February 11, 2025 • 32 mins
Jennifer Serravallo specifically focuses on ideas from her latest book, Teaching Reading Across the Day. Her books utilize research-supported practices, translated for everyday classroom teaching. Jen is known for her work in the areas of reading and writing strategies, individualized literacy support for students, and teacher professional development in literacy. She is a New York Times Bestselling author of teacher professional resources including The Reading Strategies Book 2.0 and The Writing Strategies Book. You can connect with Jen and her work at her website www.jenniferserravallo.com, on Twitter @jserravallo, on Instagram @jenniferserravallo, or by joining The Reading and Writing Strategies Facebook Community.
To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2025, Feb. 11). Another conversation with Jennifer Serravallo (Season 5, No. 7) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/F889-5592-600B-3925-4EAE-3
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Education research has a problem the work of
brilliant education researchersoften doesn't reach the practice
of brilliant teachers.
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.
Classroom Caffeine return guestJennifer Cerevalo specifically
focuses on ideas from her latestbook, teaching Reading Across
the Day.
Her books utilizeresearch-supported practices
translated for everydayclassroom teaching.
Jen is known for her work inthe areas of reading and writing
(00:55):
strategies, individualizedliteracy, support for students
and teacher professionaldevelopment in literacy.
She is a New York Timesbestselling author of teacher
professional resources,including the Reading Strategies
Book 2.0 and the WritingStrategies Book.
You can connect with Jen andher work at her website,
(01:17):
wwwjennifersiferavallocom, onTwitter or X at jseravallo
that's J-S-E-R-R-A-V-A-L-L-O OnInstagram at Jennifer Seravallo
(01:43):
or by joining the Reading andWriting Strategies Facebook
community For more informationabout our guest.
stay tuned to the end of thisepisode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
lindsay Persaud, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice.
(02:04):
Jen, thank you for joining me.
Welcome back to the show.
Thank you so much for having meagain.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now, and
maybe specifically what droveyou to write your latest book?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Sure.
So my newest book, teachingReading Across the Day, is a
book about methods andstructures for teaching literacy
instruction.
I cover everything in this book, from phonics to reader's
theater, to different ways tosupport kids' comprehension with
grade level complex texts likeread aloud and close reading.
(02:40):
So there's a variety ofdifferent structures, different
methods of teaching, differentplanning templates.
And so to your question what isthis moment that we're in right
now?
I think there's a few differentthings that I think about.
One is this really richconversation around the science
of reading, or what isresearch-based instruction and
(03:03):
what does research help us toknow?
And related to that, there'sthis real surge in legislative
changes and new curricularadoptions in a lot of states in
an attempt to better alignpractices and curriculum to what
research tells us is mostlikely to work for most kids.
(03:23):
So we're in this moment where alot of teachers are being asked
to change things.
They're being asked to changetheir approach to literacy, the
way that they structure theirliteracy block, even down to the
kinds of things that they'reteaching students during the
literacy block.
So what my work is often knownfor is just trying to take
complex things and make themreally practical and doable.
So one of the things I wantedto do with this book was to
(03:45):
create, use right away templatesfor planning lessons, together
with examples of what it lookslike when a lesson like this is
done well.
So a template of you know whatis a, what is a read aloud
lesson look like how do I planfor it, what kinds of things are
you doing, anticipate, and thenwhat does it look like when
it's done well.
(04:05):
At the same time, one of theother themes throughout the book
is the importance of responsiveteaching, making sure that
we're not just sticking to ascript, we're not just sticking
to a plan, and that we've got toreally look at the kids in
front of us.
And part of the responsivenesscomes into play, of course, when
we're planning.
We know our kids.
We know, for example, whattheir background knowledge is
about a particular topic, and sowe make adjustments to our plan
(04:28):
to try to support connectingwhat they know already to what
new information we're trying toteach in the lesson.
But there's also responsivenessthat needs to happen in the
midst of the lesson, so we'rewatching students' faces and
their eyes and whether they'rewith us and they're not with us.
We see when they're engaged andwhen engagement starts to
(04:50):
falter and teachers need to makeadjustments.
So we need to speed things up,speed the pacing up or slow
things down.
We need to pop in an extrademonstration that we hadn't
planned to do because werealized they need a little more
support, or we need to back upand offer a question and an
opportunity for them to discuss,or we need to provide another
example or change the way thatwe're asking kids to engage, to
try to get the liveliness backup in the classroom right.
So those kinds of responses andthose kinds of adjustments are
(05:12):
critical as well, and again,some of which we can anticipate
and some of which we need to beready for in the moment to sort
of like improvise in response towhat we see.
So there's also a lot ofsupport in the book for that.
I think that matches thismoment right now, because again,
teachers are being asked toteach from these new core
programs, these new scripts.
Every time there's new coreprogram adoptions we hear this
(05:33):
phrase teaching with fidelity,which sometimes means just very
tightly holding on to what thatcurriculum guide says.
But really what we know fromresearch is that the teacher's
decision-making and flexibilityin the moment matters a lot for
whether or not the kids aregoing to be able to get it.
So I wanted to offer again justa really practical, helpful
how-to guide for teachers tohelp them see what kinds of ways
(05:56):
they're going to makeadaptations and what kinds of
adjustments and responses theymight need to make.
So I unpack that within eachchapter and then I also have
video examples and annotatedlesson plans where I talk about
here's the changes I made,here's why I made this change,
here's the adaptation.
Because of this.
This is what I saw, and so thisis what I did to try to kind of
(06:16):
walk teachers through that.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I appreciate that, jen, and I think probably one of
my biggest fears in teachingright now is that teachers are
losing a lot of their autonomyand their ability to make
professional decisions.
I also think there's just a lotof static, there's a lot of
noise right now as far as whatis good for kids, and I'm just
afraid that there are too manyelements missing from the
(06:39):
conversation, because we knowthat classrooms are really
robust environments where everyroom is a little bit different.
Every teacher's personality sortof plays into what that
classroom community looks andfeels and sounds like, as well
as, of course, the kids and whatthey bring to the table of
(07:06):
curriculum and curriculardecision-making.
Is that we're losing some ofthat richness of the environment
and unfortunately, I think thatoften becomes counterproductive
, right?
Because when teachers can'trespond to your point of you
know we need to be able toimprovise.
In the moment, when teachers'hands are tied to do that kind
of improvisation, I think thatbecomes really challenging.
I think it can make theprofession frustrating, and so I
(07:27):
appreciate that your work notonly looks at positive practices
for kids, maybe best practicesfor kids, but also talks about
how you make those decisions inthe moment, because I think that
it's just so critical to whatteachers have always done.
That, yeah, I appreciate thatyou sort of hold that as a
central focus in your book.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Thank you, lindsay, I appreciate that.
Yeah, I think you know it iscritical that we're informed by
the quote unquote science right,that we look at the research,
and.
