Podcasts about national reading panel

Join us for this fascinating and informative conversation with Dr. Patricia Vadasy, researcher and literacy expert, as we explore phonics instruction, and the research behind it. We will consider the critical nature of alphabet knowledge in teaching young learners how to read and spell words. Throughout her career, Dr. Vadasy has worked to develop effective approaches to early phonics instruction. More recently, she published her research about instructional details that enhance phonics instruction, and effective approaches and details of preschool alphabet instruction. Her school-based intervention research has been funded since 1998 with grants from the U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. For classroom teachers and administrators who are determined to give early learners the best possible foundation to become successful readers, this conversation will give you the facts behind phonics instruction, the strategies, and impetus to move forward knowing your instruction is the best it can be.Dr. Vadasy will review and discuss:The National Reading Panel findings about effective features of phonics instruction, including explicit, systematic, and synthetic phonics instructionHow the research informs effective phonics instruction, including applying taught letter-sound correspondences and application to beginning decodingIndividual differences in learning these skills and where students struggleThe benefits of practice in reading words in isolation and in sentence and story contextsProviding student support in the classroom and in supplemental instruction

Welcome to our National Literacy Month series of podcasts, presented in partnership between the Be Podcast Network and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF).How schools have turned off millions of kids from loving reading. “We escaped a train wreck because of my son”Balanced Literacy 3-cueing. Explicit and systematic way to sound out words. Kenneth Goodman - founder of whole language, which is what balanced literacy is based on. Observational study on how children learn to read. National Reading Panel - convened by congress in late 1990s. Emily Hanford - Sold a Story PodcastWhy don't we have computers teaching our kids to read. Kids just press buttons.Teaching a child to read is remarkably easyTeaching a child who has been taught incorrectly to read is not easy. Samuel Orton - Orton Gillingham method of teaching reading. Is it the child, or is it us? Phonemic awareness is not an inheritable trait, it's a skill that can be taught. Do you teach or let the child discover on their own? Teach the basic skillsSteps To ReadingPlease add your bio here: Today, Irene Daria is a cognitive developmental psychologist and reading tutor to the stars, including the children of Kate Winslet, Tom Brady and Cate Blanchett. At the time of this story, she was a graduate student and "just" a mom thrilled that her son had been accepted to one of the most esteemed schools in Manhattan. Sure that he was on the path to a venerable education, she did not listen when her 5-year-old told her that he-like millions of other children-was not being taught how to read in school.An entire, very painful school year passed before Eric got her to realize he was right. Follow along as Daria begins a perplexing but ultimately empowering journey to save his academic life. She finds herself pitted against well-intentioned teachers and administrators she would have loved to trust if only they weren't so misinformed. The more Daria tries to get the school to see that it-like tens of thousands of other schools across the country is teaching reading all wrong, the more the school insists there is something wrong with her child and not with its teaching.Although / Didn't Believe Him is about a disturbing topic, it is a joy to read. Its pages overflow with the tenderness and love a mother has for her child and the trust a child has that his mother will make everything right. In addition to sharing her personal story, Daria takes you behind closed doors at a top-rated school to witness how flawed teaching methods are causing millions of kids to struggle with reading. You will see how a child's struggles in school affect the entire family. In an entertaining who-dun-it way, you will learn about the horrifying history of reading instruction in our country and the absurd way reading is currently being taught in many schools.In the end, simply by going on this life-altering journey with Daria and her son, you will learn how to teach a child to read and will be empowered to set any child on the path to becoming a proficient reader. We're thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL's comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers' timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments

Over the past couple years, the education world has seen a renewed push for phonics instruction, often called “the science of reading.” But how science-based is the science of reading movement? Will the current push for phonics last? And what do kids need so that the reading gains they experience from phonics don't fade away by the time they reach eighth grade?On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Timothy Shanahan. Nat and Tim discuss the differences between balanced literacy and phonics, how much of an improvement balanced literacy is over phonics, previous efforts to promote phonics and why they went by the wayside, whether the current science of reading movement will be durable, textbook reviews, the extent to which practices promoted by science of reading advocates are science-based, the gap between reading instruction research and reading instruction practice, why many students who can decode well nonetheless have poor reading comprehension, grade-level texts and the importance of giving students texts that aren't too easy, the relationship between love of reading and reading ability, what skills students acquire as they become better readers, disciplinary literacy, the future of reading instruction, the extent to which reading achievement could improve with better instructional practices, and more.Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was Founding Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was Director of Reading for the Chicago Public Schools and a member of the National Reading Panel and the advisory board of the National Institute for Literacy.Show Notes:What about the Textbook Reviews?How Do You Know If It Really Is the Science of Reading?More on Hanford: Phonics Reform and Literacy LevelsLimiting Children to Books They Can Already ReadWhat Is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?

Send us a Text Message.The One About…Program Review Protocols with Dr. Timothy ShanahanTimothy Shanahan's latest blog on problems with textbook reviews got us talking!Shanahan took some time out of his busy schedule to join us on The Literacy View todiscuss problems and his suggested solutions.Shanahan on Literacy Article:What About Textbook Reviews?https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/what-about-the-textbook-reviewsQuote:Despite the rhetoric of these groups, the term “evidence aligned” is meaningless. Oftenthere is no direct evidence that what is being required has ever benefited children'slearning in a research study.TIMOTHY SHANAHAN bio:Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois atChicago where he was Founding Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, hewas director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is author/editor of more than200 publications on literacy education. His research emphasizes the connectionsbetween reading and writing, literacy in the disciplines, and improvement of readingachievement.Tim is past president of the International Literacy Association. He served as a memberof the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W.Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the National Reading Panel, convened atthe request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching reading, a major influenceon reading education. He chaired two other federal research review panels: the NationalLiteracy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National EarlyLiteracy Panel, and helped write the Common Core State Standards.He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007 and is a former first-gradeteacher.Support the Show.The Literacy View is an engaging and inclusive platform encouraging respectful discussion and debate about current issues in education. Co-hosts Faith Borkowsky and Judy Boksner coach teachers, teach children to read, and hold master's degrees in education.Our goal is to leave listeners thinking about the issues and drawing their own conclusions.Get ready for the most THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND DELICIOUSLY ENTERTAINING education podcast!

In 1997 Congress asked the National Institute of Children's Health and Development to work with the U.S. Department of Education to establish a National Reading Panel. Their task was to evaluate existing research in order to find the best ways of teaching children to read. In 2000 the panel issued their 500-page report (National Reading Panel, 2000). This report has been widely cited in books and journal articles related to reading instruction. The NRP describes five-pillars are reading instruction. The SoR zealots and state reading laws describe these as five foundation reading skills. They are: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. It's not that I disagree with the five "pillars" of reading instruction as described by the NRP report and repeated ad nauseam by SoR zealots. My concern is that they're seven pillars short of a full load. In this podcast, I describe the 12 essential elements of a comprehensive reading program – or comprehensive literacy instruction.

The literacy space has become increasingly polarizing since the reading wars began.There are a number of debates and questions that continue, including:Will kids learn to read “naturally”? What did the whole language approach get right, if anything?Is explicit phonics instruction just a pendulum swing (and is focusing on phonics enough)?Are we teaching kids to read too early? When we talk about “early literacy” instruction, what are we actually recommending and how does that look? I invited Jane Gebers, veteran speech-language pathologist and author to episode 157 De Facto Leaders to discuss these questions. I entered the field right around the time the National Reading Panel study was published, so there was a fair amount of research on evidence-based literacy intervention when I started practicing. But when Jane started practicing, much of this research hadn't been done, and she had the experience of watching the fields of education and reading instruction evolve. She was also one of the early adopters of many approaches that are common practice today, and it was an honor to hear about her work. Jane L. Gebers is the author of the popular resource, Books Are for Talking, Too! (Link here: https://www.slpstorytellers.com/2023/09/11/slp-author-book-books-are-for-talking-too-by-jane-gebers/), first published in 1990, and now in its 4th edition as of March 2023. A practicing speech-language pathologist for over 40 years, she has worked in public school, hospital, private, and clinical settings. She has been an adjunct professor at St. Mary's College of California and other universities where she taught Language Development, Assessment, and Intervention courses to students pursuing special education credentials. She currently holds a private practice in Northern California.In this conversation, Jane and I discuss:✅Everyone's talking about “scaffolding”, but what does this word actually mean?✅Reading practices that have stood the test of time, despite attempts to disprove their effectiveness.✅The battle between play-based learning and “sight words”; and how to emphasize the right skills at the right time.✅When building language skills, do we focus on a developmental hierarchy or environmental demands? ✅Mapping language to print symbols and what to address in the early years to set the stage for reading and writing. You can connect with Jane on her website here: https://soundingyourbest.com, and find her book, Books Are for Talking, Too! here: https://www.slpstorytellers.com/2023/09/11/slp-author-book-books-are-for-talking-too-by-jane-gebers/  The following resources were mentioned in this episode:Some of the work done by Dr. Carol Westby, Ph.D. (Link here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/152574019902100107)The Neuroscience of Reading with Dr. G. Reid. Lyon (Link here: https://irrc.education.uiowa.edu/blog/2023/05/neuroscience-reading-dr-g-reid-lyon)Teachers' Use of Scaffolds within Conversations During Shared Book Reading (Dekshmukh, R.S., Pentimonti, J.M., Zucker, T.A., & Curry, B.) (Link here: https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00020)In this episode, I mention Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that helps SLPs create a system for language therapy. You can learn more about Language Therapy Advance Foundations here:  https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy/I also mentioned The School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers guide their teams to support students' executive functioning across the day. This program will help you plan direct therapy, but will also help you lead change management on your team, no matter your job title. You can learn more about the School of Clinical Leadership here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership We're thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. IXL's comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers' timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments

The One About:Reading Fluency and the Science of Reading with Dr. Tim Rasinski Is Fluency Instruction Part of the Science of Reading? What Types of Fluency Instruction Works Best? Nate Joseph's work grounds our discussion. All about Dr. Tim Rasinski and his books:https://www.timrasinski.com/ Article:https://www.timrasinski.com/presentations/Reading-Fluency-and-the-Science-of-Reading.pdf This article was written by Nathaniel Hansford (Nate Joseph).If you want to learn more about reading instruction and meta-analysis, be sure to check out his website:www.pedagogynongrata.com or his book: The Scientific Principles of Reading Instruction. If you would like to contact Nathaniel, you can reach him atevidenced.based.teaching@gmail.com Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.Professor of Reading EducationReading and Writing CenterKent State University401 White HallKent, OH 44242trasinsk@kent.edu ; 330-672-0649website: www.timrasinski.comTwitter: @timrasinski1Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and director of its award-winning reading clinic. He also holds the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W.Gorman Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership. Tim has written over 250 articles andhas authored, co-authored or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He is author of the best-selling books on reading fluency The Fluent Reader and The Megabook of Fluency. Tim's scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. Hisresearch on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published inn journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, ReadingPsychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Tim is the first author of the fluency chapter for the Handbook of Reading Research, Volume IV.Tim served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and was co-editor of The Reading Teacher, the worlds most widely read journal of literacy education. He has also served as co-editor of the Journal of LiteracyResearch. Rasinski is past-president of the College Reading Association and he has wonthe A. B. Herr and Laureate Awards from the College Reading Association for hisscholarly contributions to literacy education. In 2010 Tim was elected to the InternationalReading Hall of Fame and he is also the 2020 recipient of the William S. Gray Citation ofMerit from the International Literacy Association. In a 2021 study done at StanfordUniversity Tim was identified as being among the top 2% of scientists in the world.Prior to coming to Kent State Tim taught literacy education at the University of Georgia. He taught for several years as an elementary and middle school classroom and reading intervention teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. Tim is a veteran of the United States armed forces.Support the showThe Literacy View is an engaging and inclusive platform encouraging respectful discussion and debate about current issues in education. Co-hosts Faith Borkowsky and Judy Boksner coach teachers, teach children to read, and hold master's degrees in education.Our goal is to leave listeners thinking about the issues and drawing their own conclusions.Get ready for the most THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND DELICIOUSLY ENTERTAINING education podcast!

