Welcome to Digital Learning Today. In this episode, Jeff Bradbury explores the strategic systems that shape the future of education, focusing on Instructional Coaching, Artificial Intelligence, Professional Learning, and the latest Educational Technology Trends. In this episode, Jeff Bradbury interviews Caroline Davidson from World Book about literacy, content knowledge, and innovative tools like Classmate to support teachers and students. They explore strategies for integrating literacy across content areas and supporting diverse learners.

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• Strategic Vision for Digital Learning:Learn how to create a district-wide vision that aligns digital learning with your educational goals, transforming how standards-based instruction is designed and supported.
• Curriculum Design and Implementation:Discover practical strategies for integrating digital learning into existing curricula, creating vertical alignment of skills, and mapping digital learning across grade levels.
• Effective Instructional Coaching:Master the art of coaching people rather than technology, building relationships that drive success, and measuring impact through student engagement rather than just technology usage.

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In This Episode …

• The process of creating an encyclopedia and updating content
• The importance of literacy as a gatekeeper to knowledge
• How to support students with varying literacy levels
• The launch and purpose of World Book's Classmate platform
• Strategies for integrating literacy into content areas

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction to the episode and guest
• 07:08 Supporting students with prior knowledge and content familiarity
• 08:01 Understanding the difference between literacy and content knowledge
• 09:27 The importance of practice and explicit instruction in literacy
• 10:58 Cognitive load and prior knowledge in reading comprehension
• 12:10 Supporting new students and diverse learners
• 13:29 Introduction to World Book's Classmate platform
• 14:41 How Classmate supports literacy and content knowledge
• 15:14 Literacy as a gatekeeper to knowledge
• 16:36 Assessing student literacy and decoding skills
• 18:10 Supporting teachers without an ELA background
• 19:32 Supporting literacy in non-ELA content areas
• 21:17 Getting started with Classmate for teachers
• 22:11 Using Classmate to enhance content and literacy
• 23:41 Embedding literacy supports with AI tools
• 24:15 The role of instructional coaching in literacy support
• 25:17 Making literacy part of classroom culture
• 26:40 Advice for teachers starting the school year
• 28:21 Resources to learn more about World Book and Classmate
• 28:52 Lightning round: book recommendations and classroom routines

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• https://classmate.worldbook.com/

About our Guest: Caroline Davidson

Caroline Davidson is the Associate Manager of Learning Design at World Book, where she shapes educational resources that support meaningful learning. A former classroom teacher, she spent years working with students in grades 4–6 and holds endorsements in Reading K–12 and Mathematics K–8. She earned her M.A. in Differentiated Instruction, bringing both hands-on teaching experience and academic expertise to her work in creating effective, learner-centered content.

Meet ClassMate by World Book

Meet ClassMate by World Book — the reading and learning platform built for and trusted by middle school teachers! For over 100 years, World Book has inspired curiosity and built reliable knowledge. ClassMate carries that legacy forward. Unlike AI tools built on the open web, ClassMate works exclusively within World Book's expert-written, editorially reviewed content library. Teachers create engaging classroom activities quickly and with confidence. The result: students build knowledge, strengthen literacy, and think critically, while educators spend more time teaching.

Links of Interest

• https://classmate.worldbook.com/https://www.facebook.com/WorldBook/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/world-book/
• https://www.instagram.com/worldbookinc/

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Jeffrey Bradbury (: 00:00

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Teacher Cast Educational Network. My name is Jeff Bradbury. Thank you so much for joining us today and making Teacher Cast your home for professional development. On today's episode of Digital Learning, today we're going to be celebrating literacy and knowledge with our friends from WorldBook, where we're going to be talking today how you guys can create a classroom all about instruction and how we can bring our students to love reading and bring in a little bit of content knowledge.

This is the first time you're checking out our show. Don't forget to head on over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Hit that like and subscribe button. We thank you guys for being here and joining us today. If you're an instructional coach looking to make an impact this year in your school, please head on over to teachercast.net slash standards. Check out my brand new book, Impact Standards. Learn how you guys can make a splash and an impact in your classrooms today. That's teachercast.net forward slash standards.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 00:51

My guest today is a former classroom teacher serving students in grades four and five. And currently she's the associate manager of learning and design at World Book. And today she's here to discuss her love of literacy and learning. It is a pleasure to bring on my good friend, Miss Caroline Davidson. Caroline, how are you today? Welcome to the show.

