December 17, 2024 • 40 mins
Former Classroom Caffeine guests Margaret Vaughn and Dixie Massey are back to share with us their most recent collaboration, a book entitled Overcoming Reading Challenges: Kindergarten through Middle School. In their book, they address topics like phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, as well as factors like motivation and student agency. Dr. Margaret Vaughn is known for her work in student agency, teacher decision-making, and reading materials for children. Dr. Vaughn is a Professor of Literacy at Washington State University. Dr. Dixie Massey is known for her work in the areas of literacy development, preservice teacher education, and children’s literature. Dr. Massey is a lecturer at Seattle Pacific University. Dixie and Margaret have co-authored many works together, including the book titled Teaching with Children’s Literature: Theory to Practice, which was the topic of conversation in their first collaborative Classroom Caffeine episode.
To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2024, Dec. 17). Another conversation with Margaret Vaughn and Dixie Massey (Season 5, No. 5) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/A6D4-18CB-1719-8D9F-CE8B-Y
Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Mark as Played
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.
In this episode, formerClassroom Caffeine guests
Margaret Vaughn and Dixie Masseyare back to share with us their
most recent collaboration, abook entitled Overcoming Reading
Challenges Kindergarten ThroughMiddle School.
In their book, they addresstopics like phonemic awareness,
(00:55):
decoding, fluency, vocabularyand reading comprehension, as
well as factors like motivationand student agency.
Dr Margaret Vaughn is known forher work in student agency,
teacher decision-making andreading materials for children.
Dr Vaughn is a professor ofliteracy at Washington State
University.
(01:15):
Dr Dixie Massey is known forher work in the areas of
literacy development,pre-service teacher education
and children's literature.
Dr Massey is a lecturer atSeattle Pacific University.
Dixie and Margaret haveco-authored many works together,
including the book titledTeaching with Children's
Literature Theory to Practice,which was the topic of
(01:38):
conversation in their firstcollaborative classroom caffeine
episode.
For more information about ourguests, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
lindsay Persaud, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
(01:58):
your teaching practice.
Margaret and Dixie, thank youfor joining me again.
Welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having us.
It's so good to be back with you.
Margaret and Dixie, thank youfor joining me again.
Welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having us.
It's so good to be back withyou so from your own experiences
in education.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Will you share with us one or two moments that
inform your thinking now?
Well, since we've had thepleasure of talking with you
before, I think it's not just asingular experience for me, but
this kind of collection of beingin classrooms and talking to
teachers for me.
But this kind of collection ofbeing in classrooms and talking
to teachers and I've had theexperience recently of several
people who are veterans talkingabout how difficult teaching is
and some maybe negatively theidea of I want to be able to
(02:38):
retire I just hope I can hold onand some maybe re-entering the
classroom.
I even have a friend who was aprofessor for a few years and
went back into the classroom andis teaching kindergarten now
and her comment was it's just sohard but it's great work and I
(02:58):
want to get better at it, andthat notion of getting better is
really, I guess, what I wouldsay.
Notion of getting better isreally, I guess, what I would
say.
The experience shaped this bookhelping teachers get better and
also helping ourselves getbetter at both our content,
knowledge, but communicatingthat.
So I think that's really thekind of bedrock experience
behind why we're writing thisbook now.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, and Dixon and I always love working together,
so there's always that piece ofit, any excuse to to get to work
together and and also to buildon that too.
Just with this, you know, justwith the science of reading,
right, kind of this big movementagain that's happening and
teachers know I mean this is nota new phenomenon.
These are topics that teacherswrestle with every single day.
(03:42):
They use assessment, informallyand formally, to figure out how
to support kids when it comesto reading, and so I think we
also kind of wanted to pick onthis moment to kind of make even
more explicit the things thatteachers are doing and just
trying ways to make that evenmore accessible to those who
teach teachers and also teachersin terms of professional
(04:04):
development, to kind of re-honethose skills.
I know there's so many districtsthat are hey, you know, you get
training in science of reading,and so I think we also thought
of this book and how this couldbe like a really positive book
study, because it highlightsteachers.
It's not coming from a voice ofyou don't know, it's really
coming from a voice of you knowthese things, these are things
(04:25):
you do.
Let's talk about how you usethem and practice already in
ways to kind of adapt them andmaybe make them even more
explicit in the classroom andwhat you're doing.
So I think it's kind of also tojust try to pick up on this
movement.
We're so tired of, you know,just the rhetoric around
teachers not being able to, orthey don't know this, or the
deep professionalism that'shappening again and you know
(04:47):
it's just not a new voice.
That's happening right.
And so I think whenever wewrite, we try really hard to
connect theory to practice inthe hopes of elevating what
teachers are already doing andwhat amazingly doing in
classrooms that need to bevoiced.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I think one of the frameworks that I definitely
operate from as well is thatelevating teacher voice and
offering a series of invitationsto think about something else
or something new or something ina different way.
So that series of invitations isreally kind of a phrase that is
repetitive for me in trying towrite and trying to teach the
(05:25):
idea that I can't make anybodydo anything, no matter how
wonderful I think it is, and thepoint of requiring something
then we lose agency andmotivation and all those kinds
of things.
In my classes one of the waysthat I try and explain it is if
you've ever worked with or hadtoddlers and you try to make
(05:46):
them eat vegetables, you canentice, you can play games, you
can do all kinds of things, butyou really can't make them eat
vegetables if that's not whatthey want to do.
So as we think about workingwith teachers, as teachers think
about working with students,just the notion that we can't
make teachers think aboutworking with students, just the
(06:07):
notion that we can't make.
But we can invite, and thatinvitation should be warm, it
should be inclusive, it shouldoffer teachers a reason to step
into that, whether it's thinkingabout phonics, whether it's
thinking about motivation intheir classroom.
So I always hope that that issomething that I can communicate
in my writing classroom.
So I always hope that that issomething that I can communicate
in my writing is that thisnotion of an invitation is to
(06:28):
something don't just stop doingsomething and it's to be a part
of a larger group.
It's out of that isolation.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That connection to the invitation and that
reflection that you know we wantto do in our own practice and I
was joking earlier, how youknow, I'm in a second grade
classroom doing book clubs andI'm also do I've run afterschool
book clubs for third throughfifth graders and you know it
just always amazes me the thetimes that I bomb as a teacher,
(06:59):
right, like you know, I havethese grand ideas and you know I
want to teach comprehension andI have these points that I'm
trying to connect with readingand writing connections and it's
such a challenging profession,it's so rewarding but it's so
challenging and I think aboutthat often when I write as well
just that layer of complexityand making these invitations
(07:21):
explicit but also recognizingthat they're complex and that
you and your specific contextare going to handle it
completely different.
And it's when we maybe perhapsfail or you know, those create
new pathways for new avenues tolearn from and to grow from.
So I love that invitations andreflection, just kind of using
those as opportunities to, youknow, to get better with our
(07:44):
teaching just kind of usingthose as opportunities to, you
know, to get better with ourteaching.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, I think that that's one thing that's
particularly challenging aboutthis moment in teaching is that
we know it's complex, we knowit's contextualized, we know
teachers know what they're doing, and yet we have policies put
into place that don't allow forteacher autonomy, really
sometimes even teacher thinking.
Right, it's kind of aone-size-fits-all, everybody's
doing this and it ignores thenuance and the complexities of
(08:10):
what it's like to work with kidsand to go in with the best laid
plans and then realize that, oh, that's not exactly what they
needed or, oh, you know, thesituation called for something
different in the moment.