I recently hosted a workshop on how to create a literacy block that fits everything you need in it because that's a common challenge for most literacy teachers. But the one recurring question throughout the workshop was, what does effective literacy look like? Effective literacy is directly related to the 5 pillars of reading instruction, which is what this upcoming series is all about.Over the next month, I am going to focus on each of the 5 pillars of reading instruction, including experts in certain areas, practical strategies, and ideas on how to incorporate them in your literacy upper elementary classroom. Before we can dive deep into each pillar, it's important to have a general understanding. Therefore, in today's episode, I'm providing an overview of the 5 pillars of reading instruction in order to provide you with some confidence in your instruction and how to help your students.Read the National Reading Panel here!Sign up for my FREE private podcast, the Confident Writer Systems Series, here!Join us in the Stellar Literacy Collective Membership: stellarteacher.com/join Check out my Free Literacy Workshop, The Time Crunch Cure: Create a Literacy Block That Fits it All In and Achieves MoreTo check out all of the resources from this episode, head to the show notes: https://www.stellarteacher.com/episode177

SummaryIn this episode, the hosts discuss the five pillars from the National Reading Panel and their history. They explore the confusion that can arise from viewing these pillars as a model of how reading works. The role of fluency and the importance of differentiating instruction for the five pillars are also discussed. The conversation concludes with a reevaluation of the five pillars and a key takeaway to look beyond them. The next episodes will cover three other reading models.TakeawaysThe five pillars from the National Reading Panel are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.The five pillars should be viewed as interconnected and treated differently in instruction.The actual chapters of the National Reading Panel focus on alphabetics, fluency, and comprehension.It is important to look beyond the five pillars and consider other reading models.ResourcesFollow researcher Hugh Catts on Twitter (or X)The National Reading Panel Report The Five Pillars of Reading Graphic The Narrow View of Reading, Alan Kamhi The Narrow View of Reading Promotes a Broad View of Comprehension, Hugh Catts ICYMI: Ep. 118: Rethinking Reading Comprehension with Researcher Hugh CattsConnect with us Facebook and join our Facebook Group Twitter Instagram Don't miss an episode! Sign up for FREE bonus resources and episode alerts at LiteracyPodcast.com Helping teachers learn about science of reading, knowledge building, and high quality curriculum.

Today's guest is Dr. Tim Rasinski. We'll talk about his newest book, Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading, along with several of his recently published studies that offer ways to support students' fluency development through the use of poems and Reader's Theater. This conversation is packed with ideas you'll be able to use right away. After my converstion with Dr. Rasinski, I'm joined by four of my colleagues – Darren, Lainie, Macie, and Gina – where we'll share our responses, ideas, and further questions. ***For more information about Jennifer Serravallo, to read transcripts of any episode, or to learn about inviting Jen's colleagues to work in your school or district, visit her website: www.jenniferserravallo.comFor more information about Tim's Book, Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading, click here.***About this episode's guest:Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and director of its award winning reading clinic. He has written over 200 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He's published numerous best-selling books with Teacher Created Materials and Shell Education, and has also authored books for Scholastic. His scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Dr. Rasinski is the first author of the fluency chapter for the Handbook of Reading Research.Dr. Rasinski served a three year term on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and was co-editor of The Reading Teacher, the world's most widely read journal of literacy education. He has also served as co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research. Dr. Rasinski is past-president of the College Reading Association and he has won the A. B. Herr and Laureate Awards from the College Reading Association for his scholarly contributions to literacy education. In 2010, Dr. Rasinski was elected into the International Reading Hall of Fame.Prior to coming to Kent State, Timothy Rasinski taught literacy education at the University of Georgia. He taught for several years as an elementary and middle school classroom and Title I teacher in Nebraska. Tim is a veteran of the US armed forces.***Special thanks to Alex Van Rose for audio editing this episode.Support the show

In Part 1 of this podcast, expert educators Diane Snowball and Keay Cobbin discuss the science of reading. They emphasise that the science of reading is a term used by various educational communities and can have different interpretations. They provide definitions from reputable sources, highlighting that it encompasses multidisciplinary knowledge from educators, linguistics, cognitive psychology, special education, and neuroscience about how children learn to read.They discuss common misconceptions, such as equating the science of reading with a specific phonics program, and the challenges this can create in education. They emphasise the importance of continually updating knowledge because the science of reading is always evolving.The podcast also delves into different models of the reading process, including the Simple View of Reading, Scarborough's Reading Rope, and the Active View of Reading. These models are seen as valuable tools for understanding reading but are not a one-size-fits-all solution. The discussion highlights that teachers need strong content knowledge and pedagogical skills to apply these models effectively in the classroom.Keay and Diane then discuss the importance of providing students with independent reading and writing time. They stress the need for explicit instruction during this time, ensuring that students understand how to apply what they learn in their own reading and writing. They reference the National Reading Panel's five major components for successful reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. They highlight the significance of providing balance in a  reading program that integrates systematic phonics instruction with other reading elements. Vocabulary instruction is discussed, with an emphasis on morphology and building vocabulary through reading. The evolving understanding of these components over time is acknowledged.Overall, the podcast emphasises the importance of staying informed about the evolving science of reading and using this knowledge to inform teaching practices tailored to the needs of individual students. Stay tuned for Part 2.Links to resources coming soon!Diane Snowball is a prominent educator, based in Melbourne, with 56 years of experience across various education levels. She focuses on improving student literacy through teaching, professional development, and leadership roles. Diane's contributions include international presentations, authoring books and articles and producing educational materials. She served as President of the Australian Literacy Educators Association and has led literacy initiatives in Australia and the US. Diane's work encompasses advising, mentoring, and founding organisations dedicated to literacy education, emphasising teaching practices based on sound research.Keay Cobbin is the director of Wilcob Education in Melbourne, established in 2010 with Steve Willy. With 28 years of teaching and 24 years of consulting experience, she specialises in literacy and leadership. Keay has designed and delivered various literacy and leadership courses for educational institutions and regions, demonstrating a deep understanding of educational systems, literacy research, and pedagogy. She has also provided professional development for the Department of Education in Tasmania and facilitated workshops in different regions to enhance teaching practices.Enjoy, and let us know thoughts and feedback in our Facebook Group.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast player.JOIN CUE LEARNING'S NEXT LIVE WEBINAR!Join our  upcoming Zoom event: 'Enhancing Writing Instruction: Revising and Editing' on Thursday 21st September: and online courses can be found here.Other matching PDF resources are here.Got any questions? Feedback? Thoughts? Email the Cue office at: admin@cuelearning.com.auThe Teacher's Tool Kit For Literacy is the free podcast for motivated teachers and school leaders who want the latest tips, tricks and tools to inspire their students and school community in literacy learning. Hear from literacy expert and founder of Cue Learning, Sharon Callen, and special guests.At Cue Learning, our literacy specialists draw on over 30 years of teaching and international consulting experience to deliver world-class learning solutions. We equip, empower and support teachers to become their authentic selves. To find out about upcoming events, and about how Cue can help you and your school, visit the Cue Learning website http://www.cuelearning.com.au/ and sign up to our newsletter https://cuelearning.com.au/contact/And you can get even more amazing teaching resources, right now, at Teachific https://www.teachific.com.au/.To make sure you don't miss any literacy learning tips and insights, please subscribe to our show on your favourite podcast player.MORE INFORMATION AT A GLANCE:Visit cuelearning.com.auSubscribe to the Teacher's Tool Kit For Literacy podcasts  or join on Apple  Podcasts hereContact the Cue office:  admin@cuelearning.com.auJoin our Teacher's Toolkit facebook groupFind connected resources on TeachificSee upcoming online eventsSee our online video courses hereAnd finally, read our insightful blogs hereProduced by Apiro Media https://apiropodcasts.com

Is it worth our time to teach reading comprehension strategies? Here's some food for thought from the National Reading Panel.Find the show notes here.