But I also think and I writeabout this in the book that
there's a limit to what researchcan tell us, and there needs to
be a place where you know wehonor the science.
We we use our best attempts atfollowing what the science says.
But Tim Rosensky talks a lotabout this the importance of the
(08:09):
art of teaching as well, thatwe make room for creativity and
also professional decisionmaking.
But those two things are.
They're not in conflict,they're hand in hand.
We need to do both, and so whatI hope I did in this book was
to show both.
I have these meaty sectionswith lots of research citations.
But then I also talk a lot aboutthe importance of teacher
(08:30):
creativity and decision-making,and I'll be honest, I would not
have wanted to be a teacher foras long as I did if I didn't
have the ability to be creative,and I work with so many
teachers.
We are creative people and Iwork with so many teachers.
We are creative people.
Like part of what draws us tothis profession is the ability
to be creative, from you know,from the ways that we craft
(08:55):
lessons to really connectingwith our kids, and that means
sometimes changing the text to atext we love so much and we
want to bring in this belovedpicture book to you know even
the heart that teachers put intotheir classroom environments
and what the room looks like,like teachers are creative
people.
So you stifle that and you tellteachers they can't be creative
and they can't make their owndecisions, or you dishonor the
professionalism and their ownexperience and their expertise.
(09:17):
It's not good for teachers,it's not good for the profession
and it's really not good forkids.
Ultimately.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh, absolutely I couldn't agree with you more and
I think that, yeah, that in myexperience in classroom being in
a classroom myself was one ofthe more challenging elements.
It wasn't working with kids,that was always sort of the joy
of it, but it was navigatingheavy handed policies and
procedures that did sort of takesome of the joy out of that
(09:46):
environment.
So I'm hoping that teacherswill feel armed to make those
positive decisions, and I thinkin some instances, unfortunately
, teachers have to defend theirdecision making as well.
And so, you know, havingresources to back them up
research resources, practicalapplication type resources I
think is just really important.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, I worked really hard in this book.
I worked with two researchassistants who helped me to
access a lot of this research.
Even as a professional bookauthor, I couldn't get a lot of
the research without somebodywho had like university
connections.
Like that alone is problematic.
So certainly teachers aren'table to access these research
articles, right.
So I had these two incredibleresearch assistants and they
(10:27):
helped me access a lot ofarticles and we read them
together and discussed themethodology.
300 of them ended up in thisbook, but I put them into these
what research says, sections ineach chapter like a really quick
one page dense.
You know, here's the all, theessence of what the research for
(10:47):
the last couple of decades saysabout this particular practice.
Here's what you need to knowfor that exact reason, like, do
teachers need to read all thesearticles firsthand?
I mean, if you're interested,go for it, but I think you
really need to be more armed.
That's a really great way ofsaying it.
You need to say yes, thispractice that I'm choosing to
use is a research supportedpractice, and here are the
studies that have found thatthis was helpful, so that you're
(11:09):
ready to go when you're makingthose decisions absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you just sort of hit on one reason why the
Classroom Caffeine Podcastexists.
We know that teachers oftencannot access research articles
and often don't have the time tonavigate them or to read and
process everything that they say, particularly when you're
talking about hundreds ofarticles around a particular
topic.
So it sounds like we are verymuch on the same page when it
(11:34):
comes to giving teachers whatthey need in order to be armed
for those conversations.
And, on that note, what wouldyou like listeners to know about
your work?
Or, maybe more appropriately atthis point, what else would you
like listeners to know aboutyour work?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
be more, appropriately at this point.
What else would you likelisteners to know about your
work?
Yeah, I mean I think I wantpeople to know that I've done
the homework to synthesize andsort of distill the key research
findings down.
But I try to not live in theweeds of the research.
I try to make it reallypractical because I am a teacher
.
I was a classroom teacher for along time and I'm still every
(12:07):
week in classrooms with teachersand all the videos in this book
are me teaching students right.
So I am very connected to theclassroom.
I'm very connected to theday-to-day of what teachers are
doing and I really want to makeresources that are practical and
usable and helpful and reallyto the point.
I worked really hard with myeditor.
I have an incredible editor,you know to cut down any
(12:30):
unnecessary words and just getto the point as quickly as
possible so teachers can turnaround and use the ideas right
away in their classrooms.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well, I think the idea of embedding videos in a
book I know it's not brand new,but it is definitely a newer
concept to have these videocompanions and I hope that you
know when readers do seesomething like that, they take a
moment to visit the video andsee what it looks like in action
.
Because I think you know that'sone thing that the world of
(12:58):
literacy and literacy researchtells us is that particular
modes or formats are moreconducive to conveying an idea.
So, rather than writing outeverything that you've done in
teaching practice, watching avideo can really help to
highlight the most importantaspects, to animate what it is
that you're talking about, toadd the nuance and to bring in
that example in really importantways that I think don't just
(13:21):
tell what the research says butactually shows what it looks
like in practice.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, so for me, I remember in college reading all
these books about methodologyand teaching strategies and my
like year long methods classesand going into my classroom the
first year as a first yearteacher with this.
What I thought was this idea,like I know what I'm doing, I
know how to do this and I andjust totally and completely I
(13:47):
think we all have the sameexperience right, like okay,
that did not go how it said itwould in the book I read, right,
and it wasn't until I had theexperience in my second year
yeah, it was my second year Ifound this woman down the hall
who had a lot more experiencethan I had and I just said to
her would you mind if I hang outin your classroom on my prep
(14:07):
periods?
And every time my kids were inart or music or gym or whatever,
I would be in Lee Ware's classwatching her.
I was watching, like how sheresponded to the disruptive kid
in the back or how she explaineda concept or how she
transitioned kids from one thing, like all the things that were
hard for me.
I was really watching andlearning kids from one thing,
(14:28):
like all the things that werehard for me.
I was really watching andlearning, and it was the live
watching that did so much morethan the thousands of pages of
reading that I had done incollege.
And then I was fortunate.
I went to a different schooland I had a staff developer who
came into my classroom andmodeled teaching with my own
students and again it was likeoh, that's what it's supposed to
look like.
I see now, right.
And so I have always found thatwhen I work with teachers, I
(14:50):
want to show right.
So when I'm consulting inschools, I'm in classrooms, I'm
not in a in a meeting room doing.
You know, I do do full dayworkshops, but my preference is
that we're in the classroom, I'mmodeling with the kids right in
front of you.
You're now trying it and I'mcoaching you and I'm giving you
(15:14):
that feedback.
So we're in the classroom doingthe work.
Or when I do do onlineworkshops or full-day workshops,
I use a ton of video and handsdown.
In the evaluation at the end,teachers always say it's the
videos that were the mostimpactful, the thing that really
helped them to see and be ableto visualize what this would
look like with their own kids.
And so when I wasconceptualizing this book, I
actually started with thinkingabout what the video content
(15:36):
would be.