So I think that having this sortof interpretive lens to
concepts like the science ofreading or all the topics within
the science of reading, it'sjust so important that we still
(08:31):
honor teachers and invite themto use what they know and to
incorporate what we know fromresearch, or what we think we
know from research, as it isalways evolving in order to
arrive at student learning, butin a way that feels human and
enriching and inviting to yourpoint, dixie.
So I think that's a lot of whatyou all offer in this new book,
(08:55):
and so I'm hoping that you'lltell us a bit more about your
goals and how you achieve someof that, as well as some of the
content of your book, in theresponse to this next question.
So what do you want listenersto know about your work?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I think one of the things that we really try to
talk about, too, is thatspecific role of assessment, and
sometimes I think, withconcepts around the five pillars
, we don't necessarily associatethat with assessment, and so I
think what we try to also thinkabout is the role of assessment.
When you're thinking aboutthese concepts, how do you
(09:28):
observe and look at students,right?
How do you?
You know what information arethey already telling you before
you plan this strategicinstruction that you do?
And so I think that frame ofassessment guides the whole book
in terms of how we aresuggesting that people look at
the different components of youknow, the science of reading
(09:49):
elements, and we also talk a lotabout motivation and agency and
how that connects with theseconcepts, right, I mean I don't
know if we talk enough aboutthat relationship with those
elements.
I think there's you knowthere's so many wonderful
scholars who do amazing's.
You know there's so manywonderful scholars who do
amazing work.
You know John Guthrie, and Imean there's just Peter Johnston
(10:11):
.
I mean there's so many peoplethat do amazing work to connect
those concepts, and I think themore that we can also invite and
make that explicit in terms ofconnecting that you don't
necessarily have to teach theseskills in isolation, devoid of
kids' agency and theirmotivation.
And I think we tried really hardto connect that as well as to
(10:33):
think about what does it alsolook beyond the elementary
grades?
And I think from a teachereducator perspective, you know,
when we teach, let's say,reading methods, we can also
focus on those elements in theelementary grades and sometimes
we neglect I know I can, Ipersonally, you know it's
something I do sometimes is thatyou can neglect inadvertently
(10:54):
those upper grades becauseyou're so focused on those,
those younger grades.
And I think what it does is ithelps to look at it across the
continuum and to see thosefoundational skills.
And then also, what does itmean when they're in sixth,
seventh and eighth grade, right,what happens when they're in
middle school?
And you know that doesn't thatwe need to know that, I think,
as elementary teachers, becauseof the work that we do is
(11:16):
foundational and it does help toguide and some of the same
problems that we see in middleschool and secondary are are
issues that a lot of elementaryteachers may experience as well.
So I think we try to make alittle bit more of a fluid
bridge across those grades, tomake that transparent, to give
voice to both ends, because Iknow sometimes they don't
(11:36):
necessarily talk in terms of thethinking and the work.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, and I would just follow up and extend that a
(12:01):
little bit.
So we call it the assessmentframework in the book and asked
to do it this way.
But this kind of we refer to itas the straight line of I test
on the first day of school andthen I test at a later point and
I test, and so you get thesetesting points all along a
straight line, but you don'thave this robust picture of a
student.
So we really invite teachers tothink about observing first,
(12:27):
even if it's only for a coupleof days and we recognize that
you know they're often asked togive particular tests but to be
thoughtful and purposeful aboutobserving students, and then we
put that as a backdrop to eachof the areas that we talk about.
So what does that kind ofassessment framework look like
potentially when you're talkingabout motivation?
So what does that kind ofassessment framework look like
potentially when you're talkingabout motivation?
(12:47):
What does that framework looklike when you're talking about
decoding?
How do you observe studentswhen they're decoding?
And so that's one piece that wereally try to be clear about
and give some concretesuggestions and also talk about.
Why are those observations andconversations important?
We make so many assumptionsabout our students, both as
(13:09):
teacher educators but thenteachers of elementary and
middle grades students.
We assume that we know whythey're doing certain things and
sometimes we're way off.
We take something as a lack ofmotivation and they're like no,
I'm hungry, or I had to go tothe bathroom, or you know, we're
(13:30):
tributing it entirelyincorrectly, and so that
framework, I think, wassomething we just felt like.
We can give you a list ofstrategies, but you can't
contextualize it unless you areactually actively implementing
it kind of an assessment thatincludes more than artifacts and
testing data.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
That makes me also remember how you know, we really
structured the book aroundchildren who are experiencing
reading difficulties, and so wetalk about these concepts in the
frame of if children areexperiencing difficulties.
This might be the lens to whichyou might want to look at
things.
Right, this is a helpfulframework for all students, but
(14:24):
particularly students who areexperiencing difficulties
students would experience whenthey're dealing with phonics, or
what are some of the commondifficulties kids face in
comprehension and vocabulary?
What are the kind of commonthings?
And personally, like I feellike if I had had that as a
teacher, particularly in thoseearly years, it would have
really set me up A to think gosh, there are strategies that I
can do or there are ideas orthere are pathways, and also I'm
not alone in what I see.
(14:44):
And I think that goes back toearlier conversation around
collaboration and connection.
Right, like there's power inunderstanding that these are
common reading difficulties thatyou may see, and here are some
potential ways you may want totry that to, you know, to work
toward these, and so we tried toframe in each chapter questions
, but then also these commondifficulties, so that teachers
(15:05):
could see, hey, if this ishappening, this might be a
potential pathway you might wantto take.
When I work with pre-serviceteachers who are just starting
or just even in professionaldevelopment, that's the stuff
that they're craving is okay,yes, this is wonderful
information, this is greatknowledge, but how do I actually
do this?
How do I make this theory topractice really more explicit
(15:25):
and how do I make itparticularly for kids who aren't
necessarily meeting what I'mtrying to do?
And I love the way that Dixieand I work, because we always
try.
I feel like I don't know if wedo this successfully, but we
really attempt to try to makethat theory to practice explicit
, and I think it stems from, youknow, our work as classroom
teachers.
I mean that quest of trying totake that research.
(15:47):
But then how do you apply it tothis particular kid and this
particular kid that might not bemeeting the needs, or this
other student that has theseother special, you know,
components of what they mightneed, and so I think when we
write, that's really what we tryto do is to come from that.
Okay, this theory is great, butit doesn't work if it's in a
(16:09):
library and a university, or ifit's an article that's not read
Like it's.
How do we make it so it'saccessible, so that if you can
pick this up and apply it thenext day, that would be great?
You know that would be helpful.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I want to follow up on that, margaret, just a little
bit.
There's certainly content thatwe want to communicate, but I
think one piece of our work thatisn't communicated and yet I
feel like it's important andmaybe it's helpful for people
listening is the process that wego through.
So this is the second book thatMargaret and I have written
together and the writing was alot faster this time.
(16:49):
We got better at it.
Yeah, yeah, we did.
We knew each other how theywere writing and I'm going to
apply this in a minute, but I'lltell the broader story first.
So we spent a lot more timeediting on this one than we did
writing.
Like, the writing went prettyquickly and the editing we went
back and forth multiple timesand one of the things that I
(17:12):
really appreciated about theprocess was, as we went back
through, we had some interestingconversations.
So one was is that how youdefine fluency, margaret?
No, I define it this way, so Ipick on this researcher and this
researcher's definitions whoare you drawing from?
I noticed you cited this person.
(17:33):
I didn't cite that person andwe had this really interesting
conversation around that.