How long have “the reading wars” been a part of the national education discourse? What are the recurring themes? What can 4K-12 practitioners do to engage in a dialogue that leads to a better understanding of effective literacy instruction?In this episode, Paul Thomas shares his findings about the science of reading movement and how educators can navigate this conversation.Paul, a professor at Furman University, is the author of the policy brief The Science of Reading Movement: The never-ending debate and the need for a different approach to reading instruction (NEPC, 2022). He also wrote How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care (IAP, 2020). Paul is a frequent writer at his blog, Radical Scholarship and on Twitter at @plthomasEdD. Special thanks to Mary Howard, Joy La Vay Taylor, Debra Crouch, and Mary Beth Nicklaus for engaging in and elevating this conversation. Full subscribers can join these conversations in real time. They also have access to the video archive and professional discussion guide here. Sign up today to fully engage in this community.Know someone who would benefit from Read by Example? Refer them to this space - see button below. Complimentary subscriptions can be earned with sign ups.Full TranscriptMatt Renwick (00:03):Welcome to Read by Example, where teachers are leaders and leaders know literacy. We are joined today by Dr. Paul Thomas. Paul is a professor of education at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He is a former column editor for English Journal, National Council Teachers of English, current series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres and author of Teaching Writing as a Journey, Not a Destination: Essays Exploring What Teaching Writing Means, and the book, which I believe is in its second edition now, How to End the Reading Wars and Serve the Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policymakers, and People Who Care. NCTE named Paul the 2013 George Orwell Award winner. He co-edited the award-winning volume, Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America. You can follow Paul's work at on Twitter at @plthomasedd and at Radical Scholarship at radicalscholarship.wordpress.com. Welcome, Paul.(01:26):Thank you very much. Nice to be here.(01:29):And we have a few who could join, if they could share too. Who you are, briefly just what you do. We'll start with Mary.Mary Howard (01:39):I am a literacy consultant and now doing Zoom, because I'm in Honolulu and I'd rather not get on a plane. This is year 51.Matt Renwick (01:57):Joy.Joy La Vay Taylor (01:59):Hi, I'm Joy La Vay Taylor, and I work for James Madison University with student teachers. Before that, I was literacy coach, reading recovery teacher and reading specialist.Matt Renwick (02:15):Deborah.Debra Crouch (02:17):Hi, I'm Deborah Crouch. I'm a literacy consultant as well and a co-author of Made For Learning with Brian Cambourne.Mary Beth Nicklaus (02:30):Hi, I'm Mary Beth Nicklaus, and I am with Eastern Harbor County Schools in Minnesota. And I'm a secondary level reading specialist. This is my 34th year.Matt Renwick (02:48):Welcome everyone. And I have a few questions for Paul, but we'll definitely save time for any questions that you might have. The first one for Paul is, you are consistently on point in your policy brief, which we will link in the newsletter, the Science of Reading Movement, which is a condensed version of your book on the topic. It's a nice summary, as well as what you post online on Twitter and on your blog. What motivates you to keep coming back to this topic of the science of reading movement?Paul Thomas (03:27):Oh, that's a really good question because most of my career, I'm really a composition writing person. And when I discovered Emily Hanford's Hard Words, early 2018, it really struck a chord, but I had no idea that it would get the momentum that it did. So I've always been a holistic literacy person, and I've always been skeptical of over focusing on things like grammar and phonics. And although I taught high school English at Furman, I have taught master's literacy program. So I've been working with early literacy teachers who are getting graduate degrees. And a former colleague of mine, Nita Schmidt, who moved from Furman to Iowa and now she's retired, she's brilliant, she was an early literacy people, and she, she brought me in at N C T E.(04:33):And so I had had this kind of transition to being, what I would say, a literacy generalist where I understand kind of K-16 literacy, or birth to grave literacy. My focus I feel like is public work. Like, how do I talk to the public? How do I help people understand education? And this movement just kind of intersected with that public work. And throughout 2018, 2019, I found myself blogging maybe too much, but I had quite a number of blogs on this, and I said, "I've got enough for a book. I did see how it was developing in a direction that regretfully has come true. That early kind of messaging has now become policy. So in the last, I guess that's what, five years now, I have shifted very much into being a policy person, which I think was the rightful place for me to go.(05:44):I do think trying to work on public narratives, how we talk about critical discourse analysis is a big thing for me. It's a central part of my upper level reading and writing course. At Furman, that's a requirement at Furman, they have to have an upper level writing and research course. So I think it was just kind of a perfect storm for me because I do feel like it's really important for scholarly work to have a real world place. And this felt way more engaging. It felt way more productive than my composition work. Although my book before this was on writing. I'm still, I teach first year writing. I care very much about writing. But reading is very central to sort of how we think about education in the United States. So it seemed like kind of a natural development for me.Matt Renwick (06:47):Yeah, your policy brief is very practical, very useful. It was easy to read, but you covered the, the essential topics of it and really gave, for me anyway, it gave me some nice talking points. Right now in Wisconsin, we're dealing with it, right this very week, up for discussion, so to speak. How might educators and parents best use this resource to effectively advocate for more reasonable policies? What can we do with this to, to make some kind of a difference, or at least try to influence policymakers?Paul Thomas (07:29):So first I would like to say I really am very proud of the policy brief. And I think a huge part of that was the N E P C staff itself. They did not make this easy . I had to a 6,000 word policy brief. I probably wrote 15 to 20,000 words and three or four drafts, and I was kind of taken to task three or four or five times before it even went to peer review. And I think they should be commended for that. The editorial group at N E P C weren't literacy people, so they were constantly going, "What do you mean by this? Uh, is this real?" And the the fun part was being challenged on using the simple view of reading.(08:22):One person said to me, "Paul, nobody uses that. That's silly. That's a silly term." And I had to say, "No, it's a technical term. It's a real term." So I do appreciate that opportunity, and I will say any PC believes in practical. So it had to build to what do people do. I do feel really good about the policy implications at the end. I've been working indirectly with Diane Stephens, who is Professor Emeritus from the University of South Carolina. She taught several other places. Diane has really perfected taking actual legislation and copy editing it, . It's amazing, "Here is where you're off base, but here is how to reform that." So I think what we have to do is, it kind of parallels the book banning and the anti C R T movement.(09:23):It seems almost silly to have to argue for access to books. It seems silly to have to say you shouldn't ban books. So I think it seems kind of pointless for a lot of reasonable people to argue for teacher autonomy and serving the needs of all students. And very simply put, that's kind of what the policy brief boiled down to. We really targeted, "there's no such thing as one size fits all instructional practices." So there should not be any one size fits all mandates in policy and legislation. We really kind of honed in on, "it's not the place of legislators to ban or mandate anything that goes against what is a reasonable approach to day-to-day classroom practices." So I think what can people do is I think is, kind of target these simple messages.(10:37):I've been trying to work better about clarifying that I'm advocating for teacher autonomy. I'm advocating for meeting the needs of every individual child. I am not an advocate for reading recovery. I'm not an advocate for balanced literacy. I'm not an advocate for National Council Teachers of English. I'm not an advocate for International Literacy Association. I'm not being trivial here. I don't advocate for labels and organizations, even though I love N C T E, for example. It's been my home for a long time, and I respect N C T E, but I think what we have to advocate for are key principles. And I've called this challenge out many times, you know, on social media. If someone says they don't agree with me or that I'm wrong, I say, so you're saying that there should not be teacher autonomy, so you're saying we shouldn't serve the individual needs of every student, and I really think we have to call people on the carpet about that.(11:47):I also think it's really important, and it might be too much for most people, I just don't believe in misinformation. I get called out that I'm advocating for X when I simply say Y isn't true . This is a really good example to me, is the attack on Lucy Calkins, I think is just unfair. It's not accurate. Lucy Calkins Units of Study and Fountas and Pinnell work are in one in four schools in the country. It's 25% of the reading programs, I just tweeted out today. You know, their programs are not the dominant programs in New Mexico. And New Mexico has the lowest NAEP fourth grade reading scores and the highest percentage of children below basic. So creating a bad guy is a trick of storytelling.(13:00):And regretfully the science of reading movement, I mean, Sold a Story. I mean, it's about storytelling, and they're manufacturing the crisis. They're manufacturing the bad guy. I really just don't like misinformation. And again, I don't like the way balance literacy is defined. It doesn't mean that I endorse balanced literacy, even though I don't have any actual problem with the concept of balanced literacy. I'm really a critical literacy person. Do I like whole language people and their philosophies? Yes, there are a lot of my friends. Do I find balanced literacy ideas compelling? Yes, of course I do. I am a holistic person. So I think we have to, I have to keep sort of simple messaging on the key concepts that we support.(13:55):But we also have to say, actually what you're saying isn't true. Your definition isn't true. Your cause of the problem isn't true. Your solution isn't true. Over and over the national reading panel is just misrepresented. I use Diane Stephen's work. The National Reading Panel found that systematic phonics was no more effective than balanced literacy or whole language. Almost every single credible study says the exact same thing. The major study out of England said systematic phonics no more effective than balanced literacy. We need balance in England, over and over. That's the truth. And then you've got the science of rooting people saying, it's the Emily Hanford mantra, that it's simple and it's settled, and neither one of those are true.Matt Renwick (14:48):That leads into my next question, Paul, is this towards, especially phonics instructions, kind of this reason why kids are failing to read because they don't have enough of it, or we need more of it to ensure that they can read. And then picking on some of these targets, whether it's a person or it's a program or approach, are these strawmen for maybe avoiding bigger issues that we do need to address, such as poverty or teaching and learning conditions? Or is there some reasonableness to what some people might be advocating for in the sor movement? Where do you see that falling?Paul Thomas (15:33):Really nice job there. I appreciate that. Because that's two other kind of key points that we need to hit on. So, the part of my book and the policy brief that I'm most proud of is the historical perspective. In the 1940s, draftees performed very poorly on literacy tests, and Eleanor Roosevelt and the government shouted reading crisis. And John Dewey in progressivism was blamed. The woman I did my dissertation on, Lula Brandt ,did an analysis and found out that most draftees went to traditional schools and had traditional instruction, like phonics instruction, had skills instruction. And there's Elementary English, which became Language Arts, had a special issue on it, very similar to Reading Research Quarterly, having two special issues on it in the 2020s.(16:33):There was one article, , and they literally say this false attack on progressivism is to avoid the truth. The problem with literacy in the United States is poverty. You know, that was the 1940s. Then it recurs, the Johnny Can't Read in the fifties and sixties, same thing. It's phonics, it's lack of phonics. And people are like, "no, the people who are doing poorly are impoverished." And then it recycles into the sixties, into the 1990s, and then around No Child Left Behind is this same thing. So I think two other messages that we really have to make sure we make clear is, and I refer to Martin Luther King toward the end of his life in 1967, he said, "We would find that instead of reforming education to erase poverty, that if we erase poverty, education would improve."(17:30):And there is nothing truer. If children had universal healthcare, if they had no food deserts, if they had steady homes, if their parents had steady well-paying jobs, if there were books in their homes, the NAEP scores would go up. And that's doing nothing in the schools. Now, I'm not saying don't do anything in schools. I actually think this is the other thing that drives me crazy. I've been accused of being a protector of the status quo. And people who know me would laugh, they should talk to some of the people I've worked for. I think I entered education in 1984. I start year 40 in the fall. And when I started education, I was a reformer.(18:23):That's why I want, I wanted to do school better than it had been done to me. And then when I was in my doctoral program in the 1990s, I found out there were the reconstructionist. There was a whole movement in the early 20th century to reform schools. And so I want things to be different. I want school to be different. And you said it just a second ago. So we've got to address the lives, the homes, and the communities of children. I mean, we have to do that. And this constantly pointing at teachers and saying they don't know what they're doing and that schools are failing is a distraction. But simultaneous to that teaching and learning conditions, I just cannot say that often enough. There's been research for decades that marginalized students are more likely to have beginning and uncertified teachers.(19:25):That's a simple thing to address. We should guarantee that no child who is performing below what we believe they should be, instead of using third grade test scores to retain students, why don't we use third grade test scores to ensure children to have experienced certified teachers and low student-teacher ratios in fourth grade? That's a much better policy. And I would 100% endorse the use of standardized testing for that. But we are not going to do those things. I mean that's what's kind of criminal about this. Special needs children...we're overly concerned about dyslexic students. I am not saying that we should not be, absolutely, we should be concerned with dyslexic students. But special needs students are really highly likely to have beginning and new teachers, special needs students are really highly likely to have uncertified teachers.(20:31):Those are things that could be addressed. Now I think that would solve a lot of problems, systemic forces outside of the school. And then, I agree, this is a national education policy center thing. Instead of accountability reform, we need equity reform. So inside schools, I would say no grade retention. We should not be stratifying students. We should not be gatekeeping students into courses. But the biggest thing to me in school is a teacher assignment. The dirty little secret about education, nobody wants to talk about...if you teach long enough when someone retires, you get the good kids. And I think that's one of those little dirty secrets that we don't talk about. Beginning teachers too often... administration sits down, the remaining teachers get to pick their courses for next year, and the leftovers go to the new person. That is a terrible policy. It's a terrible way to treat children. And these are things we could address. We never talk about them, and we don't do them. So I think as you were implying, I think a lot of this is about ways to avoid doing the hard stuff.Matt Renwick (21:53):Yeah, for sure. You hit on a lot of topics there with that. There were couple of questions and, and I won't bring it up here just because it could, who knows where it would to go. But the money aspect too. You noted on Twitter, that a lot of these arguments and blaming are actually creating a space, a void, in which then certain individuals, publishers, organizations can sell their programs, trainings to solve the problem that they created in the first place. But that's a whole nother topic almost, I think.Paul Thomas (22:38):I could interject there real quick. Sure. I think people don't understand. I just had a conversation with a producer of a major news series yesterday morning. Instead of chasing the right reading program, we should reevaluate that. We use reading programs. It's much simpler than that. At W S R A, I think it was 2019, it was right before covid, teachers taught me a lesson. The problem that they had with units of study was not units of study, it was how it was implemented. And we too often hold teachers accountable for implementing a program instead of serving the needs of students. And I think that's a really important distinction. And it would also, I think it would address the money issue. We do, I think we do spend too much money on educational materials, and then we feel obligated to holding teachers accountable because of that investment.Matt Renwick (23:41):Yeah. Too much money and resources is not enough. And the ultimate research, which is teachers and students as well is, how can we structure students to be resources for each other? I'd like to open it up to other people who have questions here, or Paul, if you have anything you'd like to share that to come to mind. I'll open the floor up.Mary Howard (24:06):Okay. I was just gonna come back to, and I appreciate this so much because it led me back to what you wrote. One of the best things about this is that it's so specific to suggestions for decision makers and policy makers. And so one of the, and I loved every one of them, but one of the things that I kept coming back to is at the very end, two that really keep, are really in my head. One is be wary of overstatements and oversimplifications within media and public advocacy. Acknowledging concerns raised but remaining skeptical of simplistic claims about causes and solutions. And one of the challenges is that there are so many, the policy makers, the people who are making these decisions, they want oversimplification. They want to know, all I have to do is write a check and there's nothing else I have to do.