June 17, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert talks to us about language, learning to read, and authentic interactions with interesting texts. Freddy is known for her work addressing how fluency, vocabulary, and knowledge can be fostered through appropriate texts. Through documents such as Becoming a Nation of Readers, published by the Center for the Study of Reading in 1985 and Every Child a Reader, published by the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement in 1999, she has contributed to making research accessible to educators. Her work has also appeared in journals such as The Reading Teacher, Reading and Writing, Reading Research Quarterly, Reading Psychology, Education Sciences, Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, Journal of Literacy Research, Educational Researcher, and Educational Leadership. She has also authored many books and book chapters. Her work has been recognized by a number of organizations, including the Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research from the Literacy Research Association in 2015. Freddy has had a long career as a literacy educator, first as a teacher’s aide and teacher of primary-level students in California and, subsequently, as a teacher educator and researcher at the universities of Kentucky, Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and California-Berkeley. Since 2011, she has served as President and CEO of TextProject, Inc, a non-profit corporation that prioritizes creating products and prototypes for student reading programs, primarily based on the TExT model of text complexity, providing teacher support resources and classroom reading activities, and supporting and disseminating related research.
To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2025, June 17). A conversation with Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert. (Season 5, No. 11) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/4631-DA23-14D0-79DB-B764-K
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education research has a problem the work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
In this episode, Dr.
Elfrieda "Freddie Hebert talksto us about language, learning
to read and authenticinteractions with interesting
texts.
Freddy is known for her workaddressing how fluency,
vocabulary and knowledge can befostered through appropriate
(00:54):
texts.
Through documents such asBecoming a Nation of Readers,
published by the Center for theStudy of Reading in 1985, and
Every Child a Reader, publishedby the Center for the
Improvement of Early ReadingAchievement in 1999, she has
contributed to making researchaccessible to educators.
(01:14):
Her work has appeared injournals such as the Reading
Teacher, Reading and Writing,Reading Research Quarterly,
Reading Psychology, EducationSciences, Literacy Research:
Theory, Method and Practice,Journal of Literacy Research,
Educational Researcher, andEducational Leadership.
She's authored many books andbook chapters.
Her work has been recognized bya number of organizations,
(01:38):
including the Oscar Causey Awardfor Outstanding Contributions
to Reading Research from theLiteracy Research Association,
awarded in 2015.
Freddy has had a long career asa literacy educator, first as a
teacher's aide, and teacher ofprimary students in California,
and subsequently as a teachereducator and researcher at the
universities of Kentucky,Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and
California-Berkeley.
Since 2011, she has served aspresident and CEO of Text
(02:10):
Project Incorporated, anonprofit corporation that
prioritizes creating productsand prototypes for student
reading programs, primarilybased on the TExT model of text
complexity, providing teachersupport resources and classroom
reading activities, andsupporting and disseminating
related research.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
(02:34):
this episode.
You can connect with Freddiethrough the Text Project website
at www.
textproject.
org, or on LinkedIn, Instagram,Blue Sky and Facebook.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
Lindsay Persohn for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
(02:58):
your teaching practice.
Freddie, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you Glad to have you here.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now
?
(03:20):
I
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (03:15):
I have a really strong commitment
to describe them as the kids whodepend on public schools to
become highly literate.
I describe them as the kids whodepend on public schools to
become highly literate.
That doesn't mean that theydon't have great experiences at
home with literacy or orallanguage, but for formal
literacy.
There's a significant portionof kids who depend on schools to
(03:36):
become really good readers andmy concern lies with those
students, lies with thosestudents, and I'm particularly
concerned about descriptions ofstudents that don't do credit to
them.
So, for example, when I hear ona study done through the
(03:57):
National Assessment ofEducational Progress that
there's a recommendation thatkids who are below proficient
and on the last name that wasabout 70 percent of the fourth
graders that they actually needphonological decoding practice,
and when I hear things like that, I get pretty stirred up and I
(04:21):
begin looking at what we know,about what our students actually
know.
So I'm always responding towhat I regard to be
inappropriate attributions ofthe kids who are in most need of
advocacy.
So in a sense, I look at kidsas I'm their advocate.
(04:45):
They might not know me, but I'mcommitted to asking questions.
For example, at AERA this pastmonth, I was the discussant for
a session on the decodingthreshold and that's a notion
(05:05):
that some researchers haveestablished that at a certain
point kids who haven't scored atthat point on a decoding
assessment don't show progressin grades five and beyond in
comprehension.
But they never told us what wason that decoding assessment.
(05:26):
So immediately I start askingquestions because I don't think
you can attribute a lack ofdecoding or even oral reading
fluency to the majority ofchildren and young adults.
Our research shows that moststudents by the end of second,
(05:48):
definitely third, grade can readthe majority of words and text.
So if you look at the patternson dibbles I'm not advocating
for dibbles, but they do makeall their data freely available
for you to take a look at.
So when you look at their norms, what you see is kids attaining
an accuracy level even kids atthe 12th percentile at about
(06:20):
lack of automaticity calls for adifferent solution than when we
attribute a lack of reading ora lack of decoding ability to
students.
So what motivates me is acommitment to the kids for whom
school matters the most.
Lindsay Persohn (06:41):
Yeah.
(07:40):
In various assessments, youshare some really powerful
anecdotes and statements aboutwhat assessment is and often
what it isn't, and, I think,questioning what assessments
actually mean and maybe whatthey are actually intended to
measure versus what they do infact measure.
National I Assessment thinkthose are questions for everyone
in education.
You know, I hear oftentimesassessment data just sort of
thrown around you know 22, only22 percent of kids are ready for
kindergarten.
But you don't always hear folkssaying, well, what exactly does
that mean anyway?
Where does that number comefrom?
And if that's the flag we'regoing to wave, how does that
actually impact kids and theirlearning?
That's the flag we're going towave.
How does that actually impactkids and their learning?
So I appreciate the curiositythat you bring, but also the,
NAEP you know, the criticalquestions as to like what do
these numbers actually tell us?
What do we think they tell usversus what might they actually
be?
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebe (07:36):
telling us, including in the Lexile
framework, there have beenparticular statistical
procedures used that putstudents or, in the case of
Lexiles, texts on a single scale.
And then there are certainpoints that are labeled time,
(08:10):
this know, on the nationalassessment, proficient basic,
below basic.
But we're not ever told, forexample, what the typical
proficiency of kids at the basiclevel is.
What is it that they can read?
So when you use a term likebelow basic, you know if I were
not a literacy educator, I wouldthink like, wow, they're below
basic.
That means they don't have thebasics.
And in fact you know thatmessage has gone out in places
(08:34):
like the New York Times.
You know an article that youknow our kids can't read because
they're below basic on the name.
Well, that's just not true.
It's a particular assessmentand we've never been told
precisely the kinds of itemsthat the kids can deal with and
those that the kids can't dealwith.
And in fact, some veryprestigious National Academy of
(08:58):
Sciences panels have asked forthat exact information, first in
1997.
And then more recently in 2017.
And we haven't gotten anycloser to uncovering what that
answer is.
So you know I never really likedto hear about percentiles.
(09:18):
You know, like the kid was atthe 35th percentile.
I don't even like to hear thata kid is, I'm told a lot of the
time.
This kid is reading at thesecond grade level and my
response sometimes that will beattributed to kids in middle
school and I'm kind of going,wow, great, I know how to work
with that, because I actuallyhave quantified what know, yes
(09:41):
to be second grade level.
aYou know what kind of decoding
patterns do you need to know?
What kind of high frequencywords do you need to be able to
read most second grade text?
It's actually a lot moresophisticated than you might
think.
But if you tell me this vagueidea of second when, or you know
(10:01):
35 percentile or below basic orbelow the benchmark, I don't
know what that means.
I don't know what the kids knowand I don't think you know.
Yes, there truly are some to,it's different students for whom
(10:21):
literacy might, but we stillknow that kids know something
and I think that that's reallyimportant.
disservice to children, theirfamilies, their teachers and,
ultimately, our community as awhole whenever we don't
(10:43):
acknowledge what kids bring withthem to their educational work.
You know, what are their lifeNo, what are they interested in
and when?
National Assessment whenever we, like you said, whenever we say
, oh, they're a second gradelevel National reader Assessment
and that's Educational sortProgress of where we leave it,
you know that's what we boiltheir entire being down to.
It's just such a disservice toeveryone we boil their entire
(11:07):
being down to.
.
(12:14):
?
(12:42):
= It's just such a disservice toeveryone.
Yeah, I know that our wholeconversation won't just be
around this particular topic,but I want to emphasize that a
lot of what we've done and keepremembering our state tests
through legislation, during noChild Left Behind are actually
modeled after the nationalassessment.
So we're saying the same thingon the state test as we are on
the national assessment ofeducational progress.
But keep remembering thoseassessments are aspirational and
aspirational means we wish forour kids to do that.
We don't know what it takes forall the kids to do that.
For example, on the Common CoreState Standards staircase of
text complexity, that was anaspirational model.
That was something thatsomebody in a statistical
modeling process said oh, to getkids to be at this point at the
end of high school, we need tohave covered this, this, this,
this, this and this in terms oftext complexity.