And the other one was thinkingabout how we define and
structure decoding and again,margaret was writing that
section.
So we kind of trade offsections and then edit each
other's pretty, pretty strictlyright.
(17:55):
We also now on a second roundand because we've collaborated
on several other, things aremore and more comfortable,
challenging, and we're never uh,I think you're wrong, but we're
more um, what about have youthought about?
And so we are getting more andmore comfortable revising one
(18:16):
another's work yeah going.
I I don't think that wording'sright, all All of that, to say
that the collaborative part isessential.
I feel like I would knowexponentially less if I weren't
working with Margaret.
Same here Hands down, challengethe thinking and we don't
(18:40):
really talk about that ascontent in the book.
But I would wish that forteachers that they have a
teacher that they work with longenough, that they feel
comfortable challenging oneanother and being able to offer
ideas and just generally to makethemselves a better teacher, to
(19:01):
have this thought partner tomake themselves a better teacher
, to have this thought partner.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, I love that, dixie, that's so true.
Yeah, I don't think we've everreally written about that in the
preface or any of the parts ofthe book, but that's a key part
of how we work too, so we eachpick different topics that we
might have been more familiarwith and then we yeah, we traded
off and I just I think it's sointeresting because I'm more of
an elementary and, dixie, wouldyou qualify your maybe upper?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, upper elementary to middle grades yeah
.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, and so it's a really wonderful balance in that
way too, because I was like, oh, I don't know middle school and
so, but then reading thechapter that she wrote on that,
I was like this is so helpful,like this is really connected to
what I would want to know fromthe elementary perspective
around upper grades.
And so, yeah, the collaborationpiece is huge and you know it
(19:55):
wouldn't, I don't think it wouldhave been a good book.
Honestly, if you know, one ofus wrote individually.
I think we really theconnection we have in the
collaboration, I think is so key.
I think it it helps immensely.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Well, in addition, in this book, we we gave the
dedication to Jerry Duffy andSam Miller.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
They were our professors for our dissertations
and so, as we're talking aboutcollaboration, I feel like we
were really cognizant of othersthat have been collaborative
with us, that have influencednot just what we think we know
but the pattern in which wepractice.
(20:41):
So that whole idea of movingbeyond just getting a test score
right we could go back to Samand Jerry's influence on us in
addition to our own classroomteaching.
But we really are part of alineage of thinking and we just
try and one do it justice andhonor it and help translate that
(21:04):
to the next student.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So I feel like that collaborative piece both between
Margaret and I and recognizingwhere we come from, if you will,
is really important to us inour work and our writing things
that I would love to pick backup on, but I think that maybe
one of the messages that'sreally ringing most loudly to me
(21:27):
is that, of course,collaboration is essential, but
more than that, I think thatwhen we do have someone in our
lives who can help us to see thegray areas, interpret the gray
areas and really inform themwith again what we think we know
from experience, observation,data, research, all of those
(21:48):
elements it makes us betterright.
And I think that for me, theother thing I'm thinking about
as we're talking is the ways inwhich some of the current
particularly science of reading,legislative kinds of impacts
are being handed down.
That nuance, that collaborativespirit, is more or less gone and
(22:10):
I think that for me thatcreates inherent problems
because you can't navigatesomething that's black and white
in a world that is full of grayareas.
I wonder if that's what a lot ofteachers are feeling, because,
back to the story that westarted with that you started
with Dixie with veteran teachersreally having a hard time
navigating.
(22:30):
I also have friends who areveteran teachers who say I feel
like it's my first year, I feellike I don't know what I'm doing
and in some ways it feels likesome of the heavy-handed
mandates have kind of pulled therug out from under people, so
the footing they thought theymay have had after, let's say,
20 years of teaching experiencehas largely been pulled out from
(22:51):
under them, because now all ofa sudden it's like well, you
can't use observation andconversation, we are going to
base all of our instructionaldecisions off of a computerized
assessment, and I think thatthat puts teachers in a really
bad spot right, Especially thosewho are there to support kids
as individuals and as humans.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah that's so true.
I think that's such a greatconnection that it can get lost
in translation in terms of howit looks in classrooms and and
what a shame, you know, what ashame that we're not
highlighting that, and I thinkyou know I've heard this before
in different areas and so thisis definitely not my, my thought
, and this goes back to thespirit of collaboration.
(23:32):
But you know, we really need amovement of the professionalism
of teachers, right, just as muchas the rhetoric on the science
of reading and there's thatmedia.
We need this outlet of thismovement around what skilled
teachers are, what theprofession is, this uplifting of
the profession, and I think weneed to counter that and I think
(23:54):
we're all teachers,administrators, district people,
professors, students, likeparents, community members I
feel like we need to have ourown movement around what
teaching is and I think maybe inthat way there's a hope that we
can kind of speak back, youknow, to kind of support those
areas that are not necessarilybeing highlighted and supported.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And not just in the elevation of teachers, but also
the elevation of students.
Yeah, the collaboration that wetry and hint at is that you
work collaboratively with yourstudents, that you don't know a
lot of things, and it's okay tosay I don't know.
What do you think about it withstudents, even when they're
(24:40):
young?
What do you think about it withstudents even when they're
young?
And to treat them as thinkersalong with you who have
something to offer you?
And in some of the currentcontext, I think that's also
really devalued, as the teachershould know.
If the teacher doesn't know,this is the legislation that's
going to tell you what youshould know, and students know
(25:10):
nothing and we're going to tellthem.
It's back to that blank slatewhich I have such a problem with
.
They are not blank slates.
So how is it that we're tryingto legislate so much of exactly
what student students shouldknow in some areas and then, at
the same time, use the rhetoricaround culturally sustaining
practice and honoring cultures?
Those two things don't seemlike they should go together, or
that they do, and so no wonderteachers are feeling really
(25:34):
frustrated because they'reasking to do two things that,
theoretically, you can't combine, in my estimation theoretically
you can't combine.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
In my estimation Exactly and I think that that's
really the point I was hintingat is that we have mandates
versus experience and the twothey don't always intersect, and
it does put teachers in areally difficult spot.
What else would you likelisteners to know about your
work?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I just think that the role of agency and the role of
motivation right, it's just sokey.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Margaret and I can't write anything about anything
without that motivation andagency, and that I mean.
That's the truth.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, it always comes up, you know, and it's always
at the.
I don't say it always comes up,but it's always there in the
forefront of our minds.
In terms of how we view this,and I think when we thought
about this book, it's that, youknow, it doesn't have to be
disconnected from one another.
They can and they shouldintersect and they should always
be present.
And you know, there's so muchresearch that aligns with, when
(26:39):
kids are in motivating context,what happens to their, you know,
reading enjoyment, reading forengagement, and some, you know,
same with agency.
You know, we're starting to seemore of that in terms of
student outcomes related tohigher levels of agency, and I
just I think that connectingthat as being something that is
doesn't have to exist on its own.
I might argue that it needs tobe at the front.
(27:01):
Before you even think aboutthese skills, right, I mean, you
need to think about yourcontext.
You need to think about thebooks and the materials.
You need to think about howmuch voice do the students have?
You know how engaged are theyto read that text?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
you know five times, right, like thinking about
culturally responsive text, howthey're engaged, high, high
interest text, and so we talk alot in the book about that level
of you know classroom practiceoriented, focused instruction
that is agentic and is serves tomotivate kids and one of the
things we wrestled with in thisbook was even just the sequence
(27:37):
of chapters about yes formargaret I we had one board
around that, and so in our bookthey're not like motivation and
agency or chapters five and six,so they're right in the middle.