Caroline Davidson (: 01:09

I'm doing great, Jeff. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the lovely welcome. I'm pumped to be here and to talk about teaching and learning and reading and all sorts of that good stuff. So yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 01:17

I I'm

so excited to have you on. This, of course, as we mentioned earlier, is the second of five episodes with our friends at World Book talking all about classmate. We're gonna get into that earlier, but talk to us a little bit about some of the things that are going on these days at WorldBook.

Caroline Davidson (: 01:33

Yeah, absolutely.

Worldbook is busy. We are busy with content like we have been for the last hundred some years working on building content over at World Book. we've got our newest encyclopedia, our latest encyclopedia has gone out to the printer, so that's already out and great. We've got some print books in the works, and then we've got Classmate, our big online new platform for teachers in the classroom to bring all of that great encyclopedic content into their everyday teaching.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 02:00

Now we had a lot of great feedback from our first episode, and I want to throw a couple questions at you. I had a teacher reach out and ask, What does it actually take to write an encyclopedia? When do you start? How long does it take? What's the process? What does it take to actually create a world book encyclopedia?

Caroline Davidson (: 02:21

That's a great question. A lot, a lot of work, a lot of great people. Our editorial team is fantastic. They are the backbone of what we do. I would say we've got a great internal team of editors that are just wicked smart. Sometimes I just want to be at lunch and can I just sit near you and hopefully a little osmosis off of you and I'll get some of that good knowledge from you. But they are wicked smart people. And then a lot, honestly, a lot of rules around how to author great content. And I have a feeling you'll chat with Tom a little bit more about all of that.

good stuff that goes into our content. Tom Evans is our vice president of editorial at World Book, and man does that man know all of the good stuff that goes all into what makes a great encyclopedic article, great encyclopedic content, great solid, reputable knowledge

building content for our kids.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 03:09

Okay, question number two How often do you guys create a new encyclopedia set?

Caroline Davidson (: 03:17

Ooh, a new encyclopedia

set? That's a great question. We publish the new encyclopedia physical sets once a year. So we still do that. We're the only place you can get a physical encyclopedia still. That comes out once a year, but

Our editors are updating our online database every single day. They are making changes to our content every single day to stay current. They're adding new articles. I think I just saw one recently on Bubble Tea going through. Like we're getting new stuff all the time and updating things too, which is why it takes such a big team of good team of solid people to do that. It's a bunch of information that we want to share with everybody.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 03:51

You

know, I love the product. I'll I'll throw one last question at you here, Caroline. Where do we go and learn more about the World Book Encyclopedia?

Caroline Davidson (: 03:57

if you want to find more information all about the World Book Encyclopedia, you can head to worldbook.com and check out our other stuff on there too. Our print books are fantastic.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 04:07

You know, one of the things I love about World Book is you really have this cross-content area subjects all over the place. And that's exactly what we're going to be discussing today. Literacy all across these different content areas. Talk to us a little bit about how WorldBook and how your team really thinks about literacy, creating products so that way students of all ages can learn and have those experiences that we remember growing up. Talk to us a little bit about how we.

Think about literacy these days.

Caroline Davidson (: 04:39

Yeah, literacy is this, it's such a pivotal piece, right? And I think often we think, okay, literacy is one thing and I have to work on my literacy and my knowledge building, and I'm gonna learn science and science and math and math and social studies and social studies. And yes, we need that, but they're so much more intertwined than we realize, right? Like I can build my knowledge through reading, right? My my literacy is the vehicle often.