We have to in that rate Really.
I mean, do you have evidencethat that movement will get kids
to that level?
Do you have evidence for whatit takes to get kids to that
level?
Do you have evidence for whatit takes to get kids to that
level?
And what I worry about is, youknow, I actually was born in
Canada.
So if you hear me say thingslike y'all come back, eh, that's
because most Canadians live inthe deep south of Canada.
But you know, in Canada itisn't an aspirational test.
That's reported.
NAEP know, in other countrieslike the Scandinavian countries,
it's not an aspirational test.
That's reported.
You know, in in other countrieslike the Scandinavian countries
it's not an aspirational test,it's actually grounded.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (12:52):
n particular, you know, anchor
points of this is what the kidscan do, and I think that that is
so discouraging for us in theeducational profession.
And actually some of thoseideas have actually they've come
from us and yet you know, we'vebuilt a whole culture that
makes us look at ourselves andsaying, wow, we're not doing a
(13:14):
very good job.
And I go to conferences and Ihear, you know, reputable people
saying that to a group ofteachers, like you know, one out
of every three kids you know onthe NAIT isn't attaining the
level.
That means two kids won't bemaking it and I don't want them
to be my kids and I'm kind ofgoing what you know, those kids
(13:34):
know something.
And I think, especially in this,I'm going to really make a
right turn here and just say, inthis decoding climate, make a
right turn here and just say, inthis decoding climate, we have
to realize that decoding worksinitially.
When you're using words, youalready know what they are, so
(13:56):
you can't decode a wordinitially, even though people
are using lots and lots ofnonsense tasks, which is really
an incomprehensible task to akid who speaks another language
or even another dialect.
But when we give a decodingtask to a kid for them to
unravel the mystery, theyactually need to know what the
(14:17):
thing is that they're going toget to.
You know, it's like asking adetective to solve a mystery
without having any idea what'sunderlying the task.
that I want so far that, theyou direction of decoding that
we act Becoming though Nationand Readers knowledge doesn't
(14:39):
really matter, or that maybeultimately, comprehension
doesn't matter, when, of course,in my mind, that is the
ultimate goal of reading isunderstanding Right and asking
critical questions.
So if we, if we stop atdecoding, we've definitely lost
something there and it's onlygoing to take us so far in life
and in our educational career.
So, yeah, Well, I want to emphasize
(15:01):
that.
You know, early in my careerbecoming a nation of readers,
which was published in 1985, wemade it really clear that one
needs to decode to be able to bea proficient reader.
I mean, there's there's not anyargument about that.
That's right.
Things I'm seeing is takinglittle bits of language and
(15:26):
attending to those little bitsand not letting the kids, who
don't know a lot about why you'dhave those bits, not letting
them know what the biggerpicture is.
One of the things I've justrecently this is kind of like an
epiphany I'm starting to writea new book series on selecting
(15:49):
text at different levels ofliteracy and I looked at the
book that I published in 1998 onemergent literacy, which, by
the way, is for free download atText Project.
When I get the permissions backfor the copyrights back for my
books, I scan them and we putthem there for everyone to see.
(16:12):
But what strikes me about 1998is how much of my book was about
kids writing, because it turnsout that writing is really you
have to break a word down to beable to write it.
So that's just the perfect partof learning to decode.
(16:36):
You know, whether you startwith magnetic letters.
You know, in our interventionsthat we were doing in the early
2000s, we always spent as muchtime on kids using chartboards
and you know whiteboards andwriting and changing Like, if
this word is, you know, matt,how would you change it to hat
(16:59):
kind of thing?
Or, now that you have hat, howwould you change it to hat kind
of thing?
Or, now that you have hat, howwould you change it to ham?
And we'd also talk about whatthat word meant, because a lot
of these interventions werebeing done with kids for whom
English was an emerging language.
So that really surprises me andI'm also surprised.
I mean, a lot of my work in the1990s was also around how you
(17:24):
help kids get into text.
You know, like, what are thelibrary books that you'd really
really want children to be partof as a read aloud in a
kindergarten or first gradeclassroom?
And now I'm just seeing theselists of you know, like the
little pieces of literacy thatyou need to have mastered in
(17:47):
kindergarten.
So I don't want anybody tomisrepresent me and saying I'm
not saying that decoding is notimportant.
I am saying that when we go offand take things to their
extreme, like we did with levelbooks where we were uncertain
(18:08):
what the there there was andwhat the underlying model of
reading was underlying thosebooks.
You could put a model to thosebooks.
That's something I did in somestudies and Linnea Erie did too,
and we found that when you puta good decoding curriculum under
the books and, you know, sortedthem topically, that would be a
(18:29):
great thing.
But I just fear that, you know,we often tangentially will say
well, you know, scarborough'srope also has the language part
to it, but right now we reallyhave to worry about this other
part, and that concerns me a lot.
Lindsay Persohn (18:48):
Right.
So if you're only focusing onsingle pieces of the rope, or
one or two, you're reallymissing out on what that model
is all about.
You know, showing theinterconnectedness of the skills
and why they all matter.
So you've already shared somereally rich examples of the work
that you've done and thediscoveries you've made, and I
(19:09):
love that you have had thisepiphany that writing is such an
integral part of decoding,because I think that's so
important.
And you know, again, we silowriting from reading so often in
schools and we tell teachersthey're not allowed to read
books aloud to their kids.
You know, all kinds of thingsare happening right now that do
sort of cut off parts of therope from the other parts of the
(19:31):
rope, without understanding howimportant it is for all of
those things to work in concertin order for us to support kids,
to care about reading andliteracy skills and to
understand that they have skills, they bring with them, that
they already know strategies.
How do we build off of thatrather than, you know, conveying
to them that they don't knowanything, and it is really
(19:55):
concerning that.
That is the message that somekids get from their schooling
experiences and I think theworld is getting from some
popular media sources.
Yeah, so, freddie, what else doyou want listeners Text Project
about your work, or maybe, whathave you done to help tackle
some of these challenges?
I know you've been hard at workfor over a decade now
(20:17):
developing the text projectwebsite with many, many free
resources.
Can you tell us a little bit.
(21:55):
And so there's a whole seriesmore about the work you've been
doing?
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (20:26):
Well, I love being a teacher and I
need to be honest that when Iestablish something in my
research, I often work oncreating something that will
support it.
So let me give you an example.
Last evening I was working onthis new book that I'm writing
(20:58):
and I was looking at ideas aboutpolysemy OK, the idea that a
word like bark or a word likewave can sound the same but can
mean And I start looking forbooks and there are a handful of
trade books that get into that.
But one of my friends who's aliteracy researcher sent me the
(21:22):
most delightful book that herfirst grader wrote.
You know that attends topolysemy and I started asking do
we have anything at Tech'sproject that supports that idea?
So last night and this morningI've been writing a series of
little books that are basicallycalled Same but Different, and
(21:48):
so it'll be something like youknow, about dogs barking and
that you can feel the bark on atree of that.
But I write these books so thatthey can be read, not as the
(22:08):
primary instructional program.
That's not what I'm working on.
I'm working on things that I'mhoping can ground or expand
students' experiences.
So, for example, could youwrite a series of decodable
texts that supported kids'knowledge.
So I spent about a year aboutyou that question.
(22:31):
So we have several hundredtexts at Text Project.
They're called Topic ReadsPrimary, topic reads primary and
they are sets of four texts ona, on a topic like snakes or mud
.
Snakes would obviously be onlong vowels, mud with short
(22:52):
vowels and, yes, 100 percent ofthe words are not, you know, on
the UD pattern or the AKEpattern with snakes.
But with snakes there arethings like scales and stripes
and they shed their skin.
There are lots of ideas relatedto consistent patterns in
(23:17):
English, which is what youreally really want to know in
English, which is what youreally really want to know.
And I mean, one of the thingsthat's not talked about enough
in this current manifestation ofdecoding is the quasi-regular
nature of English's orthography,and I'm sure you've talked a
lot about that on this show.
But that's a really importantthing to keep in mind.
(23:41):
And you know, the idea that kidsneed a set for variability was
something that researchers 55years ago Gibson and Levine were
their names in one of the textat Text Project federally funded
research projects in literacy.
They called it at that pointset for diversity, but they
really talked about the criticalnature of Freddy to, to know
(24:03):
about.
You know that a word like .
team or peach Freddy! You'realso going to encounter things
like great or head.
You know what, what to be someirregularity and you have to be
ready for that with in English.
So the texts that I write areintended to be used to extend
(24:23):
kids reading opportunities.
I just think we aren't givingour kids enough text, and the
text-to-text project serve aparticular function.
So at the beginning levelswe've got these decodable texts.
I just read something onlinethat somebody says well, freddie
Hebert's texts aren't trulydecodable, they're
(24:44):
multi-criterion and I toeducation good Kudos for Freddie
.
I actually don't talk aboutmyself like that, but you know
what?
What I'm working on is gettingsome concrete, interesting ideas
for kids With some highfrequency words.
e iAnd I think the model that we
(26:34):
have used for decodability,which is the lesson to text
match, I don't want little guysto only see text with short
vowels for most of theirkindergarten and half of first
grade.