But we thought and thought andthought about it we put them as
the very first thing, because ifwe're not addressing those
(27:58):
kinds of issues then, at leastin my mind, all the rest of it
really doesn't matter.
If I teach a student to readand they don't read because they
don't feel like they have anyagency in what they're reading
and how they're responding, thenI don't think I've done my job
and I'm not successful.
So you know, we opted in ourwriting to put them midway for a
(28:24):
few reasons.
But if you were to ask us maybehow we'd change the book, we
would make that even stronger,and even stronger from the
beginning of agency andmotivation.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think part of what we structured it from the order
was to provide a backdrop ofwhat's happening you know what's
going on.
And then we talked about some ofthe reading phases of kids and
how that looks like, mainlybecause we didn't want to make
assumptions about the reader'sknowledge in terms of you know,
(28:57):
how kids develop when it comesto reading, and so we wanted to
kind of put up front some ofthose areas that maybe could
make.
Also, you know, sometimesthat's not really explicit when
we talk about those elements ofreading, the science of reading,
elements we don't necessarilyconnect the context of what's
happening with legislation andalso how kids actually develop
(29:19):
when it comes to reading, and sowe wanted to contextualize a
bit more around what readinginstruction actually looks like.
I think one of the earlyconversations Dixie and I had
was, you know, I have a younger.
My son is in second grade, andso I think when we first started
writing this, thinking aboutthis book, he was in younger
grades and I was just like youknow, dixie, like I come across
(29:41):
parents who say to me like howis it that my child, already in
kindergarten, is behind?
You know, how is this evenpossible?
And you know, and so thatquestion has stuck with me for
several years.
And just also, like, in so manydifferent layers, right, the
context of like, what are weasking of kids in kindergarten?
You know, what do we expect ofparents?
(30:03):
You know so many layers you canjust imagine.
And so for me, when we werewriting this book, that question
was always in the front of mymind is that you know what are
these expectations and how?
Really how is it that a childcoming into kindergarten is who
knows the alphabet?
Who is beginning to read isalready considered behind per se
(30:23):
?
You know right, in terms ofsome of these alphabet.
Who is beginning to read isalready considered behind per se
?
You know right, in terms ofsome of these standards to read.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah, so might have some of that motivational
motivation, yeah, and yet theschool designates them as behind
, and you know we provideexamples of.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You know this is what typically we see is expected at
the beginning of first gradeand this is the demand at the
end of first grade.
And so we talk a little bitabout making that explicit,
which I feel like as a teacher,those are a bit of a nugget,
like you know.
When I talk with parents now, Imake that explicit and I say
this is where a child in firstgrade starts to read typically,
(30:59):
and this is where they end andthey're like wow, that's amazing
, that's so much more readingthere's, you know there's.
It's just so much more complexand I think sharing that with
parents and communities I thinkis important as well and I think
that's in part to pick to kindof go back and explain.
That's in part why we made that.
That's not necessarily part ofconversations when we talk about
(31:20):
some of these skills.
We don't necessarily part ofconversations when we talk about
some of these skills.
We don't tend to contextualizeit in reading development in
terms of like motivation and howkids want to have a voice in
saying what they're reading.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Well, this also reminds me of that three-point
framework for assessment that wewere talking about earlier.
In the area where I live,kindergarten readiness is
determined by a 27-questioncomputer-based test.
In the area where I live,kindergarten readiness is
determined by a 27-questioncomputer-based test.
In the district where I live,the average completion time is
nine minutes, and so in nineminutes a five-year-old is more
(31:55):
or less.
Whether they know it, they arekind of branding themselves as a
learner.
And if we are solely basinginstructional decisions on that
assessment or even labels, forthat matter, because it does
become a part of the largerconversation about, you know,
how prepared our kids for schoolWell, if this is our measure
(32:15):
and I've heard it in fact, a fewweeks ago I was at a luncheon
for literacy where I heard youknow, 44% of kids aren't ready
for kindergarten, but we neverreally hear the rest of the
story that that's the tool thatdetermines it and it's not
really based on observation andconversation, it's based on
computer generated data pointsonly.
(32:35):
And so I think again, this justsort of reminds me of really our
whole conversation about howimportant it is to consider the
context, how important it is toconsider the context, how
important it is to consideragency and motivation.
You know, I can't imagine thatthere are many five-year-olds
who sit down in front of thatcomputer on one of their first
days of kindergarten thinking,man, I'm going to ace this.
Whatever the heck it is, I'mgoing to ace this test, you know
(32:57):
, because there really isn'tspace for engagement, agency,
motivation in that kind of work.
So, yeah, I appreciate yourframe of assessment.
That could help to reallycontextualize and enrich that
conversation about what it meansto be ready for school and the
kinds of learners we see infront of us in our classrooms.
(33:17):
You know, because so often Ithink they're reduced to red,
yellow and green dots on a sheetof paper, and we know that kids
bring so much more to theirclassroom context than that, and
to the world, of course.
So, given the challenges oftoday's educational climate
we've certainly talked about afew of them what message do you
all want teachers to hear?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You know you're doing a great job at a really hard
time in the field and also inthe profession, and without you
none of us would be here, right?
I mean I think that's always asober reminder to policymakers
and administrators and reallyeveryone without a teacher be
that your parents, yourguardians, in formal settings,
(34:00):
in schools there's a good chanceyou probably wouldn't be.
You know, potentially, whereyou are right now and so I think
you know, stay true to yourvision and reflect on that
vision and find thoselike-minded people to guide you
and support you, because it'snot easy.
And, yeah, I mean we.
(34:20):
There's a lot of people who arecheering you on and I think I
can say on behalf of all of uswe are, we're cheering you on.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I would also say small changes.
I think sometimes it's easy tohear these big policies and
think I can't do anything andlose our own agency, and even if
I could make a small change,it's not worth it.
But small changes and I hopethis comes through in our book
is small changes over time, whenconsistently implemented,
(34:50):
really do make changes, and wesee that in all ways of life,
whether it's exercise, makingthe small change of choosing
something different to eat or,you know, a few more steps a day
, when applied consistently, canreally make a big difference.
So in teaching, even if thesebig changes can't happen in the
(35:14):
way perhaps you want to teach,there are small changes that can
be made, that can beimplemented.
Even if it's a few minutes ofreading, even if it's letting
students choose a text onceevery two or three weeks instead
of not at all, those changesmatter, those changes count, and
to value those kinds of smallchanges that you are making in
(35:37):
your teaching would be somethingthat I would really want to
encourage teachers to do wouldbe something that I would really
want to encourage teachers todo.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
What an important reminder and I think that in
many facets of life, smallchanges are the ones that are
achievable and the reminder thatthey can really help us to make
big changes over time,particularly as I joined a
Pilates studio last week for aonce a week class thinking I can
do this once a week.
I could add one I could get upat 4.30 am once a week to get to
Pilates once a week, but withthe idea that those small
(36:14):
changes over time they really domean something.
And if that is the way that weget a bite on helping our vision
come to fruition or helping tomake impactful changes in our
lives or in the lives of others,what an important and
inspirational reminder.
So thank you for that, and Ithink that does help us to stay
(36:34):
true to our vision, because itcan be really hard to envision
how we get to big changeswithout making small steps so
right.
Love that, as always, it iswonderful talking with you,
ladies.
Thank you so much for your timetoday, thank you for the work
that you do in the world andthank you for your contributions
to education.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Good to see you, Dixie.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Thank you, lindsay.
