The Knowledge Matters Podcast
The Knowledge Matters Podcast explores the critical role of knowledge-building in education. Each season covers pressing issues, innovative ideas, and transformative solutions for educators, administrators, parents, and anyone interested in the evolving landscape of learning.
Episodes
History as a Connected Story | History Matters Podcast
Coherent history curriculum is chronological. That’s the conclusion of April Croy and Michelle Palmieri, former English language arts curriculum writers now developing a new social studies curriculum, Tapestry. The sisters, who co-founded Lumina Learning, explain their thinking in an engaging conversation with host Ebony McKiver on this episode of the History Matters Podcast.The conversation explo
How History Knowledge Fuels Literacy and Inquiry | History Matters Podcast
The science of reading is a frequent topic of conversation and source of policy reform, with new mandates for curriculum and instruction coming online in dozens of states this year. But it’s not just for literacy teachers, history educator Amy Rosenkrans notes in this episode of the History Matters Podcast.In conversation with host Ebony McKiver, Amy says the science of reading has “reinforced wha
Kentucky’s Big Moves in Literacy and History | History Matters Podcast
Kentucky recently announced it is developing a statewide knowledge-building K-8 social studies curriculum. Teachers in the Bluegrass State have already been making the transition to follow the science of reading, to positive effect, but leaders know that literacy development doesn’t just happen in English language arts. Rich content in social studies is a big part of the puzzle.In this episode, ho
The Time for History Is Now | History Matters Podcast
Literacy and history go hand-in-glove. And when educators experience the multiplier effect of evidence-based, knowledge-building instruction in these subjects, they are moved to prioritize instructional time for both. In this episode, host Barbara Davidson speaks with a New Jersey educator whose district has experienced this firsthand: Anthony Fitzpatrick, Assistant Superintendent for the Delsea R
Helping Students Read the World | History Matters Podcast
Social studies is an essential component of literacy, because it allows students to build the knowledge and vocabulary they’ll need to comprehend increasingly complex texts. In this episode, host Kyair Butts is joined by guest Melissa Loftus, a former teacher, curriculum developer, and co-host of the Melissa & Lori Love Literacy podcast. She explains why phonics alone is essential but not enou
The Science of Learning History | History Matters Podcast
Season 2 of the History Matters Podcast begins with a fascinating conversation between a cognitive scientist and middle-school teacher about the powerful connection between social studies, literacy, and learning.Today’s guest is Dr. Cynthia Nebel, the Director of Learning Services and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at St. Louis University School of Medicine. She’s
Introducing the History Matters Podcast Season 2: Connecting History to the Classroom | History Matters Podcast
What kinds of history instruction build content knowledge and civic awareness? Why is social studies content such a power player when it comes to literacy? How can schools make time for these critical learning opportunities? In Season 2 of the History Matters Podcast, hosts Kyair Butts, Barbara Davidson, and Ebony McKiver explore these questions in dynamic conversations with educators, experts, an
Bonus Episode: Season 3 Reunion with Hosts Natalie Wexler, Dylan Wiliam, and Doug Lemov
Welcome to a special edition of the Knowledge Matters Podcast. This episode is a special bonus—an audio recording of our recent webinar, Literacy and the Science of Learning. It is a dynamic, hourlong conversation between three exciting experts in the field: Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler, facilitated by Kristen McQuillan of StandardsWork.In this webinar, the panel responds to listen
Bonus Episode: Following History's Stories, on Film | History Matters Podcast
Thirteen colonies rose up, rebelled against an Empire, and won their independence. These unlikely victors built a new nation on democratic principles that inspired similar movements around the world.How should we tell the story of our nation’s founding? Guests Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, who co-directed The American Revolution with Ken Burns, explain how chronology and characters shape their
Curiosity That Goes Beyond the Classroom | History Matters Podcast
In Thermopolis, Wyoming, second-grade students love learning about the War of 1812, from the swashbuckling sea battles off the coast of Louisiana to the bombardment at Maryland’s Fort McHenry that inspired the “Star-Spangled Banner”—engaging lessons that build knowledge alongside literary and historical thinking skills.This type of learning is powered by a strong, coherent curriculum that ensures
The Four Questions That Make History Come Alive | History Matters Podcast
Many teachers build history lessons on primary sources like letters and legal documents. But without context and historical thinking skills, students can’t make much meaning from them, say guests Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman, co-founders of the Four Question Method for history instruction.“Primary sources, for us, are ways to practice doing what historians do. 8th graders aren't historians,
Building Teachers' Historical Knowledge | History Matters Podcast
What do teachers need to successfully teach high-quality history lessons in elementary school?A strong curriculum is a great start, but teachers also need aligned professional learning and time to dig in and build the content knowledge that supports confident instruction, says guest Courtney Dumas. In this episode, she explains how her organization, Edu20/20, is supporting Louisiana educators as t
Massachusetts' Big Move on Elementary History | History Matters Podcast
In Medway, Massachusetts, “social studies is a subject to be valued,” fifth-grade teacher Jennifer Lindsey explains in this episode. “It’s the place to teach kids how to talk to each other and negotiate conversations and digest information and form an opinion—but also listen to others’ opinions and back that up with evidence,” she says.This content-rich, inquiry-based learning is powered by Invest
