Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ® | Science of Reading for Teachers

Episode 257
Why do so many students appear to thrive in early literacy, only to stall by middle school?
In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Kockler to unpack what literacy data from Louisiana revealed about a common but often misunderstood pattern: strong early reading results followed by flat or declining comprehension growth in later grades.
At the center of the conversation is the concept of the Decoding Threshold: the point at which students can read words accurately and automatically enough to access grade-level text and grow in comprehension.
Rebecca explains:
What happens when students never fully cross that threshold
Why decoding instruction must continue through middle school
How multisyllabic decoding becomes a critical turning point around fourth grade
The powerful connection between morphology, vocabulary, and spelling
Why fluency is the first true step of application
How reader identity influences students’ willingness to grapple with challenging text
What effective assessment actually looks like for older readers
You’ll walk away with practical strategies to support multisyllabic decoding, vocabulary and spelling development, integrated fluency practice, & tier 1 instruction that adapts to increasing language complexity.
If you’ve ever wondered why students who “learned to read” struggle later — this conversation will reshape how you think about literacy instruction in elementary and middle school.
Resources
Resources for Educators 
Why "Learn to Read, Read to Learn" Fails Older Readers - And How To Fix It
Action Guide for Educators 
ROAR
Standards & Instructional Practices 
We Never Stop Learning to Read by Chase Young (blog) 
Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.

Episode 256 
Faith Howard shares practical strategies for improving literacy skills in middle and high school students, focusing on decoding multisyllabic words, spelling routines, and fluency practices. This episode offers actionable insights for educators aiming to enhance reading comprehension and word attack skills.

Resources 
Encoding & Decoding with Word Pyramids Blog
I Was Doing Fluency Wrong - Until I Made It About Knowledge Blog
Teachers Teach Teachers | Science of Reading YouTube Channel Video
Read Like Us Podcast Episode with Jake Downs & Chase Young 
Tight Ten Article
Literacy Lab with Faith Facebook Page 
Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.

If you’ve ever wondered how to help your students decode longer words, this episode is for you! We’re joined by literacy researcher and professor Devin Kearns to talk all about teaching multisyllabic words.
Many phonics programs focus on single-syllable words, but what happens when students hit big words and get stuck? Devin unpacks the research behind why that happens and what we can do instead. We talk about:
flexible decoding strategies,
when and how to teach syllables and morphemes,
and what “set for variability” really looks like in the classroom (spoiler: it’s not guessing!).
You’ll walk away with practical, research-backed ideas to help your students read longer words with confidence.
Devin M. Kearns, Ph.D., is the Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Early Literacy at NC State, where he studies early reading and collaborates with experts in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience to explore the brain basis of reading.

RESOURCES
Helping Students With Dyslexia Read Long Words: Using Syllables and Morphemes by Devin M. Kearns and Victoria M. Whaley
Following the Rules in an Unruly WritingSystem: The Cognitive Science ofLearning to Read Englishby Devin M. Kearns and Matthew J. Cooper Borkenhagen
Syllable Division: New Data that Can Inform Intervention by Joanne Marttila Pierson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
On Eating Elephants and Teaching Syllabication by Tim Shanahan
Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Connect with us! Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.
Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.

Episode 255
Experts Don Compton & Laura Steacy explore the complexities of multisyllabic word reading and the decoding challenges older readers encounter, especially those with dyslexia. They discuss how readers navigate complex words using different decoding strategies, the role of morphology and “set for variability” in reading development, and how tools like the DELP database help predict word difficulty. The episode offers practical insights into supporting literacy development and improving instruction for struggling readers.
Resources 
D-ELP Tool 
FCRR Student Center Activities 

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.

Episode 254
In this episode, we sit down with kindergarten teacher Anjanette McNeely to take a close look at one powerful instructional routine: word chaining.
Anjanette walks us through exactly what word chaining looks like in her classroom, from the materials she uses to the language she says, and explains why this routine is such an effective way to build both phonemic awareness and phonics at the same time.
We also explore how word chaining supports orthographic mapping, why connecting sounds to print matters, and how small instructional shifts, like continuous blending and interleaving, can have a big impact on student learning.
Whether you're new to word chaining or looking to refine your practice, this episode offers practical ideas you can try right away.
Resources
Word Chaining: An Efficient and Effective Alternative to Oral Phonemic Awareness by Anjanette McNeely: Blog post about word chaining and a video of Anjanette's classroom in action 
Word Chaining: A Simple Routine for Reading and Spelling (printable) You can see a picture of Anjanette's word chaining tray here
Word Chains for Decoding and Encoding Practice: An overview on how to make and use word chains to teach decoding and encoding (from UFLI) 
44 Phonemes (video): Learn how to pronounce the 44 phonemes in the English alphabet (from Rollins Center for Language and Literacy)

Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.