You know, the thing is thatvery early on you have to
actually move into somevariability in English or you're
in trouble.
So I am confident that somebodyvery precious and near to me
will not be listening aneducation podcast because she's
now an emerging teenager whoreally loves makeup.
So that'll be more of a TikTokkind of thing.
But I had the privilege ofsupporting this young person at
the beginning of the pandemicwhen it turned out that her
first grade teacher hadn'tgotten beyond short vowels when
the lockdown came.
And so my special little personthought, okay, that's going to
(27:32):
aren't seeing enough of the textto start being automatic early
on.
vowels, well of course I meanyou have to be dealing with
variability from the get-go,right when you see words like
was and the, but then when youget to long vowels, they're
variable, right.
So there are two vowels herethat are making one sound, or
there's a vowel in in the middleand then you know a silent E at
the end.
So you really have to supportkids in not just getting to
think that everything's going tobe regular.
To text match LTTM, which hasbeen driving selection of
decodable text in our largestate adoptions, which basically
says once the letter soundcorrespondence has been
introduced, it's fair game tohave any word with that pattern
in a text.
You don't have to haverepetition of those patterns or
the word even.
It's just has there been alesson in the Willems plan that
covers that pattern?
Well, it turns out, the most ofthe kids that I know who
actually learn to read in schooldon't learn one trial learning.
So you have to actually seesome of that a lot more.
So the rate at which we'vemoved at the beginning levels
Same for the Different kidstexts, who aren't already
reading is incredibly fast, andyou know they aren't seeing
enough of the text to startbeing automatic early on and we
don't know how much you need tosee.
And we don't know how much youneed to see.
We don't know how much the kidswho come to school with a
really fair idea about readinghow much text they've seen.
Text We Project know it'sprobably a thousand hours of
text.
I just made that number up, soplease don't quote me on that
(27:56):
somebody out there but a lot ofit Anyways in Text Project mean,
well, if you thought about halfhour reading for six years,
yeah, that's, that could beabout right, okay.
So what I'm saying is you, youhave to see a lot of text, and
that's what I'm attempting to doat Text Project is to provide
teachers with that text.
So it's not that you know, I'msaying here's an instructional
(28:20):
plan, follow this.
What I'm saying is here's moregrist for the mill and the kids
really, really need that.
And everything at TextProject,everything I built, is also
supporting background knowledge.
Now I want to be clear that wedon't do a lot with narrative at
TextProject, because writing areally compelling narrative
(28:41):
story, for example on the AIplatforms right now, you get
very derivative and artificialtext.
And why be, well?
Freddy, it turns out you knowMo Williams and Rosemary Wells
and writers like that haven'tlet their material into the
public domain, so AI hasn't hada lot of narrative to harvest.
(29:05):
That's different withinformational texts, so you can
get some support.
I mean, what I do isAI-assisted texts, like when I
was talking about my same butdifferent text same but not the
same text.
I get a lot of support and thenI do a lot of editing, looking
at it from the standpoint ofwhat would a kid need to know to
(29:27):
be good with this text.
That's what always what I ask.
And then the next question Iask is is it still interesting
to me when I put it onto textproject?
Because if it's not, I think Idon't have a very broad span for
boringness.
So if it's not interesting tome, you know I don't include it
(29:50):
Text project.
While we're on decodables, Iknow that I'm kind of seem
unstoppable right now, but Iwant to tell you one of the
things that I'm writing about inthis new book, which will
probably, you know, people aregoing to write and say when can
I get it?
And it'll probably be.
Well, freddie thinks fast, butshe takes a long time in doing
(30:10):
things.
And there I am again talkingabout myself and the third
person.
Stop it, okay.
But one of the things I'mwriting about is what, if you're
in a school in a district thathas adopted some of the most
tedious decodables you've everseen and I'm actually attempting
to write some of those andtrying to show teachers I don't
(30:34):
want to have a long, longcomprehension lesson around.
Like you know, tim wins, timhits whatever kind of text, or
Dan had a bad fan.
But what I want is to actuallyshow kids that look, a fan is a
kind of air conditioning, solet's put that in a semantic map
(30:55):
with some other things thathelp keep you cool, you know,
maybe even a swimming pool.
I mean, I'm just saying thatI'm going to encourage teachers
not to do these, you know, liketedious lessons that try to get
kids to say why Dan had a badfan.
I still don't know, you know.
But what I want to do is haveteachers think like, if Dan is
(31:20):
pinning something in the pictureto his shirt and it's apparent
that he won a prize, why notactually say the word prize?
How about actually writing theword prize up on, you know, on a
semantic map?
AAnd um, and I've, you know, now
gotten into the semantic mapping, I'm just totally committed to
(31:43):
helping kids see the connectionsamong ideas through semantic
maps and I think, you know, wecould sometimes, some stuff on,
you know, some of these silly,silly decodable texts that seem
incomprehensible.
I mean, today I've beenspending time looking for the
one that my nephew, who's nowalmost ready for retirement,
(32:05):
that my nephew, when he was sixyears old he showed me the text
and it was just like so wretchedand this kid was so optimistic
about school and he says so on.
Freddie, let me tell you what'sreally happening in that story.
And then he proceeded to tellme this great story.
So my question is, if you'reforced to be using those, I've
(32:29):
provided you some respite bygiving you some interesting
topically connected text andthen when I wonder I haven't
started doing this yet, butcould we actually start giving
you some ideas of someinteresting read-alouds that
would help give kids somebackground knowledge about why
(32:49):
Dan, you know, has the bad fan.
I don't know if that's possible,you know.
I'm just asking whether you canconnect some read-alouds so
that kids can actually hear somegood language at the same time
as they're being subjected towhat sometimes I don't know.
When I look at this, you know,I analyze texts.
(33:11):
I've got about 10,000 schooltexts in a database that I use
for studies and when we type insome of those, it's just like I
have to apologize to graduatestudents and to research
assistants that they have to putthose in, because you could
just you could actually thinkyou're having root canal surgery
(33:32):
.
You know, that's the nature ofthem.
Okay, so I've kind of wanderedaround here in the wilderness.
I apologize.
No, no, not at all.
Lindsay Persohn (33:52):
No need to apologize.
The connection I think I've madein all you've said, freddie, is
this idea that you knowlearning really could but also
to teachers and I think that'ssort of what I hear you saying
is that if we can identify textsthat are interesting and
relevant to what we're learning,why in the world would after,
short the fat cat sat on the matover a text that actually has
(34:17):
some connection to somethingelse we might be thinking about
or something interesting that wecould actually learn right,
rather than just sort of thesereally bland texts that suck the
life out of classrooms, youknow, for teachers and for
students.
So, yeah, that's what I think Ihear you talking about is really
authentic learning experiencesthat, rather than encouraging
(34:41):
kids or maybe even discouragingkids and teachers to sort of
just meet a bare minimum, how dowe in fact give them more while
still accomplishing thatspecific task or goal that we
were after?
Short vowels, long vowels,whatever it may be, but how do
we also wrap into that new ideasand fresh thinking and, like
(35:03):
you said, the word that actuallywe need to employ for the job?
You know why can't that make itinto good text also?
So I'm really grateful to youfor creating this database at
Text Project, where I'm hopefulthat teachers will cat, into
this resource again and againand again in order to
re-energize what's happening intheir classroom, especially if
they have been handed a reallycrummy core curriculum that is
(35:27):
just tedious and boring for themand their students.
Yeah, one of the things I alsowant to really emphasize is
that language is the coolestthing about being human.
Well, I mean, there are othercool things, but I'm just saying
that it really makes usdistinctive.
And written language is evenmore amazing than oral language,
(35:53):
I mean, because there are otherspecies that have ways of
orally communicating.
But we have a way to actuallydocument what we've learned.
We have a way to actuallydocument what we've learned, and
English is particularly uniquein that we have two linguistic
sources that underlie English.
You know, it starts as aGermanic, anglo-saxon language,
(36:13):
and I keep thinking of theseGerman chieftains saying things
like hat, bat, cat mat.
You know this is now going tobe called that.
And then, you know, in GreatBritain, the Norman invasion
adds a form of French to English, and then the Renaissance adds
(36:34):
Greek, Greek terms.
You know, I have this greatillustration that my husband and
I worked on for a long time tomake.
It shows a bratwurst, which isthe German part of English,
inside a baguette, which is theFrench part of English, and then
(36:54):
there's some yogurt sprinkledon the bratwurst, which is the
Greek part.
And when I give presentationsto teachers, in fact I'm going
to put that, you know, when wegive resources to people.
I want every third grader to beable to see that and to know
about the history of english,because english has.
(37:16):
Each of those historical roots,gives us something different
about the orthography andphonology and the morphology.
So, you know, german gives usall these compound words and the
Tim about compounding Tim is,compounding Tim is pretty
idiosyncratic.
You know, a cowboy is not a boycow and a firehouse is not a
(37:41):
house on fire.
Now, the French layer, it'smore systematic, and then the
Greek part is even more logical,right, but it's interesting to
know this.
So that's one of the thingsthat we have at Text Project too
.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (37:57):
I've written a whole etymology series
.
I don't call it that, we callit stories of words.
So you know how have words fromthe indigenous people of North
America influenced us?