(25:11):And if, because they don't have a background in education, that sounds really, really compelling. And then the other one is just a couple down from that, which is so important. Recognize student-centered as an important, research supported guiding principle, but also acknowledge the reality that translating research-based principles into classroom practices is challenging. So not only do they want those over simplifications, but they want to be able to take the research and say, here's what the research says, which is complicated research. And so we're gonna do this. You know, it brings me back to RtI where the solution was the walk-to-intervention model. So they know the importance of supporting children, but they're going to find the easiest possible, not just the one that they can write a check for, but the one that's going to be the easiest possible to implement.(26:09):So, you know, those just loom really large in my mind, and I don't know how we undo. Let me just say one more thing. I remember so many times walking out of a session where someone, usually someone with a really big name, said something really absurdly ridiculous. Like, time for reading, independent reading doesn't matter. And does it in such a compelling way that people I really admire walk out of that session and say, "Oh my God, I never thought about that before." And that's been happening with the science of reading too. "Oh my God, I never knew that." And so it's really smart, lovely, wonderful people. But for some reason, , it's coming across not as what is being said. I don't know. It's a really weird thing to me.Paul Thomas (27:11):Yeah. One advantage of my career being pretty eclectic is I've taught some graduate level leadership courses, and I used to use Howard Gardner's book Leading Minds. He's known for multiple intelligences, but I don't think that's his best work actually. In Leading Minds, he directly says all the research shows that leadership functions on black and white statements. And there's very little you can do about that. So there's an ethical obligation if you're going to compel the public, you're going to have to be relatively simple. So to me, I think the line is between simple and simplistic. And the challenge we have, and again, the conversation I had yesterday morning, really, really drove this home to me, is we're in a bind because our message is not simple. And the sor people are, it's become a cult of personality because they're doing the simple and settled.(28:12):And it is very compelling. I, like you Mary, know some very lovely people who have bought it. I knew some, and I still know, I know some lovely people, bright, who bought Teach for America. I know some lovely and bright people who bought charter schools. And those have now passed, and we know they didn't work. Teach for America has really dramatically fallen off. And some of the best people I know in education went through Teach for America. So it's not the people. The simplistic message, that you just had to demand more of students, it's that soft bigotry of low expectations. And if you just demand more, and if you just work harder, these kids will succeed. And then those poor people who did that, and those children didn't succeed. They were devastated.(29:07):So we do have a problem. Our message is not simple. But that's the only message that works. And also I think, another point of yours Mary, is the idea of evidence. I think I said this the other day, but the most important evidence is the child in front of you. The first five or 10 years of my teaching, the best thing that happened to me was humility. I had missionary zeal. I came in thinking I knew what I was doing. I kind of had my butt kicked at the National Writing Project. I'll shout out to Brenda Davenport. She almost literally kicked my butt. She saw something in me. She did respect me, but she took me in a room and she let me have it. And it was an awakening for me.(30:00):I softened, I backed up off of my certainty, and I learned to work from the ground up. Research and theory... I love theory. I love philosophy. These things are important, but they're for you back here. I mean, they sit somewhere back here. But it's the actual child in front of you. So I've learned, Furman has really taught me a lesson too. I mean, for the last 21 years, my college first year writing students are a different type of human than what I taught in rural South Carolina in high school. So I try to work from the student and instead of imposing Paul's beliefs about writing, Paul's beliefs about learning. You know, one simple thing is we we're always told that, that you have to give students credit for class participation.(31:04):I know a lot of professors still put that on their syllabus, and there's a percentage for it. Well, Furman has taught me that students can participate by being completely quiet in the room. And I had to listen to that, which is kind of ironic. And , I don't say that anymore. I don't say, "You have to speak in class, you have to participate this specific way." So I think one of our messages, I think has to be that, evidence is not simplistic. And the most important piece of evidence is the child in front of you.Matt Renwick (31:41):Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Mary.Debra Crouch (31:45):Can I ask a question, Paul? How do you simplify in a way, I guess, how do you talk to student-centered in a way that keeps it understandable for people who don't come at this from "Look at the child and recognize what children are bringing" and that sort of thing. How do we talk to that? Because I agree with you. I think that piece is huge.Paul Thomas (32:12):Yeah. And teacher education, that's one thing I do is I talk about artifacts of learning. I talk about things like, I really think music teachers, art teachers, coaches, that I think the average person understands that. So, there was a piece in Phi Delta Kappan many, many years ago, somewhere in the 1990s. And the guy said, what if we had two football teams line up every Friday night and take a multiple choice test to decide the football game? Parents would revolt, my hometown, the entire town would revolt. So, you know, in art class, we have a child actually draw an artifact of learning, and then we work from there. Until the child does a drawing or a clay sculpture, we don't have any way to teach them. We have children play instruments, we have children sing, we have children play the sport.(33:13):So I think putting it in terms of behaviors, having students do the thing, and I think that's where my holistic urge is. I was a soccer coach, I coached for quite a few years. And I love scrimmage. I was a big fan of scrimmaging. So you could end the moment, you could teach, of course we did some skills, but to be perfectly honest, that's not that effective. If people practice the same thing over and over incorrectly, they're not actually learning. They're getting worse. They're building the wrong tools. So, the joke of my teaching high school was I graded about 4,000 essays a year for 18 years. Wow. And I graded about 6,000 journals on top of that. So my joke was, it was volume, volume, volume.(34:07):Until a kid wrote a paper, I did not know what they needed, Until a player lined up as a centerback and played and played a soccer match, I did not know what he needed. So I do think we have to talk in terms of sort of holistic behaviors that we're trying to teach children to do. And then our job to me is mentoring. It is coaching. I love the word coach. I think the right kind of coaching, not the stereotypical United States coach that screams and cusses, but the kind of coach that goes, "Look, you did it this way, now do it this way." Like, here is why. One thing I loved about soccer is it's conceptual. You don't run plays and it's not very structured, the type the clock runs, and it's these concepts. So it's these holistic behaviors at the conceptual level, what should you be doing? But the key element is why are you doing this? I hope that answered your question, I feel like I did.Matt Renwick (35:12):Yeah. Thanks Deborah. Thanks, Paul. Joy, did you want to throw that question out of how did we engage in this? I think Paul spoke to that previously. Was there anything else that you wanted to follow up on though, Joy regarding how to engage in conversation around this time?Joy La Vay Taylor (35:35):The article that you put out, Paul, was really helpful, Mary and I will follow it a little bit better.Paul Thomas (35:51):A lot of this movement is public, so I think a lot of it is on social media. And there is a problem. I do think Twitter is not a good place for discussion. I haven't had good luck with it. I've had a few people try to. I had one person a couple times lately, very kindly say, would you mind, you know, let's have a discussion about this blog post. I don't. There's just not enough room. There is no chance for nuance. I joke and say the best way to deal with social media discussions is don't do it. But a more practical one is, are you dealing with a serious person? So probably six months ago, a woman who is an s o r person engaged with me.(36:42):She was patient, she was kind, she was clear. I did two or three tweets with her. I realized she was a serious person. We had a very long Twitter discussion. She didn't change her mind. I did not mute her. I did not block her. Everything was fine. The key was not that we agreed with each other. The key was that she was a serious person. And that's the hard part. I often check the Twitter bios. If there's four followers, probably not serious. If they've got the little hashtag, #amplify, probably not serious. Way too much of the science of reading movement is driven by the exact thing that Hanford is attacking. If it is in fact a problem that Lucy Caulkins has made money, which is an odd thing to accuse somebody of in the United States, then the science of reading, people who are driven by market intentions are just as guilty.(37:56):My home state and the most recent budget, 15 million for LETRS training, were a very small state. Can you imagine how much state money, tax money is being earmarked for LETRS training? I don't trust advocates of LETRS anymore than I trust anyone. I mean, we learned that the tobacco industry said cigarettes were okay. They had a market interest. So I do think we have to navigate public discussions with serious people. I do not mute people instantly. I generally give everybody one or two tweets. I give you a chance. Then it's it, and it's just little things, right? Are they selling something? Do they have almost no followers? I've got people out there. I know I muted them, so I didn't block them, but they can still do it. They say, don't listen to Paul Thomas. He works for reading recovery. That's just a blatant lie. There was an organization that blogged and said, don't listen to me because I'm not a teacher. I start year 40 in the fall. I've been a literacy teacher for 40 years, over five decades since the eighties. It's just a blatant lie. So lying means you're not a serious person. If if you're trying to sell something, you're probably not a serious person. So I just think navigating that space, we're looking for serious people and then we can engage.Matt Renwick (39:34):I had the pleasure of watching Paul have a panel discussion with other serious people. It was a research panel at the Wisconsin State Reading Association Conference. He was talking with a researcher at UW-Madison, a principal out of California, and they did not all agree. I think we talked about this later, Paul. You did not all agree on the same issues, but you all were respectful the way you talked. "I hear what you're saying. Here's where I'm coming from." It was very, it was just a good conversation. And I learned a lot. And I think, I thought it was a really good model for, for what this could be, but unfortunately, often is not.Paul Thomas (40:16):Right. And I really don't think we have to all agree. Like, there are people I love that I don't agree with everything about them. And that's not what we're looking for.Mary Howard (40:29):Yeah. And in a conversation like that, you have the opportunity to have a fluid coming back and forth. That's impossible. But one of the things that I looked for on Twitter, and I've only been recently really trying to dig into it, there are just certain catchphrases that people use over and over. And that to me is a dead giveaway because it's almost like they came out with a s o r attack list of these are the things you want to say. It really is problematic that you can't. There's a big difference to being able to look at someone in the face, for example, and listen to what they're saying and then come back and respond to that than it is. It's almost like the Twitter social media is a ping pong ball, and it's really easy to get caught up in it, you know, especially when emotions are involved.Paul Thomas (41:32):That's why I say the, the s o r movement is too similar to the anti CRT movement. They're both too often ideological. So when you're ideological it's very simplistic and narrow. So you do have recurring things to say that are just, they're just imposed onto the situation. They're not drawn from the situation. Someone I blocked, I mean, I muted. I didn't see them, but I saw the response. And apparently somebody on Twitter just in the last couple of days, said that they listened to Emily Hanford. Cause she's an expert. I'm not. And the interesting thing there is not only have I taught literacy for 40 years, I taught journalism for 13 years, and I've published journalism for the last 20. I have a level of expertise in both journalism and education. That's where you can tell somebody's not serious. This is not a serious comment. That is just a blanket imposed statement. And so I think that is the ideological problem. It's not everybody who's in the science of reading movement by any stretch. But there is a faction that is just, it's just an ideologue. And it's the same thing. You know, woke , woke by DeSantis, woke by too many Republicans, uh, c r t, these have just been catchphrases. They're not, again, they're not serious people. They're not credible people.Matt Renwick (43:00):This conversation's been great as always. Any closing thoughts or takeaways from anyone in the group that you'd wanna share out before we close things out?Joy La Vay Taylor (43:15):I'm such a novice, I feel like, at Twitter for sure. I was so focused on being in the classroom, working with teachers that I was so shocked when this whole s o r thing just seemed to slam in. And I hadn't, I didn't have time to be on Twitter. I shouldn't say I have time now, but I thank you so much all for all this information that you put out. And Mary, I love Mary and Matt is great. I don't know you too, but I'm sure you two are great too. .(44:15):Because I thought that all the information that you gave about politics and the movement of reading was so helpful for me. It just gave me a background. I kind of came in with balanced literacy when it was just kind of called balanced literacy. So all of that was helpful. But is is then, if we think about the purpose of being on Twitter to share information like you do, so is that the best way to think about it as a vehicle for getting truth out there?Paul Thomas (45:00):Yeah. I would say, I would say two things. One historically we have told teachers not to be political, which is a political demand, by the way. And we also keep classroom teachers way too busy. If you keep people with their head down, they don't see what's happening to them. So I do not expect teachers to sacrifice themselves. I don't expect K-12 teachers to speak out. Absolutely, that is not an expectation. If you do find the opportunity, I think you said it perfectly. Most of my work that I do on social media is to teach, it's an extension of my teaching. I cite, my blogs are heavily cited. I cite, I link to peer review journal articles on Twitter. So I think you have to perform on social media, not to change people's minds that you're speaking to, but to leave a trail for other people to learn.(46:03):I am rarely actually speaking to the individual I'm responding to. I am leaving a trail for other people to learn from. Nobody's asking K-12 teachers to sacrifice themselves. Nobody's asking K-12 teachers to lose their jobs. As a matter of fact, I don't want you to lose your job. I'm relatively safe. I'm even at a private university. If I were in Florida and I was at a public university, I would be toast. But my university is incredibly supportive. I'm a white guy, I'm tenured, I'm old. Let us do it, you know, let us take the brunt of the damage. But if you do engage, it's not to change people's minds, it's to teach.Matt Renwick (46:54):Well said Paul. And your policy brief, half the brief is citations. I mean, it's just so well resourced. And I remember Peter Aach speaking about your work too, and just said you were meticulous. I think that's one of the first people he brought up about how to be become more knowledgeable about this topic and stay engaged. So thank you Paul Thomas. Thank you everyone for being here. This has been great. We wish you all a good rest of the year if you're still going. Otherwise, we hope you are enjoying your summer break. Thank you.Paul Thomas (47:27):Thank you. A pleasure.Matt Renwick (47:28):Thank you. Get full access to Read by Example at readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