To knowledge building, especially when we start to think about literacy as reading, but also beyond reading too, right? When we start to think about literacy as language at a as a whole, what am I getting from listening? What am I getting from speaking? What am I getting from reading and from writing that as well? So it's kind of about how I don't know, for me, I really see them as this intertwined thing.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 05:28

I use the word through a lot when I'm when I'm giving presentations and when I'm talking to other teachers and instructional coaching, you know, right now I teach digital media in middle school, but I'm doing that through

Caroline Davidson (: 05:40

Hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 05:40

language apps, through reading, through articulation, like through all of these different things. It's not that I'm teaching digital learning and I'm teaching reading. Is that something that teachers struggle with? Do we not see? Do you feel and when you're working with teachers that like,

There is a way to be all of these things if you just kind of go down a certain pathway here. It is hard.

Caroline Davidson (: 06:04

And it's hard, right? Like

it is absolutely it is challenging, right? Because I'm I come from elementary, right? My bread and my bread and butter is reading. I have a reading endorsement. That's my background. So naturally I'm thinking about reading and everything that I'm doing, but I also spent a year teaching in middle school. And I taught with teachers who didn't have that reading background. And they were

Nervous to dive into it. And I get why. I get why it's scary to be like, I'm a science teacher and I'm also gonna try to teach literacy. How do I do that? That's really overwhelming and scary, but like you're saying, you can. And I think the best way to do it is to kind of start small. Start where you can, right? And if it's just using text once a week more than you would have been before, that's already huge.

Right? It's just start where you are, start where you can and start to sneak it in when you can. A big part of it is just access to text. Time in text is so important, right? I mean practice. That's how we get better at anything. Practice makes progress. Spend time doing it.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 07:08

I think it's the application. I was seriously about an hour ago helping out my soon-to-be seventh grader. And

Caroline Davidson (: 07:15

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 07:15

for a homework assignment, he has to read a book and then break it into the four parts: the the beginning, rising action, climax, all that good stuff.

Caroline Davidson (: 07:22

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 07:23

And the assignment was basically, what's the theme of each of these four sections? The kid went through the entire book and basically went step by step with all the characters, but I said, Well, what's the theme?

Had a hard time with it, right?

Caroline Davidson (: 07:39

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 07:40

So do you see a connection or even a disconnection these days between literacy, learning, knowledge, all of those little words that we like to throw around, like, they're the same thing. Are they the same thing? Do you see a difference? Does your team, even at World Book, go, okay, I'm gonna write an article, but how do I know that someone's gonna understand this and be able to explain

Caroline Davidson (: 08:01

Mm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 08:02

it back?

Caroline Davidson (: 08:03

Yeah, it's a really good question. Are they different? Yes. Are they connected? Also, yes. Right? Like they are different.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 08:11

Probably the same.

Caroline Davidson (: 08:12

We do need to teach the concepts and content just as we should, but we also need to give that time to to do that practice. I think I'm gonna give a little example tangentied analysis or analogy here. Is is thinking about it as as we would in sports.

Right? If you're playing a sport, basketball, soccer, football, I was a swimmer, so mine is a little bit more independent sport. But if you're playing your sport, you're practicing something, you're working on something, and your coach notices something, they're gonna come up to you and teach you something explicit. Hey, here's how you hold the bat, here's how you dribble the bat, whatever. I wasn't clearly a sports player like those guys, but you know what I mean. They're gonna give you something explicit, and then you're gonna drill it, and then you're gonna fold it into practice, and then you're gonna scrimmage, and then you're gonna get to the game.

We're not just going from let me have you take this little skill to game. There's that intermittent like intermediate step that we sometimes forget. And I think that's what's happening with literacy in schools, especially in middle school, where the the stakes get really high for kids, right? Is we have that explicit instruction in ELA. They're getting it from their ELA teachers. Those teachers are doing their job. They're giving the explicit instruction that they need. And then the kids are going off to the real world to apply it and ooh, we skipped all the practice.

We just did the explicit instruction. We've skipped all that middle stuff. How do we get to the we can't just go to the game. We need all that middle ground in between there. And that's where content area teachers come in, I think. That's where my content area teachers, my science teachers, my math teachers, my PE teachers, my art teacher, you can get in on this too and say, okay, well, let's bring a little bit of reading in here.