You know about 50 percent ofthe indigenous people of North
America influenced us.
name that started from anindigenous group.
Those are really compellingthings to know, being excited
(38:24):
about language and recognizingthe gift that it is, instead of
beating kids to Heroes with someof these.
You know, tim runs, tim wins,tim, whatever, you know, I I
actually sometimes, when I seesome of these interventions
being Heroes to adolescentpeople, now, because of some of
(38:46):
these statements like if they'rebelow basic, that means that no
, no, no, no, don't please.
You know, in one of the textsthat I've been looking at, it's
a story for adolescents aboutRoy and Troy, who put grubs and
slugs in the other kids' food.
And you know what I've doneat Text Project is written
(39:07):
something called Teen Reads.
And you know what I've done atText Project is written
something called Teen Reads.
So it's about, Grades give know, it's a little magazine about
how to, how to use your cellphone for art.
And then another thing that Ihave are heroes.
So I've written what about?
20 pieces and it's ongoing.
I could really use somepartners, you leveled, because I
(39:35):
get all these ideas, but in theheroes they're contemporary
People from underrepresentedgroups who have made incredible
accomplishments.
You know, I don't want kidsfrom underrepresented groups to
just see Harriet Tubman orCommon Core great people but I
want them also to see, you know,the first woman jet fighter who
is a Latinx.
(39:55):
I think those things areimportant.
So I've written words doesinteresting things on
interesting people.
And, by theOnce you start moving Topic
Reads Middle Grades Text Projectwe really emphasize the word
zones.
We have something called TopicReads.
Middle Grades Give kidsexperiences with informational
(40:18):
texts that are connected to eachother.
You always want connected textswhen you're teaching kids to
get good at something, becauseyou see the words in different
contexts.
So that was one of the problemswe had with the level text
right, kids words in differentcontexts.
We know that to be a reallyimportant thing, but these texts
(40:50):
emphasize in a sense it's astaircase of word complexity,
but not like the common core.
Topic So Reads because MiddleEnglish Grades has these
historical, different historicalroots, that means that we've
got an Teen Reads dictionary orlexicon, but it turns out a very
small group of words.
.
the heavy lifting, and we'veactually established that
heroes, you families of wordsdoes the heavy lifting, and
we've actually established thatabout 2,500 families of words.
(41:11):
So that means like help, helper, helpful 25 of those families
account for about 94% of thewords kids read and that we read
as adults.
You've got to be really goodwith those words.
Words, and they're not just theDolch words.
There are also words that fallinto the general academic
(41:35):
vocabulary group and keepremembering these are families
of words, so it'll be a wholeset set of words.
So the text the topic readsmiddle grades kind of .
So there's six levels.
So what it allows you to do isbecome more automatic with the
(42:05):
words that fall outside thatgroup so that you can have
contextually, conceptuallyinteresting text.
So I see that as beingincredibly important for kids
data in the middle grades who .
(43:22):
And seen enough accessible text.
Accessible text.
You know you do need complextext, but you also, if you're
not a How highly automaticreader, you need a diet with
different kinds of text.
Okay, and that's what the topicreads middle grades do.
And, by the way, when I wastalking about the teen reads,
they also are heavier than usualon the words that matter most
in text, Of course, becausethey're about people, the heroes
.
You know they're going to be alot of names, which can make the
text seem a little harder,although it doesn't necessarily
have to be.
Lindsay Persohn (43:03):
I think what you've shared with us is really
inspirational.
I think what you've shared withus is really inspirational.
I think it also in some waysprovides a little bit of license
for teachers to question whatthey're being asked to do,
especially when it doesn't feelright or it isn't working, you
know, to say well, what is this?
Data that I've been handedright, and I think that that's
so important to think about howwe serve the kids who are right
(43:26):
in front of us.
How do we start with what theyalready know and what they want
to know and build from there,especially in a climate that
doesn't always support that kindof thinking?
So I think teachers, asprofessionals, have the right
and the responsibility to tapinto what kids already know and
to provide authenticinteractions with interesting
(43:48):
and meaningful texts.
Because, you know, I taughtkindergarten.
That was my first full-timeteaching job and one of my
mantras was texts, if kids leavekindergarten thinking that
school is .
(44:42):
I think that, they have atraining, we're road ahead of
them and I'm afraid that that,in many spaces, is what happens.
You know, when you're six yearsold and you don't think that
learning is exciting, you can'tfind, you know, the kind of the
thrill of learning something newor making a new connection.
Yeah, school becomes verytedious very quickly and without
the motivation and theengagement I don't know what we
expect of the academic side ofthings, you know.
So I really appreciate theresources you've created.
Next semester, we will beworking with youth grades three
through six.
We will certainly be using textfrom Text Project as a part of
their teaching, particularly inteacher a, there's always
looking for free and freelyavailable text resources,
because, of course, you can buya subscription to a website that
has some pretty awful text onit, or you can go to
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (45:03):
And emerging products.
As I attend to something new,like the polysemous words you
know, my last foray were could Iwrite books on the practice,
morphological layers of English.
So there's a.
There's a set of books calledWord Roots, that's actually are
some stories.
I don't usually venture intostories, but on some of them you
(45:24):
actually have to do a story, sowell, I will check those out as
well.
, given the challenges oftoday's educational climate,
what message do you wantteachers to hear?
Well, I'm a great believer in the
human spirit, and the creativityand the positiveness of
children overwhelm me all thetime I make a practice.
(45:53):
I live very close to the PacificOcean where we have a really
beautiful park right by theocean and there are just lots
and lots of little kids in thatpark and I do a lot of
interacting with them.
They do think I'm a littlestrange, but I always say that
I'm trying to understand myclients.
(46:14):
You know, this is the futureand that's a commitment that I
have and I anticipate longevitywhere I can keep being a voice
for kids like myself.
You know, I was a child ofrefugees to North America,
(46:36):
parents who couldn't, you know,finish high school because they
also ended up actually arrivingin the Canadian prairies just in
time for the Great Depressionand they had to work really hard
, hard, and I've had incredibleprivileges, and so I look for
(46:56):
hope, I look for possibility andI keep seeing these little guys
who don't know a lot of thestuff we know and are just
jumping and skipping andlaughing, and that's what I
serve.
Lindsay Persohn (47:12):
Kids are amazing, aren't they?
Young people just bring so muchlife and energy and hope to the
world, and may that always beinspiration for us as educators,
thinking about the nextgeneration.
So, freddie, thank you so much.
About the next generation.
So, freddie, thank you so much.
I have so enjoyed talking withyou and learning from you and
(47:33):
learning more about thewonderful resources you've
created, but I think you alsohelped me to see the world in a
more interconnected and hopefulkind of way.
I've always described myself asa curious person as well, but
you've given me some new thingsto be curious about.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (47:53):
So for that I'm truly grateful.
Thank you so much for joiningme for the show.
Thanks for what you're doing.
I really, really appreciate it.
Take good care Bye.
Lindsay Persohn (47:58):
All right, bye-bye, r Dr Elfrida.
Freddie Hebert is known for herwork addressing how fluency,
vocabulary and knowledge can befostered through appropriate
texts.
Through documents such asBecoming a Nation of Readers,
published by the Center for theStudy of Reading in 1985, and
Every Child a Reader, publishedby the Center for the
(48:19):
Improvement of Early ReadingAchievement in 1999, she has
contributed to making researchaccessible to educators.
With co-authors, freddie haspublished over 150 journal
articles appearing in journalssuch as the Reading Teacher,
reading and Writing, readingResearch, quarterly Reading
Psychology, literacy ResearchTheory, method and Practice.
(48:41):
Journal of Literacy Research.
Education Sciences, educationalResearcher and Educational
Leadership sciences, educationalresearcher and educational
leadership.
Many of her publications areavailable at academiaedu or
Google Scholar.
Most recently, freddiepublished the book Teaching
Words and how they Work withTeachers College Press.
She has authored around athousand texts that are freely
(49:04):
available at textprojectorg.
Dr Hebert was elected to theReading Hall of Fame and
received the William S GrayCitation of Merit from the
International ReadingAssociation, now the
International LiteracyAssociation, in 2008.
She also received the OscarCausey Award for Outstanding
Contributions to ReadingResearch from the Literacy
(49:25):
Research Association in 2015,and received the Research to
Practice Award in 2013, and theNotable Vocabulary Researcher
Award in 2017, both of thosefrom the American Educational
Research Association.
For more than 40 years, freddiehas worked in the field of
literacy education, first as ateacher's aide and a teacher of
(49:46):
primary level students inCalifornia, and subsequently as
a teacher, educator andresearcher at the universities
of Kentucky, colorado, boulder,michigan and California Berkeley
.
Since 2011, dr Hebert hasserved as the president and CEO
of Text Project Inc.
A nonprofit corporation thatprioritizes creating products
(50:08):
and prototypes for studentreading programs based primarily
on the text model of textcomplexity, providing teacher
support resources and classroomreading activities, and
supporting and disseminatingrelated research.
You can connect with Freddiethrough the Text Project website
at wwwtextprojectorg website atwwwtextprojectorg that's
(50:29):
wwwtextprojectorg or throughLinkedIn, instagram, blue Sky
and Facebook.