Dr Margaret Vaughn is known forher work in student agency
teacher decision-making andreading materials for children.
Dr Vaughn is known for her workin student agency teacher
decision-making and readingmaterials for children.
Dr Vaughn's work has appearedin the Reading Teacher Reading
Research Quarterly Review ofEducational Research, reading
Psychology Theory into Practice,teaching and Teacher Education.
Children's Literature inEducation Journal of Curriculum
(37:19):
Studies.
Peabody Journal of EducationJournal of Reading Education, as
well as other journals, booksand book chapters.
Dr Vaughn is a professor ofliteracy at Washington State
University.
Dr Dixie Massey is known for herwork in the areas of literacy
development, pre-service teachereducation and children's
(37:39):
literature.
Her work has been published inthe Reading Teacher Literacy
Today, reading ResearchQuarterly Journal of Adolescent
and Adult Literacy.
Journal of Literacy ResearchTheory into Practice.
Peabody Journal of Education,social Studies and the Young
Learner Social Education, aswell as many other journals,
(38:00):
books and blogs.
She is involved with theLiteracy Research Association as
the organization's historianand the co-chair of the History
of Reading Innovative CommunityGroup.
Dr Massey is a lecturer atSeattle Pacific University.
Dixie and Margaret haveco-authored many works together,
including their 2021 booktitled Teaching with Children's
Literature Theory to Practice.
(38:21):
You can reach Margaret atmargaretvon at wsuedu.
That's m-a-r-g-a-r-e-t.
Dot.
V-a-u-g-h-n at wsuedu, and youcan reach Dixie at massed at
spuedu.
(38:41):
That's m-a-S-S-E-Y-D at SPUedu.
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
(39:05):
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
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
(39:27):
our drop-down menu of tags,request an episode, topic or
potential guest, support ourresearch through our listener
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,
(39:49):
abaya Valuru, 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 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.
In this episode, formerClassroom Caffeine guests
Margaret Vaughn and Dixie Masseyare back to share with us their
most recent collaboration, abook entitled Overcoming Reading
Challenges Kindergarten ThroughMiddle School.
In their book, they addresstopics like phonemic awareness,
(00:55):
decoding, fluency, vocabularyand reading comprehension, as
well as factors like motivationand student agency.
Dr Margaret Vaughn is known forher work in student agency,
teacher decision-making andreading materials for children.
Dr Vaughn is a professor ofliteracy at Washington State
University.
(01:15):
Dr Dixie Massey is known forher work in the areas of
literacy development,pre-service teacher education
and children's literature.
Dr Massey is a lecturer atSeattle Pacific University.
Dixie and Margaret haveco-authored many works together,
including the book titledTeaching with Children's
Literature Theory to Practice,which was the topic of
(01:38):
conversation in their firstcollaborative classroom caffeine
episode.
For more information about ourguests, stay tuned to the end of
this episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,
lindsay Persaud, for ClassroomCaffeine research to energize
(01:58):
your teaching practice.
Margaret and Dixie, thank youfor joining me again.
Welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having us.
It's so good to be back with you.
Margaret and Dixie, thank youfor joining me again.
Welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having us.
It's so good to be back withyou so from your own experiences
in education.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Will you share with us one or two moments that
inform your thinking now?
Well, since we've had thepleasure of talking with you
before, I think it's not just asingular experience for me, but
this kind of collection of beingin classrooms and talking to
teachers for me.
But this kind of collection ofbeing in classrooms and talking
to teachers and I've had theexperience recently of several
people who are veterans talkingabout how difficult teaching is
and some maybe negatively theidea of I want to be able to
(02:38):
retire I just hope I can hold onand some maybe re-entering the
classroom.
I even have a friend who was aprofessor for a few years and
went back into the classroom andis teaching kindergarten now
and her comment was it's just sohard but it's great work and I
(02:58):
want to get better at it, andthat notion of getting better is
really, I guess, what I wouldsay.
Notion of getting better isreally, I guess, what I would
say.
The experience shaped this bookhelping teachers get better and
also helping ourselves getbetter at both our content,
knowledge, but communicatingthat.
So I think that's really thekind of bedrock experience
behind why we're writing thisbook now.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, and Dixon and I always love working together,
so there's always that piece ofit, any excuse to to get to work
together and and also to buildon that too.
Just with this, you know, justwith the science of reading,
right, kind of this big movementagain that's happening and
teachers know I mean this is nota new phenomenon.
These are topics that teacherswrestle with every single day.
(03:42):
They use assessment, informallyand formally, to figure out how
to support kids when it comesto reading, and so I think we
also kind of wanted to pick onthis moment to kind of make even
more explicit the things thatteachers are doing and just
trying ways to make that evenmore accessible to those who
teach teachers and also teachersin terms of professional
(04:04):
development, to kind of re-honethose skills.
I know there's so many districtsthat are hey, you know, you get
training in science of reading,and so I think we also thought
of this book and how this couldbe like a really positive book
study, because it highlightsteachers.
It's not coming from a voice ofyou don't know, it's really
coming from a voice of you knowthese things, these are things
(04:25):
you do.
Let's talk about how you usethem and practice already in
ways to kind of adapt them andmaybe make them even more
explicit in the classroom andwhat you're doing.
So I think it's kind of also tojust try to pick up on this
movement.
We're so tired of, you know,just the rhetoric around
teachers not being able to, orthey don't know this, or the
deep professionalism that'shappening again and you know
(04:47):
it's just not a new voice.
That's happening right.
And so I think whenever wewrite, we try really hard to
connect theory to practice inthe hopes of elevating what
teachers are already doing andwhat amazingly doing in
classrooms that need to bevoiced.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I think one of the frameworks that I definitely
operate from as well is thatelevating teacher voice and
offering a series of invitationsto think about something else
or something new or something ina different way.
So that series of invitations isreally kind of a phrase that is
repetitive for me in trying towrite and trying to teach the
(05:25):
idea that I can't make anybodydo anything, no matter how
wonderful I think it is, and thepoint of requiring something
then we lose agency andmotivation and all those kinds
of things.
In my classes one of the waysthat I try and explain it is if
you've ever worked with or hadtoddlers and you try to make
(05:46):
them eat vegetables, you canentice, you can play games, you
can do all kinds of things, butyou really can't make them eat
vegetables if that's not whatthey want to do.
So as we think about workingwith teachers, as teachers think
about working with students,just the notion that we can't
make teachers think aboutworking with students, just the
(06:07):
notion that we can't make.
But we can invite, and thatinvitation should be warm, it
should be inclusive, it shouldoffer teachers a reason to step
into that, whether it's thinkingabout phonics, whether it's
thinking about motivation intheir classroom.
So I always hope that that issomething that I can communicate
in my writing classroom.
So I always hope that that issomething that I can communicate
in my writing is that thisnotion of an invitation is to
(06:28):
something don't just stop doingsomething and it's to be a part
of a larger group.
It's out of that isolation.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That connection to the invitation and that
reflection that you know we wantto do in our own practice and I
was joking earlier, how youknow, I'm in a second grade
classroom doing book clubs andI'm also do I've run afterschool
book clubs for third throughfifth graders and you know it
just always amazes me the thetimes that I bomb as a teacher,
(06:59):
right, like you know, I havethese grand ideas and you know I
want to teach comprehension andI have these points that I'm
trying to connect with readingand writing connections and it's
such a challenging profession,it's so rewarding but it's so
challenging and I think aboutthat often when I write as well
just that layer of complexityand making these invitations
(07:21):
explicit but also recognizingthat they're complex and that
you and your specific contextare going to handle it
completely different.