What's practice that reading like a scientist would read, like a historian would read? We look for different stuff when I'm thinking like social studies than I do in my science class. We think a little bit differently in those content areas.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 10:01

Let's pick up on that. What do you think happens cognitively for students when they already understand the topic?

Caroline Davidson (: 10:08

Gosh, even just familiarity with the topic, Jeff. That's so huge when you think about the language demands of it, right? Familiarity with the words that we're using in the topic, the vocabulary, some of you in the gist of the concepts. When I then come to a new text, a challenging text, a grade level text, like most of our expository texts are in middle school, their grade level or higher sometimes, right? Because it's complicated content. We gotta explain it somehow.

When we come to that text, if we already have an understanding of it, my brain isn't coming to a word and then going, what does that mean? Huh? What is that word? How do I sound it out? No, I'm already know it. So my brain is free to look at that other stuff and to think more deeply about the content. It's kind of a cognitive load thing when you think about it that way, right? Like there is so much for middle school kids to be contending with going on in their brains. And if we can

get them more familiar with that content, that prior knowledge, the vocabulary, the language of the topic before they a they come to that text, man, they're gonna have such a better experience with that text and be able to actually think deeply about it rather than just think at that surface level and just barely get through it.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 11:15

Now, Carolyn, I I want to talk back and forth here because right now we've been focusing on students. I want to switch and focus on the teachers for a minute. You

Caroline Davidson (: 11:21

Yeah. Yes.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 11:23

are working a subject, you're working a problem, you're working a lesson, days and days and days, maybe even a semester.

Caroline Davidson (: 11:30

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 11:31

You know what happens. New student walks in. No prior knowledge, no prior understanding. How do you support those students? Maybe.

Those students are MLL students. Maybe those

Caroline Davidson (: 11:43

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 11:43

students are new to the district and haven't had the previous experiences that you're current. How do you support all of those students at the same time when you're sitting there going, okay, we're going 90 miles an hour right now?

Caroline Davidson (: 11:57

Okay.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 11:57

This student hasn't even put their foot on the gas because they just walked in. And

Caroline Davidson (: 12:01

They just got here.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 12:02

I have to do all of the nurturing and the the foundations and what is the class and like how do you do that?

Caroline Davidson (: 12:08

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Again, I know this sounds easier than said than done. You just start somewhere and give yourself some grace, first and foremost. Start somewhere as a teacher, right? Especially when it comes to things like this. Is it a new kid coming in part way through the year and they, huh, start somewhere? I'm me, so I'm gonna say relationship build. That's always gonna be my first answer. Relationship build, get to know your kids, build your classroom culture, yada yada. I could talk about that for days.

But from this more teaching perspective of how do I actually catch you up academically? How do I get you where we need to be academically? I think it really is about finding where your kids are at and then going from there. Get to know who is this kid, what do they know, where can I catch you up on and fill that prior knowledge. The best way to fill that prior knowledge is with strong content.

I really like I think so. You need the content to do that that major lift of that delivery, especially because you have 75 million other things going on as a c classroom teacher. You can't be that kid's personalized tutor no matter how much you might want to.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 13:08

Talking to Caroline Davidson today, all about some of the things that teachers can do to help and support and provide that prior knowledge to help our students with literacy, content knowledge. Now, Caroline, I'm excited that WorldBook recently launched a brand new platform called Classmate. Talk to us a little bit about it. Who's it for? What does it do? And why is it important?

Caroline Davidson (: 13:29

love that you asked this, Jeff. It Classmate is so exciting for us at Worldbook. We're pumped to get this product out and launch it for our middle school teachers and students to use. Classmate really came about because we were thinking like two two things really. One, teachers are busy, we are overwhelmed, we have a lot on our plates, and boy, I help sometimes, right? Like sometimes we just need help, and often it's in finding solid content.

Right? Finding that good con I can't tell you how long I used to spend trying to find the right article for my group of fourth graders that were reading at a second grade level. Right. Like you spent hours looking for stuff and that's not the best use of your very limited time, if you ask me. So one, we wanted to help find that content.

