Over the past four years, I’ve had the pleasure of serving as the supervisor of elementary English Language Arts for the Montgomery County Public Schools. During that time, we’ve engaged educators and leaders in deep learning based on the science of reading research. In doing so, I’ve come to believe that two things are for certain:
- Educators must have the skills and knowledge to effectively teach children how to read, based on what makes proficient readers, and
- Educators must understand how students learn best.
We need to know what to do and how to do it, because the what and the how are both critical and connected. Truly accelerating student literacy means grounding instructional practices in both the science of reading and the science of learning.
Now these are both broad and deep topics of study, worthy of a lifetime of scholarship and study. But there are immediate insights that educators can put to work in their classrooms and schools, right away: the importance of “just-right” cognitive load and the role of assessments as a learning tool. Both are vital to achieving the outcomes that educators want and students deserve.
Embracing Challenge
When educators talk about cognitive load, we often focus on overload. We’ve all seen students become disengaged when a learning task feels too complex or out of reach—think of a narrative filled with unfamiliar vocabulary, or a nonfiction text describing a wholly alien topic. When we don’t build on background knowledge or offer scaffolds to connect students with challenging, grade-level content, working memory soon overflows and learning all but shuts down.
But that’s not what I mean when I’m talking about “just-right” cognitive load. In my experience, it’s cognitive underload that can just as often stop learning in its tracks. Too many students are asked to work far below grade level, with materials deemed sufficiently challenging based on what the student can navigate independently. But that’s not enough—we need to push students beyond what they can already do. Research shows that this “instructional level” approach shortchanges learning, with compounding negative effects over time.
Students who aren’t sufficiently challenged may seem compliant, but they’re not actively engaged in deep thinking. This is something we typically worry about with highly capable or “gifted” students—and we should—but every student who isn’t given the opportunity to grapple with rigorous texts or concepts will have this same experience. And as a result, students will disengage, stop paying attention, and miss out on developing the critical thinking and perseverance they’ll need for long-term success.
This is where the science of learning comes into play. Engagement and learning thrive when we push students to engage with complex texts. To respect and recognize the risks and rewards of balancing cognitive load, lessons should be intentionally structured to challenge students in a way that is both productive and purposeful. We have to ask ourselves, have students built the knowledge needed to comprehend and make meaning of the text at hand? Where do I need to scaffold?
Assessments as Instructional Tools
Another powerful strategy suggested by cognitive science is to intentionally support the movement of new learning from students’ short-term to long-term memory. And that’s where tests come in. Pop quizzes, unit tests, midterms—these all prompt just the sort of memory-retrieval practice that can burnish knowledge and skills into students’ cognitive toolkits.
Too often, lessons stop at the surface level. Exit tickets can be helpful, but students who perform well in the moment may struggle to recall key concepts later on. Without retrieval practice, without the chance to task their memory banks with answering a question about something from a few days or weeks ago, knowledge won’t have enough chances to “stick.” Assessment provides just this sort of opportunity. The idea is to plan opportunities for students to use information, not just briefly absorb it.
But assessment has become, in some corners, a dirty word. Parents, educators, and policymakers have been asking if we test too much. While this is a valid concern, and we should consider the number of assessments students are required to take, it’s important to consider why we assess, not just whether and when.
From the lens of the science of learning, assessments are not just a way to measure learning; rather, they are an essential part of the learning process itself. Retrieval practice helps solidify knowledge in long-term memory, and assessments, particularly those spaced across days or weeks, are opportunities for that retrieval to occur. This means that assessments, when designed well and aligned with learning goals, aren’t extraneous to instruction. They are a valuable aspect of instruction.
In our district, we’ve heard concerns about the number of assessments in our new ELA curriculum. However, each assessment is intentionally tied to what students have been taught and gives them the opportunity to retrieve and demonstrate their learning. The unit assessments, for example, span 2-3 weeks of content. That’s not just a test of memory, it’s an invitation to internalize, apply, and connect new knowledge and skills.
Beauty in Science
The beauty of the science of learning is that it feels familiar, but is rooted in evidence. Much of it aligns with what great teachers are already doing. But we now have the research to explain why those techniques work so well and the framework to ensure more students have access to this type of instruction. We can more intentionally pair materials and instructional techniques that will enhance student learning. We have cognitive science on our side.
In Montgomery County, we are now starting the fifth year of our literacy journey—a journey I am incredibly proud of. We started with the science of reading, but we realize that it’s not enough to know how reading works. Teachers and leaders need to know how learning works too, and professional learning must focus on the intersection. Because when teachers understand the how and the why, they can plan instruction that is rigorous, engaging, and sustainable.
Melaika A. Brown is the supervisor of elementary English Language Arts for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.