What am I going to show?
And there's over four hours ofvideo, of classroom video.
So I would say, like, the videois probably 60% of the text.
It's not like a supplement oran add-on.
You have to watch the video.
The video is it 60% of the text?
It's not like a supplement oran add-on.
You have to watch the video.
The video is, it's woven intothe text.
So I, you know, I have a littlesection where I set up the
lesson type, I introduce thevideo, I show you the lesson
(15:59):
plan for the video, I annotatewhy I made changes.
That I did.
I show another video.
Each chapter has severaldifferent video examples because
I wanted to show small group,whole class, one-on-one, I
wanted to show science, socialstudies, english language arts
and how these lesson types work,no matter the content area and
(16:21):
no matter the grade level.
Right, I have little kids, bigkids, like all the way through
middle school down to firstgrade, so you could see all the
different ages and differentcontexts.
So the video is, I think, justcritical.
But I want to also say that thevideo is all real.
It was all done in one take.
There are no retakes.
The only edits were to mergethe two camera views together or
(16:44):
to try to get this audio up soyou could hear the kids a little
bit better.
To add captions, like I reallydidn't cut anything out or redo
anything to make it look better.
It is real classroom footage andI wanted to do that because
teachers are teaching realclasses.
They don't have an editor who's,like you know, fancying things
up after you do a lesson, and sothere's moments, like in some
of the lessons, where I'll ask aquestion and it's like crickets
(17:06):
, nobody says anything and it'sawkward for a second.
And then I do something and Iwant to show you like, what do
you do in that moment, right?
Or I ask a question and theresponse I get is completely off
base from what I even asked.
Okay, well, what do you do?
And I could have just editedthat out and made it look
cleaner.
But I think teachers realizewhen stuff's not real, first of
all.
But second of all, I thinkthere's real important learning
(17:30):
as teachers to see the I'm noteven going to call it mistakes
or things going wrong.
It's just real life.
That's what happens in teachingis you don't get the response
that you expected, and then youneed to respond.
You need to do something aboutit.
So I wanted to show those realinteractions because I think
they're really informative andhelpful.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Oh, absolutely.
And now, as you're describingthese moments, Jen, I can
picture them in my ownexperience, Of course either the
you know you ask a questionthat you think is just going to
be so compelling and everyonejust looks at you.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Right, or you ask a question and you get an answer
that is, or some response thathas nothing to do with anything
you anticipated, and so I thinkthat those are the moments when
it does require thatimprovisation.
There is no script that canready you for those moments,
right?
Like I often encourage mystudents and I teach pre-service
(18:25):
teachers I encourage them towrite down.
You write down phrases thatthey have seen or that they have
experienced themselves thathelp to generate conversation or
help to bring conversationsback on track, but to give
themselves kind of a menu ofpossibilities so that eventually
they have that in the back oftheir mind.
Where, right, when nobody saysanything, what do I do next?
(18:47):
What is the phrase that seemsto help generate conversation or
bring us back on track?
So I'm always encouraging mystudents to draft out a menu of
phrasing for themselves thatthey can build on over the years
, and eventually, I think you doend up internalizing those
kinds of things.
But when you're, you know, whenyou're first starting out, it
can be very tricky and it canfeel in that moment like some
(19:08):
sort of fail Right, when reallywe know that that's just real
life, that's just how that works, and so having something to say
OK, where do I go next, what ismy next move?
I think is really, reallyimportant.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, I have to that point.
That's exact.
That is exact idea of a menu oflike what are the predictable
things that are going to happen?
I'm not going to say go wrong,what are the predictable things
that are going to happen.
You know, the structure of thebook is that there's a few
introductory chapters and thenthere's a chapter for each of
the different lesson types I'vementioned already, like close
reading, shared reading,reader's theater, conversation
(19:41):
lessons, focus lessons and so on.
And so within each chapterthere's a table that says it's
an if-then chart calledresponsive teaching, right?
So if this predictable thinghappens during this lesson type
and it likely will here's whatyou can say or do or show, or
here's how you can pivot torespond to what's happening in
front of you.
So I offer that table unique toeach lesson type within each of
(20:04):
those nine chapters, and Ithink you're right Over time,
that goal is that you don't havea if-then chart in front of you
, but rather you've justinternalized that and you can
just know what to do.
You know the improv is a littleeasier.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, that's so very important.
The other thing I was thinkingabout as you were describing
these videos, is that thesekinds of resources really help
us, I think, to expand ourcircle of mentorship.
I mean, yes, of course, booksand articles can offer some sort
of mentorship, but I thinkwhenever you see another teacher
enacting these practices inreal life with real kids in the
(20:39):
moment, even if you're feelinglike you don't have the support
of a mentor in your own teachingenvironment, I think you can go
to resources like this.
And I know you also offer somany live and responsive
resources through social mediawhere you're responding in the
moment to people.
And so I think that that's onething.
I always want to encourage mystudents as future teachers, and
(21:01):
anyone I work with to reallyidentify where are their
resources and how do you stillfeel connected to the profession
and supported to do your bestwork.
And I think that by watchingother teachers, especially
whenever just as you did rightin your first year going to a
teacher to say, can I just seehow you're doing things I think
that's so important and thenalso having someone, that's a
(21:21):
bit of a sounding board, youknow where you say I have this
idea or I have this challenge.
What do I do about it and howdo I turn to the research, so to
speak, and in positive andproductive ways.
That helps me to contextualizeand to make the best decisions I
can for my students.
So, yeah, it sounds a littlebit strange to say that videos
can be a mentor, but I really dothink that in modeling that
(21:43):
practice, it can help us toexpand our professional networks
.
Yeah, for sure.
So I think we've already touchedon a couple of the challenges
of today's educational climate.
But, given those challenges,what message do you want
teachers to hear?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I mean, I think another challenge that we
haven't yet talked about is sortof how kids are changing.
You know, and I think that Imean kids are always changing
because society is changing, thecontext in which we're learning
is changing, and I'm thinkingabout, you know, one challenge
that I hear from a lot ofteachers today I'm seeing with
my own children, with my likedaughters, my own children is
(22:23):
just attention and focus and thechallenge of competing with
screens and not just socialmedia.
But I'm thinking like even someapps that we're using to engage
kids with content that aregamifying things, that create
these sort of dopamine rushes,and how challenging it is from
(22:45):
the perspective of a literacyteacher to get kids and keep
kids attentive and interested inreading pages in a book, that
the kind of attention that'srequired to do that, to do that
what Marianne Wolfe talks aboutthis, this deep, engaged reading
state.
That's a real challenge I thinkthat a lot of teachers are
grappling with right now andlosing kids engagement and
(23:06):
motivation to read.
So it's something that I thinkanyone that's working on
literacy right now needs to bethinking about is how do we make
our lessons more engaging?
