READS Lab at Harvard University

In case you missed it...check out the recording of READS Lab's Principal Investigator, James Kim, discussing the lessons from the Science of Reading on the latest webinar from Harvard Graduate School of Education's Education Now. Key takeaways included: ⭐ Progress has been made in the science of reading simple texts, but now progress is needed in reading complex non-fiction texts. ⭐ Children need the opportunity to engage in challenging texts and to make meaning of those texts together with other children. ⭐ Students need to learn words deeply, including pronunciations and spellings, and how to transfer their knowledge and understanding to different contexts. Watch the recording here: https://lnkd.in/giWKNxXc

📢 You don't want to miss this! Join READS Lab Principal Investigator, James Kim, for the Harvard Graduate School of Education's upcoming Education Now. He will join a panel of experts to explore what the latest scientific research tells us about how children successfully learn to read and write. Click here to sign up: https://lnkd.in/g-S2X8Wp

⭐ READS Lab was recently featured in an article by the The Hechinger Report. Author Jill Barshay highlights the impact of MORE—a content-focused science and social studies program proven to increase literacy and math scores. Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/guaCKAGE

You don't want to miss this! Our colleagues at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University in collaboration with The Educational Opportunity Project (EOP) at Stanford University just released the #EducationRecoveryScorecard. The report provides a high resolution picture of academic recovery in 8,719 school districts with either math or reading achievement data across 43 states.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve highlighted the importance of transfer for students’ ability to comprehend new knowledge. That’s where MORE comes in: MORE builds schemas that improve students’ ability to understand new texts and concepts. But what impact does the MORE curriculum have, and how long does it take? Listen as READS Lab’s postdoctoral researcher, Douglas Mosher, and Principal Investigator, James Kim, professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explains the impressive results MORE has demonstrated.

The first half of this series explained the importance of transfer, and how to measure it. But how can a curriculum build students’ skills at transferring knowledge? 🌳 Listen as READS Lab postdoctoral researcher, Douglas Mosher, explains: knowledge is just not a basket of disconnected facts. Rather, students need to build robust schemas that make it easier to transfer their knowledge when they encounter the unfamiliar.

Welcome back to our series on transfer: From the Classroom to Beyond! Last time, we introduced the importance of transfer— using existing knowledge to make sense of distant concepts—for helping students learn to read. But how do we measure transfer? 📏 We need a yardstick to measure students’ progress along the continuum from near to far transfer. Listen as READS Lab’s Principal Investigator James Kim shares the important role formative assessments play in measuring transfer.

Do you keep your literacy instruction within your English Language Arts (ELA) block? The research here at READS Lab says don’t! In the latest issue of American Educator, Hugh Catts and Alan Kamhi push educators and policymakers to rethink learning how to read. They explain how reading is complex with many skills working in coordination with one another and should not be confined to the ELA block of the day. After all, the primary purpose of improving reading comprehension is learning about the world. The article highlights MORE as a primary example of a science and social studies curriculum designed to improve literacy and build knowledge and vocabulary across grades all while complementing an existing ELA curriculum. MORE provides an extra boost to reading comprehension and ultimately the ability for students to grow their knowledge of the natural and social world. Read the full article in the winter issue of American Educator, the sole publication of the American Federation of Teachers: https://lnkd.in/eiK9reGw

Exciting news! READS Lab just launched their first quarterly newsletter: Tell Me MORE. In this quarter’s newsletter:   🧠 Why students need more than a knowledge-building curriculum 📖 Lots of adults take dietary supplements, but does providing students with read aloud supplements improve student outcomes? Read more about READS Lab’s work on the effect of these supplements.   🍎 Read about this quarter’s Teacher Tip   🎉 Congrats to our first cohort of MORE Certified Trainers Visit our website (https://lnkd.in/gdRnABVM) to view and download the letter. Want to get Tell Me MORE sent right to your inbox? Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gDMX8gzS

Transfer is the ability to apply knowledge from one topic to another. But is it essential for building reading comprehension? 🚀 Join READS Lab as we ring in the new year with a 4-part series "From the Classroom to Beyond" where we dive into another core principle of MORE: transfer. Listen as Professor James Kim, READS Lab Principal Investigator and professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explains why transfer should be a teacher’s top priority.