never invented, we would not have to teach kids how to read.”

—Susan Lambert

"What we see with exceptional teachers is they have their kids write."

—Steve Graham, Ed.D.

“This is not learned by osmosis. And it's not learned by vague feedback like, 'Make it better,' or 'Add more details.' You've got to be very granular.”

—Judith Hochman, Ed.D.