BLENDED LITERACY CONCEPT PAPER

To understand the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund’s strategy to boost low-income students’ literacy,
you must first understand the “Matthew Effect.”i

The “Matthew Effect” refers to the idea that when it comes to reading, the more you know, the more you learn.
A famous experiment about baseball illustrates the concept. Given a common passage about baseball, so-called
“low-ability” readers who knew a lot about baseball significantly out-performed so-called “high-ability” readers
who knew little about baseball. This was because the high-ability readers did not have the context to make sense
of what they were reading.ii

In other words, a learner’s background knowledge is a key ingredient in her ability to learn and absorb
information from what she is reading and consuming.

Building learners’ background knowledge in scalable ways that is personalized to their particular needs is
challenging, especially for schools serving students with diverse backgrounds, a range of outside-of-school
experiences, and widely varying background knowledge. Using a blended learning approach that taps into the
power of technology, coupled with a high-quality curriculum, can help to solve this problem in novel ways, with
the potential to positively impact low-income students throughout New York City – and the nation.

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DETERMINING THE POTENTIAL OF BLENDED LITERACY

The objective of the Fund’s blended literacy strategy is to partner with organizations and schools to determine
the potential of combining a personalized and blended approach with content-rich literacy instruction to boost
low-income students’ literacy achievement. The Fund seeks organizations interested in providing educators with
resources and support, such as curriculum, professional development, and organizational support, to implement
personalized, engaging learning with rigor. Organizations will partner with new and existing schools, both charter
and traditional public, serving high-poverty students in New York City to create demonstrations that:

A TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT BUILDING LITERACY THROUGH A CONTENT-RICH STRATEGY
COMBINED WITH A BLENDED APPROACH THAT PERSONALIZES LEARNING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY;

B DEMONSTRATE THE POTENTIAL OF THIS APPROACH WHEN IMPLEMENTED ACROSS SUBJECT AREAS, AND
NOT JUST IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS (ELA) CLASS;

C OUTPERFORM THE CITY AVERAGE BY 20 PERCENTAGE POINTS ON ELA PROFICIENCY AND RESULT IN
STUDENTS EXHIBITING 1.5 YEARS OF INDIVIDUAL GROWTH ON CRITERION-REFERENCE TESTS.
Although the Fund recognizes that a content-rich approach can be effectively implemented without technology
and there are many ways to personalize learning without a content-rich approach, our focus is on demonstrating
the yet-untapped potential of bringing the two together.

THE RATIONALE FOR THE DUAL APPROACH :

WHY CONTENT-RICH INSTRUCTION AND BLENDED LEARNING CAN HAVE A 1+1=3 EFFECT

THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

As cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham wrote, “Every passage that you read omits information. All of this
omitted information must be brought to the text by the reader. Otherwise the passage will be puzzling, or only
partly understood.”iii Recall the baseball example and imagine the confusion of a reader unfamiliar with the sport
puzzling over why the crowd cheered when the runner stole second base – an act that might sound criminal in
another setting.

The takeaway is that intentionally building specific content knowledge is critical to building understanding. But as
standardized literacy tests have grown in importance, educators have spent more time building students’ skills
around close reading – knowing how to find a main idea, analyze a passage, make inferences, and so forth – to
the detriment of having students learn content in a way that builds upon itself across a wide range of subjects,
including social studies, science, music, and the arts. Indeed, only four percent of class time in first grade is now
spent on science, and two percent on social studies, whereas 62 percent of time is spent on ELA, with similarly
weighted distributions in later grades.iv

By narrowing the curriculum and neglecting the importance of background knowledge, schools are inadvertently
making it harder for their students to excel in any subject, including ELA. What we read and when is important.
Teaching nonfiction texts in isolation, for example, loses value because students read the texts without
context and coherence, which makes it difficult for them to absorb information. The contrast to this is reading
intentionally deep into a topic – with ample nonfiction but also appropriate fiction – that builds knowledge and
depth. This does not mean students should not also read widely, but that reading too thinly has its perils.

The bigger point is not that teachers should neglect other aspects of literacy – helping learners close read texts,
write, learn how to make arguments, and advance ideas about texts in ways that allow for deeper learning and
critical thinking – but that practicing close reading to the exclusion of intentionally building knowledge is futile.

Growing research supports the importance of coherently building background knowledge. In New York City, there
is a solid base of schools that have adopted a content-rich approach and seen striking results. Per one body of
research, New York City schools that took this approach gained 2.5 scale score points compared to 0.9 points in
the control group.v

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THE CRITICAL ROLE OF A BLENDED APPROACH FOR PERSONALIZATION
But personalizing at scale is challenging. Paying for a private tutor for every student would be wonderful, but it is
prohibitively expensive. Personalizing for all students may be possible in a school with a small student-to-teacher
ratio and flexible groupings, but it is taxing on an individual teacher who must provide new and targeted learning
experiences for each student in a large class.

