Have you ever read something and then realized you didn’t totally understand it? That’s the hallmark of a challenging text, and it’s something students encounter all the time.

In this episode, David and Meredith Liben discuss three ways to connect students with sophisticated texts, even if they can’t yet read or comprehend them on their own: juicy sentences, explain your answer, and structured journaling.

First, linguist and language scholar Lily Wong Fillmore shares the origin story of her “juicy sentences” strategy, where teachers divide content-rich sentences into “chunks” and help students build vocabulary and knowledge through focused instruction and discussion. 

The Libens then share personal examples of two other instructional techniques that foster reading comprehension and the metacognition that supports its growth: explaining the answer and structured journaling.

Explaining the answer is just that: asking students to answer a question and explain their response using evidence from the text. The magic lies in choosing questions based on a careful pre-read of the text at hand, not a learning standard. Students learn to identify what they do and don’t understand, and then practice returning to the text to re-read. 

Finally, the Libens discuss structured journaling, where a teacher chooses an important section of the text and students respond to four questions:  

• What are the most important ideas here? 
• What don't I understand? 
• How does this connect to what we've been discussing in class - or other texts that we've been reading? 
• Do you have any reflection (aka ‘I wonder’) questions? 

These techniques focus students on the text while also helping them expand their thinking about what they have read. For example, David recalls how a second-grade student wondered why the author of The Tale of Despereaux described certain settings as light and dark, which sparked a class wide discussion about symbolism. 

The discussion probes connections between these classroom techniques and cognitive science. Rachel Stack, a former teacher at the school the Libens started and now at Great Minds, shares a compelling story about how she worried her students would get tired of explaining their answers, but they never did.

For more information about this episode, visit the Knowledge Matters Podcast website. The research, studies and artifacts mentioned are posted on the Knowledge Matters Campaign curriculum review tool.

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters Campaign and StandardsWork. Follow the Knowledge Matters Campaign on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Search #knowledgematters and join this important conversation. If you'd like to get in touch with David and Meredith, you can contact them through their website, readingdoneright.org.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea. Narration recorded at Bamboo Recording Studios.