So Classmate takes that great world book content and makes it easier for teachers to use. But two, we wanted to help this literacy piece. We know kids are struggling with reading. And when they're struggling with reading, they're struggling in the content areas too. You can't access the text, it's gonna be mighty hard to get that knowledge from those other classes, right? So it's kind of this dual idea of Classmate is to provide an easy way, an easy access point for teachers to get that great world book content and turn it into easy, accessible assignments to then use.

to build knowledge and sneakily support literacy along the way with that time and text, with embedded literacy supports and specific practice, scaffolded practice around certain skills, yeah, we're gonna grow readers through that content knowledge.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 14:57

Where can somebody find out more information about Classmate?

Caroline Davidson (: 15:00

Absolutely classmate, they can go to meetclassmate.com to learn more about classmate.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 15:06

Now, one of the things that you've talked about in the past is this idea of literacy as a gatekeeper to knowledge. Expand on that a little bit.

Caroline Davidson (: 15:14

Yeah, for sure. This is a big piece of it, right? Is is literacy is the vehicle to understanding, right? It is that access point often to new knowledge, often through reading. That's why books are so dang important and why we want to have this great content and knowledge to share with people, right? Literacy and and knowledge building are so dang intertwined. We talked about that earlier, right? Where if I can have good understanding, if I have stronger prior knowledge, I'm probably gonna have better ac access.

to my text, I'm gonna do better there. But the opposite is also true, right? Literacy can get in the way of our content knowledge if our literacy isn't strong enough, right? If I'm reading below grade level, if I'm not accessing that text, how am I gonna spend my brain power on the actual understanding and the content if I'm spending all of my time trying to decode the words? Or finally just making through it and just be like, okay, I did it, but I don't know what I read, right?

We can have plenty of word callers, but if they're not really understanding what they're reading, that's not really deep reading. And that's really what blocks and why that literacy is a gatekeeper to knowledge building.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 16:21

How is a teacher supposed to figure out where the blockage, to use your words, is for every student? How do you know if it's decoding? How do you know if it's understanding? please don't answer as multiple choice questions as the final thing, right? But

Caroline Davidson (: 16:36

No, absolutely not.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 16:37

seriously, like I have to ask that from the personal side. I got three kids, they're all at different levels, but they're all in the same grade. How

Caroline Davidson (: 16:43

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 16:44

do I know where to get started as a teacher, as a parent?

Caroline Davidson (: 16:48

Yeah, I think

A big piece of it is to look at our data and look at what that shows us about our kids, where are they at? in products like ClassMate, we have the ability to look at things like a comprehension score, but we also have the ability to look at things where it's much more nuanced, where we're asking kids to write their answers instead of just a quick multiple choice question, right? To really dive in and give us that information about what they understand and what they don't. and then we also have a fluency tool in the platform that you can use to really understand where our kids are at. Are they are they struggling with the decoding piece? Is it the word?

That are actually tripping them up, or do they got that? And really it's the deep thinking, it's the cognitive skills that are associated with it. the decoding piece, huge, definitely huge. I think more often than not in middle school, it's usually on that cognitive piece. That what do I do with this information? I can read the words. I mean, I used to have when I taught middle school, I would have kids that would read the math word problem, perfect, and then they would smile at me and go.

Cause they w they didn't know what to do with that information, right? And that's when you have to go, this is a comprehension thing. So let's really start to work on those comprehension skills, making connections, making predictions, making inferences that actually make sense instead of just the random idea out of nowhere, right? Go back to the text, go back to the text, go back to the text and find your evidence. That's the kind of thing we gotta be doing with kids. And it's hard.

It's hard. And that's why we have platforms like Classmate where we can bring in the text for teachers and we bring in that time and text and make it easier, embed some of those scaffolds so that you as the content area teacher don't have to do that. And so we can meet this wide range of kids in your classroom because you have them. They're all over.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 18:30

To

jump back to what you you said, which is this is hard, this is difficult. And for somebody like myself, I don't have an EL degree. Like, I never taught English. I don't really think I fully understand the term decoding, but I want to support my students and I want to support my kids at home. So talk to us a little bit from the point of view of those non-ELA content areas. What do we need to understand? Because I can say

Well, I make my kids read off the book or I make my kids read off

Caroline Davidson (: 19:00

I think.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 19:00

the paper or the screen. I'm like, I'm doing ELA. I know an English teacher right now is rolling her eyes at me, right? Like, that's not exactly so. How can I strengthen my own knowledge on the subject?