And it's when we maybe perhapsfail or you know, those create
new pathways for new avenues tolearn from and to grow from.
So I love that invitations andreflection, just kind of using
those as opportunities to, youknow, to get better with our
(07:44):
teaching just kind of usingthose as opportunities to, you
know, to get better with ourteaching.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, I think that that's one thing that's
particularly challenging aboutthis moment in teaching is that
we know it's complex, we knowit's contextualized, we know
teachers know what they're doing, and yet we have policies put
into place that don't allow forteacher autonomy, really
sometimes even teacher thinking.
Right, it's kind of aone-size-fits-all, everybody's
doing this and it ignores thenuance and the complexities of
(08:10):
what it's like to work with kidsand to go in with the best laid
plans and then realize that, oh, that's not exactly what they
needed or, oh, you know, thesituation called for something
different in the moment.
So I think that having this sortof interpretive lens to
concepts like the science ofreading or all the topics within
the science of reading, it'sjust so important that we still
(08:31):
honor teachers and invite themto use what they know and to
incorporate what we know fromresearch, or what we think we
know from research, as it isalways evolving in order to
arrive at student learning, butin a way that feels human and
enriching and inviting to yourpoint, dixie.
So I think that's a lot of whatyou all offer in this new book,
(08:55):
and so I'm hoping that you'lltell us a bit more about your
goals and how you achieve someof that, as well as some of the
content of your book, in theresponse to this next question.
So what do you want listenersto know about your work?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I think one of the things that we really try to
talk about, too, is thatspecific role of assessment, and
sometimes I think, withconcepts around the five pillars
, we don't necessarily associatethat with assessment, and so I
think what we try to also thinkabout is the role of assessment.
When you're thinking aboutthese concepts, how do you
(09:28):
observe and look at students,right?
How do you?
You know what information arethey already telling you before
you plan this strategicinstruction that you do?
And so I think that frame ofassessment guides the whole book
in terms of how we aresuggesting that people look at
the different components of youknow, the science of reading
(09:49):
elements, and we also talk a lotabout motivation and agency and
how that connects with theseconcepts, right, I mean I don't
know if we talk enough aboutthat relationship with those
elements.
I think there's you knowthere's so many wonderful
scholars who do amazing's.
You know there's so manywonderful scholars who do
amazing work.
You know John Guthrie, and Imean there's just Peter Johnston
(10:11):
.
I mean there's so many peoplethat do amazing work to connect
those concepts, and I think themore that we can also invite and
make that explicit in terms ofconnecting that you don't
necessarily have to teach theseskills in isolation, devoid of
kids' agency and theirmotivation.
And I think we tried really hardto connect that as well as to
(10:33):
think about what does it alsolook beyond the elementary
grades?
And I think from a teachereducator perspective, you know,
when we teach, let's say,reading methods, we can also
focus on those elements in theelementary grades and sometimes
we neglect I know I can, Ipersonally, you know it's
something I do sometimes is thatyou can neglect inadvertently
(10:54):
those upper grades becauseyou're so focused on those,
those younger grades.
And I think what it does is ithelps to look at it across the
continuum and to see thosefoundational skills.
And then also, what does itmean when they're in sixth,
seventh and eighth grade, right,what happens when they're in
middle school?
And you know that doesn't thatwe need to know that, I think,
as elementary teachers, becauseof the work that we do is
(11:16):
foundational and it does help toguide and some of the same
problems that we see in middleschool and secondary are are
issues that a lot of elementaryteachers may experience as well.
So I think we try to make alittle bit more of a fluid
bridge across those grades, tomake that transparent, to give
voice to both ends, because Iknow sometimes they don't
(11:36):
necessarily talk in terms of thethinking and the work.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, and I would just follow up and extend that a
(12:01):
little bit.
So we call it the assessmentframework in the book and asked
to do it this way.
But this kind of we refer to itas the straight line of I test
on the first day of school andthen I test at a later point and
I test, and so you get thesetesting points all along a
straight line, but you don'thave this robust picture of a
student.
So we really invite teachers tothink about observing first,
(12:27):
even if it's only for a coupleof days and we recognize that
you know they're often asked togive particular tests but to be
thoughtful and purposeful aboutobserving students, and then we
put that as a backdrop to eachof the areas that we talk about.
So what does that kind ofassessment framework look like
potentially when you're talkingabout motivation?
So what does that kind ofassessment framework look like
potentially when you're talkingabout motivation?
(12:47):
What does that framework looklike when you're talking about
decoding?
How do you observe studentswhen they're decoding?
And so that's one piece that wereally try to be clear about
and give some concretesuggestions and also talk about.
Why are those observations andconversations important?
We make so many assumptionsabout our students, both as
(13:09):
teacher educators but thenteachers of elementary and
middle grades students.
We assume that we know whythey're doing certain things and
sometimes we're way off.
We take something as a lack ofmotivation and they're like no,
I'm hungry, or I had to go tothe bathroom, or you know, we're
(13:30):
tributing it entirelyincorrectly, and so that
framework, I think, wassomething we just felt like.
We can give you a list ofstrategies, but you can't
contextualize it unless you areactually actively implementing
it kind of an assessment thatincludes more than artifacts and
testing data.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
That makes me also remember how you know, we really
structured the book aroundchildren who are experiencing
reading difficulties, and so wetalk about these concepts in the
frame of if children areexperiencing difficulties.
This might be the lens to whichyou might want to look at
things.
Right, this is a helpfulframework for all students, but
(14:24):
particularly students who areexperiencing difficulties
students would experience whenthey're dealing with phonics, or
what are some of the commondifficulties kids face in
comprehension and vocabulary?
What are the kind of commonthings?
And personally, like I feellike if I had had that as a
teacher, particularly in thoseearly years, it would have
really set me up A to think gosh, there are strategies that I
can do or there are ideas orthere are pathways, and also I'm
not alone in what I see.
(14:44):
And I think that goes back toearlier conversation around
collaboration and connection.
Right, like there's power inunderstanding that these are
common reading difficulties thatyou may see, and here are some
potential ways you may want totry that to, you know, to work
toward these, and so we tried toframe in each chapter questions
, but then also these commondifficulties, so that teachers
(15:05):
could see, hey, if this ishappening, this might be a
potential pathway you might wantto take.
When I work with pre-serviceteachers who are just starting
or just even in professionaldevelopment, that's the stuff
that they're craving is okay,yes, this is wonderful
information, this is greatknowledge, but how do I actually
do this?
How do I make this theory topractice really more explicit
(15:25):
and how do I make itparticularly for kids who aren't
necessarily meeting what I'mtrying to do?
And I love the way that Dixieand I work, because we always
try.
I feel like I don't know if wedo this successfully, but we
really attempt to try to makethat theory to practice explicit
, and I think it stems from, youknow, our work as classroom
teachers.
I mean that quest of trying totake that research.
(15:47):
But then how do you apply it tothis particular kid and this
particular kid that might not bemeeting the needs, or this
other student that has theseother special, you know,
components of what they mightneed, and so I think when we
write, that's really what we tryto do is to come from that.
Okay, this theory is great, butit doesn't work if it's in a
(16:09):
library and a university, or ifit's an article that's not read
Like it's.
How do we make it so it'saccessible, so that if you can
pick this up and apply it thenext day, that would be great?
You know that would be helpful.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I want to follow up on that, margaret, just a little
bit.