How do we ensure that the textswe're providing kids are
engaging and what are some ofthe ways that we're engaging
kids, the moves that we'remaking as teachers, that we're
engaging kids within a lesson tokeep their mind and attention
(23:29):
into the text that they'rereading.
So that's another thing I wasthinking about when I was
writing this book and usingstructures like Reader's Theater
, which is highly engaging andfun and motivating and gets kids
to reread a lot and helps themwith their fluency.
Or how do I make a phonicslesson a little more engaging
and what are the kinds of gamesor activities that I can engage
(23:52):
kids with in a phonics lesson tomake it more I'm not going to
say fun, but like engaging sotheir mind.
What I mean by engaging istheir mind is really on it, you
know, and their their heart isin it and they're really doing
the work.
They're not just kind ofpassively sitting there.
Lots of opportunities foractive response and doing things
during the lesson.
Yeah, or even I take like aclose reading lesson where I'm
(24:15):
asking kids to do like deeperlevel critical thinking and
analysis, and I have a videowhere I'm using a Billie Eilish
song and we're doing really deepwork with a song they've loved
and have heard a million timeson the radio and it's about the
text.
They're really motivated tothink more deeply about this
text.
So you know what are the waysthat we can make this learning,
this literacy work a little bitmore engaging for kids?
(24:36):
So that's kind of anotherthread throughout the book.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Well, and I don't think that engagement
necessarily excludes fun, right.
But I don't think thatengagement always looks like fun
.
So I think that that's animportant clarification too is
that we do want kids to beengaged, and I think that goes
back to an earlier point thatunless teachers are able to be
responsive in the moment towhat's going on in their
(24:58):
particular context, it's reallydifficult, and in some instances
I might even say impossible, toachieve engagement.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Whenever you know if the teacher is not engaged, it
becomes so challenging for kidsto be interested and engaged in
what they're doing Absolutely,and you know, I think about some
of the was it NYU, steinhardt,I think, did a review of some of
the most commonly usedcurriculum, or commonly
recommended or on these approvedstate list curriculum, and they
(25:29):
found that some of the textsare actually culturally
destructive.
That's not good.
That's not good at all.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
No, no, that's not good to say you know, okay.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So like on the word, you know, on a scale of like bad
to the worst, like that's theworst, do we absolutely want to
say all right, teacher, you havethe ability to take that text,
decide to not use it and findsomething else suitable in its
place that's going to beculturally responsive and
engaging for your students?
Absolutely.
But there also might be, youknow, like you said, the teacher
(26:00):
might be like this isn't.
This is not interesting to me.
I cannot sell a six week uniton birds.
I on birds, I'm afraid of birds.
I had one teacher talking aboutshe was afraid of birds and she
had to teach this curriculum.
That was like all birds for sixweeks long.
Like, okay, is there a way thatwe could make some adjustments
here so that the teacher's alittle more into it, the kids
are a little more into it?
(26:21):
And sometimes it's the text, andI offer a lot of advice in the
book for how to createconceptually coherent text sets
and where to find texts anddifferent texts that work well
for different kinds of lessontypes.
But I also think sometimes it'sabout changing the methods, so
saying, all right, this text isgreat, right, but the way that
this curriculum is suggestingthat I use this text is not
(26:43):
going to be engaging for kids.
So I'm going to change thisfrom a independent task where
there's just a read this andanswer questions at the end.
Or I know the kids are going tobe like just you know, looking
for the answers.
They want to finish it asquickly as possible.
I'm going to change this to aread aloud where I'm going to
insert some opportunities forthem to stop and sketch or act
some parts out.
Or I'm going to change this toa reader's theater lesson where
(27:06):
they're going to get to take onthe roles of the characters and
act it out and reread it a lot.
So the teacher should have theability to change the lesson
type, the text.
Again, you're bound to theobjectives, you're bound to the
standards, you're bound to theoutcomes, but I don't think we
should be shackling teachers tolike the minutia of like.
This is the procedure of thelesson and here's how the lesson
(27:28):
has to go with this particulartext in this particular way.
We need again to make room forthe art of teaching, allow
teachers to be creative andflexible, and I hope that my
book helps them to make thoseadaptations.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that that's a very important idea and
also I do think that it comesthrough, at least in my mind,
loudly and clearly in all ofyour books that this is about
teacher autonomy and it is aboutdoing what's best for the kids
who are right in front of us.
So, yeah, I could not agree more.
I think that that is a criticalelement of teaching that I'm
(28:01):
afraid is getting a little bitlost in the shuffle in recent
years.
A little bit lost in theshuffle in recent years.
Thank you so much and thank youfor your time today.
Thank you for yourcontributions to the field of
education.
As I said, I feel like yourbooks really do offer, as you
mentioned, that sort of cutthrough to get to the point of
what is research telling us andhow does that translate to
(28:23):
classroom practice.
Because I think that that'sanother thing we've sort of lost
sight of in the science ofreading conversation is that
sometimes research isn't reallytranslatable to what happens in
the classroom.
But your books, your resourcesreally do support that
translation.
So I thank you so much for thatcontribution.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Jennifer Cerevalo is an expert in literacy teaching
strategies.
She is the author of theReading Strategies Book 2.0, the
Writing Strategies BookUnderstanding Texts and Readers,
a Teacher's Guide to ReadingConferences, teaching Writing in
Small Groups all published withHeinemann and most recently,
teaching Reading Across the Day,published with Corwin.
(29:05):
Her resources are aimed athelping teachers make
goal-directed, responsivestrategy instruction, conferring
and small group work accessiblein every classroom.
Jen is a frequent invitedspeaker at national and regional
conferences and travelsthroughout the US and Canada to
provide full-day workshops andworks with teachers and students
in classrooms.
(29:25):
She's also an experiencedonline educator who regularly
offers live webinars and onlineworkshops.
She's also authored twoself-paced, asynchronous online
courses Strategies in ActionReading and Writing Methods and
Content and Teaching Reading inSmall Groups Matching Methods to
methods to purposes which youcan access through her website
(29:48):
at wwwjenniferceravallocom.
That's wwwjenniferceravallocom.
Jen holds a bachelor's in artsdegree from Vassar College and a
master's of the arts degreefrom Teachers College, where she
also taught graduate andundergraduate classes.
(30:10):
She began her career ineducation as a public school
teacher in New York City andthen began consulting throughout
the country.
She has more than 15 yearsexperience helping teachers to
create literacy classrooms wherestudents are joyfully engaged
and the instruction ismeaningfully individualized to
students' goals.
You can learn more about Jen andher work at heinpub backslash
(30:33):
saravallo that's h-e-i-n dotp-u-b backslash
s-e-r-r-a-v-a-L-L-O on Twitteror X at J Saravallo, on
Instagram at Jennifer Saravallo,or by joining the Reading and
Writing Strategies Facebookcommunity.