For the good of all students,classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
(50:51):
If this show gives you things tothink about, help us spread the
word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
Visit classroomcaffeinecom,where you can subscribe to
(51:12):
receive our short monthlynewsletter, the Espresso Shot.
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
our drop-down menu of tags.
Request an episode, topic orpotential guest.
Support our research throughour listener survey, or learn
more about the research we'redoing on our publications page.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
(51:36):
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Deluru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou, teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Education research has a problem the work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Classroom Caffeine is here tohelp.
In each episode, I talk with atop education researcher or an
expert educator about what theyhave learned from years of
(00:32):
research and experiences.
In this episode, Dr.
Elfrieda "Freddie Hebert talksto us about language, learning
to read and authenticinteractions with interesting
texts.
Freddy is known for her workaddressing how fluency,
vocabulary and knowledge can befostered through appropriate
(00:54):
texts.
Through documents such asBecoming a Nation of Readers,
published by the Center for theStudy of Reading in 1985, and
Every Child a Reader, publishedby the Center for the
Improvement of Early ReadingAchievement in 1999, she has
contributed to making researchaccessible to educators.
(01:14):
Her work has appeared injournals such as the Reading
Teacher, Reading and Writing,Reading Research Quarterly,
Reading Psychology, EducationSciences, Literacy Research:
Theory, Method and Practice,Journal of Literacy Research,
Educational Researcher, andEducational Leadership.
She's authored many books andbook chapters.
Her work has been recognized bya number of organizations,
(01:38):
including the Oscar Causey Awardfor Outstanding Contributions
to Reading Research from theLiteracy Research Association,
awarded in 2015.
Freddy has had a long career asa literacy educator, first as a
teacher's aide, and teacher ofprimary students in California,
and subsequently as a teachereducator and researcher at the
universities of Kentucky,Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and
California-Berkeley.
Since 2011, she has served aspresident and CEO of Text
(02:10):
Project Incorporated, anonprofit corporation that
prioritizes creating productsand prototypes for student
reading programs, primarilybased on the TExT model of text
complexity, providing teachersupport resources and classroom
reading activities, andsupporting and disseminating
related research.
For more information about ourguest, stay tuned to the end of
(02:34):
this episode.
You can connect with Freddiethrough the Text Project website
at www.
textproject.
org, or on LinkedIn, Instagram,Blue Sky and Facebook.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
Lindsay Persohn for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
(02:58):
your teaching practice.
Freddie, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you Glad to have you here.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now
?
(03:20):
I
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (03:15):
I have a really strong commitment
to describe them as the kids whodepend on public schools to
become highly literate.
I describe them as the kids whodepend on public schools to
become highly literate.
That doesn't mean that theydon't have great experiences at
home with literacy or orallanguage, but for formal
literacy.
There's a significant portionof kids who depend on schools to
(03:36):
become really good readers andmy concern lies with those
students, lies with thosestudents, and I'm particularly
concerned about descriptions ofstudents that don't do credit to
them.
So, for example, when I hear ona study done through the
(03:57):
National Assessment ofEducational Progress that
there's a recommendation thatkids who are below proficient
and on the last name that wasabout 70 percent of the fourth
graders that they actually needphonological decoding practice,
and when I hear things like that, I get pretty stirred up and I
(04:21):
begin looking at what we know,about what our students actually
know.
So I'm always responding towhat I regard to be
inappropriate attributions ofthe kids who are in most need of
advocacy.
So in a sense, I look at kidsas I'm their advocate.
(04:45):
They might not know me, but I'mcommitted to asking questions.
For example, at AERA this pastmonth, I was the discussant for
a session on the decodingthreshold and that's a notion
(05:05):
that some researchers haveestablished that at a certain
point kids who haven't scored atthat point on a decoding
assessment don't show progressin grades five and beyond in
comprehension.
But they never told us what wason that decoding assessment.
(05:26):
So immediately I start askingquestions because I don't think
you can attribute a lack ofdecoding or even oral reading
fluency to the majority ofchildren and young adults.
Our research shows that moststudents by the end of second,
(05:48):
definitely third, grade can readthe majority of words and text.
So if you look at the patternson dibbles I'm not advocating
for dibbles, but they do makeall their data freely available
for you to take a look at.
So when you look at their norms, what you see is kids attaining
an accuracy level even kids atthe 12th percentile at about
(06:20):
lack of automaticity calls for adifferent solution than when we
attribute a lack of reading ora lack of decoding ability to
students.
So what motivates me is acommitment to the kids for whom
school matters the most.
Lindsay Persohn (06:41):
Yeah.
(07:40):
In various assessments, youshare some really powerful
anecdotes and statements aboutwhat assessment is and often
what it isn't, and, I think,questioning what assessments
actually mean and maybe whatthey are actually intended to
measure versus what they do infact measure.
National I Assessment thinkthose are questions for everyone
in education.
You know, I hear oftentimesassessment data just sort of
thrown around you know 22, only22 percent of kids are ready for
kindergarten.
But you don't always hear folkssaying, well, what exactly does
that mean anyway?
Where does that number comefrom?
And if that's the flag we'regoing to wave, how does that
actually impact kids and theirlearning?
That's the flag we're going towave.
How does that actually impactkids and their learning?
So I appreciate the curiositythat you bring, but also the,
NAEP you know, the criticalquestions as to like what do
these numbers actually tell us?
What do we think they tell usversus what might they actually
be?
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebe (07:36):
telling us, including in the Lexile
framework, there have beenparticular statistical
procedures used that putstudents or, in the case of
Lexiles, texts on a single scale.
And then there are certainpoints that are labeled time,
(08:10):
this know, on the nationalassessment, proficient basic,
below basic.
But we're not ever told, forexample, what the typical
proficiency of kids at the basiclevel is.
What is it that they can read?
So when you use a term likebelow basic, you know if I were
not a literacy educator, I wouldthink like, wow, they're below
basic.
That means they don't have thebasics.
And in fact you know thatmessage has gone out in places
(08:34):
like the New York Times.
You know an article that youknow our kids can't read because
they're below basic on the name.
Well, that's just not true.
It's a particular assessmentand we've never been told
precisely the kinds of itemsthat the kids can deal with and
those that the kids can't dealwith.
And in fact, some veryprestigious National Academy of
(08:58):
Sciences panels have asked forthat exact information, first in
1997.
And then more recently in 2017.
And we haven't gotten anycloser to uncovering what that
answer is.
So you know I never really likedto hear about percentiles.
(09:18):
You know, like the kid was atthe 35th percentile.
I don't even like to hear thata kid is, I'm told a lot of the
time.
This kid is reading at thesecond grade level and my
response sometimes that will beattributed to kids in middle
school and I'm kind of going,wow, great, I know how to work
with that, because I actuallyhave quantified what know, yes
(09:41):
to be second grade level.
aYou know what kind of decoding
patterns do you need to know?
What kind of high frequencywords do you need to be able to
read most second grade text?
It's actually a lot moresophisticated than you might
think.
But if you tell me this vagueidea of second when, or you know
(10:01):
35 percentile or below basic orbelow the benchmark, I don't
know what that means.
I don't know what the kids knowand I don't think you know.
Yes, there truly are some to,it's different students for whom
(10:21):
literacy might, but we stillknow that kids know something
and I think that that's reallyimportant.
disservice to children, theirfamilies, their teachers and,
ultimately, our community as awhole whenever we don't
(10:43):
acknowledge what kids bring withthem to their educational work.
You know, what are their lifeNo, what are they interested in
and when?
National Assessment whenever we, like you said, whenever we say
, oh, they're a second gradelevel National reader Assessment
and that's Educational sortProgress of where we leave it,
you know that's what we boiltheir entire being down to.
It's just such a disservice toeveryone we boil their entire
(11:07):
being down to.
.
(12:14):
?
(12:42):
= It's just such a disservice toeveryone.
Yeah, I know that our wholeconversation won't just be
around this particular topic,but I want to emphasize that a
lot of what we've done and keepremembering our state tests
through legislation, during noChild Left Behind are actually
modeled after the nationalassessment.
So we're saying the same thingon the state test as we are on
the national assessment ofeducational progress.
But keep remembering thoseassessments are aspirational and
aspirational means we wish forour kids to do that.
We don't know what it takes forall the kids to do that.
For example, on the Common CoreState Standards staircase of
text complexity, that was anaspirational model.
That was something thatsomebody in a statistical
modeling process said oh, to getkids to be at this point at the
end of high school, we need tohave covered this, this, this,
this, this and this in terms oftext complexity.
We have to in that rate Really.
I mean, do you have evidencethat that movement will get kids
to that level?
Do you have evidence for whatit takes to get kids to that
level?
Do you have evidence for whatit takes to get kids to that
level?
And what I worry about is, youknow, I actually was born in
Canada.
So if you hear me say thingslike y'all come back, eh, that's
because most Canadians live inthe deep south of Canada.
But you know, in Canada itisn't an aspirational test.
That's reported.
NAEP know, in other countrieslike the Scandinavian countries,
it's not an aspirational test.
That's reported.
