Summer Short Read 1: "Do I Have Your Attention?" with Blake Harvard!

 

"Without knowledge of human cognitive processes, instructional design is blind."

Blake Harvard quoted this work in his awesome resource, Do I Have Your Attention? and it also stopped me in my tracks. There is nothing I love more than a quick, meaty summer read filled with action steps for teaching & learning. Blake is a classroom teacher seeking to ensure his students walk out the door remembering & genuinely learning the content -- the dream of every teacher, I know. Yet, he shares some very evidence-based practices to help all of us make this happen in our classrooms, while also acknowledging that NO ONE has all the answers. It is always refreshing to hear from leaders, experts, and educators that no one has the silver bullet answer-- and if someone claims it, they are giving you a big gulp of "snake oil" (if you haven't heard that expression, check out Holly Lane's presentation).

The first part of Do I Have Your Attention? focuses on research & evidence -- I highly recommend taking the time to digest it.  In education, we just want to know the WHAT -- tell me what to do -- but not knowing the WHY has put us in a lot of hot water over time. It is in our best interest to start asking the difficult questions before implementing the latest hottest trend in our classrooms -- and Educators are just the ones to lead these discussions. Blake does an awesome job of sharing the research that had the most impact on his understanding of memory and how it impacts learning. 

My email box is often full of concerns about students no longer having long enough attention spans to grasp the concepts that must be taught. Blake shares some action steps that will help with this deep concern across all classrooms (including Higher Ed)! Do I Have Your Attention? brings understanding memory constraints to the forefront of classroom application. Part of this discussion includes understanding the distractors that deter learning and how to help students LEARN how to pay attention -- I first heard this from Zach Groshell as he shared his story of how a teacher took the time to TEACH him what paying attention looks like & sounds like -- perhaps a much needed strategy in our TikTok attention-filled world. 

In the meantime, here are just 3 of my favorite action-packed strategies from Blake's resource:

1.  Anchor with Emotion

What it is: Connect content to emotional experiences—stories, personal reflections, or real-world stakes.
Why it works: Emotionally charged content activates the amygdala, enhancing memory and attention.
Classroom move: Use storytelling or ask students to relate concepts to meaningful moments in their lives (e.g., “When have you ever felt like an underdog in history, like the colonies in the American Revolution?”). I was blown away to discover this year that the brain reacts to story telling in a unique way -- and it is a great way to enhance learning. More reading on my part is needed in this area, but it has made me stop and think about the presentation of new material. 

2.  Make Thinking Visible

What it is: Use tools like think-alouds, anchor charts, or whiteboard snapshots of student thinking.
Why it works: When students see the learning process, not just the result, it activates metacognition and encourages sustained attention.
Try this: Use a visible thinking routine like “See-Think-Wonder” or capture evolving ideas during a discussion on a shared board. Valentina Gonzalez speaks extensively on a Vocabulary Wall that includes pictures for ML Learners -- I think it is a powerful strategy for all of our students. Do you use one? I'd love to see it!

3.  Utilize Desirable Difficulty

What it is: Design learning activities that challenge students just enough to require effort—but not so hard that they give up.
Why it works: Struggling productively keeps the brain active, promotes deeper processing, and boosts long-term retention.
How to use it: Try retrieval practice, interleaving, or asking students to explain concepts in their own words before giving them the answers. Retrieval practice is a critical component of my Literacy Courses at IUK. Students groan but by the end of the semester, they realize the importance as they are required to reflect on this activity in their own host classrooms and future classrooms. 

Which strategy is an AHA for you? I'm happy to report that Blake Harvard will be providing a session at Wabash Valley Education Center in the fall! Can't wait to learn more from him!

Molly Ness, Katie Pace Miles, and Orthographic Mapping!

 

"The average reader instantly and effortlessly recognizes 30,000 - 70,000 words, with no need to decode them or sound them out (Mather and Jaffe, 2021). But that does not mean decoding wasn't necessary for that to happen - or more specifically, to get those words into memory." 

Wowza!  I couldn't start the summer without finishing this amazing resource from Molly & Katie! From the very beginning, I was carried down a memory lane of mistaken spelling practices that were encouraged in my host classrooms and then later continued in my own centers with all grade levels. But just like Molly and Katie emphasize in their book, once we know better, we CAN do better!  

My absolute favorite was their 4-step system of making spelling instruction explicit and intentional - all of us can utilize it no matter what resource has been adopted.  If you are frustrated with the lack of transfer during written responses -- if you are ready to move beyond the Monday-Friday traditional list of memorization with minimal results -- please grab this research-to-practice quick read for changing and improving instruction for your students!

While the 4-step routine is detailed in the book, here are my three thoughts to ponder:

1. Orthographic Mapping Is Key to Long-Term Word Retention

Miles & Ness emphasize that orthographic mapping—the mental process of connecting sounds (phonemes), letters (graphemes), and meaning—is the foundation of fluent word reading. Students don't memorize whole words; instead, they map them sound by sound. Understanding this cognitive process reshapes how educators should approach decoding and spelling instruction.

Takeaway: Teaching should focus on helping students connect sound, symbol, and meaning—not just memorizing word lists. In my university classroom, we speak about this quite extensively and read the work of Dr. Ehri to further our understanding. The Teaching Reading Sourcebook, while huge and almost overwhelming, is an awesome resource to utilize for ideas in the 5 pillars!

2. The Four-Step Routine Makes Word Learning Systematic and Predictable

The heart of the book is a four-step instructional routine that supports orthographic mapping:

1. Pronounce and Segment – Say the word and break it into phonemes.

2. Identify Graphemes – Map the sounds to letters or spelling patterns.

3. Analyze for Patterns – Discuss any irregularities or patterns.

4. Practice and Review – Engage in active, repeated practice.

Takeaway: Consistently using this routine strengthens students’ decoding, encoding, and meaning retention in a simple, repeatable format. I love connecting it to a triangle model in my classroom -- see it, say it, write it. 

3. Meaning Matters

A unique strength of the authors' approach is how it integrates meaning-making into word recognition. Rather than teaching phonics in isolation, the routine ends with a focus on word meaning and usage. This creates deeper learning and increases the likelihood that students will remember and use the word.

Takeaway: Word learning is most effective when it links sound, spelling, and meaning—not just one or two components. We also connect this to a triangle figure -- letters, sounds, and meaning -- in my literacy course. We discuss how words should be utilized and modeled in a sentence to help student's understand meaning and usage.  Many teachers have practiced this routine to utilize with their students in my explicit phonics instruction & vocabulary work sessions. 

What are your key-takeaways?