(30:54):
For the good of all students,classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
If this show gives you thingsto think 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.
(31:17):
Visit classroomcaffeinecom,where you can subscribe to
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 or
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(31:39):
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Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
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We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Valuru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
(32:01):
Thanks for joining me.
Education research has a problem the work of
brilliant education researchersoften doesn't reach the practice
of brilliant teachers.
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.
Classroom Caffeine return guestJennifer Cerevalo specifically
focuses on ideas from her latestbook, teaching Reading Across
the Day.
Her books utilizeresearch-supported practices
translated for everydayclassroom teaching.
Jen is known for her work inthe areas of reading and writing
(00:55):
strategies, individualizedliteracy, support for students
and teacher professionaldevelopment in literacy.
She is a New York Timesbestselling author of teacher
professional resources,including the Reading Strategies
Book 2.0 and the WritingStrategies Book.
You can connect with Jen andher work at her website,
(01:17):
wwwjennifersiferavallocom, onTwitter or X at jseravallo
that's J-S-E-R-R-A-V-A-L-L-O OnInstagram at Jennifer Seravallo
(01:43):
or by joining the Reading andWriting Strategies Facebook
community For more informationabout our guest.
stay tuned to the end of thisepisode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
lindsay Persaud, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice.
(02:04):
Jen, thank you for joining me.
Welcome back to the show.
Thank you so much for having meagain.
So, from your own experiencesin education, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking now, and
maybe specifically what droveyou to write your latest book?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Sure.
So my newest book, teachingReading Across the Day, is a
book about methods andstructures for teaching literacy
instruction.
I cover everything in this book, from phonics to reader's
theater, to different ways tosupport kids' comprehension with
grade level complex texts likeread aloud and close reading.
(02:40):
So there's a variety ofdifferent structures, different
methods of teaching, differentplanning templates.
And so to your question what isthis moment that we're in right
now?
I think there's a few differentthings that I think about.
One is this really richconversation around the science
of reading, or what isresearch-based instruction and
(03:03):
what does research help us toknow?
And related to that, there'sthis real surge in legislative
changes and new curricularadoptions in a lot of states in
an attempt to better alignpractices and curriculum to what
research tells us is mostlikely to work for most kids.
(03:23):
So we're in this moment where alot of teachers are being asked
to change things.
They're being asked to changetheir approach to literacy, the
way that they structure theirliteracy block, even down to the
kinds of things that they'reteaching students during the
literacy block.
So what my work is often knownfor is just trying to take
complex things and make themreally practical and doable.
So one of the things I wantedto do with this book was to
(03:45):
create, use right away templatesfor planning lessons, together
with examples of what it lookslike when a lesson like this is
done well.
So a template of you know whatis a, what is a read aloud
lesson look like how do I planfor it, what kinds of things are
you doing, anticipate, and thenwhat does it look like when
it's done well.
(04:05):
At the same time, one of theother themes throughout the book
is the importance of responsiveteaching, making sure that
we're not just sticking to ascript, we're not just sticking
to a plan, and that we've got toreally look at the kids in
front of us.
And part of the responsivenesscomes into play, of course, when
we're planning.
We know our kids.
We know, for example, whattheir background knowledge is
about a particular topic, and sowe make adjustments to our plan
(04:28):
to try to support connectingwhat they know already to what
new information we're trying toteach in the lesson.
But there's also responsivenessthat needs to happen in the
midst of the lesson, so we'rewatching students' faces and
their eyes and whether they'rewith us and they're not with us.
We see when they're engaged andwhen engagement starts to
(04:50):
falter and teachers need to makeadjustments.
So we need to speed things up,speed the pacing up or slow
things down.
We need to pop in an extrademonstration that we hadn't
planned to do because werealized they need a little more
support, or we need to back upand offer a question and an
opportunity for them to discuss,or we need to provide another
example or change the way thatwe're asking kids to engage, to
try to get the liveliness backup in the classroom right.
So those kinds of responses andthose kinds of adjustments are
(05:12):
critical as well, and again,some of which we can anticipate
and some of which we need to beready for in the moment to sort
of like improvise in response towhat we see.
So there's also a lot ofsupport in the book for that.
I think that matches thismoment right now, because again,
teachers are being asked toteach from these new core
programs, these new scripts.
Every time there's new coreprogram adoptions we hear this
(05:33):
phrase teaching with fidelity,which sometimes means just very
tightly holding on to what thatcurriculum guide says.
But really what we know fromresearch is that the teacher's
decision-making and flexibilityin the moment matters a lot for
whether or not the kids aregoing to be able to get it.
So I wanted to offer again justa really practical, helpful
how-to guide for teachers tohelp them see what kinds of ways
(05:56):
they're going to makeadaptations and what kinds of
adjustments and responses theymight need to make.
So I unpack that within eachchapter and then I also have
video examples and annotatedlesson plans where I talk about
here's the changes I made,here's why I made this change,
here's the adaptation.
Because of this.
This is what I saw, and so thisis what I did to try to kind of
(06:16):
walk teachers through that.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I appreciate that, jen, and I think probably one of
my biggest fears in teachingright now is that teachers are
losing a lot of their autonomyand their ability to make
professional decisions.
I also think there's just a lotof static, there's a lot of
noise right now as far as whatis good for kids, and I'm just
afraid that there are too manyelements missing from the
(06:39):
conversation, because we knowthat classrooms are really
robust environments where everyroom is a little bit different.
Every teacher's personality sortof plays into what that
classroom community looks andfeels and sounds like, as well
as, of course, the kids and whatthey bring to the table of
(07:06):
curriculum and curriculardecision-making.
Is that we're losing some ofthat richness of the environment
and unfortunately, I think thatoften becomes counterproductive
, right?
Because when teachers can'trespond to your point of you
know we need to be able toimprovise.
In the moment, when teachers'hands are tied to do that kind
of improvisation, I think thatbecomes really challenging.
I think it can make theprofession frustrating, and so I
(07:27):
appreciate that your work notonly looks at positive practices
for kids, maybe best practicesfor kids, but also talks about
how you make those decisions inthe moment, because I think that
it's just so critical to whatteachers have always done.
That, yeah, I appreciate thatyou sort of hold that as a
central focus in your book.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Thank you, lindsay, I appreciate that.
Yeah, I think you know it iscritical that we're informed by
the quote unquote science right,that we look at the research,
and.
But I also think and I writeabout this in the book that
there's a limit to what researchcan tell us, and there needs to
be a place where you know wehonor the science.
We we use our best attempts atfollowing what the science says.
But Tim Rosensky talks a lotabout this the importance of the
(08:09):
art of teaching as well, thatwe make room for creativity and
also professional decisionmaking.
But those two things are.
They're not in conflict,they're hand in hand.
We need to do both, and so whatI hope I did in this book was
to show both.
I have these meaty sectionswith lots of research citations.
