Hear me talk about teaching Syntax on this week's Lunch & Lit! (4/17/2026)

If you're not already part of this community, you can find out more about it at https://righttoreadproject.com/lunch-lit-3/.

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Here's my title and abstract:

You, too, can teach Syntax like an expert … and why it’s important to do it!

My overall goal is to encourage Literacy Leaders to be excited about syntax!  Why?  Because syntax is the foundational skill that supports Language Comprehension— and Language Comprehension is both the goal and the foundation of Reading Comprehension.  Literacy Leaders know how to teach students to read words, but how do we help them comprehend texts?  In this talk I take an existential approach to motivating interest in syntax.  I will discuss the Human Faculty of Language and show how syntax is at its core.  I will argue that explicit syntax instruction allows us to achieve what I refer to as “instructional alignment” – wherein classroom practice aligns with the what the brain requires in order to master a skill.  For word reading, the brain needs to relate individual units of sound (phonemes) to written symbols; therefore instruction is anchored in phonology.  For comprehension, the brain needs to understand syntactic relationships.  I will advance the claim that teaching syntax can be even easier than teaching students to crack the code, yet just as essential for improving comprehension outcomes.