The Adolescent Literacy Podcast

This week, we sit down with Liz Norton, former middle school teacher and founder of Incessantly Relentless Leadership , for a conversation that zooms all the way out. Liz has seen education from every angle — classroom teacher, interventionist, literacy coach, district leader, state leader, and now systems consultant. And what she has learned about why change sticks — or doesn't — is something eve...

What does the Science of Reading actually look like in a secondary classroom? Ninth-grade ELA teacher Allison McManus joins us to talk about bringing evidence-based literacy practices to older readers—from decoding The Odyssey to harnessing the surprising power of syntax. We dig into practical strategies, the realities of teaching adolescent readers, and why the Science of Reading conversation sho...

This week, Shawn Robinson, PhD — creator of the graphic novel series Dr. Dyslexia Dude — joins us to share his story. Shawn has a PhD in language and literacy. He has published over 40 academic papers. He has spent thirty years studying the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And he learned to read as a college freshman. In Shawn's words, "It doesn't matter how you start. It's how you fin...

This week we sit down with Kevin Smith, adolescent literacy expert and co-founder of the Adolescent Literacy Alliance, to talk about building the systems that older striving readers deserve. Kevin is one of the minds behind the Self-Study Guide for Implementing Literacy Interventions in Grades 3–8, developed for the Institute of Education Sciences — and today he walks us through how schools and di...

This week, Melanie sits down with Storyshares Chief Academic Officer Shira Engel to give you the PD you wish you'd had — breaking down the key terms, acronyms, and foundational concepts that come up again and again in the adolescent literacy world. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just clear, accessible definitions that will help you engage in these conversations with confidence. We cover: What adol...

This week, we sit down with Dr. Julia Yi, adolescent literacy researcher and assistant professor at MGH Institute of Health Professions , whose team has been doing groundbreaking research on the language and literacy gap for adolescent learners. We dig into: What the research actually tells us about what older striving readers need — and what the language and literacy gap looks like for secondary...

This week, we sit down with three former students of Storyshares CEO Louise Baigelman and Chief Academic Officer Shira Engel — young people who came to them as older students with gaps in their literacy skills and who, with the right support and the right books, transformed into readers. Three moments from this episode you won't forget: Ruth arrived in fifth grade from Haiti reading at a secon...

Malcolm Mitchell won a Super Bowl. But he'll tell you that learning to read was the harder — and more important — victory. This week, Malcolm joins us to talk about growing up running away from books, feeling bamboozled by a system that never told him the whole truth about what literacy makes possible, and the moment in a college English class that changed everything. Three things you won'...

This week, Lynni Nordheim, District Dyslexia Specialist and Director of Adolescent Literacy for The Reading League Colorado , joins us to talk about the social emotional experience of adolescent readers — how shame and avoidance show up in intervention work, what schools unintentionally communicate about who is and isn't a reader, and what it actually takes to build the safety and trust that m...

No guest this week, just Louise and Melanie! After 10 episodes of eye-opening conversations with literacy experts, we're taking a moment to reflect on all that we've learned — both on this journey of building Storyshares, but also, just for fun, some things we have discovered along the way in our personal lives as well. We talk about: -how much we value sleep -what we wished we had done di...

We talk a lot about how children and teens learn reading skills. We talk less about whether they have anything to read. In Episode 10, Larry Abrams, founder of the nonprofit BookSmiles, joins us to make the case that book access is one of the most overlooked — and solvable — pieces of the literacy crisis, and that for underserved kids, a book in hand can change everything. Visit booksmiles.org to...

We're off this week, but Melanie pops in to say hello and give a quick book recommendation. Hope everyone is getting a moment to rest and recharge! See you next week.

"Schools were not built to optimize learning." This week, Michael Horn, creator of podcast and Substack The Future of Education , joins us to unpack what it would take to rethink education for the students actually sitting in classrooms today. From mastery-based learning to the false binary around small group instruction, Michael and Louise dig into what it would really take to rebuild a...

What does a student's day actually feel like when everything around them is disconnected? Different teachers, different routines, different language, different expectations — class after class after class. For older striving readers already carrying years of compounding gaps, that disconnection isn't just frustrating… it's a barrier. This week, we're joined by Kate Crist, founder o...

What if the time students are already spending on screens isn't the enemy of literacy — but the opportunity? This week, we sit down with Julia Rivard, founder of Shoelace Learning , to talk about what it really looks like to leverage technology in order to prioritize engagement for older striving readers. In this episode, we get into: the relationship between fun and rigor why turning away fro...

Literacy improvement can't rest on the shoulders of a single teacher. So what does it actually look like to make secondary literacy a shared responsibility across an entire school or district? This week, Emily Russin from the HILL for Literacy joins us to dig into what a truly collaborative approach to adolescent literacy looks like — from the classroom to the district level. Emily takes us th...

We throw around the phrase "research-based" a lot in education — but is it actually enough? This week, Dr. Mary Schreuder from The Achievement Network (ANet) joins us to unpack the difference between research-based and evidence-based practice, walk us through her evidence-based literacy curriculum checklist, and talk about what meaningful data and assessment really look like for older re...

There's a growing narrative in education that adapting text for struggling readers means lowering the bar. This week, we're pushing back on that — hard. We sat down with Ethan Pierce from Adaptive Reader to unpack what accessibility actually means in the context of literacy — and why the current conversation about access vs. rigor is missing the mark. Together, we dig into the real relatio...

In this episode, we dive in to what it takes to build a true literacy ecosystem in middle and high school. Melanie McDermott and Louise Baigelman sit down with Dr. Sarah Holbrook, Director of Humanities in Kingston City Schools and co-creator of the SUNY New Paltz Science of Reading Microcredential, to discuss the infrastructure of adolescent literacy. Learn more about Dr. Holbrook's work at:...

What would it look like if we truly went all in on adolescent literacy? What if grades 3–12 received the same time, resources, and investment we've dedicated to K–3? In Episode 2, host Melanie McDermott sits down with adolescent literacy expert Shira Engel to unpack the Future of Adolescent Literacy Vision Paper — a bold roadmap built by the leading voices in secondary literacy. We've hear...

Seventy percent of 8th graders in this country are not reading on grade level. It's a statistic that should stop us in our tracks — and yet, for too long, it hasn't. In our inaugural episode, we sit down with adolescent literacy expert Louise Baigelman and middle school educator Shira Engel to tackle one of the most urgent and underserved challenges in education: adolescent literacy. What...