But then I also talk a lot aboutthe importance of teacher
(08:30):
creativity and decision-making,and I'll be honest, I would not
have wanted to be a teacher foras long as I did if I didn't
have the ability to be creative,and I work with so many
teachers.
We are creative people and Iwork with so many teachers.
We are creative people.
Like part of what draws us tothis profession is the ability
to be creative, from you know,from the ways that we craft
(08:55):
lessons to really connectingwith our kids, and that means
sometimes changing the text to atext we love so much and we
want to bring in this belovedpicture book to you know even
the heart that teachers put intotheir classroom environments
and what the room looks like,like teachers are creative
people.
So you stifle that and you tellteachers they can't be creative
and they can't make their owndecisions, or you dishonor the
professionalism and their ownexperience and their expertise.
(09:17):
It's not good for teachers,it's not good for the profession
and it's really not good forkids.
Ultimately.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh, absolutely I couldn't agree with you more and
I think that, yeah, that in myexperience in classroom being in
a classroom myself was one ofthe more challenging elements.
It wasn't working with kids,that was always sort of the joy
of it, but it was navigatingheavy handed policies and
procedures that did sort of takesome of the joy out of that
(09:46):
environment.
So I'm hoping that teacherswill feel armed to make those
positive decisions, and I thinkin some instances, unfortunately
, teachers have to defend theirdecision making as well.
And so, you know, havingresources to back them up
research resources, practicalapplication type resources I
think is just really important.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, I worked really hard in this book.
I worked with two researchassistants who helped me to
access a lot of this research.
Even as a professional bookauthor, I couldn't get a lot of
the research without somebodywho had like university
connections.
Like that alone is problematic.
So certainly teachers aren'table to access these research
articles, right.
So I had these two incredibleresearch assistants and they
(10:27):
helped me access a lot ofarticles and we read them
together and discussed themethodology.
300 of them ended up in thisbook, but I put them into these
what research says, sections ineach chapter like a really quick
one page dense.
You know, here's the all, theessence of what the research for
(10:47):
the last couple of decades saysabout this particular practice.
Here's what you need to knowfor that exact reason, like, do
teachers need to read all thesearticles firsthand?
I mean, if you're interested,go for it, but I think you
really need to be more armed.
That's a really great way ofsaying it.
You need to say yes, thispractice that I'm choosing to
use is a research supportedpractice, and here are the
studies that have found thatthis was helpful, so that you're
(11:09):
ready to go when you're makingthose decisions absolutely.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you just sort of hit on one reason why the
Classroom Caffeine Podcastexists.
We know that teachers oftencannot access research articles
and often don't have the time tonavigate them or to read and
process everything that they say, particularly when you're
talking about hundreds ofarticles around a particular
topic.
So it sounds like we are verymuch on the same page when it
(11:34):
comes to giving teachers whatthey need in order to be armed
for those conversations.
And, on that note, what wouldyou like listeners to know about
your work?
Or, maybe more appropriately atthis point, what else would you
like listeners to know aboutyour work?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
be more, appropriately at this point.
What else would you likelisteners to know about your
work?
Yeah, I mean I think I wantpeople to know that I've done
the homework to synthesize andsort of distill the key research
findings down.
But I try to not live in theweeds of the research.
I try to make it reallypractical because I am a teacher
.
I was a classroom teacher for along time and I'm still every
(12:07):
week in classrooms with teachersand all the videos in this book
are me teaching students right.
So I am very connected to theclassroom.
I'm very connected to theday-to-day of what teachers are
doing and I really want to makeresources that are practical and
usable and helpful and reallyto the point.
I worked really hard with myeditor.
I have an incredible editor,you know to cut down any
(12:30):
unnecessary words and just getto the point as quickly as
possible so teachers can turnaround and use the ideas right
away in their classrooms.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well, I think the idea of embedding videos in a
book I know it's not brand new,but it is definitely a newer
concept to have these videocompanions and I hope that you
know when readers do seesomething like that, they take a
moment to visit the video andsee what it looks like in action
.
Because I think you know that'sone thing that the world of
(12:58):
literacy and literacy researchtells us is that particular
modes or formats are moreconducive to conveying an idea.
So, rather than writing outeverything that you've done in
teaching practice, watching avideo can really help to
highlight the most importantaspects, to animate what it is
that you're talking about, toadd the nuance and to bring in
that example in really importantways that I think don't just
(13:21):
tell what the research says butactually shows what it looks
like in practice.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, so for me, I remember in college reading all
these books about methodologyand teaching strategies and my
like year long methods classesand going into my classroom the
first year as a first yearteacher with this.
What I thought was this idea,like I know what I'm doing, I
know how to do this and I andjust totally and completely I
(13:47):
think we all have the sameexperience right, like okay,
that did not go how it said itwould in the book I read, right,
and it wasn't until I had theexperience in my second year
yeah, it was my second year Ifound this woman down the hall
who had a lot more experiencethan I had and I just said to
her would you mind if I hang outin your classroom on my prep
(14:07):
periods?
And every time my kids were inart or music or gym or whatever,
I would be in Lee Ware's classwatching her.
I was watching, like how sheresponded to the disruptive kid
in the back or how she explaineda concept or how she
transitioned kids from one thing, like all the things that were
hard for me.
I was really watching andlearning kids from one thing,
(14:28):
like all the things that werehard for me.
I was really watching andlearning, and it was the live
watching that did so much morethan the thousands of pages of
reading that I had done incollege.
And then I was fortunate.
I went to a different schooland I had a staff developer who
came into my classroom andmodeled teaching with my own
students and again it was likeoh, that's what it's supposed to
look like.
I see now, right.
And so I have always found thatwhen I work with teachers, I
(14:50):
want to show right.
So when I'm consulting inschools, I'm in classrooms, I'm
not in a in a meeting room doing.
You know, I do do full dayworkshops, but my preference is
that we're in the classroom, I'mmodeling with the kids right in
front of you.
You're now trying it and I'mcoaching you and I'm giving you
(15:14):
that feedback.
So we're in the classroom doingthe work.
Or when I do do onlineworkshops or full-day workshops,
I use a ton of video and handsdown.
In the evaluation at the end,teachers always say it's the
videos that were the mostimpactful, the thing that really
helped them to see and be ableto visualize what this would
look like with their own kids.
And so when I wasconceptualizing this book, I
actually started with thinkingabout what the video content
(15:36):
would be.
What am I going to show?
And there's over four hours ofvideo, of classroom video.
So I would say, like, the videois probably 60% of the text.
It's not like a supplement oran add-on.
You have to watch the video.
The video is it 60% of the text?
It's not like a supplement oran add-on.
You have to watch the video.
The video is, it's woven intothe text.
So I, you know, I have a littlesection where I set up the
lesson type, I introduce thevideo, I show you the lesson
(15:59):
plan for the video, I annotatewhy I made changes.
That I did.
I show another video.