This is why blended learning is so important. Blended learning is the engine that can power personalization at
scale. Just as technology enables mass customization in so many sectors to meet the diverse needs of so many
users, online learning can allow students to learn any time, in any place, on any path, and at any pace. At its most
basic level, it lets students fast-forward if they have already mastered a concept, pause if they need to digest
something, or rewind and slow something down if they need to review. It provides a simple way for students to
take different paths toward mastery.vii

The proliferation of blended school models around the country makes clear how the thoughtful integration of
online software and tools can make meeting a wide range of learning needs feasible.viii Based on these promising
practices, we envision schools leveraging technology in multiple ways.

HALLMARKS OF EFFECTIVE BLENDED LEARNING

1
Helps students build reading and writing fundamentals, grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary

Example: Students learn certain grammar rules using software that provides feedback in real time, and then
practice applying them in a range of contexts and formats adapted to their level of mastery.

2
Delivers personalized online content in the form of video, text, and simulations that support the development
of content knowledge
Example: Students watch videos, read texts online that are scaffolded for their reading level, or listen to
readings so they can hear the rhythm, emotion, and intentionality of a passage.

3
Provides students with opportunities to synthesize, analyze, create, share, and teach their acquired knowledge
Example: Students create their own interactive texts, simulations, or videos on relevant topics and content.

4
Supports rapid, iterative and efficient diagnostics alongside actionable data dashboards to give teachers and
students a real-time window into learning and gaps along a variety of metrics
Example: Online iterative and tailored short-form assessment tools determine students’ reading proficiency
during and at the end of a unit. This data is shared with students to engage them in their own learning
process, and used by teachers to group, regroup, and assign tasks to maximize learning.

All the above uses have one other critical advantage: Freeing up teacher time to provide students with more
qualitative feedback and targeted support while creating opportunities for critical thinking and inquiry via
small-group and one-on-one learning.

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FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING LITERACY WITH A BLENDED, CONTENT-RICH APPROACH
Our vision is not to prescribe how to implement a blended and content-rich approach to learning. We seek
instead to invest in organizations and their school partners that will demonstrate this approach thoughtfully, will
try things and iterate as they learn and improve, will create new tools, models and resources to support others,
and that will ultimately generate measurable results that help the field learn more about what works, and what
does not, in what circumstances.

That said, a framework for building literacy with a blended, content-rich approach can serve as a valuable clarifier.
Reading Reconsidered by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs, and Erica Woolwayix offers four interconnected literacy
strategies that, when coupled with Knowledge Matters’x tenets for a knowledge-rich curriculum, provide schools with
a framework to guide their thinking and work toward adopting a blended literacy approach.

READING RECONSIDERED'S INTERCONNECTED LITERACY STRATEGIES:

1 Reading harder texts

2 "Close reading" texts rigorously and intentionally

3 Reading more nonfiction more effectively

4 Writing more effectively in direct response to texts

KNOWLEDGE MATTERS' TENETS FOR A CONTENT-RICH CURRICULUM:

Specific: Topic by topic, the specific content children learn throughout the year is clearly stated. For example,
“compare and contrast ancient civilizations in China, Egypt, and the Middle East” versus a vaguer “compare and
contrast three ancient civilizations.”

Cumulative: Grade by grade, the specific content is cumulative,

BLENDED LITERACY FRAMEWORK
ensuring that children are developing both deep and broad
LITERACY
knowledge, and that their curriculum does not feature boring
STRATEGIES TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIES CONTENT-RICH
repetitions or problematic gaps. CURRICULUM

Well-rounded: Not only are the sciences, social studies, and

arts necessary for reading comprehension because of the
knowledge and vocabulary they convey, these subjects are SPECIFIC
inherently interesting.

Preparatory: From literature to chemistry to music, educators

CUMULATIVE RIGOROUS
select the content that offers the best preparation for
CLOSE
later studies. While some time could be set aside to WRITING READING
pursue children’s interests, children do not know
what background knowledge is necessary to succeed BLENDED LEARNING READING NON- PERSONALIZATION
in challenging courses in later grades. HARDER FICTION
TEXTS

Rigorous: Even in kindergarten and first grade, children

WELL-
are ready for rigorous academic topics. Rigorous does not PREPARATORY
ROUNDED
mean stressful or boring. Young children enjoy complex
topics if they are immersed in a carefully planned series of
read-alouds, discussions, and projects that start with a basic
introduction and build toward deeper understanding.

The Fund sees technology as a unifying tool that can provide educators and students with the data and
resources they need to pursue a content-rich approach to literacy instruction in a way that effectively meets the
needs of every student.