You know, in in other countrieslike the Scandinavian countries
it's not an aspirational test,it's actually grounded.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (12:52):
n particular, you know, anchor
points of this is what the kidscan do, and I think that that is
so discouraging for us in theeducational profession.
And actually some of thoseideas have actually they've come
from us and yet you know, we'vebuilt a whole culture that
makes us look at ourselves andsaying, wow, we're not doing a
(13:14):
very good job.
And I go to conferences and Ihear, you know, reputable people
saying that to a group ofteachers, like you know, one out
of every three kids you know onthe NAIT isn't attaining the
level.
That means two kids won't bemaking it and I don't want them
to be my kids and I'm kind ofgoing what you know, those kids
(13:34):
know something.
And I think, especially in this,I'm going to really make a
right turn here and just say, inthis decoding climate, make a
right turn here and just say, inthis decoding climate, we have
to realize that decoding worksinitially.
When you're using words, youalready know what they are, so
(13:56):
you can't decode a wordinitially, even though people
are using lots and lots ofnonsense tasks, which is really
an incomprehensible task to akid who speaks another language
or even another dialect.
But when we give a decodingtask to a kid for them to
unravel the mystery, theyactually need to know what the
(14:17):
thing is that they're going toget to.
You know, it's like asking adetective to solve a mystery
without having any idea what'sunderlying the task.
that I want so far that, theyou direction of decoding that
we act Becoming though Nationand Readers knowledge doesn't
(14:39):
really matter, or that maybeultimately, comprehension
doesn't matter, when, of course,in my mind, that is the
ultimate goal of reading isunderstanding Right and asking
critical questions.
So if we, if we stop atdecoding, we've definitely lost
something there and it's onlygoing to take us so far in life
and in our educational career.
So, yeah, Well, I want to emphasize
(15:01):
that.
You know, early in my careerbecoming a nation of readers,
which was published in 1985, wemade it really clear that one
needs to decode to be able to bea proficient reader.
I mean, there's there's not anyargument about that.
That's right.
Things I'm seeing is takinglittle bits of language and
(15:26):
attending to those little bitsand not letting the kids, who
don't know a lot about why you'dhave those bits, not letting
them know what the biggerpicture is.
One of the things I've justrecently this is kind of like an
epiphany I'm starting to writea new book series on selecting
(15:49):
text at different levels ofliteracy and I looked at the
book that I published in 1998 onemergent literacy, which, by
the way, is for free download atText Project.
When I get the permissions backfor the copyrights back for my
books, I scan them and we putthem there for everyone to see.
(16:12):
But what strikes me about 1998is how much of my book was about
kids writing, because it turnsout that writing is really you
have to break a word down to beable to write it.
So that's just the perfect partof learning to decode.
(16:36):
You know, whether you startwith magnetic letters.
You know, in our interventionsthat we were doing in the early
2000s, we always spent as muchtime on kids using chartboards
and you know whiteboards andwriting and changing Like, if
this word is, you know, matt,how would you change it to hat
(16:59):
kind of thing?
Or, now that you have hat, howwould you change it to hat kind
of thing?
Or, now that you have hat, howwould you change it to ham?
And we'd also talk about whatthat word meant, because a lot
of these interventions werebeing done with kids for whom
English was an emerging language.
So that really surprises me andI'm also surprised.
I mean, a lot of my work in the1990s was also around how you
(17:24):
help kids get into text.
You know, like, what are thelibrary books that you'd really
really want children to be partof as a read aloud in a
kindergarten or first gradeclassroom?
And now I'm just seeing theselists of you know, like the
little pieces of literacy thatyou need to have mastered in
(17:47):
kindergarten.
So I don't want anybody tomisrepresent me and saying I'm
not saying that decoding is notimportant.
I am saying that when we go offand take things to their
extreme, like we did with levelbooks where we were uncertain
(18:08):
what the there there was andwhat the underlying model of
reading was underlying thosebooks.
You could put a model to thosebooks.
That's something I did in somestudies and Linnea Erie did too,
and we found that when you puta good decoding curriculum under
the books and, you know, sortedthem topically, that would be a
(18:29):
great thing.
But I just fear that, you know,we often tangentially will say
well, you know, scarborough'srope also has the language part
to it, but right now we reallyhave to worry about this other
part, and that concerns me a lot.
Lindsay Persohn (18:48):
Right.
So if you're only focusing onsingle pieces of the rope, or
one or two, you're reallymissing out on what that model
is all about.
You know, showing theinterconnectedness of the skills
and why they all matter.
So you've already shared somereally rich examples of the work
that you've done and thediscoveries you've made, and I
(19:09):
love that you have had thisepiphany that writing is such an
integral part of decoding,because I think that's so
important.
And you know, again, we silowriting from reading so often in
schools and we tell teachersthey're not allowed to read
books aloud to their kids.
You know, all kinds of thingsare happening right now that do
sort of cut off parts of therope from the other parts of the
(19:31):
rope, without understanding howimportant it is for all of
those things to work in concertin order for us to support kids,
to care about reading andliteracy skills and to
understand that they have skills, they bring with them, that
they already know strategies.
How do we build off of thatrather than, you know, conveying
to them that they don't knowanything, and it is really
(19:55):
concerning that.
That is the message that somekids get from their schooling
experiences and I think theworld is getting from some
popular media sources.
Yeah, so, freddie, what else doyou want listeners Text Project
about your work, or maybe, whathave you done to help tackle
some of these challenges?
I know you've been hard at workfor over a decade now
(20:17):
developing the text projectwebsite with many, many free
resources.
Can you tell us a little bit.
(21:55):
And so there's a whole seriesmore about the work you've been
doing?
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (20:26):
Well, I love being a teacher and I
need to be honest that when Iestablish something in my
research, I often work oncreating something that will
support it.
So let me give you an example.
Last evening I was working onthis new book that I'm writing
(20:58):
and I was looking at ideas aboutpolysemy OK, the idea that a
word like bark or a word likewave can sound the same but can
mean And I start looking forbooks and there are a handful of
trade books that get into that.
But one of my friends who's aliteracy researcher sent me the
(21:22):
most delightful book that herfirst grader wrote.
You know that attends topolysemy and I started asking do
we have anything at Tech'sproject that supports that idea?
So last night and this morningI've been writing a series of
little books that are basicallycalled Same but Different, and
(21:48):
so it'll be something like youknow, about dogs barking and
that you can feel the bark on atree of that.
But I write these books so thatthey can be read, not as the
(22:08):
primary instructional program.
That's not what I'm working on.
I'm working on things that I'mhoping can ground or expand
students' experiences.
So, for example, could youwrite a series of decodable
texts that supported kids'knowledge.
So I spent about a year aboutyou that question.
(22:31):
So we have several hundredtexts at Text Project.
They're called Topic ReadsPrimary, topic reads primary and
they are sets of four texts ona, on a topic like snakes or mud
.
Snakes would obviously be onlong vowels, mud with short
(22:52):
vowels and, yes, 100 percent ofthe words are not, you know, on
the UD pattern or the AKEpattern with snakes.
But with snakes there arethings like scales and stripes
and they shed their skin.
There are lots of ideas relatedto consistent patterns in
(23:17):
English, which is what youreally really want to know in
English, which is what youreally really want to know.
And I mean, one of the thingsthat's not talked about enough
in this current manifestation ofdecoding is the quasi-regular
nature of English's orthography,and I'm sure you've talked a
lot about that on this show.
But that's a really importantthing to keep in mind.
(23:41):
And you know, the idea that kidsneed a set for variability was
something that researchers 55years ago Gibson and Levine were
their names in one of the textat Text Project federally funded
research projects in literacy.
They called it at that pointset for diversity, but they
really talked about the criticalnature of Freddy to, to know
(24:03):
about.
You know that a word like .
team or peach Freddy! You'realso going to encounter things
like great or head.
You know what, what to be someirregularity and you have to be
ready for that with in English.
So the texts that I write areintended to be used to extend
(24:23):
kids reading opportunities.
I just think we aren't givingour kids enough text, and the
text-to-text project serve aparticular function.
So at the beginning levelswe've got these decodable texts.
I just read something onlinethat somebody says well, freddie
Hebert's texts aren't trulydecodable, they're
(24:44):
multi-criterion and I toeducation good Kudos for Freddie
.
I actually don't talk aboutmyself like that, but you know
what?
What I'm working on is gettingsome concrete, interesting ideas
for kids With some highfrequency words.
e iAnd I think the model that we
(26:34):
have used for decodability,which is the lesson to text
match, I don't want little guysto only see text with short
vowels for most of theirkindergarten and half of first
grade.
You know, the thing is thatvery early on you have to
actually move into somevariability in English or you're
in trouble.
So I am confident that somebodyvery precious and near to me
will not be listening aneducation podcast because she's
now an emerging teenager whoreally loves makeup.
So that'll be more of a TikTokkind of thing.
But I had the privilege ofsupporting this young person at
the beginning of the pandemicwhen it turned out that her
first grade teacher hadn'tgotten beyond short vowels when
the lockdown came.
And so my special little personthought, okay, that's going to
(27:32):
aren't seeing enough of the textto start being automatic early
on.
vowels, well of course I meanyou have to be dealing with
variability from the get-go,right when you see words like
was and the, but then when youget to long vowels, they're
variable, right.