“Phonics” may be the most controversial word in the history of teaching reading! What does the research actually say? Today we'll look at what the National Reading Panel said (and didn't say) about the teaching of phonics.Find today's show notes here.

In this episode, Mary Howard, Debra Crouch and I speak with professors Michiko Hikida and Leah Durán, authors of the article “Making sense of reading's forever wars” (Phi Delta Kappan, 2022). Leah Durán is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Michiko Hikida is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University, Columbus. They wrote this article to make the information “accessible to a lot of readers in a way that most academic journals aren't.”Our conversation was guided around three primary questions:* Have we learned anything from our past debates, or are we just going in circles?* What are your thought on the idea that these “wars” may be part of a thesis - antithesis - synthesis that we need to go through in order to move forward as a profession?* Students need institutional changes, not just individual instructional change. What can K-12 practitioners do to support institutional change?I hope you find this discussion as helpful as we did for better understanding the context and the conversation around the science of reading. Full subscribers also have access to the following:* Video recording of our conversation via Zoom* Professional discussion guide (linked within the video recording post)* Access to future disussion threads, ability to comment on posts, and join virtual conversations with esteemed literacy leaders (click here for upcoming schedule).Full TranscriptMatt Renwick:Hi. Want to welcome Michiko and Leah to our conversation. They wrote a wonderful article for Kappan Magazine of Phi Delta Kappan titled Making Sense of Reading's Forever Wars. Subtitle is, “Adopting a new science-based methodology is not enough to address students' difficulties with reading.” And we were chatting prior just how much we appreciate how well you were succinct in your article, but yet covered so much ground. I'm going to share my screen here so we can all see it. And yeah, and I'm just going to scroll down here to your bylines and your well sourced cited article. So Leah is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural studies at the University of Arizona Tucson.And Michiko is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. So welcome again. And yeah, I guess I'll start with the first question here. And it's actually your question, is have we learned anything from our past debates or are you just going in circles? And I'll open it up to Leah or Michiko first, but everyone else here feel free to chime in and offer your thoughts. And when you do, if you can introduce yourself when you speak. Michiko and Leah, we've already introduced you before. For our other guests here, just make sure you state your name.Michiko Hikida:Leah, do you want to take this or do you want me to give it a shot?Leah Durán:Yeah, yeah. I think that we have not learned as much as we should have from past debates, and I think that was part of the reason why Michiko and I really wanted to write this, is that it seemed like No Child Left Behind is very recent history. And at least the way that people are legislating science of reading, it is pretty much identical to scientifically based reading research, the term from the Bush era. It's still the big five from the report of the National Reading Panel.So in some ways it seems like there's this real energy to do exactly what has already been done without really grappling with why that didn't lead to the transformative changes that people hoped it would. And I think it's very important that we do that, if we don't acknowledge the way that No Child Left Behind and Reading First really fell short of I think the big dreams that people had for it. And think about why. Then there's no chance of not doing that again. So I really hope that the article gives people a chance to think about what we've already tried and what that means about what we haven't tried, and should try, and do differently, in order to not just do the same old thing over and over again every 10 to 15 years.Michiko Hikida:I do want to add to that a little bit and say that from a research perspective, I do think that there has been some consensus. And that consensus is that phonics instruction is helpful as a part of a more robust literacy curriculum. I think a person would be hard pressed to find a researcher that is anti-phonics. But I reiterate what Leah's saying is that at a policy level that doesn't feel like how it's being taken up.Matt Renwick:Yeah, I won't put anyone on the spot here, but I think the “be reading by third grade” retention policies might be one where we're not really learning from the past and repeating some mistakes. Yeah. But yeah, to me it sounds like this article's intent was just to create a pause for us and just to take stock of where we've come from, where we're at, and how might we proceed forward. So yeah, that's how I read it too. And I'd just open it up to our guests here. We have Debra, Mary and Sonya. So any thoughts on this too? What have you've learned, if anything from past debates?Mary Howard:Well, one of the things, and I'm Mary, I'm been an educator 51 years and now living in Honolulu, and I'm connecting back to something that you said in your piece that I keeps capturing my a attention. Some have argued that a permanent sense of crisis in K-12 education has been manufactured by those who aim to undermine the institution of public schools and scapegoat educators as a way of diverting attention from America's deepening social problems. And I think for me, a lot of that is wanting a thing. And that's always been what I've seen in all of these years in education, but never so much as now when social media makes it so easy.But wanting to blame all of these, we don't have enough programs, we don't have enough phonics, we don't have enough this, we don't have enough this and this is the way to fix it. And for anyone who's been in education longer than a day, the one thing that we know is that nothing is going to work all the time for every child. And it's certainly not going to work when we're fixated on that. So I just always keep coming back to that quote because the one thing we don't want to talk about is those deepening social problems. And so the article really meant a lot to me because you did that so beautifully.Matt Renwick:And Mary, if I can just then transition what you just said to maybe a question to Michiko and Leah is you mentioned that not one thing's going to work for everyone. And I appreciate you surfacing that because in the article too, you mentioned that students, they don't need individual instructional change, they need institutional change. And I think that's what Mary's pointing to here too is that's a big, big thing to take on. As practitioners, what are some ideas you might have for us to move on, a next step? That would probably might be helpful.Michiko Hikida:I have a couple of thoughts, and they are maybe outside of the classroom more than inside of the classroom because we are talking about institutional change. So I think a lot about teachers as public intellectuals. So when you've been teaching for 51 years like Mary has, you have a wealth of knowledge that you can stand on in a public context. So I think speaking publicly, posting on social media, having podcasts, those kinds of things, as well as organizing and doing things like voting.Leah Durán:Yeah, and I would say my answer is pretty similar in that I think maybe part of what we can do is redefine what counts as reading policy. Things that are about housing are also reading policy. Things that are about poverty are also reading policy. And I think that we sometimes compartmentalize them and think that those belong in a different arena or somebody else's expertise. But I think that they should be part of a conversation and part of our efforts around improving reading have to do with improving everything, even though that's a lot and hard to do, but it definitely won't happen if we don't try as part of it.And the other piece that related to that I think is that one thing that has been hard for me about watching this current round of the reading wars is that there really is a tremendous amount of money being spent, but to my eyes, it's being spent on things that I wouldn't reasonably expect to cause huge changes based on the research. But there are other things that we're not spending money on because I think we don't categorize them as being about reading. So I think that's part of it too. People are willing to spend money. Millions of dollars of money, but maybe I think they, legislators need some push around what counts as doing something about reading.Michiko Hikida:And I would say that that comes back to this question of what have we learned? And I think there is some consensus in the field about the impact of poverty and trauma and housing insecurity on reading scores.Matt Renwick:Yeah, that's one of the few correlations I've seen is poverty and trauma and some of these challenges as a principal and as a former teacher, and that correlation with reading achievements. So I'm glad you pointed that out. We mentioned this latest round of the reading wars, we use these metaphors to try to describe it. But I also noted in there too, instead of the pendulum swinging, you talk about incremental progress as a better way to gauge growth as a profession with reading instruction. And what things have you seen now that you've studied this in terms of specifically around reading instruction, you mentioned that we know phonics does work as a instructional strategy, and other resources or practices that are promising and that you'd like to see. You mentioned we have all this money, what buckets would you want to put the money in? Certainly outside of education, poverty and those issues are super important. Within the school, where would you want to put some of those resources?Leah Durán:Well, one of the things that I think about in terms of what all schools need to do a good job is based on an experience I had when we were both doctoral students at UTS. And one of the pieces of our training there was to supervise student teachers. And so we did that in schools all across the Austin area, so in the urban core and the suburbs. And one of the things that has really stayed with me was how different, even within the same district, classrooms were and schools were in terms of resources, depending who was enrolled there. And so I think about one particular school where I sometimes supervise student teachers, that was just really lovely and I would want everyone to have that experience. The teachers there were terrific, really talented teachers. They had huge classroom libraries. And just a lot of care and expertise went into mediating kids', access to books, kids' instruction, and were very inclusive.I remember seeing the whole classroom labeled in braille when there's a child who would benefit from them. So there's all these things. I think if you look at some of these schools that are already serving more affluent communities. I feel like everyone deserves that. And part of that is making it an attractive working condition. So one of the reasons I think that teachers like to work there and experience teachers that gravitated towards it was that they had money to pay for extra specialist teachers so that they got more planning periods. And I think that was part of what went into really thoughtful lessons. And they had tons and tons and tons of children's books. And I think that's an important piece that we should also take from the whole language side or the meaning focused side of these different pendulum swings, is that there's value in thinking about meaning and there's value in children's literature as a resource.And that doesn't have to be opposed to teaching about phonics, teaching about the code. So I guess that's my answer is I think if you look at a really wonderful school in an affluent neighborhood and think about what are all the resources that they have right there, even just in the school, that's even leaving outside all of the different things that kids have access to. But I would want all children to get to go to a school that looks and feels like that one in terms of a good place to learn, a good place to work.Matt Renwick:Any thoughts from the rest of the group on what was shared there?Debra Crouch:So, hi, I'm Debra Crouch. I'm a literacy consultant, so I go in and support schools. I live in San Diego. And you're echoing a conversation I had with the principal this morning as we walked around and we were looking at classroom libraries specifically. And just thinking about what it looks like. And at one point I asked, so I said it's that getting that picture, what would an affluent school look like? Why can't we create spaces that feel like that? Because one of the things that we were noticing were some of the jumbles in classrooms storage. It's the classrooms got the classroom, but then it's also got storage stuff all over. And we were starting to brainstorm ways that we could even take some of that out. And is there a space in the building that we could use as a storage because another principal had shared that idea.I think that envisioning, what are some of the possibilities that we could create around this, because I'm not absolutely positive that it is, like you were saying, it's like we have the money. So it's not like we don't have the money, it's the way that we're using it and the way that we're thinking about what happens at these schools. I go into classrooms sometimes and they've made black and white photocopies for the kids as opposed to giving them these really gorgeous books that they have access to. And for some reason they decide that a printed off black and white, and I keep saying to them, don't children deserve color in their books? Come on, this is not an acceptable way of treating the children. So maybe it is some of that conversation that we have around how we're using what we have and what those spaces could look like for kids. Yeah. So I so appreciated your article. Oh my goodness. This was brilliantly done. Yeah.Michiko Hikida:Thank you.Debra Crouch:You're welcome.Matt Renwick:You've already answered my last question, which was a colleague of mine, we were talking about science of reading, the reading wars, and he mentioned these things go on cycles. There's a thesis and then there's an antithesis, and then there's synthesis. And it goes back, goes around and around. And do you see that? I guess the question we had was, are these hard conversations of these issues necessary to go through in order to get to a better understanding of good reading instruction? I don't enjoy arguing about the science of reading, but is it also the obstacle is the way of thinking too?Michiko Hikida:My initial thought of that about that is it depends on who's having the conversation. So I think about the field of literacy research and how this conversation started in the 1960s. And in the field of literacy research, there has been a synthesis. And part of that synthesis is that, yes, phonics is an effective instructional tool, but it is not the entirety of a literacy curriculum. So within that field, I feel like there has been that thesis, antithesis and synthesis of this conversation. I think within the public sphere, the motivations for it are different. It's complicated, there's a lot of money involved, there's a lot of a lot of things involved. But I don't think that that conversation, the more public discourse on it is coming to it necessarily earnestly. And willing to engage with all of the research and evidence that we do have. So I think it depends on who's having the conversation and for what purpose.Matt Renwick:And then the context, it sounds like too, if you're debating stuff on Twitter, it's going to be a different conversation. [inaudible 00:19:08].Michiko Hikida:Or you know what? Policy makers like things that are very measurable and concrete and that I can legislate, and learning isn't really that clean. But gosh, that would be so much more convenient. [inaudible 00:19:25] with people and we're messy.Matt Renwick:Yeah, we can measure engagement, you can measure those more messier kinds of things, but not in the way you can measure some of the things that seem to get more of the attention. That's a great point.Mary Howard:And one thing that worries me in this day and age, and in my mind more so than ever it's been in history, is the level of mandating and the laws that are coming out from schools that are saying here are things that are not research based, like choice reading is not research based. We just shake our heads and go, "What?" So I think too, it's really important for us to be very cognizant that teachers are in schools where these horrifying mandates are being put in place. And so at the same time that we're thinking about all of the important things, I love the discussion of let's envision what is possible, and I know that teachers do that every day, but how do we help teachers to understand how to maneuver a school where there is a ball and chain attached to their arms and legs and persona, so to speak.Debra Crouch:See, a lot of it comes to leadership. It's the leadership in the schools. Because you can have that legislation piece, but it's interpreted so much by the school leadership. So that piece is so powerful and important in school leadership.Matt Renwick:Yeah. Leah or Michiko, did you see when you were visiting these schools during your dissertation, your studies, did you see a correlation with leadership? And you mentioned affluence, did you see a leadership factor there with supporting teachers?Michiko Hikida:I'll actually talk out of my teaching experience. So I taught third, fourth, and fifth in Texas. So they were all testing grades. And we had a remarkable principal and she protected us from the district. So when the district would say every elementary school in the city has to do this professional development, she would appeal to them and say, "Hey, I would love to do this with professional development with my teachers instead." So absolutely, and this was a title one school. I think 97% of our kids were on free and reduced price lunch. More than half of our kids were bi or multilingual.This was a school that I think people would think of as low performing, and it wasn't. And it was a joyful place to work as a teacher. I felt like I had a lot of autonomy. I felt like I had a ton of administrative support. And because of that, our students performed very well on high stakes testing and enjoyed reading. So I think that in my own experience, having a supportive administrator willing to go to bat for us made all the difference in the world.Matt Renwick:Well, that's great. We're running close to our time here together and I want to be respectful of that. Any closing thoughts that you might have, Leah or Michiko? If not, you can also share what you're reading right now. That's an option. But yeah, just any closing thoughts as we close our time together?Leah Durán:Yeah, I mean, one thing that I've been thinking about, and it was part of the reason why we wanted to write specifically in Phi Delta Kappan, is a place that's accessible to a lot of readers in a way that most academic journals aren't. I think that the state of the field is a very difficult thing to know. It requires a lot of time devoted to reading, to get a sense of what's going on in the field, what does the research say, what are points of contention? And I do feel like as people who have institutional access to all of these scholarly journals and that time is part of our jobs is to be current, that that's an important thing that I want to do is try and translate that or make more accessible the complexity or the synthesis that the field has arrived at in ways that I think are not always very easy to see if you can't get access to a lot of scholarly journals or go to AERA or any of these other conferences.Michiko Hikida:I'll just add a couple of things. So first thank you for having us. It's fun for Leah and me to talk about this. This was an important piece for us. But second, there is a piece that was just published in one of those journals that of course is behind the paywall that I would be happy to share with you about this that was written by David Reinking, and just came out in January, called Legislating Phonics. And he and a couple of others go through the history of this and challenge some of the arguments that phonics only people are making, which I thought was really helpful. The second thing I thought about is a book called Rocking the Boat, How Tempered Radicals affect Change.So when thinking about what teachers can do in their classrooms, when we know that there are some institutional constraints and some other challenges that they face, that's what comes to mind to me. So if I can share my screen for a quick second, I can just show you the cover.Matt Renwick:Yeah, I don't mind.Michiko Hikida:And as a classroom teacher, this is how I felt. I felt like I was a tempered radical. I, of course, had to operate within the constraints of the school and what I was expected to do. And I really worked to try to find those spaces where I could do something else. So that I would just share.Leah Durán:Oops. I wasn't fast enough.Michiko Hikida:Oh, sorry.Leah Durán:It's all right.Michiko Hikida:There you go.Leah Durán:Thank you. Let me do a quick screen-Matt Renwick:Rocking the Boat. How tempered Radicals Affect Change Without Making Trouble. Okay.Leah Durán:Oh, I love that title.Matt Renwick:[inaudible 00:26:27].Michiko Hikida:It really resonated for me as a teacher where we do operate with systems and how we might be able to make change from the inside without just burning it all apart.Leah Durán:Wow.Matt Renwick:And still be able to teach and lead and study and do research. And this has been great. We really appreciate you all being here, and we look forward to reading more from you. So thank you.Mary Howard:Thank you so much for the invitation. It was really great to get to talk.Leah Durán:Thank you.Debra Crouch:Thank you.Mary Howard:That was wonderful. Get full access to Read by Example at readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this podcast, I offer a definition of reading science that I got from an article written by Tim Shanahan. And since the Science of Reading clown club seems so enamored with phonics, we'll look at what the National Reading Panel Report actually says about phonics and balanced reading instruction. Spoiler alert: heads will explode.