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BLENDED LITERACY IN PRACTICE:
WHAT IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE
A STATION-ROTATION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL EXAMPLE:
LEVERAGING MULTIPLE ONLINE AND OFFLINE LEARNING MODALITIES TO MEET DIVERSE STUDENT NEEDS
To understand what blended literacy might look like in practice, imagine a third-grade English Language Arts class
where students are learning about frogs. The unit builds on a previous study in science focused on the environment,
using similar vocabulary and concepts, and is a precursor to a social studies unit comparing cultures. Now imagine the
classroom is set up for students to cycle through different centers as they learn about frogs. Rather than have all the
centers focused on building reading fundamentals, students could also learn about frogs through the lens of social
studies and science. Students with limited knowledge of amphibians could watch a set of online videos about frogs,
and then construct a Venn diagram to compare different types of frogs and show evidence of their learning. Once they
have demonstrated mastery, the students could progress to reading a book about frogs at another station. At the other
online station, students learn and practice the fundamentals of reading through online software that utilizes adaptive
assessments to provide real-time data for teachers and students to decide on students grouping and lesson planning.
A third station features a teacher working with a small group of students on how to effectively close read a non-fiction
text about how frogs are perceived in various cultures.

A MIDDLE SCHOOL EXAMPLE: DIFFERENTIATING TASKS WITHIN A CUMULATIVE CURRICULUM

In social studies, students with a solid grounding in the history of the United States and the founding documents
could spend time using online software that personalizes close reading to help them dissect a passage about the Bill
of Rights or westward expansion, providing broader context about that period in our country’s history to help them
further develop their literacy skills. Students who have less familiarity with the topic could use an online software
program to read a passage or watch a video that introduces some of the necessary foundational knowledge.
Other students could leverage technologies to write a written report or create an interactive simulation designed
to teach the material to their peers. This learning experience would also be the precursor to a related curriculum
in the following year, and could also link to the STEM curriculum, where students could continue to develop their
history simulations.

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BLENDED LITERACY IN PRACTICE:
WHAT IT IS NOT

The Fund is not interested in creating instructional models where students sit in front of computers all day. Nor is it
interested in simply automating adaptive learning or creating instructional models that individualize learning and take
interaction among students and teachers out of the picture. To that end, the Fund is not interested in personalizing
to an extreme, such that groups of students within a school never read and discuss shared books or that students
only read what they think interests them, to the exclusion of introducing them to new genres and topics they might
come to love, as well as uncomfortable but important material. Finally, the Fund is not interested in finding the most
innovative or novel of instructional models for their own sake.

CONCLUSION

The Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund was established to unlock the potential of technology to transform
learning and advance achievement for low-income students in New York City. By working in collaboration with
organizations, school leaders, educators, and researchers, we aim to achieve this mission together by providing clear
and inspirational tools, resources and models with the power to bridge the literacy gap that prevents so many of our
youth from deepening their learning and ultimately setting on a path to opportunity.

ABOUT THE FUND

The Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund is dedicated to unlocking the potential of technology to transform
learning and advance achievement for low-income students in New York City. A collaboration among Robin Hood,
the Overdeck Family Foundation and Siegel Family Endowment, the Fund focuses on seeding and uncovering bright
spots of innovation in two targeted strategies: 1) developing students’ computational thinking at a young age (K-5);
and 2) boosting literacy through a blended, content-rich approach. Across both focus areas, we seek to build the
research base and share learnings with the field to support the replication and scale of promising approaches.

The Fund is guided by a uniquely experienced advisory board: John Overdeck and David Siegel, Fund co-chairs
and the founders and chairmen of Two Sigma; Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, founder and president, Laura Arrillaga-
Andreessen, Foundation; Michael Horn, chief strategy officer, Entangled Solutions; and David Saltzman, co-founder
and board member, Robin Hood and senior vice president, Two Sigma.

i
Pondico, R., Poverty-Fighting Elementary Schools: Knowledge Acquisition is Job One. Fordham Institute. Prepared for the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute’s Education for Upward Mobility Conference, December 2, 2014.
ii
Recht, D., and Leslie, L., Effects of Prior Knowledge on Good and Poor Readers' Memory of Text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1988.
iii
Lemov, D.; Driggs, C; Woolway, E., Reading Reconsidered: A Pracitcal Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction (San Francisco: Wiley, 2016).
iv
Trygstad, P., “2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education: Status of Elementary School Science,” September 2013.
v
Phillips, A., Nonfiction Curriculum Enhanced Reading Skills, Study Finds. New York Times, March 11, 2012.
vi
Blended Learning Research Clearinghouse 1.0 May 2015, The Learning Accelerator.
vii
Horn, M. and Staker, H., Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools (San Francisco: Wiley, 2014).
viii
Blended Learning Universe School Directory, Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation,
http://www.blendedlearning.org/directory/.
ix
Lemov et al.
x
“Five Essential Features of Knowledge-Rich Curriculum,” Knowledge Matters.

ORGANIZATIONS AND SCHOOLS INTERESTED IN PARTNERING WITH THE FUND OR LEARNING MORE SHOULD CONTACT US AT
LEARNINGANDTECH@ROBINHOOD.ORG

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