So there are two vowels herethat are making one sound, or
there's a vowel in in the middleand then you know a silent E at
the end.
So you really have to supportkids in not just getting to
think that everything's going tobe regular.
To text match LTTM, which hasbeen driving selection of
decodable text in our largestate adoptions, which basically
says once the letter soundcorrespondence has been
introduced, it's fair game tohave any word with that pattern
in a text.
You don't have to haverepetition of those patterns or
the word even.
It's just has there been alesson in the Willems plan that
covers that pattern?
Well, it turns out, the most ofthe kids that I know who
actually learn to read in schooldon't learn one trial learning.
So you have to actually seesome of that a lot more.
So the rate at which we'vemoved at the beginning levels
Same for the Different kidstexts, who aren't already
reading is incredibly fast, andyou know they aren't seeing
enough of the text to startbeing automatic early on and we
don't know how much you need tosee.
And we don't know how much youneed to see.
We don't know how much the kidswho come to school with a
really fair idea about readinghow much text they've seen.
Text We Project know it'sprobably a thousand hours of
text.
I just made that number up, soplease don't quote me on that
(27:56):
somebody out there but a lot ofit Anyways in Text Project mean,
well, if you thought about halfhour reading for six years,
yeah, that's, that could beabout right, okay.
So what I'm saying is you, youhave to see a lot of text, and
that's what I'm attempting to doat Text Project is to provide
teachers with that text.
So it's not that you know, I'msaying here's an instructional
(28:20):
plan, follow this.
What I'm saying is here's moregrist for the mill and the kids
really, really need that.
And everything at TextProject,everything I built, is also
supporting background knowledge.
Now I want to be clear that wedon't do a lot with narrative at
TextProject, because writing areally compelling narrative
(28:41):
story, for example on the AIplatforms right now, you get
very derivative and artificialtext.
And why be, well?
Freddy, it turns out you knowMo Williams and Rosemary Wells
and writers like that haven'tlet their material into the
public domain, so AI hasn't hada lot of narrative to harvest.
(29:05):
That's different withinformational texts, so you can
get some support.
I mean, what I do isAI-assisted texts, like when I
was talking about my same butdifferent text same but not the
same text.
I get a lot of support and thenI do a lot of editing, looking
at it from the standpoint ofwhat would a kid need to know to
(29:27):
be good with this text.
That's what always what I ask.
And then the next question Iask is is it still interesting
to me when I put it onto textproject?
Because if it's not, I think Idon't have a very broad span for
boringness.
So if it's not interesting tome, you know I don't include it
(29:50):
Text project.
While we're on decodables, Iknow that I'm kind of seem
unstoppable right now, but Iwant to tell you one of the
things that I'm writing about inthis new book, which will
probably, you know, people aregoing to write and say when can
I get it?
And it'll probably be.
Well, freddie thinks fast, butshe takes a long time in doing
(30:10):
things.
And there I am again talkingabout myself and the third
person.
Stop it, okay.
But one of the things I'mwriting about is what, if you're
in a school in a district thathas adopted some of the most
tedious decodables you've everseen and I'm actually attempting
to write some of those andtrying to show teachers I don't
(30:34):
want to have a long, longcomprehension lesson around.
Like you know, tim wins, timhits whatever kind of text, or
Dan had a bad fan.
But what I want is to actuallyshow kids that look, a fan is a
kind of air conditioning, solet's put that in a semantic map
(30:55):
with some other things thathelp keep you cool, you know,
maybe even a swimming pool.
I mean, I'm just saying thatI'm going to encourage teachers
not to do these, you know, liketedious lessons that try to get
kids to say why Dan had a badfan.
I still don't know, you know.
But what I want to do is haveteachers think like, if Dan is
(31:20):
pinning something in the pictureto his shirt and it's apparent
that he won a prize, why notactually say the word prize?
How about actually writing theword prize up on, you know, on a
semantic map?
AAnd um, and I've, you know, now
gotten into the semantic mapping, I'm just totally committed to
(31:43):
helping kids see the connectionsamong ideas through semantic
maps and I think, you know, wecould sometimes, some stuff on,
you know, some of these silly,silly decodable texts that seem
incomprehensible.
I mean, today I've beenspending time looking for the
one that my nephew, who's nowalmost ready for retirement,
(32:05):
that my nephew, when he was sixyears old he showed me the text
and it was just like so wretchedand this kid was so optimistic
about school and he says so on.
Freddie, let me tell you what'sreally happening in that story.
And then he proceeded to tellme this great story.
So my question is, if you'reforced to be using those, I've
(32:29):
provided you some respite bygiving you some interesting
topically connected text andthen when I wonder I haven't
started doing this yet, butcould we actually start giving
you some ideas of someinteresting read-alouds that
would help give kids somebackground knowledge about why
(32:49):
Dan, you know, has the bad fan.
I don't know if that's possible,you know.
I'm just asking whether you canconnect some read-alouds so
that kids can actually hear somegood language at the same time
as they're being subjected towhat sometimes I don't know.
When I look at this, you know,I analyze texts.
(33:11):
I've got about 10,000 schooltexts in a database that I use
for studies and when we type insome of those, it's just like I
have to apologize to graduatestudents and to research
assistants that they have to putthose in, because you could
just you could actually thinkyou're having root canal surgery
(33:32):
.
You know, that's the nature ofthem.
Okay, so I've kind of wanderedaround here in the wilderness.
I apologize.
No, no, not at all.
Lindsay Persohn (33:52):
No need to apologize.
The connection I think I've madein all you've said, freddie, is
this idea that you knowlearning really could but also
to teachers and I think that'ssort of what I hear you saying
is that if we can identify textsthat are interesting and
relevant to what we're learning,why in the world would after,
short the fat cat sat on the matover a text that actually has
(34:17):
some connection to somethingelse we might be thinking about
or something interesting that wecould actually learn right,
rather than just sort of thesereally bland texts that suck the
life out of classrooms, youknow, for teachers and for
students.
So, yeah, that's what I think Ihear you talking about is really
authentic learning experiencesthat, rather than encouraging
(34:41):
kids or maybe even discouragingkids and teachers to sort of
just meet a bare minimum, how dowe in fact give them more while
still accomplishing thatspecific task or goal that we
were after?
Short vowels, long vowels,whatever it may be, but how do
we also wrap into that new ideasand fresh thinking and, like
(35:03):
you said, the word that actuallywe need to employ for the job?
You know why can't that make itinto good text also?
So I'm really grateful to youfor creating this database at
Text Project, where I'm hopefulthat teachers will cat, into
this resource again and againand again in order to
re-energize what's happening intheir classroom, especially if
they have been handed a reallycrummy core curriculum that is
(35:27):
just tedious and boring for themand their students.
Yeah, one of the things I alsowant to really emphasize is
that language is the coolestthing about being human.
Well, I mean, there are othercool things, but I'm just saying
that it really makes usdistinctive.
And written language is evenmore amazing than oral language,
(35:53):
I mean, because there are otherspecies that have ways of
orally communicating.
But we have a way to actuallydocument what we've learned.
We have a way to actuallydocument what we've learned, and
English is particularly uniquein that we have two linguistic
sources that underlie English.
You know, it starts as aGermanic, anglo-saxon language,
(36:13):
and I keep thinking of theseGerman chieftains saying things
like hat, bat, cat mat.
You know this is now going tobe called that.
And then, you know, in GreatBritain, the Norman invasion
adds a form of French to English, and then the Renaissance adds
(36:34):
Greek, Greek terms.
You know, I have this greatillustration that my husband and
I worked on for a long time tomake.
It shows a bratwurst, which isthe German part of English,
inside a baguette, which is theFrench part of English, and then
(36:54):
there's some yogurt sprinkledon the bratwurst, which is the
Greek part.
And when I give presentationsto teachers, in fact I'm going
to put that, you know, when wegive resources to people.
I want every third grader to beable to see that and to know
about the history of english,because english has.
(37:16):
Each of those historical roots,gives us something different
about the orthography andphonology and the morphology.
So, you know, german gives usall these compound words and the
Tim about compounding Tim is,compounding Tim is pretty
idiosyncratic.
You know, a cowboy is not a boycow and a firehouse is not a
(37:41):
house on fire.
Now, the French layer, it'smore systematic, and then the
Greek part is even more logical,right, but it's interesting to
know this.
So that's one of the thingsthat we have at Text Project too
.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (37:57):
I've written a whole etymology series
.
I don't call it that, we callit stories of words.
So you know how have words fromthe indigenous people of North
America influenced us?
You know about 50 percent ofthe indigenous people of North
America influenced us.
name that started from anindigenous group.
Those are really compellingthings to know, being excited
(38:24):
about language and recognizingthe gift that it is, instead of
beating kids to Heroes with someof these.
You know, tim runs, tim wins,tim, whatever, you know, I I
actually sometimes, when I seesome of these interventions
being Heroes to adolescentpeople, now, because of some of
(38:46):
these statements like if they'rebelow basic, that means that no
, no, no, no, don't please.
You know, in one of the textsthat I've been looking at, it's
a story for adolescents aboutRoy and Troy, who put grubs and
slugs in the other kids' food.
