Listen Up!

What to expect:

5 min read

This week, we dive into helping our auditory learners - the second largest learning class in every grade. Here’s what you can expect:

• Tech Talk: Podcasts - what can’t they do??

• Surplus Scoop: A solution to the US teacher shortage?

• Brainy Bits: The secret to helping your students read.

Tech Talk

The new bedtime story

Last week, we focused on engaging visual learners. This week, we turn our attention to auditory learners who make up about 30% of all students. Keep in mind that all of us are not only one type of learner; we tend to be a mix.

Auditory learners are best served by listening. But it’s not just about vocalization; the content and method of delivery is really what matters. These students may enjoy traditional teaching, but with our shrinking attention spans, it’s the conversations and stories that impact these students the most.

We see this with adults too. The boom of podcasting in recent years speaks for itself, with nearly 500 million listeners spending at least 7 hours per week listening (check out other cool podcasting stats here).

This week’s edtech is not an app or a program - but a unique approach to audio-based learning - a podcast for students. We’re going to apply it to the last subject you thought it would work for - Science class. Introducing Tumble.

Tumble is a short-story, weekly podcast hosted by a science journalist and a teacher. Their goal is to engage blind, visually impaired, and sighted students in STEM via storytelling. However, even students who do not fall into those categories can benefit.

Tumble is available for free on most audio streaming services. Each week, in roughly 20 minute engaging episodes, they tackle different science facts and stories. They break for summer vacation but still post encore episodes during this time.

On their website there are full lessons that are based on their podcasts, including assessment questions. However, they are currently only targeted towards one topic. As much as we hope they continue to make more of these pre-built lessons, teachers can use the template to utilize these podcasts in their own lessons. 

Even though the topics may be random, it is surprisingly easy to make connections to broader scientific topics. Instead of showing the same old YouTube videos, why not present the information in a brand new way?

Storytelling is powerful - generations upon generations of culture were (and are) built upon this. The human brain connects with storytelling in a much deeper way than reading a textbook. Why not take advantage of it for our learners?

Have you found any similar podcasts for students? We’d love to hear about it - reply and let us know!

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• Well, well, well - looks like we finally know the reason for the US teacher shortage, at least according to the US Senate.

• After years of war, Ukraine looks to its schools to help rebuild.

• The Canadian government has just pledged 1 billion dollars to feed more hungry students. Here’s how it will help.

Brainy Bits

The research is telling

Continuing with our auditory theme, let’s dive into some very recently published Brazilian research by Malcorra et al. (2024). Their question was simple - does a student’s speech development predict their reading success?

Their team utilized a longitudinal study; this involves a long term set of observations as opposed to interventions. Over the course of an entire school year, researchers followed the reading and speaking progress of 253 first and second grade students. Five times throughout the year, researchers assessed these students on their speaking and reading abilities. So, what did they look for?

At each interval students were shown one of three simple images for 15 seconds. They then had to create a verbal 30 second narration about it. For reading, students had to complete a task that included either eye-tracking, single word vocabulary, or phonological awareness. The data was then compared between the two throughout the school year.

The results? The more oral connections students made, the higher the success rate of phonological awareness, reading comprehension, and word reading accuracy. The really cool part though? Researchers could practically pinpoint how long the transition would be from spoken to reading skills. On average, students who performed well orally showed a similar progress in their reading skills within 3-4 months. For most teachers, that is about a term or semester’s length.

What can we do with these findings? Well, if you have students who are struggling with key reading development areas, take a step back and focus on the oral speaking first - and stick to it. If the change takes a term to produce success, that’s okay! Also, this paper shows us that we should be targeting verbal content to what students are struggling with. For example, having them verbally pronounce each syllable in a word to better help them sight-read. Don’t forget to include your school’s SLP (if available) as they will be able to provide a host of other resources to better aid your learners.

Just as we must crawl before we walk, many students need to speak before they read. Got any other auditory strategies? Hit reply to let us know!

Tell your friends about us!

Interested in growing with us? Want us to feature your tech tool, resource, or research? Hit reply to start a conversation.

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

Have an idea for some classroom tech, strategies, or research that you think is valuable for the community? Respond to this email and let us know.

References

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Tumble Media (2024). A science podcast for kids. Retrieved from https://www.sciencepodcastforkids.com/

Brainy Bits:

Malcorra, B., Ribeiro, M., Jensen, L., Gomes, G., Meletti, T., & Mota, N.B. (2024). Speech connectedness predicts reading performance three months in advance: a longitudinal experiment. NPJ science of learning. 9. 35. 10.1038/s41539-024-00248-4.