Caroline Davidson (: 19:13

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 19:13

What are some of the things I might be able to put into a lesson plan or in an activity? I I do want to ask how does classmate help somebody like myself? But but for those just listening right now,

How can I support my students?

Caroline Davidson (: 19:32

Absolutely. I'm gonna first start by saying like good job bringing text into your classroom because a lot of people in the content areas will go, that's not for me. So first and foremost, bring text in. Yay. That's step one. If you're doing that, you're already doing a great job. If you haven't done that yet, start doing that. That's step one is bring text into your classroom. The second thing I would think I'm gonna say is spend time talking about it.

discuss the text, get in there, have discussions, get into the nitty-gritty. What did you say? What did you see when you were reading it? Where did that come from? No, really, show me the words. What did that make you think? Why did it make you think that? Have kind of force that back and forth with them. Force that thinking sometimes, right? So much of reading is invisible. It happens in our brains and we just do it. Especially as adult, like fluent, literate people, we just do it automatically because it's been so long since it's been hard for us. We just do it without realizing

what we're doing. For some people, cooking is like that. They can just go grab an onion and chip chip chop and make a meal and it's done and that's not it for me. Uh-uh, I need the recipe book for that because I'm not as good at it, I'm not used to it. With this piece on literacy and how we can support teachers who are like, I'm a little apprehensive, I don't really know how to do it, A, bring it in. And then B, dive into the text with your kids. Get into ask them questions about it and ask them to really explain their thinking. How did you get there? Why did you get there? And then also

Do it yourself. When you go to read a section from the book, don't just read it out loud and be like, yep, this is what the paragraph says. I've read it. Because now we're just modeling the word calling. That's great. But what's the thinking? Model that thinking. I thought about X, I thought about Y. I'm wondering. This connected to something. Ooh, this is reminding me of. What do you think? Have those conversations. Get involved with it.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 21:17

Really

just have the opportunity to have the kids as a group or even individual just explain, just to get them out of that. And that's something that I'm trying, even as the digital media teacher. Like my class is not fully technology. Like I don't want my kids to be typing everything. I want them to be able to explain concepts and rules and and and you know, look at my project and share it with me and look at this project. And what do you think? Good and bad. There's so many different things in here.

I want to go back to classmates just for one second because I mean, I started playing with this a few weeks ago when we first met. It for me, it's it's I didn't know where to start because I didn't know what questions to ask and I didn't know where to go. How does somebody get started with classmates? And what are some of the things that you can expect just kind of putting your toe in the water? What could a classmate do for somebody like myself?

Caroline Davidson (: 22:11

absolutely. Start with what do I want to teach about? What am I teaching about? What do I need to supplement? Where are my gaps? What are my kids wondering about? Or what are my kids just really into right now? What are they so engaged with that I just have to do a lesson on this because I know they're gonna have a great time with it and we're curious about it. So start with your content. When you go into Classmate, you can use a search bar. We've also got content organized into nice little sets. So if you're teaching all about, I don't know,

cell life cycles and like the how cells function and reproduce in science class. We have a set all about that with all of the information you would need already there and kind of packaged nicely for you. You can then take that and either just share an an article with your kids and use it to, like we were talking about earlier, discuss, get in there, get nitty gritty. How'd you think about this? What does this make you wonder about? Yada yada. Or you can use a pre-made assignment that we have a bunch of those already authored, or

We even have an AI generator that will take World's Book's content. It does not change the content, but it pairs that content with a strategy that's embedding those literacy supports for you. So people who don't have experience teaching literacy can know, okay, I've assigned this thing. Not only are my kids getting time in text, they're also getting a little bit of scaffolded literacy support in there. They're working on making inferences, they're working on sequencing, they're working on writing a summary of this text, they're getting all that little

practice of literacy in bite-sized chunks in that content area. That's that authentic practice piece we were talking about.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 23:41

There's so many teachers that are out there right now trying to figure out how to improve their literacy skills, how to improve their literacy teaching. Fortunate for many students and teachers, school districts are bringing in instructional coaches. I know for a fact there's a lot of instructional coaches listening right now. I want to pivot this topic just a little bit about bringing in other people into the classroom. So

Caroline Davidson (: 24:03

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 24:03

my question for you today, Caroline, is how can a teacher be supported by instructional coaching?

