The Knowledge Matters Podcast

Season 2 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast is here! Teachers and reading experts David and Meredith Liben host “Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension,” a six-part podcast series based on their book of the same name . With their signature charm and straight talk, David and Meredith take on an urgent problem in American schools today—kids not understanding what they read—and how reading comprehension...

Season 1 Episode 6 | “Think what a better society we’ll have” | American education has a number of serious problems – and our failure to start building kids' knowledge early is a fundamental one. By now you know that reading comprehension is complicated and as you’ll hear, so is the explanation for what has gone wrong with the way American schools have approached it. In the sixth and final ep...

Season 1 Episode 5  | “Everything was in silos” | So far in " The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited ", we've heard from classroom teachers about their experiences making the shift from the standard approach to reading comprehension – which focuses on having kids practice supposedly general skills like “finding the main idea” – to a newer approach. That new a...

Season 1 Episode 4  | “Now they had something to write about” | In the last episode of " The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited ", you heard from three teachers – Abby, Deloris, and Kyair – who talked about their experiences using some of the knowledge-building literacy curricula that have recently been developed. In Episode 4, you’ll hear from them again, and you...

Season 1 Episode 3  | “That cloud looks like an anvil” | In Episode 3 of " The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited " you’ll hear from three teachers who’ve experienced the before and after of the shift to using a knowledge-building curriculum in their classrooms. Abby Boruff, Deloris Fowler, and Kyair Butts are three classroom teachers who are, in some ways, very d...

Season 1 Episode 2  | “A simple way of looking at a complex problem” | In the second episode of " The Knowledge Matters Podcast: Reading Comprehension Revisited ", host Natalie Wexler dives into persistent misconceptions about reading comprehension that have pervaded the education system for decades. Unpacking the fact that teachers have often believed they were teaching comprehension wh...

Season 1 Episode 1  | “Kids were bored to death” | Welcome to the inaugural episode of the six-part Knowledge Matters Podcast series, "Reading Comprehension Revisited," where education writer and host, Natalie Wexler , tackles one of the most pressing issues in education: the reading crisis. Natalie poses essential questions: Why do students from low-income backgrounds typically score lo...

"Reading Comprehension Revisited," the inaugural series from the Knowledge Matters Podcast.  Hosted by Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of “The Knowledge Gap”, this series explores one of the most pressing dilemmas in education today: the hidden cause of America’s reading crisis. In this powerful and compelling series, Natalie tackles crucial questions such as, why do stud...