There's certainly content thatwe want to communicate, but I
think one piece of our work thatisn't communicated and yet I
feel like it's important andmaybe it's helpful for people
listening is the process that wego through.
So this is the second book thatMargaret and I have written
together and the writing was alot faster this time.
(16:49):
We got better at it.
Yeah, yeah, we did.
We knew each other how theywere writing and I'm going to
apply this in a minute, but I'lltell the broader story first.
So we spent a lot more timeediting on this one than we did
writing.
Like, the writing went prettyquickly and the editing we went
back and forth multiple timesand one of the things that I
(17:12):
really appreciated about theprocess was, as we went back
through, we had some interestingconversations.
So one was is that how youdefine fluency, margaret?
No, I define it this way, so Ipick on this researcher and this
researcher's definitions whoare you drawing from?
I noticed you cited this person.
(17:33):
I didn't cite that person andwe had this really interesting
conversation around that.
And the other one was thinkingabout how we define and
structure decoding and again,margaret was writing that
section.
So we kind of trade offsections and then edit each
other's pretty, pretty strictlyright.
(17:55):
We also now on a second roundand because we've collaborated
on several other, things aremore and more comfortable,
challenging, and we're never uh,I think you're wrong, but we're
more um, what about have youthought about?
And so we are getting more andmore comfortable revising one
(18:16):
another's work yeah going.
I I don't think that wording'sright, all All of that, to say
that the collaborative part isessential.
I feel like I would knowexponentially less if I weren't
working with Margaret.
Same here Hands down, challengethe thinking and we don't
(18:40):
really talk about that ascontent in the book.
But I would wish that forteachers that they have a
teacher that they work with longenough, that they feel
comfortable challenging oneanother and being able to offer
ideas and just generally to makethemselves a better teacher, to
(19:01):
have this thought partner tomake themselves a better teacher
, to have this thought partner.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, I love that, dixie, that's so true.
Yeah, I don't think we've everreally written about that in the
preface or any of the parts ofthe book, but that's a key part
of how we work too, so we eachpick different topics that we
might have been more familiarwith and then we yeah, we traded
off and I just I think it's sointeresting because I'm more of
an elementary and, dixie, wouldyou qualify your maybe upper?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, upper elementary to middle grades yeah
.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, and so it's a really wonderful balance in that
way too, because I was like, oh, I don't know middle school and
so, but then reading thechapter that she wrote on that,
I was like this is so helpful,like this is really connected to
what I would want to know fromthe elementary perspective
around upper grades.
And so, yeah, the collaborationpiece is huge and you know it
(19:55):
wouldn't, I don't think it wouldhave been a good book.
Honestly, if you know, one ofus wrote individually.
I think we really theconnection we have in the
collaboration, I think is so key.
I think it it helps immensely.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Well, in addition, in this book, we we gave the
dedication to Jerry Duffy andSam Miller.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
They were our professors for our dissertations
and so, as we're talking aboutcollaboration, I feel like we
were really cognizant of othersthat have been collaborative
with us, that have influencednot just what we think we know
but the pattern in which wepractice.
(20:41):
So that whole idea of movingbeyond just getting a test score
right we could go back to Samand Jerry's influence on us in
addition to our own classroomteaching.
But we really are part of alineage of thinking and we just
try and one do it justice andhonor it and help translate that
(21:04):
to the next student.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So I feel like that collaborative piece both between
Margaret and I and recognizingwhere we come from, if you will,
is really important to us inour work and our writing things
that I would love to pick backup on, but I think that maybe
one of the messages that'sreally ringing most loudly to me
(21:27):
is that, of course,collaboration is essential, but
more than that, I think thatwhen we do have someone in our
lives who can help us to see thegray areas, interpret the gray
areas and really inform themwith again what we think we know
from experience, observation,data, research, all of those
(21:48):
elements it makes us betterright.
And I think that for me, theother thing I'm thinking about
as we're talking is the ways inwhich some of the current
particularly science of reading,legislative kinds of impacts
are being handed down.
That nuance, that collaborativespirit, is more or less gone and
(22:10):
I think that for me thatcreates inherent problems
because you can't navigatesomething that's black and white
in a world that is full of grayareas.
I wonder if that's what a lot ofteachers are feeling, because,
back to the story that westarted with that you started
with Dixie with veteran teachersreally having a hard time
navigating.
(22:30):
I also have friends who areveteran teachers who say I feel
like it's my first year, I feellike I don't know what I'm doing
and in some ways it feels likesome of the heavy-handed
mandates have kind of pulled therug out from under people, so
the footing they thought theymay have had after, let's say,
20 years of teaching experiencehas largely been pulled out from
(22:51):
under them, because now all ofa sudden it's like well, you
can't use observation andconversation, we are going to
base all of our instructionaldecisions off of a computerized
assessment, and I think thatthat puts teachers in a really
bad spot right, Especially thosewho are there to support kids
as individuals and as humans.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah that's so true.
I think that's such a greatconnection that it can get lost
in translation in terms of howit looks in classrooms and and
what a shame, you know, what ashame that we're not
highlighting that, and I thinkyou know I've heard this before
in different areas and so thisis definitely not my, my thought
, and this goes back to thespirit of collaboration.
(23:32):
But you know, we really need amovement of the professionalism
of teachers, right, just as muchas the rhetoric on the science
of reading and there's thatmedia.
We need this outlet of thismovement around what skilled
teachers are, what theprofession is, this uplifting of
the profession, and I think weneed to counter that and I think
(23:54):
we're all teachers,administrators, district people,
professors, students, likeparents, community members I
feel like we need to have ourown movement around what
teaching is and I think maybe inthat way there's a hope that we
can kind of speak back, youknow, to kind of support those
areas that are not necessarilybeing highlighted and supported.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And not just in the elevation of teachers, but also
the elevation of students.
Yeah, the collaboration that wetry and hint at is that you
work collaboratively with yourstudents, that you don't know a
lot of things, and it's okay tosay I don't know.
What do you think about it withstudents, even when they're
(24:40):
young?
What do you think about it withstudents even when they're
young?
And to treat them as thinkersalong with you who have
something to offer you?
And in some of the currentcontext, I think that's also
really devalued, as the teachershould know.
If the teacher doesn't know,this is the legislation that's
going to tell you what youshould know, and students know
(25:10):
nothing and we're going to tellthem.
It's back to that blank slatewhich I have such a problem with
.
They are not blank slates.
So how is it that we're tryingto legislate so much of exactly
what student students shouldknow in some areas and then, at
the same time, use the rhetoricaround culturally sustaining
practice and honoring cultures?
Those two things don't seemlike they should go together, or
that they do, and so no wonderteachers are feeling really
(25:34):
frustrated because they'reasking to do two things that,
theoretically, you can't combine, in my estimation theoretically
you can't combine.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
In my estimation Exactly and I think that that's
really the point I was hintingat is that we have mandates
versus experience and the twothey don't always intersect, and
it does put teachers in areally difficult spot.
What else would you likelisteners to know about your
work?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I just think that the role of agency and the role of
motivation right, it's just sokey.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Margaret and I can't write anything about anything
without that motivation andagency, and that I mean.
That's the truth.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, it always comes up, you know, and it's always
at the.
I don't say it always comes up,but it's always there in the
forefront of our minds.
In terms of how we view this,and I think when we thought
about this book, it's that, youknow, it doesn't have to be
disconnected from one another.
They can and they shouldintersect and they should always
be present.