On this episode of The Literacy View, we discuss:Emily Hanford's “Sold a Story” podcast ☑️The “Call for Rejecting the Latest ‘Reading Wars'” letter ☑️The “Parents Say Enough” response letter ☑️Dr. Rasinski's response letter ☑️AND…FLUENCY‼️ All letters posted below Parent letterhttp://hechingerreport.org/opinion-parents-say-enough.../58 literacy “experts” letterhttps://hechingerreport.org/opinion-a-call-for-rejecting.../Tim Rasinskihttps://openletter.earth/why-i-signed-an-open-letter-to-parents-and-others-concerned-about-children-who-struggle-in-learning-to-read-bc111721PBS News Hour letterhttps://readingrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Concern-letter-to-PBS.pdfDr. Rasinski's bioTimothy Rasinski, Ph.D.Professor of Reading EducationReading and Writing CenterKent State University401 White HallKent, OH 44242trasinsk@kent.edu ; 330-672-0649website: www.timrasinski.comTwitter: @timrasinski1Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and director of its award-winning reading clinic. He also holds the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W. Gorman Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership. Tim has written over 250 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He is author of the best-selling books on reading fluency The Fluent Reader and The Megabook of Fluency. Tim's scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Tim is the first author of the fluency chapter for the Handbook of Reading Research, Volume IV. Tim served a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and was co-editor of The Reading Teacher, the world's most widely read journal of literacy education. He has also served as co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research. Rasinski is past president of the College Reading Association, and he has won the A. B. Herr and Laureate Awards from the College Reading Association for his scholarly contributions to literacy education. In 2010 Tim was elected to the International Reading Hall of Fame and he is also the 2020 recipient of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit from the International Literacy Association. In a 2021 study done at Stanford University Tim was identified as being among the top 2% of scientists in the world. Prior to coming to Kent State Tim taught literacy education at the University of Georgia. He taught for several years as an elementary and middle school classroom and reading intervention teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. Tim is a veteran of the United States armedforces.Faith Borkowsky and Judy Boksner, discuss education articles that all educators, parents, and taxpayers should read.All currently teach children reading and hold master's degrees in education.The Literacy View lights up the information and leaves listeners to ponder and draw conclusions.The Literacy View IS INTERACTIVE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND DELICIOUSLY ENTERTAINING!

Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction Phonemic Awareness What is it?:  Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words. What is it not?:  Phonemic awareness is not phonics.  Phonics refers to how letters and sounds correspond and how we decode those words. Why is it important?:  Phonemic awareness is important for students to understand phonics.  Phonemic awareness helps kids make the leap from sounds →  letters → decoding. A student's ability to manipulate individual sounds in words is a strong predictor of later reading success.  Phonemic awareness also aids in vocabulary and fluency.  The National Reading Panel found that “students who had a solid foundation in phonemic awareness had improved ability to read and spell in the long run.” The Scoop: Isolation Blending Segmenting Manipulation (adding, deleting, and substituting phonemes) There are four main categories of phonemic awareness: Full Show Notes Here Additional Resources & References: Resources:  Phonemic Awareness Bundle Phoneme Grapheme Mapping Literacy Center Phonemic Awareness Bundle References: What Does Phonemic Awareness Mean? Making the Most of Phonemic Awareness My Top 5 Phonemic Awareness Activities **Did you miss signing up for my podcast email sequence?  When you opt-in, you get an email each day a podcast is released, plus a portion of an intervention e-book that corresponds to and compliments each podcast's subject.**

Being able to read well is the foundation for so many things.   If you can't read well, you can't do well in school, read a medical prescription or even manage a Google search.   But one in three fourth graders in the United States and in Minnesota cannot read at grade level.   A new investigative podcast from American Public Media explores how a common way of teaching reading fails students. Earlier this month, MPR News with Angela Davis talked with Emily Hanford, lead producer of “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong.”   Listen to our follow-up conversation with Minnesota educators.   Guests:   Katie Pekel is executive director of educational leadership at the University of Minnesota where she heads up the Minnesota Principals Academy and other programs to train and inform school system leaders. She's a former teacher and elementary and middle school principal.   Athena Goff is a WINN literacy teacher at Phalen Lake Hmong Studies Magnet School in St. Paul Public Schools where she teaches reading to small groups of kindergarten through third grade students.   Katharine Campbell is a former special education teacher and director of literacy partnerships with Groves Learning Organization. The literacy partnership program offers literacy training and reading curriculum to elementary schools in the Twin Cities. Here are four key moments from the conversation. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Click the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. From your experience, describe the way that reading has been taught in Minnesota: Athena Goff: I listened to the entire Sold a Story podcast. I was shocked and disappointed. In St. Paul, for the past 15 years, we have had an explicit phonics curriculum, so teaching phonics is not new. The podcast references the cueing method and my experience with that method was when teaching kids to use the visual of a word, looking all the way through the words letter by letter and seeing the sound blending. I knew in my heart that teaching kids how to decode is really teaching them how to read. I never had kids look at the first letter, check the picture, and just make a guess. For 15 years we have had a new curriculum that aligns more closely with the ‘science of reading' books. It has followed a scope and sequence. Katie Pekel: Unlike what Athena just shared, where St. Paul has had a solid phonics curriculum for 15 years, that is not the case in most districts across the state of Minnesota. As a matter of fact, when I was an elementary school principal, we had a balanced literacy approach in the building that I led. That approach meant that kids would just get reading if they were surrounded by good books and comfortable places to read as Emily described in the podcast. There was a little bit of phonics, but not what Athena described. In fact, we know from the National Reading Panel research dating back to 2000, that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, all have to be present in literacy instruction. Tell us more about the ‘Science of Reading' program: Katharine Campbell: We have been basing our reading instruction at Groves Academy for years on what we currently call the ‘science of reading'. It is explicit instruction in phonics, but also some other of the five components of reading that Katie mentioned. What we did when we went into grubs, literacy partnerships, is we changed what we were doing to meet the needs of typical learners. But it's still based on the same methodology that we follow when we talk about structured literacy or the science of reading. We started in 2016 and when we partner with a school, we bring teacher professional learning and a curriculum that is based on the science of reading. We ask them to collect data three times a year using a quick standardized test but also look at the performance of each student as they are doing a unit. Our focus is on kindergarten through third-grade readers right now, although our program is expanding, and we are publishing curriculum for those older students that need intervention. What can you tell us about racial disparities in education? Athena Goff: It is an alarming issue. For the last 14 years, I have taught at schools that had one hundred percent kids of color, and nearly one hundred percent poverty. I have been shocked over the years, and yet I have not given up on doing what is right in my heart. And now, since last year, with our new training in the science of reading, my students are reading decodable books and I am really seeing a difference and progress in how they are reading. I am hopeful and I believe in my students. Katie Pekel: Literacy is a social justice issue. And the approaches that Athena just described in the classroom are what we need to see but on a much broader scale. At the University of Minnesota, we have the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement and we help school districts across the state of Minnesota to understand how the science of reading intersects with and is part of what's called an MTSS model (multi-tiered systems of support). A second component is the school curriculum that we are going to use, that ultimately needs to reach all kids. What could help more kids learn how to read at their grade level? Athena Goff: A real focus on both phonemic awareness and letter sound instruction with phonics is the key. Teachers need decodable texts, they need decodable passages. I am hoping that classroom teachers will be getting those soon. For way too long, we have used level readers and we need to get away from that. Katie Pekel: We need a significant scale-up in the training of teachers. We already had a $3 million investment last legislative session, and as we sit on over $17 billion going into this session, I think we're going to see that investment. We need to support teachers and make sure they have the skills to use those decodable texts and resources. Your stories Parents and teachers called into the show and shared their stories. Here are some of them. Laurie from Roseville I'm a kindergarten teacher. I have been teaching for over 20 years and was trained in the balanced literacy approach. It was almost like you taught kids how to look like a reader but you were not teaching them the explicit phonics that makes them decode words. My oldest daughter is dyslexic and as a mom, it really hit me hard. I wish so badly I would have known then what I know now, so she would not have gotten through the struggles that she did. Nowadays, I'm in letters training which is based on the science of reading. Minnesota has made a big push for this. It is just December and all my kids are starting to decode. Daisy from Minneapolis My son is in third grade at Minneapolis Public Schools. I assumed things were fine and then one day, he told me he does not know how to read. I listened to the podcast and emailed the teacher. I got a paragraph response telling me he was at a benchmark level, which is where he should be at the end of third grade. So I got these mixed messages and I think where he is struggling is in writing. I think my son has a good teacher, he is at a school with people that really care about education. But I do not know what to do. Carlin from Minneapolis I was a middle school teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools for six years, and I taught predominantly Black, Latino, and Indigenous students, many of whom spoke languages other than English at home. I really believe that many programs were not properly audited in Minneapolis, because of educator bias, be that racial bias, class bias, or linguistic bias. We're all leveled against students and families to say: “well, maybe the reason they're not able to read is because they are still learning English, or because of their home lives, or because of poverty”. And so it really put students and families in this deficit lens, to the educators and to the school institutions. Susan from St. Paul I am a high school teacher, and I have students who do not know how to read, who phonetically cannot decode words, and I think it comes down to race and class. Those students have been passed through techniques of memorization and techniques of deep listening to the teacher as they go through books. As a high school teacher, to know what that is going to mean for a student who is graduating high school in two years, is a terrible feeling. Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. 