Each chapter has severaldifferent video examples because
I wanted to show small group,whole class, one-on-one, I
wanted to show science, socialstudies, english language arts
and how these lesson types work,no matter the content area and
(16:21):
no matter the grade level.
Right, I have little kids, bigkids, like all the way through
middle school down to firstgrade, so you could see all the
different ages and differentcontexts.
So the video is, I think, justcritical.
But I want to also say that thevideo is all real.
It was all done in one take.
There are no retakes.
The only edits were to mergethe two camera views together or
(16:44):
to try to get this audio up soyou could hear the kids a little
bit better.
To add captions, like I reallydidn't cut anything out or redo
anything to make it look better.
It is real classroom footage andI wanted to do that because
teachers are teaching realclasses.
They don't have an editor who's,like you know, fancying things
up after you do a lesson, and sothere's moments, like in some
of the lessons, where I'll ask aquestion and it's like crickets
(17:06):
, nobody says anything and it'sawkward for a second.
And then I do something and Iwant to show you like, what do
you do in that moment, right?
Or I ask a question and theresponse I get is completely off
base from what I even asked.
Okay, well, what do you do?
And I could have just editedthat out and made it look
cleaner.
But I think teachers realizewhen stuff's not real, first of
all.
But second of all, I thinkthere's real important learning
(17:30):
as teachers to see the I'm noteven going to call it mistakes
or things going wrong.
It's just real life.
That's what happens in teachingis you don't get the response
that you expected, and then youneed to respond.
You need to do something aboutit.
So I wanted to show those realinteractions because I think
they're really informative andhelpful.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Oh, absolutely.
And now, as you're describingthese moments, Jen, I can
picture them in my ownexperience, Of course either the
you know you ask a questionthat you think is just going to
be so compelling and everyonejust looks at you.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Right, or you ask a question and you get an answer
that is, or some response thathas nothing to do with anything
you anticipated, and so I thinkthat those are the moments when
it does require thatimprovisation.
There is no script that canready you for those moments,
right?
Like I often encourage mystudents and I teach pre-service
(18:25):
teachers I encourage them towrite down.
You write down phrases thatthey have seen or that they have
experienced themselves thathelp to generate conversation or
help to bring conversationsback on track, but to give
themselves kind of a menu ofpossibilities so that eventually
they have that in the back oftheir mind.
Where, right, when nobody saysanything, what do I do next?
(18:47):
What is the phrase that seemsto help generate conversation or
bring us back on track?
So I'm always encouraging mystudents to draft out a menu of
phrasing for themselves thatthey can build on over the years
, and eventually, I think you doend up internalizing those
kinds of things.
But when you're, you know, whenyou're first starting out, it
can be very tricky and it canfeel in that moment like some
(19:08):
sort of fail Right, when reallywe know that that's just real
life, that's just how that works, and so having something to say
OK, where do I go next, what ismy next move?
I think is really, reallyimportant.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, I have to that point.
That's exact.
That is exact idea of a menu oflike what are the predictable
things that are going to happen?
I'm not going to say go wrong,what are the predictable things
that are going to happen.
You know, the structure of thebook is that there's a few
introductory chapters and thenthere's a chapter for each of
the different lesson types I'vementioned already, like close
reading, shared reading,reader's theater, conversation
(19:41):
lessons, focus lessons and so on.
And so within each chapterthere's a table that says it's
an if-then chart calledresponsive teaching, right?
So if this predictable thinghappens during this lesson type
and it likely will here's whatyou can say or do or show, or
here's how you can pivot torespond to what's happening in
front of you.
So I offer that table unique toeach lesson type within each of
(20:04):
those nine chapters, and Ithink you're right Over time,
that goal is that you don't havea if-then chart in front of you
, but rather you've justinternalized that and you can
just know what to do.
You know the improv is a littleeasier.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, that's so very important.
The other thing I was thinkingabout as you were describing
these videos, is that thesekinds of resources really help
us, I think, to expand ourcircle of mentorship.
I mean, yes, of course, booksand articles can offer some sort
of mentorship, but I thinkwhenever you see another teacher
enacting these practices inreal life with real kids in the
(20:39):
moment, even if you're feelinglike you don't have the support
of a mentor in your own teachingenvironment, I think you can go
to resources like this.
And I know you also offer somany live and responsive
resources through social mediawhere you're responding in the
moment to people.
And so I think that that's onething.
I always want to encourage mystudents as future teachers, and
(21:01):
anyone I work with to reallyidentify where are their
resources and how do you stillfeel connected to the profession
and supported to do your bestwork.
And I think that by watchingother teachers, especially
whenever just as you did rightin your first year going to a
teacher to say, can I just seehow you're doing things I think
that's so important and thenalso having someone, that's a
(21:21):
bit of a sounding board, youknow where you say I have this
idea or I have this challenge.
What do I do about it and howdo I turn to the research, so to
speak, and in positive andproductive ways.
That helps me to contextualizeand to make the best decisions I
can for my students.
So, yeah, it sounds a littlebit strange to say that videos
can be a mentor, but I really dothink that in modeling that
(21:43):
practice, it can help us toexpand our professional networks
.
Yeah, for sure.
So I think we've already touchedon a couple of the challenges
of today's educational climate.
But, given those challenges,what message do you want
teachers to hear?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I mean, I think another challenge that we
haven't yet talked about is sortof how kids are changing.
You know, and I think that Imean kids are always changing
because society is changing, thecontext in which we're learning
is changing, and I'm thinkingabout, you know, one challenge
that I hear from a lot ofteachers today I'm seeing with
my own children, with my likedaughters, my own children is
(22:23):
just attention and focus and thechallenge of competing with
screens and not just socialmedia.
But I'm thinking like even someapps that we're using to engage
kids with content that aregamifying things, that create
these sort of dopamine rushes,and how challenging it is from
(22:45):
the perspective of a literacyteacher to get kids and keep
kids attentive and interested inreading pages in a book, that
the kind of attention that'srequired to do that, to do that
what Marianne Wolfe talks aboutthis, this deep, engaged reading
state.
That's a real challenge I thinkthat a lot of teachers are
grappling with right now andlosing kids engagement and
(23:06):
motivation to read.
So it's something that I thinkanyone that's working on
literacy right now needs to bethinking about is how do we make
our lessons more engaging?
How do we ensure that the textswe're providing kids are
engaging and what are some ofthe ways that we're engaging
kids, the moves that we'remaking as teachers, that we're
engaging kids within a lesson tokeep their mind and attention
(23:29):
into the text that they'rereading.
So that's another thing I wasthinking about when I was
writing this book and usingstructures like Reader's Theater
, which is highly engaging andfun and motivating and gets kids
to reread a lot and helps themwith their fluency.
Or how do I make a phonicslesson a little more engaging
and what are the kinds of gamesor activities that I can engage
(23:52):
kids with in a phonics lesson tomake it more I'm not going to
say fun, but like engaging sotheir mind.
