Shelly Todd

Here's a study on exactly that point: The proportion of academic words used by teachers during the school day is a significant predictor of student vocabulary growth and reading achievement. Research indicates that higher teacher usage of sophisticated, academic language directly correlates to higher student vocabulary scores at the end of the year, particularly for language-minority students. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37541302/

I'm inspired by teacher Faith Howard who transformed fluency drills into meaningful learning. Instead of generic practice passages, she uses interesting articles connected to class novels. Students read the same article all week with different daily activities: tackling big words, exploring word meanings, writing sentences, discussing ideas, and practicing spelling. Her struggling high school readers now build knowledge and skills—not just reading speed. scienceofreadingclassroom.substack.com/p/i-was-doing-…

Fifty-three more amazing teachers trained on explicit teaching with science of reading @olatheschools

…because you can’t teach executive functions, but you can be aware of their development and structure the learning experience in their favor.

Reading and writing are often understood as related skills, but what is the relationship between reading and writing automaticity? Tortorelli and Truckenmiller investigate this in a recent research article, which we break down in our latest blog post: irrc.education.uiowa.edu/blog/2026/03/t…

Still hear this justification re: AI in classrooms: “It’s out there & we can't be left behind.” Friendly challenge: which happens more often? 1. Schools regretted waiting too long to adopt a technology. 2. Schools regretted adopting a technology before they knew how to use it.

I quote you often @rpondiscio

“Essentially, early math fact fluency serves as a reliable predictor of a student's long-term mathematical potential”… ❤️❤️❤️

Congratulations to Kim Dahl for her Literacy Legacy Award! The things she’s done @olatheschools to improve literacy for all students are incredible and I’m lucky to work with her.

My dream: that systems be set up for this sort of research and data driven practice where every single student is accounted for.

@BenisonMrs Here is the newest study examining the effects of intensifying reading interventions with the instructional hierarchy. @ScienceofRead @ILAToday @CECMembership @TheNCII @nasponline @reading_league researchgate.net/publication/38…

"Low reading ability is not something that only happens to a few kids in each school. It befalls entire neighborhoods scourged by poverty. If the poor schools teach only as much reading as the more advantaged ones, then kids in the poor schools can never catch up."

Today’s listen… the principles make sense, based on cognitive science and wha effective teachers do. Why aren’t we talking about them more in the US? Or have I missed it? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cha…

In our recent #ScienceofLearning webinar, @Doug_Lemov explained why writing is powerful: it slows thinking.📝 A 30-second jot during reading creates desirable difficulty, helping students reach ideas & vocabulary beyond speaking speed. #KnowledgeMatters

What is the number 1 thing schools are getting wrong in applying the science of learning? For me it's retrieval practice and this post attempts to say why: substacktools.com/sharex/5L00NJ01

Hexagonal thinking displayed at both Oregon Trail and Mission Trail middle schools today! Teachers in ELA and social studies are using it to have students discuss and make connections about their new learning. @olatheschools

“Greatness” isn’t just about using evidencebased practices. It’s about having systems that notice when they aren’t working, and the courage to change them. Powerful insight from @hollykorbey: open.substack.com/pub/hollykorbe… Programs don’t save kids. Systems do.

“Encoding is not simply a step to writing; it is a vital but underappreciated route to reading. It requires a deeper and more consistent practice of identifying the individual speech sounds in words and linking those sounds to letters. It engages children from the beginning with meaningful words, not isolated skills. The segmentation and construction of spoken words build essential neural networks and provide a meaningful route to phoneme awareness and phonics, as children learn to master the ingenious code of letters that makes spoken words visible.” ( Herron & Gillis, 2020). Read this do-not-miss article, Encoding as a Route to Phoneme Awareness and Phonics: A Shift in Literacy Instruction, by Jeannine Herron and Margie Gillis, here: onlinedigeditions.com/article/Encodi…

“Another example of the problem of confusing curriculum and instruction is when teachers focus on activities (instruction) without sufficient consideration of the potential outcomes of those activities (curriculum).”

I always worry that when I’m presenting professional learning, it doesn’t feel relevant to our PE teachers. This study is fascinating…