And how can instructional coaching support not just the teacher but the students?

Caroline Davidson (: 24:15

Ooh, that's great. I think one thing I would look for when we're looking as a teacher, what can I ask for my instructional coaches? What do I need from my instructional coaches? I think it would be around that comprehension piece. What more moves can I make other than just the like start somewhere, get in there, start having those conversations? What are some more specific practices that I can bring in to my classroom that just become like my normal part of my questioning when I'm introducing a topic or bringing up a content area?

I think that would be a really helpful thing for instructional coaches to work one-on-one with teachers on, especially when we start to think about that, what Shanahan and Shanahan say about authentic practice in the content areas, right? That instructional coach can work with the content area teacher to really dive into, well, what does literacy look like in visual arts? What does literacy look like in social studies? And how is that maybe different when we're looking at history than it is when we're looking at geography, right? Like that kind of thing. I think that's really a big piece of it.

is to get to that going.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:17

Want to jump back to that word through because a lot of times it's we're using this as an and. I'm gonna teach science and this, I'm gonna teach

Caroline Davidson (: 25:22

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:24

math and this. If we talk to those administrators who might be listening, right? I don't think there's any administrator in the world that's gonna say, don't bring literacy into every single subject,

Caroline Davidson (: 25:35

Right.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:36

right? But how do you not make it a burden? How do you not say, okay, we need you to jump through all of these hoops? and by

Caroline Davidson (: 25:43

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:44

the way.

Caroline Davidson (: 25:45

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:45

How do you

make this so that way it's just part of the culture?

Caroline Davidson (: 25:51

Yeah, that's a really good point. How do we make it just part of the culture? How do we make it part of our everyday or our every week kind of thing, right? And I think that matters. Do I necessarily think we should be spending all of PE reading instead of moving our body?

No, because there's good research on moving our body and how important that can be, right? I do think that we need to just make it part of our practice, like you're saying. Make it a routine. Even if it's a subject area where you're a little apprehensive at first, like, ooh, I teach art. How am I gonna bring this in? Maybe once a week you just do a spotlight on a different artist and you bring in their bio and you just do a biography reading once a week. Start somewhere and build a routine.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 26:30

Talking today, Caroline Davidson, all about literacy and how we can support both in the classroom, out of the classroom, and as a coach, as we're walking into many classrooms.

Caroline Davidson (: 26:40

yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 26:41

And Caroline, before I let you go today, I I first of all, thank you for coming on the show. I love this topic. I'm glad that this is the second of our five-part series. You can find out more over at teachercast.net/slash classmates.

We're gonna make sure all of the shows are over there. And of course, we're on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and our YouTube channel. But what advice do you have? Someone's gonna be listening to this before the school year starts, as the school year is getting started. And maybe they're a first year teacher trying to figure this out. Maybe they've been doing this for 15 years and they've been given a a new directive.

Caroline Davidson (: 27:18

Yeah.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 27:19

Never happens, but maybe it does, right?

Caroline Davidson (: 27:21

Okay.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 27:21

What advice do you have for teachers this year?

Caroline Davidson (: 27:24

Yeah.

Bring text into your classrooms as much as you can. Grab a text, make sure it's a good solid text. That's a piece that we're gonna chat about more in one of those later podcasts you mentioned, Jeff. But make sure you have solid content and bring that text into your classroom, even if you're feeling a little apprehensive about it. Because if you're learning with your kids, as long as you're modeling and actually talking through, I had a question about this when I was reading. Be authentic, do that, but just do it out loud in front of your kids. They will learn along with you. When we model, especially when we're modeling honestly our own.

authentic experiences, they learn from it. They emulate what we do. Even middle schoolers who are going to tell you that they don't emulate what they do, they do. They look to us. They want to know what we're doing. So if we put text up there, even if we're a little apprehensive about doing it, and we dive into it and we ask our questions and we noodle on it together, that's going to help our kids.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 28:14

Caroline, where can somebody go to learn more about the great work that you're doing? Learn about classmates and get more information on this subject.