What I mean by engaging istheir mind is really on it, you
know, and their their heart isin it and they're really doing
the work.
They're not just kind ofpassively sitting there.
Lots of opportunities foractive response and doing things
during the lesson.
Yeah, or even I take like aclose reading lesson where I'm
(24:15):
asking kids to do like deeperlevel critical thinking and
analysis, and I have a videowhere I'm using a Billie Eilish
song and we're doing really deepwork with a song they've loved
and have heard a million timeson the radio and it's about the
text.
They're really motivated tothink more deeply about this
text.
So you know what are the waysthat we can make this learning,
this literacy work a little bitmore engaging for kids?
(24:36):
So that's kind of anotherthread throughout the book.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Well, and I don't think that engagement
necessarily excludes fun, right.
But I don't think thatengagement always looks like fun
.
So I think that that's animportant clarification too is
that we do want kids to beengaged, and I think that goes
back to an earlier point thatunless teachers are able to be
responsive in the moment towhat's going on in their
(24:58):
particular context, it's reallydifficult, and in some instances
I might even say impossible, toachieve engagement.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Whenever you know if the teacher is not engaged, it
becomes so challenging for kidsto be interested and engaged in
what they're doing Absolutely,and you know, I think about some
of the was it NYU, steinhardt,I think, did a review of some of
the most commonly usedcurriculum, or commonly
recommended or on these approvedstate list curriculum, and they
(25:29):
found that some of the textsare actually culturally
destructive.
That's not good.
That's not good at all.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
No, no, that's not good to say you know, okay.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So like on the word, you know, on a scale of like bad
to the worst, like that's theworst, do we absolutely want to
say all right, teacher, you havethe ability to take that text,
decide to not use it and findsomething else suitable in its
place that's going to beculturally responsive and
engaging for your students?
Absolutely.
But there also might be, youknow, like you said, the teacher
(26:00):
might be like this isn't.
This is not interesting to me.
I cannot sell a six week uniton birds.
I on birds, I'm afraid of birds.
I had one teacher talking aboutshe was afraid of birds and she
had to teach this curriculum.
That was like all birds for sixweeks long.
Like, okay, is there a way thatwe could make some adjustments
here so that the teacher's alittle more into it, the kids
are a little more into it?
(26:21):
And sometimes it's the text, andI offer a lot of advice in the
book for how to createconceptually coherent text sets
and where to find texts anddifferent texts that work well
for different kinds of lessontypes.
But I also think sometimes it'sabout changing the methods, so
saying, all right, this text isgreat, right, but the way that
this curriculum is suggestingthat I use this text is not
(26:43):
going to be engaging for kids.
So I'm going to change thisfrom a independent task where
there's just a read this andanswer questions at the end.
Or I know the kids are going tobe like just you know, looking
for the answers.
They want to finish it asquickly as possible.
I'm going to change this to aread aloud where I'm going to
insert some opportunities forthem to stop and sketch or act
some parts out.
Or I'm going to change this toa reader's theater lesson where
(27:06):
they're going to get to take onthe roles of the characters and
act it out and reread it a lot.
So the teacher should have theability to change the lesson
type, the text.
Again, you're bound to theobjectives, you're bound to the
standards, you're bound to theoutcomes, but I don't think we
should be shackling teachers tolike the minutia of like.
This is the procedure of thelesson and here's how the lesson
(27:28):
has to go with this particulartext in this particular way.
We need again to make room forthe art of teaching, allow
teachers to be creative andflexible, and I hope that my
book helps them to make thoseadaptations.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I think that that's a very important idea and
also I do think that it comesthrough, at least in my mind,
loudly and clearly in all ofyour books that this is about
teacher autonomy and it is aboutdoing what's best for the kids
who are right in front of us.
So, yeah, I could not agree more.
I think that that is a criticalelement of teaching that I'm
(28:01):
afraid is getting a little bitlost in the shuffle in recent
years.
A little bit lost in theshuffle in recent years.
Thank you so much and thank youfor your time today.
Thank you for yourcontributions to the field of
education.
As I said, I feel like yourbooks really do offer, as you
mentioned, that sort of cutthrough to get to the point of
what is research telling us andhow does that translate to
(28:23):
classroom practice.
Because I think that that'sanother thing we've sort of lost
sight of in the science ofreading conversation is that
sometimes research isn't reallytranslatable to what happens in
the classroom.
But your books, your resourcesreally do support that
translation.
So I thank you so much for thatcontribution.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Jennifer Cerevalo is an expert in literacy teaching
strategies.
She is the author of theReading Strategies Book 2.0, the
Writing Strategies BookUnderstanding Texts and Readers,
a Teacher's Guide to ReadingConferences, teaching Writing in
Small Groups all published withHeinemann and most recently,
teaching Reading Across the Day,published with Corwin.
(29:05):
Her resources are aimed athelping teachers make
goal-directed, responsivestrategy instruction, conferring
and small group work accessiblein every classroom.
Jen is a frequent invitedspeaker at national and regional
conferences and travelsthroughout the US and Canada to
provide full-day workshops andworks with teachers and students
in classrooms.
(29:25):
She's also an experiencedonline educator who regularly
offers live webinars and onlineworkshops.
She's also authored twoself-paced, asynchronous online
courses Strategies in ActionReading and Writing Methods and
Content and Teaching Reading inSmall Groups Matching Methods to
methods to purposes which youcan access through her website
(29:48):
at wwwjenniferceravallocom.
That's wwwjenniferceravallocom.
Jen holds a bachelor's in artsdegree from Vassar College and a
master's of the arts degreefrom Teachers College, where she
also taught graduate andundergraduate classes.
(30:10):
She began her career ineducation as a public school
teacher in New York City andthen began consulting throughout
the country.
She has more than 15 yearsexperience helping teachers to
create literacy classrooms wherestudents are joyfully engaged
and the instruction ismeaningfully individualized to
students' goals.
You can learn more about Jen andher work at heinpub backslash
(30:33):
saravallo that's h-e-i-n dotp-u-b backslash
s-e-r-r-a-v-a-L-L-O on Twitteror X at J Saravallo, on
Instagram at Jennifer Saravallo,or by joining the Reading and
Writing Strategies Facebookcommunity.
(30:54):
For the good of all students,classroom Caffeine aims to
energize education, research andpractice.
If this show gives you thingsto think 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.
(31:17):
Visit classroomcaffeinecom,where you can subscribe to
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 or
potential guest, support ourresearch through our listener
(31:39):
survey or learn more about theresearch we're doing on our
publications page.
Connect with us on social mediathrough Instagram, facebook and
Twitter.
We would love to hear from you.
Special thanks to the ClassroomCaffeine team Leah Berger,
abaya Valuru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou teachers.
(32:01):
Thanks for joining me.
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