And you know what I've doneat Text Project is written
(39:07):
something called Teen Reads.
And you know what I've done atText Project is written
something called Teen Reads.
So it's about, Grades give know, it's a little magazine about
how to, how to use your cellphone for art.
And then another thing that Ihave are heroes.
So I've written what about?
20 pieces and it's ongoing.
I could really use somepartners, you leveled, because I
(39:35):
get all these ideas, but in theheroes they're contemporary
People from underrepresentedgroups who have made incredible
accomplishments.
You know, I don't want kidsfrom underrepresented groups to
just see Harriet Tubman orCommon Core great people but I
want them also to see, you know,the first woman jet fighter who
is a Latinx.
(39:55):
I think those things areimportant.
So I've written words doesinteresting things on
interesting people.
And, by theOnce you start moving Topic
Reads Middle Grades Text Projectwe really emphasize the word
zones.
We have something called TopicReads.
Middle Grades Give kidsexperiences with informational
(40:18):
texts that are connected to eachother.
You always want connected textswhen you're teaching kids to
get good at something, becauseyou see the words in different
contexts.
So that was one of the problemswe had with the level text
right, kids words in differentcontexts.
We know that to be a reallyimportant thing, but these texts
(40:50):
emphasize in a sense it's astaircase of word complexity,
but not like the common core.
Topic So Reads because MiddleEnglish Grades has these
historical, different historicalroots, that means that we've
got an Teen Reads dictionary orlexicon, but it turns out a very
small group of words.
.
the heavy lifting, and we'veactually established that
heroes, you families of wordsdoes the heavy lifting, and
we've actually established thatabout 2,500 families of words.
(41:11):
So that means like help, helper, helpful 25 of those families
account for about 94% of thewords kids read and that we read
as adults.
You've got to be really goodwith those words.
Words, and they're not just theDolch words.
There are also words that fallinto the general academic
(41:35):
vocabulary group and keepremembering these are families
of words, so it'll be a wholeset set of words.
So the text the topic readsmiddle grades kind of .
So there's six levels.
So what it allows you to do isbecome more automatic with the
(42:05):
words that fall outside thatgroup so that you can have
contextually, conceptuallyinteresting text.
So I see that as beingincredibly important for kids
data in the middle grades who .
(43:22):
And seen enough accessible text.
Accessible text.
You know you do need complextext, but you also, if you're
not a How highly automaticreader, you need a diet with
different kinds of text.
Okay, and that's what the topicreads middle grades do.
And, by the way, when I wastalking about the teen reads,
they also are heavier than usualon the words that matter most
in text, Of course, becausethey're about people, the heroes
.
You know they're going to be alot of names, which can make the
text seem a little harder,although it doesn't necessarily
have to be.
Lindsay Persohn (43:03):
I think what you've shared with us is really
inspirational.
I think what you've shared withus is really inspirational.
I think it also in some waysprovides a little bit of license
for teachers to question whatthey're being asked to do,
especially when it doesn't feelright or it isn't working, you
know, to say well, what is this?
Data that I've been handedright, and I think that that's
so important to think about howwe serve the kids who are right
(43:26):
in front of us.
How do we start with what theyalready know and what they want
to know and build from there,especially in a climate that
doesn't always support that kindof thinking?
So I think teachers, asprofessionals, have the right
and the responsibility to tapinto what kids already know and
to provide authenticinteractions with interesting
(43:48):
and meaningful texts.
Because, you know, I taughtkindergarten.
That was my first full-timeteaching job and one of my
mantras was texts, if kids leavekindergarten thinking that
school is .
(44:42):
I think that, they have atraining, we're road ahead of
them and I'm afraid that that,in many spaces, is what happens.
You know, when you're six yearsold and you don't think that
learning is exciting, you can'tfind, you know, the kind of the
thrill of learning something newor making a new connection.
Yeah, school becomes verytedious very quickly and without
the motivation and theengagement I don't know what we
expect of the academic side ofthings, you know.
So I really appreciate theresources you've created.
Next semester, we will beworking with youth grades three
through six.
We will certainly be using textfrom Text Project as a part of
their teaching, particularly inteacher a, there's always
looking for free and freelyavailable text resources,
because, of course, you can buya subscription to a website that
has some pretty awful text onit, or you can go to
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (45:03):
And emerging products.
As I attend to something new,like the polysemous words you
know, my last foray were could Iwrite books on the practice,
morphological layers of English.
So there's a.
There's a set of books calledWord Roots, that's actually are
some stories.
I don't usually venture intostories, but on some of them you
(45:24):
actually have to do a story, sowell, I will check those out as
well.
, given the challenges oftoday's educational climate,
what message do you wantteachers to hear?
Well, I'm a great believer in the
human spirit, and the creativityand the positiveness of
children overwhelm me all thetime I make a practice.
(45:53):
I live very close to the PacificOcean where we have a really
beautiful park right by theocean and there are just lots
and lots of little kids in thatpark and I do a lot of
interacting with them.
They do think I'm a littlestrange, but I always say that
I'm trying to understand myclients.
(46:14):
You know, this is the futureand that's a commitment that I
have and I anticipate longevitywhere I can keep being a voice
for kids like myself.
You know, I was a child ofrefugees to North America,
(46:36):
parents who couldn't, you know,finish high school because they
also ended up actually arrivingin the Canadian prairies just in
time for the Great Depressionand they had to work really hard
, hard, and I've had incredibleprivileges, and so I look for
(46:56):
hope, I look for possibility andI keep seeing these little guys
who don't know a lot of thestuff we know and are just
jumping and skipping andlaughing, and that's what I
serve.
Lindsay Persohn (47:12):
Kids are amazing, aren't they?
Young people just bring so muchlife and energy and hope to the
world, and may that always beinspiration for us as educators,
thinking about the nextgeneration.
So, freddie, thank you so much.
About the next generation.
So, freddie, thank you so much.
I have so enjoyed talking withyou and learning from you and
(47:33):
learning more about thewonderful resources you've
created, but I think you alsohelped me to see the world in a
more interconnected and hopefulkind of way.
I've always described myself asa curious person as well, but
you've given me some new thingsto be curious about.
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert (47:53):
So for that I'm truly grateful.
Thank you so much for joiningme for the show.
Thanks for what you're doing.
I really, really appreciate it.
Take good care Bye.
Lindsay Persohn (47:58):
All right, bye-bye, r Dr Elfrida.
Freddie Hebert is known for herwork addressing how fluency,
vocabulary and knowledge can befostered through appropriate
texts.
Through documents such asBecoming a Nation of Readers,
published by the Center for theStudy of Reading in 1985, and
Every Child a Reader, publishedby the Center for the
(48:19):
Improvement of Early ReadingAchievement in 1999, she has
contributed to making researchaccessible to educators.
With co-authors, freddie haspublished over 150 journal
articles appearing in journalssuch as the Reading Teacher,
reading and Writing, readingResearch, quarterly Reading
Psychology, literacy ResearchTheory, method and Practice.
(48:41):
Journal of Literacy Research.
Education Sciences, educationalResearcher and Educational
Leadership sciences, educationalresearcher and educational
leadership.
Many of her publications areavailable at academiaedu or
Google Scholar.
Most recently, freddiepublished the book Teaching
Words and how they Work withTeachers College Press.
She has authored around athousand texts that are freely
(49:04):
available at textprojectorg.
Dr Hebert was elected to theReading Hall of Fame and
received the William S GrayCitation of Merit from the
International ReadingAssociation, now the
International LiteracyAssociation, in 2008.
She also received the OscarCausey Award for Outstanding
Contributions to ReadingResearch from the Literacy
(49:25):
Research Association in 2015,and received the Research to
Practice Award in 2013, and theNotable Vocabulary Researcher
Award in 2017, both of thosefrom the American Educational
Research Association.
For more than 40 years, freddiehas worked in the field of
literacy education, first as ateacher's aide and a teacher of
(49:46):
primary level students inCalifornia, and subsequently as
a teacher, educator andresearcher at the universities
of Kentucky, colorado, boulder,michigan and California Berkeley
.
Since 2011, dr Hebert hasserved as the president and CEO
of Text Project Inc.
A nonprofit corporation thatprioritizes creating products
(50:08):
and prototypes for studentreading programs based primarily
on the text model of textcomplexity, providing teacher
support resources and classroomreading activities, and
supporting and disseminatingrelated research.
You can connect with Freddiethrough the Text Project website
at wwwtextprojectorg website atwwwtextprojectorg that's
(50:29):
wwwtextprojectorg or throughLinkedIn, instagram, blue Sky
and Facebook.
For the good of all students,classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
(50:51):
If this show gives you things tothink about, help us spread the
word.
Talk to your colleagues andeducator friends about what you
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
Visit classroomcaffeinecom,where you can subscribe to
(51:12):
receive our short monthlynewsletter, the Espresso Shot.
On our website, you can alsolearn more about each guest,
find transcripts for ourepisodes, explore topics using
our drop-down menu of tags.
Request an episode, topic orpotential guest.
Support our research throughour listener survey, or learn
more about the research we'redoing on our publications page.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
(51:36):
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Deluru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou, teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
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