Summer Special ’26: How research builds on research, with Sonia Cabell, Ph.D.

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, host Susan Lambert, Ed.D., does something a little different, sharing her own research alongside that of her guest, Sonia Cabell, Ph.D. Together, they trace how Sonia's large-scale Institute of Education Sciences (IES) study directly inspired Susan's dissertation, and what that process reveals about how evidence in literacy education actually gets built. Susan and Sonia also discuss what Sonia's IES study on content-rich literacy instruction found; how Susan's own dissertation research built directly on those findings; what it really means for research to "accumulate" and why it matters for classroom practice.

Show notes:

• Sign up for our fall Literacy Data and MTSS Week.
• Listen to Sonia's previous Science of Reading: The Podcast appearances:
  • Deconstructing the Rope: Language comprehension
  • Research, comprehension, and content-rich literacy instruction
• Read Sonia's book, Strive-for-Five Conversations: A Framework That Gets Kids Talking to Accelerate Their Language Comprehension and Literacy.
• Learn more about the Florida Center for Reading Research.
• Check out Sonia's IES study.
• Listen to Reid Lyon, Ph.D., on Science of Reading: The Podcast
  • Embracing the complexity of learning to read, Part 1 and Part 2
  • Systematizing literacy
• Listen to Season 3 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
• Subscribe to Susan's new Science of Reading Substack.
• Join our Science of Reading community Facebook group.
• Connect with Susan Lambert. 

Quotes:

"The Science of Reading is not like a product. It's not a thing. It's an ever-accumulating body of work." —Sonia Cabell

"You're doing better than you think. Keep being a learner." —Sonia Cabell

"It's the accumulation of research over time that leads us to an evidence base, not just any one study." —Sonia Cabell

Timestamps*:
0:00 Introduction: How research builds on research
3:00 Sonia's research focus: oral language as the foundation of reading
7:00 The origin of the IES study
10:00 Sonia's study design and what cut it short
16:00 Results of the IES study
23:00 What is an IES study?
25:00 Causation versus correlation
28:00 Susan's dissertation: building on Sonia's research
31:00 What Susan found
35:00 "It's not about just one landmark study"
41:00 Trusted organizations for educators
44:00 Reasons for optimism
48:00 Closing thoughts
*Timestamps are approximate