Mar 16, 2026 · 45 min · 13 segments
244: Dr. Melissa Orkin and Sarah Gannon share structured literacy routines from their book The Structured Literacy Playbook — including backward planning with decodable texts, vocabulary work even…
Melissa OrkinGuest
Sarah GannonGuestAnna GeigerHost
And I know that that is why you've created this resource, Anna, is to really ensure that all educators and parents have a good understanding of literacy.
And I think when literacy is such an essential part of our daily life, it's hard to remember that it's totally unnatural.
We have neurons, brain cells that are specifically designed to learn language.
But reading and print, written language, is what Steven Pinker, the linguist, calls an optional accessory that is painstakingly bolted on.
So written language is only about 7,000 years old, which is just a blip in the history of our species.
Every single child has to build a reading circuit in their brain and they do so by repurposing existing neurons that were designed for other reasons.
But overall, the most effective instruction for developing literacy skills is what we think of as structured literacy.
This is a term that was coined about I want to say 10 years ago by the International Dyslexia Association.
And structured literacy is an approach that is characterized by a certain type of delivery and certain components.
So structured literacy is delivered in an explicit, systematic, diagnostic, and cumulative manner.
The components of structured literacy include the multiple aspects of word knowledge.
And I know that that is why you've created this resource, Anna, is to really ensure that all educators and parents have a good understanding of literacy.
And I think when literacy is such an essential part of our daily life, it's hard to remember that it's totally unnatural.
We have neurons, brain cells that are specifically designed to learn language.
But reading and print, written language, is what Steven Pinker, the linguist, calls an optional accessory that is painstakingly bolted on.
So written language is only about 7,000 years old, which is just a blip in the history of our species.
Every single child has to build a reading circuit in their brain and they do so by repurposing existing neurons that were designed for other reasons.
But overall, the most effective instruction for developing literacy skills is what we think of as structured literacy.
This is a term that was coined about I want to say 10 years ago by the International Dyslexia Association.
And structured literacy is an approach that is characterized by a certain type of delivery and certain components.
So structured literacy is delivered in an explicit, systematic, diagnostic, and cumulative manner.
The components of structured literacy include the multiple aspects of word knowledge.
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3 of 10
A Teacher Relearns Reading
One child changed how this teacher taught.
Reading Is Not Natural
Learning to read requires deliberate brain-building instruction.
An Equal Playing Field
It aims to prevent lost learning time.
+7 more clips · 9 min 42 sec of audio in all
7 of 21
85. How to Use Decodable Books (and When to Move Beyond Them) with Elise Lovejoy, Express ReadersLiteracy in Color: A Science of Reading Aligned Podcast for Educators89. The Structured Literacy Playbook with Dr. Melissa Orkin & Sarah Gannon, Crafting MindsLiteracy in Color: A Science of Reading Aligned Podcast for EducatorsThe rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
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