History Can’t Wait Until High School | History Matters Podcast
In the typical American high school, 9th-grade history students are expected to dive into the historical content, grapple with complex ideas, and engage in deep inquiry. But teenage students often lack the historical knowledge such tasks require. If you haven’t learned much about the Civil War, for example, you won’t be ready to discuss whether the Compromise of 1877 was a fair deal.That’s one of
The Power of Historical Knowledge | History Matters Podcast
The more history young students know, the more they want to know. That’s one of the joyful discoveries that elementary teachers are making in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. In this episode, guests Angela Barfoot and Lauren Cascio describe the rewards of using Bayou Bridges, a content-rich, knowledge-building social studies curriculum, in combination with a high-quality ELA curriculum, Louisiana Guide
What Makes Great Elementary History Curriculum | History Matters Podcast
Teaching history involves balance: too many facts and it’s boring, too few and students don’t have enough information to make sense of what they’ve learned. In this episode, host Barbara Davidson speaks with Sean Dimond, a former middle-school teacher and Louisiana state social studies director who is now senior social studies editor at the Core Knowledge Foundation.Dimond notes that in elementary
A Case for Teaching History in Elementary School | History Matters Podcast
Elementary schools spend almost no time teaching history. How did we get here, and how can we reprioritize this crucial foundation for literacy and knowledge? Host Barbara Davidson begins the eight-part “History Matters” podcast with a reflective and forward-looking conversation with guest Robert Pondiscio, an author and former fifth-grade teacher who founded the Knowledge Matters Campaign.Pondisc
Natalie Wexler on How Writing Promotes Clear Thinking | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 6 | “Teaching students to write clearly was actually teaching them to think clearly.” In the Season 3 finale, host Natalie Wexler brings listeners inside Monroe City Schools, a high-poverty Louisiana district where educators have paired a content-rich curriculum with explicit writing instruction. This combination has not only helped students become fluent writers but also expanded
Natalie Wexler on Memory and the Writing Effect | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 5 | Writing is hard—and teaching writing is even harder. But science tells us it’s well worth the effort, because writing flexes the mental muscles that nurture literacy and learning.Host Natalie Wexler connects cognitive science to specific writing practices that transfer information from working to long-term memory and require students to retrieve and elaborate on that informati
Doug Lemov on the Power of Whole Books | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 4 | “The book is in a death struggle with electronic and social media. And right now, it’s losing.”Host Doug Lemov makes a spirited case for reading whole books in the classroom—especially since today’s students read almost no books outside of school. He’s joined by guests Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week and cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham and speaks with two Texas educ
Doug Lemov on Fluency’s Impact on Comprehension | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 3 | When we read fluently, we recognize words without effort. We also maintain an engaged pace (automaticity) and perceive expression (prosody), all of which support attention and leave working memory free to make meaning from a text. This is a complex achievement, and many students have fractured attention spans. What can educators do to account for interruptions and focus on bui
Dylan Wiliam on Building Student Knowledge | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 2 | Our memories grow stronger when we work to retrieve them. That’s why flash cards and pop quizzes are effective: they prompt students to recall and access information from their memory bank. What other instructional tools and techniques help students remember what they’ve learned, and how can teachers put these to use?Host Dylan Wiliam takes a deep dive into four vitally import
Dylan Wiliam on How the Brain Learns | Literacy and the Science of Learning
Season 3 Episode 1 | How can schools and teachers maximize student learning? To answer this question, we need to understand how the human mind works. What needs to be explicitly taught, how many new things can we remember at a time, and what is the role of background knowledge in easing students’ cognitive loads?Host Dylan Wiliam begins the six-part “Literacy and the Science of Learning” podcast w
Trailer | Introducing Season 3: Literacy and the Science of Learning
How is the Science of Reading connected to the Science of Learning? Join hosts Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler as they delve into the links between the two, both in theory and practice, in Season 3 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast. Across six 30-minute episodes, we’ll explore how long-term memory shapes reading comprehension, why reading whole books is better than excerpts on a screen
Bonus Episode: Writing: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension
This bonus episode is an audio recording of our most popular webinar ever, Writing: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension. It features familiar voices to listeners of Season 1 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast, best-selling author and host Natalie Wexler, as well as StandardsWork’s Chief Program Officer Kristen McQuillan, Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion), and Julia Cooper (SchoolKit).Their conv
Bonus Episode: Knowledge: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension
Today’s episode is a special bonus—an audio recording of our recent webinar, Knowledge: Why It Matters. We found the conversation so valuable that we wanted to make it accessible in as many ways as possible.In this episode, StandardsWork’s Chief Program Officer Kristen McQuillan and Baltimore City Public Schools teacher Kyair Butts join Dr. Susan Neuman (New York University) and Dr. Margaret “Modd