Caroline Davidson (: 28:21

Absolutely. Worldbook.com is a great place to go to learn all about World Book, our encyclopedias, our print books, classmate, our digital products, everything. Also, mecclassmate.com is another great place to go for just classmate everything.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 28:34

Now,

if you like this episode, we're gonna have Caroline back on a future episode of this show. So again, don't forget to head on over to teachercast.net slash classmate. Now, Caroline, before I let you go, I'd like to offer you the opportunity here to do our lightning round. Five basic questions. Would you be up for the challenge today? All

Caroline Davidson (: 28:52

Yeah, let's do it.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 28:53

right. Question number one one book or article that any educator should be reading so that way they can become better at teaching literacy and knowledge.

Caroline Davidson (: 29:02

Ooh, anything about a boy, what's the word I'm looking for? I'm doing a very bad job at this lightning round. It's the culturally competent classroom stuff. Anything on cultural competency, anything there. Dr. Shrockey Holly's stuff on cultural teaching and culturally responsive teaching, I'm into that.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 29:22

You said that you were a fourth and fifth grade teacher, dabbled a little bit in middle school. So my second question here is what is one classroom routine that supports both literacy and content knowledge?

Caroline Davidson (: 29:34

That's a good one. turn and talks, turn and talks all day long. I know it's like an easiest thing, but that's part of the reason I love it is because it's so easy. You're getting the conversation in, you're getting I get to share my opinion, you get to share your opinion, we get to kind of pull that together, synthesize. Yes, easy, turn and talk.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 29:51

Very easy to do, very little prep. You can do it on on just the di just just turn and ask a question, right?

Caroline Davidson (: 29:53

Yup, love that. And

it's good. It's easy prep and it's good for kids. Talk about the information. Discuss it. Think about it. Yep.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 30:03

I know in your current position at World Book, you have the opportunity to work with teachers in school districts across the planet. My next question here, what is one mistake that schools often make with literacy initiatives?

Caroline Davidson (: 30:16

they do it so

fast. We just do one thing once and then we say, okay, we're gonna focus on this for a year and then it's the next thing the next year. No. Slow down, find one thing, get good at that one thing, and then scale and get better at it. Like I said, start small, start somewhere. Even if it's just once a week with reading, do it once. Maybe next year you're doing it twice a year. You'll grow.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 30:35

And finally, and I think this is the hardest one, but I think the one that we all need to look at. What is one practical strategy that teachers can try this week?

Caroline Davidson (: 30:45

Pick up a pick up a text, find a new text to bring into your classroom, something that you haven't used before. Find a new text, bring it in. Even if you've like just read it with your kids for the very first time and bring it up with them, do it together, be vulnerable with them.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 31:01

I think that's a great place to end right there. Getting vulnerable, making sure that it is a conversation, making sure that your area and your classroom is open for discussion and that if if

a student has an opinion, let them share it. Caroline Davidson, thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to having you on the show again. Of course, this is the second of a five part series. One more time, Caroline, where can we learn more about the great things that your team is doing? And where can we learn more about classmates?

Caroline Davidson (: 31:30

Absolutely. Worldbook.com or meetclassmate.com are great places to learn more about Worldbook, everything we're doing at Classmate, and just all the great content and information we have.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 31:40

Thank you so much for your time today.

Caroline Davidson (: 31:41

Thank you, Jeff.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 31:42

And that wraps up this episode of digital learning today. If you're going to check out all the episodes, head on over to teachercast.net slash classmate. We're going to have all the episodes there. Of course, like and subscribe this if you're on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. And on behalf of everybody here on Teacher Cast, my name is Jeff Bradbury, reminding you guys to keep up the great work in your classrooms and continue sharing your passions with your students.