Science of Reading Links for Podcast Ontario Human Rights Commission - Right to Read Inquiry •Executive Summary: https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/right-to-read-inquiry-report/executive-summary •Full Report: https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/right-to-read-inquiry-report National Reading Panel (USA 2000) •National Reading Panel - https://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/nrp/findings Reading League - A group of interdisciplinary researchers working to communicate findings from the collective body of reading research •Reading League – https://www.thereadingleague.org/knowledge-base/ •Check out their fun kids show for insight as to many of the ‘working parts' of evidence-based reading instruction! https://www.youtube.com/c/ReadingBuddiesTRL/featured Stanislas Dehaene - Cognitive Neuroscientist explaining how reading happens in the brain. •Full video (20 minutes) https://youtu.be/25GI3-kiLdo

The National Reading Panel identified 5 pillars of good reading instruction. They were a bit misguided in their methodology. As a result, their 5 pillars are 5 pillars short. This podcast describes the 10 pillars of good reading instruction

Literacy has been one of the most talked-about aspects of education over the last few years, due to a statewide focus on the science of reading, several grant opportunities, and now the dyslexia legislation going into effect next school year. And now, as our podcast delves into ineffective teaching practices this season, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Tim Shanahan to the podcast. Dr. Shanahan is a noted researcher, speaker, and thought leader on all things literacy, and he has been a partner with the Ohio Department of Education for the last several years, as we have developed and implemented Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement. Today, Dr. Shanahan talks with SST8's Sarah Egan-Reeves and gives us a lot to think about in terms of how we design literacy instruction - really, this is a master class on literacy from one of our favorite gurus. We can't wait for you to hear all that he has to share. Co-Host: Sarah Egan-Reeves, SST8 Educational Consultant About Our Guest: Dr. Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago where he was Founding Di­rector of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is author/editor of more than 200 publications on literacy education, and research emphasizes the connections between reading and writing, literacy in the disciplines, and improvement of reading achievement. Tim is past president of the International Literacy Association. He served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the National Reading Panel, convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching reading, a major influence on reading education. He chaired two other federal research review panels: the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel, and helped write the Common Core State Standards. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher. Additional Resources: Shanahanonliteracy.com | Dr. Shanahan's website and blog Why Children Should Be Taught to Read With More Challenging Texts (Article, 2019) What Constitutes a Science of Reading Instruction? (Article, 2020) Disciplinary Literacy in Elementary Education: Video | Slides (presentation at Ohio Literacy Academy, 2020)

Linnea C. Ehri  Ph.D. is an American psychologist, currently Distinguished Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Ehri received her B.S. in Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle and her M.A. in Psychology at San Francisco University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.  Prior to joining the faculty of The Graduate Center CUNY as a Distinguished Professor in 1991, Linnea was a professor at the University of California, Davis.    Linnea has served on editorial boards of nine scientific journals. She has published over 100 research papers and edited two books. Her studies have contributed to our understanding of psychological processes and sources of difficulty in learning to read and spell.She has received awards for distinguished research from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), American Educational Research Association, International Reading Association, and National Reading Conference. She is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, and past president of SSSR. She was a member of the National Reading Panel that was established by the U.S. Congress to evaluate evidence indicating effective methods of teaching reading. On this panel she chaired the committee that reviewed research on phonemic awareness instruction and systematic phonics instruction. Although Dr. Ehri has recently received Faculty Emeritus status, she continues to advise students and offer her expertise on literacy development and reading instruction.   Recent publications have examined the ways in which children and young adults learning orthographic mapping and spelling.This podcast is sponsored by Heggerty. The Heggerty curricula has 35 weeks of phonological and phonemic awareness lesson plans aligned to the science of reading. Systematic daily lessons require minimal teacher prep time and take just 10-12 minutes to complete. The Heggerty curricula is available in both English and Spanish, and it's being used by thousands of school districts across the US, Canada, and Australia. Learn more about the curricula, our intervention book, and decodable readers at heggerty.orgFurther Learning and Resources from Dr. Ehri Ehri, L.C. (2020). The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(1), S45-S60. Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions.  Ehri, L. (1998). Research on learning to read and spell:  A personal-historical perspective.  Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 97-114. Ehri, L. (2005). Development of sight word reading: Phases and findings. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme,(Eds.), The science of reading, a handbook (pp. 135-154). UK: Blackwell. Ehri, L.C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21.  Further Reading and Exploration Bhattacharya, A. & Ehri, L. (2004). Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37, 331-348. Boyer, N., & Ehri, L.C. (2011). Contribution of phonemic segmentation instruction with letters and articulation pictures to word reading and spelling in beginners. Scientific Studies of Reading, 15(5), 440–470. Chambré, S.J., Ehri, L.C., & Ness, M. (2020). Phonological decoding enhances orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in first graders. Reading and Writing, 33(5), 1133–1162.  Gaskins, I., Ehri, L., Cress, C., O'Hara, C., & Donnelly, K.  (1996). Procedures for word learning:  Making discoveries about words.  The Reading Teacher, 50, 312-327. Gonzalez-Frey, S.M., & Ehri, L.C. (2021). Connected phonation is more effective than segmented phonation for teaching beginning readers to decode unfamiliar words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25(3), 272-285. Rosenthal, J. & Ehri, L. (2008). The mnemonic value of orthography for vocabulary learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 175-191. Sargiani, R., Ehri, L., & Maluf, M.R. (in press). Teaching beginners to decode consonant-vowel syllables using grapheme-phoneme subunits facilitates reading and spelling compared to teaching whole syllable decoding. Reading Research Quarterly. Shmidman, A. & Ehri, L. (2010). Embedded picture mnemonics to learn letters. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14, 159-182. Other works mentioned by Dr. Ehri Noam Chomsky Jeanne Chall Phonology and the Problems of Learning to Read and Write by Liberman and Shankweiler   Linnea's Picks The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton A Promised Land by Barak Obama

What are phonemes?  What is phonemic awareness?  Is it important?  What is phonics?  1How can I help my child read these words?  Is my child behind in reading?  How do I know?"Help me, Jenna!""Research has identified phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as the best two predictors of how well a child will learn to read during the first two years of school (National Reading Panel, 2000). Children who develop strong phonemic awareness skills at an early age are more likely to become fluent readers and better spellers than children who do not."Phonological Awareness:  The ability to "recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words...Phonological awareness is especially important at the earliest stages of reading development — in pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade for typical readers...Phonological awareness refers to a global awareness of sounds in spoken words, as well as the ability to manipulate those sounds."  Examples include rhyming, alliteration, sentence segmenting, syllable blending, and segmenting.Phonemic Awareness:  The ability to "notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This includes blending sounds into words, segmenting words into sounds, and deleting and playing with the sounds in spoken words."Phonics:  The ability to apply the knowledge of letter sounds to decoding unfamiliar printed words.Phonological awareness refers to oral language and phonics refers to written print. Phonemic Awareness Activities:  Sing nursery rhymes and songs including playful songsPlay rhyming gamesClap and tap patterns in song, stories, and wordsSeparate words into separate soundsParticipate in word playIdentify beginning, middle, and ending soundsBlend sounds to make wordsPhonics Activities:  Anchor ChartsSound WallsClip WheelsMagnetic Letters/Cookie SheetSlap the LetterPocket ChartsManipulatives to make and move words aroundChantsGamesResources:https://buildingrti.utexas.org/videos/phonological-awareness-five-levels-of-phonological-awarenesshttps://homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com/teach-phonemic-awareness-kids-dyslexia/https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101-course/modules/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness-introductionhttps://blog.maketaketeach.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Phonemic-Awareness-Facts-for-Teachers.pdfhttps://literacytrust.org.uk/information/what-is-literacy/what-phonics/https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/understanding-phonics/https://www.grps.org/images/departments/academics/pdfs/ela/Phonemic_Awareness_Activities_for_4.pdfhttps://www.weareteachers.com/phonics-activities/Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/thewholemama)

Sonia Cabell is an Assistant Professor in the School of Teacher Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University. Sonia started out as a second-grade teacher trained in whole language reading instruction before making the move into research. In this episode, Sonia talks to Greg Ashman about her journey, the effects of the U.S. National Reading Panel report on schools, the 'science of reading' and what we mean by that term, academic language development and her recently published paper, co-authored with HyeJin Hwang, on attempts to boost reading comprehension by building children's knowledge.

One of our most popular guests, Tim Shanahan, returns! In our most recent episode, he reminisces about the creation of the National Reading Panel in 1997 and the release of its subsequent groundbreaking report. He highlights how reading instruction has evolved and discusses how new research seems to be changing the landscape of the “reading wars” he thought were settled long ago.Quotes:“We continue to learn, and we continue to refine.”“When people are trying to tell you how you should teach, I think you need to ask some real basic questions about what evidence supports those recommendations.”Resources:National Reading Panel ReportThe Review of Educational Research JournalERIC, Educational ClearinghouseShanahan on Literacy BlogWhat Works Clearinghouse Want to discuss the episode? Join our Facebook group Science of Reading: The Community.

Giselle Pulford is a year 6/7 teacher in the Adelaide Hills. She shares her insights, tools and lessons learned from her development of approaches to teaching vocabulary.Teachers are looking for more ideas on teaching  vocabulary because it isn’t easy to teach, and it can be difficult to integrate with reading and writing and other areas of the curriculum.Everyone agrees that an extensive vocabulary helps us share our thoughts and feelings with others more effectively. An extensive vocabulary is also central to reading comprehension. The larger a reader’s vocabulary, the easier it is for him or her to understand the meaning of a text (National Reading Panel 2000). In fact, decades of research has consistently found a deep connection between vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and academic success (Baumann and Kame’enui 2002). We hope that this podcast will help you take your teaching of vocabulary to new levels.Connect with us!Got any questions? Feedback? Thoughts? Email Phil: phil@cuelearning.com.auThe Teacher’s Tool Kit For Literacy is the free podcast for motivated teachers and school leaders who want the latest tips, tricks and tools to inspire their students and school community in literacy learning. Hear from literacy experts and founders of Cue Learning, Sharon and Phil Callen, and special guests.At Cue Learning, our literacy specialists draw on over 30 years of teaching and international consulting experience to deliver world-class learning solutions. We equip, empower and support teachers to become their authentic selves. To find out about upcoming webinars, and about how Cue can help you and your school, visit the Cue Learning website http://www.cuelearning.com.au/.And you can get even more amazing teaching resources, right now, at Teachific https://www.teachific.com.au/.To make sure you don’t miss any literacy learning tips and insights, please subscribe to our show on your favourite podcast player.Produced by Apiro Media https://apiropodcasts.com