Building Stamina for Deep Reading | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 6 | Explorers boldly venture into unfamiliar worlds, where confidence, curiosity, knowledge, and persistence are rewarded. When students approach texts like explorers, they bring these same qualities to the task—a mindset cognitive scientists call the “standard of coherence.” Such reading is purposeful, engaging, and expands the reader’s horizons. Reading anywhere, anytime is not
How Rich Texts Fuel Stronger Comprehension | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 5 | 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
Making Reading a Social Experience | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 4 | How do actual teachers and students “center the text” in reading classrooms? In this episode, David and Meredith Liben get specific with teachers and experts about how read alouds and close reading can connect students of all ages and literacy levels to a text—and to one another.Two ideas animate the discussion. First, theory is not terribly helpful without practice. And secon
Why Strategy-First Reading Instruction Holds Students Back | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 3 | When’s the last time you finished a chapter of a book and thought, “Hmmm, what was the main idea?” Competent readers don’t ask themselves this question. They’re too busy focusing on the text itself, not the component strategies that help us understand them. But that’s not how traditional curriculum and instructional practices work. Instead, they teach reading through a strateg
Vocabulary’s Central Role in Developing Strong Readers | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 2 | Imagine reading a story about a trial, but not knowing the meaning of “indicted” or “exonerated.” Without a lot of determination and a dictionary, you’d be lost. The knowledge and vocabulary readers bring to a text substantially determine how readily they comprehend it–a fact that’s just as relevant in ELA as it is in social studies and science class.In this episode, David and
A Reading Comprehension Call to Arms | Know Better, Do Better
Season 2 Episode 1 | In today’s reading classrooms, too many kids are not alright. One of the biggest challenges is comprehension–or rather, its absence. Students don't understand what they read well enough to think deeply, connect what they are learning to the wider world, and prepare for the futures they want. On this episode, hosts David and Meredith Liben break down reading comprehension:
Trailer | Introducing Season 2: Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension
Season 2 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast is here! Teachers and reading experts David and Meredith Liben host “Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension,” a six-part podcast series based on their book of the same name.With their signature charm and straight talk, David and Meredith take on an urgent problem in American schools today—kids not understanding what they read—and how reading comprehension c
Taking on the Knowledge-Building Challenge | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 6 | “Think what a better society we’ll have” | American education has a number of serious problems – and our failure to start building kids' knowledge early is a fundamental one. By now you know that reading comprehension is complicated and as you’ll hear, so is the explanation for what has gone wrong with the way American schools have approached it. In the sixth and final ep
Leadership and Literacy Reform | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 5 | “Everything was in silos” | So far in "The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited", we've heard from classroom teachers about their experiences making the shift from the standard approach to reading comprehension – which focuses on having kids practice supposedly general skills like “finding the main idea” – to a newer approach. That new appr
Reading and Writing Go Hand-in-Hand | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 4 | “Now they had something to write about” | In the last episode of "The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited", you heard from three teachers – Abby, Deloris, and Kyair – who talked about their experiences using some of the knowledge-building literacy curricula that have recently been developed. In Episode 4, you’ll hear from them again, and you’ll
Classroom Insights on Knowledge-Rich Curriculum | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 3 | “That cloud looks like an anvil” | In Episode 3 of "The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited" you’ll hear from three teachers who’ve experienced the before and after of the shift to using a knowledge-building curriculum in their classrooms.Abby Boruff, Deloris Fowler, and Kyair Butts are three classroom teachers who are, in some ways, very diffe
Where Reading Instruction Went Wrong | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 2 | “A simple way of looking at a complex problem” | In the second episode of "The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited", host Natalie Wexler dives into persistent misconceptions about reading comprehension that have pervaded the education system for decades. Unpacking the fact that teachers have often believed they were teaching comprehension when,
How Content Knowledge Builds Motivation to Read | Reading Comprehension Revisited
Season 1 Episode 1 | “Kids were bored to death” | Welcome to the inaugural episode of the six-part Knowledge Matters Podcast series, "Reading Comprehension Revisited," where education writer and host, Natalie Wexler, tackles one of the most pressing issues in education: the reading crisis. Natalie poses essential questions: Why do students from low-income backgrounds typically score lowe
Trailer | Introducing the Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited
"Reading Comprehension Revisited," the inaugural series from the Knowledge Matters Podcast. Hosted by Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of “The Knowledge Gap”, this series explores one of the most pressing dilemmas in education today: the hidden cause of America’s reading crisis.In this powerful and compelling series, Natalie tackles crucial questions such as, why do stude
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