Get .1 ASHA CEU hereWe were so excited to have the opportunity to speak with Venita Litvack MA, CCC-SLP of Speechie Side Up! In our interview with Venita, she shared her extensive experience and passion for literacy instruction with individuals who use AAC. You can find more information about her podcast and other materials available on her website!Listen and learn more about best practice when it comes to literacy instruction (spoiler alert: sight words in isolation isn't it). Venita shares her enthusiasm, along with a number of actionable tips and resources for SLPs, educators, and others seeking to improve their skills and efficacy in the area of literacy instruction for AAC users. Along with examples for working individually with clients, you'll also come away with ideas for group instruction and support.We wrapped this interview feeling educated, invigorated, and inspired to share this new information with others and implement it in our own clinical work. We hope our listeners will feel the same way! You can read more about Venita, her background, and current projects here. Thank you for joining us Venita!This episode is offered for 1 ASHA CMH (equal to .1 ASHA CEU). If you have questions about CEUs or how this works, please see our How It Works or ASHA Professional Development pages.Learning Outcomes1. Describe at least 3 evidenced-based strategies for teaching literacy to children who use AAC.2. Describe at least 3 resources that are available to teach literacy to individuals who use AAC.3. Describe at least 3 activities to use in group lessons that incorporate AAC and literacy.ReferencesCunningham, J. W. (2001). The National Reading Panel report. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 326-335. doi:10.1598/RRQ.36.3.5Erickson, K. A., & Koppenhaver, D. (2020). Comprehensive literacy for all: Teaching students with significant disabilities to read and write. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.Hall, D.P., & Williams, E. (2001). Predictable Charts: Shared writing for kindergarten and 1st grade. Greensboro, NC: Carson-Dellosa.Hanser, G. (2006). Promoting emergent writing for students with significant disabilities. OT Practice, 11(9), 1-8.Jones, C.D., Clark, S. K., & Reutzel, D. R. (2013). Enhancing alphabet knowledge instruction: Research implications and practical strategies for early childhood educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41, 81-89. doi:10.1007/s10643-012-0534-9Kent-Walsh, J., Binger, C., & Malani, M. D. (2010). Teaching partners to support the communication skills of young children who use AAC: Lessons from the ImPAACT program. Early Childhood Services, 4, 155-170.Mathis, H.J. (2010). The effect of pause time upon the communicative interactions of young people who use augmentative and alternative communication. (Master's thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand). Retrieved from https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/3878Treiman, R., Levin, I., & Kessler, B. (2007). Learning of letter names follow similar principles across languages: Evidence from Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 96, 87-106. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2006.08.002Online Resources:Tarheel Reader: https://tarheelreader.orgCore Calendar Club: https://speechiesideup.com/core-calendar-club-challenge/Speechie Side Up Podcast: https://speechiesideup.com/Iowa Department of Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCjV5sSPJR8Tar heel gameplay: https://tarheelgameplay.org/Epic Books: https://www.getepic.com/Overdrive: https://www.overdrive.comLiteracy through Unity: https://aaclanguagelab.com/Saltillo Calendar Supports: https://saltillo.com/chatcorner/content/67Tell Me Curriculum: https://www.attainmentcompany.com/tell-me-programThe Center for Literacy and Disability Studies: https://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds/Disclosures:Financial: Venita Litvack has the following relevant financial relationships to disclose: ownership interest in Speechie Side Up, LLC and Tassel Learning, LLC; royalties from the Lou Knows What to Do book series. Kate Grandbois is the owner / founder of Grandbois Therapy + Consulting, LLC and co-founder of SLP Nerdcast. Amy Wonkka is an employee of a public school system and co-founder of SLP Nerdcast.Non-financial: Venita Litvack has the following relevant nonfinancial relationships to disclose: member of the ASHA Special Interest Group 12. Kate and Amy are both members of ASHA, SIG 12, and both serve on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Kate is a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy (BABAT), MassABA, the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) and the corresponding Speech Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis SIG.Time Ordered Agenda:10 minutes: Introduction, Disclaimers and Disclosures20 minutes: Review of strategies for teaching literacy to AAC users15 minutes: Review of available resources for teaching literacy to AAC users10 minutes: Review of Activities and group lessons that incorporate AAC and literacy5 minutes: Discussion and closingDisclaimerThe contents of this episode are not meant to replace clinical advice. SLP Nerdcast, its hosts and guests do not represent or endorse specific products or procedures mentioned during our episodes unless otherwise stated. We are NOT PhDs, but we do research our material. We do our best to provide a thorough review and fair representation of each topic that we tackle. That being said, it is always likely that there is an article we've missed, or another perspective that isn't shared. If you have something to add to the conversation, please email us! Wed love to hear from you!__SLP Nerdcast is a podcast for busy SLPs and teachers who need ASHA continuing education credits, CMHs, or professional development. We do the reading so you don't have to! Leave us a review if you feel so inclined!We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at info@slpnerdcast.com anytime! You can find our complaint policy here. You can also:Follow us on instagramFollow us on facebookWe are thrilled to be listed in the Top 25 SLP Podcasts! Thank you FeedSpot!

Federal guidelines related to IEPs for reading state that special education services (instruction and interventions), should be based on “peer-reviewed research.” This podcast explores the mystery of peer-reviewed research and the National Reading Panel. There are four things to take from this podcast related to peer-reviewed research and reading instruction:(1) It is not a perfect process, but it is a process and this process is important.(2) The process is not without bias or flaws. Peer review does not magically make research unbiased or pure. It is not possible for human beings to have a completely objective, unbiased view of anything. Peer-review is simply another filter to try to remove some of the impurities related to bias, methodology, theoretical context, applications, and conclusions.(3) You are the ultimate filter. You are the most important peer-reviewer. In this respect, you must always ask: Does the strategy or approach work with the students in front of you? Does it enhance their ability to create meaning with print? Does it move them forward, unimpeded, in their journey to achieve their full literacy potential? It does not matter if a strategy or approach demonstrates significant results with a large sample size if it does not work with your sample size.(4) Federal government has many significant roles to play in enhancing the betterment of our society and improving the lives of all people. However, identifying effective reading instruction is not one of them.

In this episode, a dream came true and I was able to dialogue with another great hero: Dr. Timothy Shanahan. To quote the biography on his website, “Shanahanoliteracy.com,” Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago where he was Founding Di­rector of the UIC Center for Literacy. Previously, he was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is author/editor of more than 200 publications on literacy education. His research emphasizes the connections between reading and writing, literacy in the disciplines, and improvement of reading achievement. Tim is past president of the International Literacy Association. He served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the National Reading Panel, convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching reading. and helped write the Common Core State Standards. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher. Years ago, Tim’s work and leadership transformed the way I taught reading, text analysis, and radically disrupted my notions about how to work with students who struggle to read, write, and engage in authentic literacies. On a personal level, it is because of his wisdom that I did far better for my students and he helped me foster vast reading and writing gains. More importantly, I saw a drastic increase in my students’ eagerness to work hard. I watched their levels of self-efficacy shoot up. And, they reported a sense that what they did each day felt valuable and just made sense. I try to avoid gushing during these interviews, but he truly made a difference in my life and in the lives of groups of young people who will navigate this world with far greater agency. This episode contains all the wisdom that changed my life as a teacher and much, much more. It is a distinct honor to share with you a conversation I will never forget! And with that, I bring you Dr. Tim Shanahan! Mentioned Resources: Dr. Shananah’s Website: https://shanahanonliteracy.com/ Dr. Shananah’s Blog: https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog (Please Subscribe!) The “Hard Words” Article: (Click Here)

Reading is one of the hardest skills to learn in early development. Any parent or teacher can attest to the struggle students go through on their journey to reading fluency and comprehension. So, what is the secret to successfully teaching English in schools? Guests Dr. Victoria Locke, director of research at Istation, and Dr. Bill Fahle, SVP of development research at Istation, attest that the science-backed method of the “Big Five” is the solution to student and teacher struggles. MarketScale’s EdTech Podcast dives deep into this education strategy, unpacking how the “Big Five” foundations for reading can help every student become a proficient reader. In 1997, the National Reading Panel distilled years of research and studies into the groundwork for the “Big Five,” a series of steps that evolve to fluency: Phonemic Awareness Phonics Fluency with text Comprehension Vocabulary Like scaffolding, Dr. Locke said, the steps build upon each other, starting first with the early skill of phonemic awareness. Perhaps the most standout feature of the “Big Five” is its ability to cater to each individual student. “(The) Big Five helps to meet students where they are,” Dr. Locke said. An adaptive assessment test determines the student’s level of understanding in each individual step, resulting in a custom overview of a student’s weaknesses and strengths. Dr. Fahle explains how a computer algorithm curates the test as the student is taking it, measuring their ability on a highly customized level. Grounded in science, it’s clear the Big Five carries weight. With proper support from the school system and adequate teacher training, the Big Five can have a successful implementation in any school.

Technology tools, like the online learning portal from Dallas-based iStation, are not only helping students in elementary school, but they are aiding early literacy efforts for kids just coming into Kindergarten. In this episode of the EdTech Podcast, host Tyler Kern sat down with Dr. Jane Moore , Strategic Professional Development Specialist, and Dr. Georgia Thompson, Trainer and Implementation Specialist at IStation, to discuss why early literacy is important for its very youngest students. While sophisticated, 1:1-empowering, and device-driven EdTech might be considered a relatively new development in instruction, IStation’s adaptive online reading curriculum for elementary school students has roots in a Clinton-era initiative called the National Reading Panel. The panel helped establish the five essential pillars for literacy learning, upon which IStation’s curriculum is based. The pillars include phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Teaching these scientifically-based reading pillars is helping close the gap for incoming Kindergarten students, whose literacy often varies widely from English as a second language to fluent readers. “Studies have shown how simultaneous advantage of using print, sound, and animation is really speeding along those acquisition skills we want our children to have,” Dr. Moore said. In addition, the International Literacy Association found that meaningful use of digital resources can substantially diminish the literacy difference between the low-economic student and their more affluent peers. But if you think IStation’s online learning portal is removing teachers from the equation, Georgia assures that’s not the case. “We never want to replace the teacher,” Dr. Thompson said. “It does not supplant, it just supplements.”

Rachelle Savitz discusses current research and her own research on Response to Intervention or RTI. What is RTI? What are researched-based interventions? Find out in this episode! References: Allington, R. L. (2009a). What really matters in Response to Intervention: Research-based designs. Boston, MA: Pearson Education. Ayers, R., & Ayers, W. (2014). Teaching the taboo: Courage and imagination in the classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Berkeley, S., Bender, W. N., Peaster, L. G., & Saunders, L. (2009). Implementation of response to intervention: A snapshot of progress. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(1), 85-95. Brozo, W. G., & Hargis, C. H. (2003). Taking seriously the idea of reform: One high school’s efforts to make reading more responsive to all students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(1), 14-23. Brozo, W. G. (2009). Response to intervention or responsive instruction? Challenges and possibilities of response to intervention for adolescent literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(4), 277-281. Brozo, W. G. (2011). RTI and the adolescent reader: Responsive literacy instruction in secondary schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Buly, M.R., & Valencia, S.W. (2002). Below the bar: Profiles of students who fail state reading assessments. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(3), 219-239. Capella, E., & Weinstein, R. (2001). Turning around reading achievement: Predictors of high school students’ academic resilience. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(4), 758-771. Coalition for Evidence-based Policy. (2003). Identifying and implementing educational practices supported by rigorous evidence: A user-friendly guide. US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. Darling-Hammond, L. (1996). The right to learn and the advancement of teaching: Research, policy, and practice for democratic education. Educational Researcher, 25(6), 5-17. Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2001). Access to the core curriculum: Critical ingredients for success. Remedial and Special Education, 22(3), 148-157. Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). Implementing RTI in a High School. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 46(2), 99-114. Fraatz, J. M. B. (1987). The politics of reading: Power, opportunity, and prospects for change in America's public schools. New York: Teachers College Press. International Reading Association. (2002). Evidence-based reading instruction: Putting the National Reading Panel report into practice. Newark, DE: Author. International Reading Association. (2010). Response to intervention: Guiding principles for educators from the International Reading Association. Newark, DE: Authors. International Reading Association. (2012). Adolescent literacy: A position statement of the International Reading Association. Newark, DE: Author. Lai, M. K., Wilson, A., McNaughton, S., & Hsiao, S. (2014). Improving achievement in secondary schools: Impact of a literacy project on reading comprehension and secondary school qualifications. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(3), 305-334. Lang, L., Torgesen, J., Vogel, W., Chanter, C., Lefsky, E., & Petscher, Y. (2009). Exploring the relative effectiveness of reading interventions for high school students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(2), 149-175. Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40-59. Tatum, A. W. (2004). A road map for reading specialists entering schools without exemplary reading programs: Seven quick lessons. The Reading Teacher, 58(1), 28-39.

Findings of the National Reading Panel and Research on Evidence-based Fluency Instruction

Findings of the National Reading Panel and Research on Evidence-based Fluency Instruction