And you know, there's so muchresearch that aligns with, when
(26:39):
kids are in motivating context,what happens to their, you know,
reading enjoyment, reading forengagement, and some, you know,
same with agency.
You know, we're starting to seemore of that in terms of
student outcomes related tohigher levels of agency, and I
just I think that connectingthat as being something that is
doesn't have to exist on its own.
I might argue that it needs tobe at the front.
(27:01):
Before you even think aboutthese skills, right, I mean, you
need to think about yourcontext.
You need to think about thebooks and the materials.
You need to think about howmuch voice do the students have?
You know how engaged are theyto read that text?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
you know five times, right, like thinking about
culturally responsive text, howthey're engaged, high, high
interest text, and so we talk alot in the book about that level
of you know classroom practiceoriented, focused instruction
that is agentic and is serves tomotivate kids and one of the
things we wrestled with in thisbook was even just the sequence
(27:37):
of chapters about yes formargaret I we had one board
around that, and so in our bookthey're not like motivation and
agency or chapters five and six,so they're right in the middle.
But we thought and thought andthought about it we put them as
the very first thing, because ifwe're not addressing those
(27:58):
kinds of issues then, at leastin my mind, all the rest of it
really doesn't matter.
If I teach a student to readand they don't read because they
don't feel like they have anyagency in what they're reading
and how they're responding, thenI don't think I've done my job
and I'm not successful.
So you know, we opted in ourwriting to put them midway for a
(28:24):
few reasons.
But if you were to ask us maybehow we'd change the book, we
would make that even stronger,and even stronger from the
beginning of agency andmotivation.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think part of what we structured it from the order
was to provide a backdrop ofwhat's happening you know what's
going on.
And then we talked about some ofthe reading phases of kids and
how that looks like, mainlybecause we didn't want to make
assumptions about the reader'sknowledge in terms of you know,
(28:57):
how kids develop when it comesto reading, and so we wanted to
kind of put up front some ofthose areas that maybe could
make.
Also, you know, sometimesthat's not really explicit when
we talk about those elements ofreading, the science of reading,
elements we don't necessarilyconnect the context of what's
happening with legislation andalso how kids actually develop
(29:19):
when it comes to reading, and sowe wanted to contextualize a
bit more around what readinginstruction actually looks like.
I think one of the earlyconversations Dixie and I had
was, you know, I have a younger.
My son is in second grade, andso I think when we first started
writing this, thinking aboutthis book, he was in younger
grades and I was just like youknow, dixie, like I come across
(29:41):
parents who say to me like howis it that my child, already in
kindergarten, is behind?
You know, how is this evenpossible?
And you know, and so thatquestion has stuck with me for
several years.
And just also, like, in so manydifferent layers, right, the
context of like, what are weasking of kids in kindergarten?
You know, what do we expect ofparents?
(30:03):
You know so many layers you canjust imagine.
And so for me, when we werewriting this book, that question
was always in the front of mymind is that you know what are
these expectations and how?
Really how is it that a childcoming into kindergarten is who
knows the alphabet?
Who is beginning to read isalready considered behind per se
(30:23):
?
You know right, in terms ofsome of these alphabet.
Who is beginning to read isalready considered behind per se
?
You know right, in terms ofsome of these standards to read.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah, so might have some of that motivational
motivation, yeah, and yet theschool designates them as behind
, and you know we provideexamples of.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You know this is what typically we see is expected at
the beginning of first gradeand this is the demand at the
end of first grade.
And so we talk a little bitabout making that explicit,
which I feel like as a teacher,those are a bit of a nugget,
like you know.
When I talk with parents now, Imake that explicit and I say
this is where a child in firstgrade starts to read typically,
(30:59):
and this is where they end andthey're like wow, that's amazing
, that's so much more readingthere's, you know there's.
It's just so much more complexand I think sharing that with
parents and communities I thinkis important as well and I think
that's in part to pick to kindof go back and explain.
That's in part why we made that.
That's not necessarily part ofconversations when we talk about
(31:20):
some of these skills.
We don't necessarily part ofconversations when we talk about
some of these skills.
We don't tend to contextualizeit in reading development in
terms of like motivation and howkids want to have a voice in
saying what they're reading.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Well, this also reminds me of that three-point
framework for assessment that wewere talking about earlier.
In the area where I live,kindergarten readiness is
determined by a 27-questioncomputer-based test.
In the area where I live,kindergarten readiness is
determined by a 27-questioncomputer-based test.
In the district where I live,the average completion time is
nine minutes, and so in nineminutes a five-year-old is more
(31:55):
or less.
Whether they know it, they arekind of branding themselves as a
learner.
And if we are solely basinginstructional decisions on that
assessment or even labels, forthat matter, because it does
become a part of the largerconversation about, you know,
how prepared our kids for schoolWell, if this is our measure
(32:15):
and I've heard it in fact, a fewweeks ago I was at a luncheon
for literacy where I heard youknow, 44% of kids aren't ready
for kindergarten, but we neverreally hear the rest of the
story that that's the tool thatdetermines it and it's not
really based on observation andconversation, it's based on
computer generated data pointsonly.
(32:35):
And so I think again, this justsort of reminds me of really our
whole conversation about howimportant it is to consider the
context, how important it is toconsider the context, how
important it is to consideragency and motivation.
You know, I can't imagine thatthere are many five-year-olds
who sit down in front of thatcomputer on one of their first
days of kindergarten thinking,man, I'm going to ace this.
Whatever the heck it is, I'mgoing to ace this test, you know
(32:57):
, because there really isn'tspace for engagement, agency,
motivation in that kind of work.
So, yeah, I appreciate yourframe of assessment.
That could help to reallycontextualize and enrich that
conversation about what it meansto be ready for school and the
kinds of learners we see infront of us in our classrooms.
(33:17):
You know, because so often Ithink they're reduced to red,
yellow and green dots on a sheetof paper, and we know that kids
bring so much more to theirclassroom context than that, and
to the world, of course.
So, given the challenges oftoday's educational climate
we've certainly talked about afew of them what message do you
all want teachers to hear?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You know you're doing a great job at a really hard
time in the field and also inthe profession, and without you
none of us would be here, right?
I mean I think that's always asober reminder to policymakers
and administrators and reallyeveryone without a teacher be
that your parents, yourguardians, in formal settings,
(34:00):
in schools there's a good chanceyou probably wouldn't be.
You know, potentially, whereyou are right now and so I think
you know, stay true to yourvision and reflect on that
vision and find thoselike-minded people to guide you
and support you, because it'snot easy.
And, yeah, I mean we.
(34:20):
There's a lot of people who arecheering you on and I think I
can say on behalf of all of uswe are, we're cheering you on.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I would also say small changes.
I think sometimes it's easy tohear these big policies and
think I can't do anything andlose our own agency, and even if
I could make a small change,it's not worth it.
But small changes and I hopethis comes through in our book
is small changes over time, whenconsistently implemented,
(34:50):
really do make changes, and wesee that in all ways of life,
whether it's exercise, makingthe small change of choosing
something different to eat or,you know, a few more steps a day
, when applied consistently, canreally make a big difference.
So in teaching, even if thesebig changes can't happen in the
(35:14):
way perhaps you want to teach,there are small changes that can
be made, that can beimplemented.
Even if it's a few minutes ofreading, even if it's letting
students choose a text onceevery two or three weeks instead
of not at all, those changesmatter, those changes count, and
to value those kinds of smallchanges that you are making in
(35:37):
your teaching would be somethingthat I would really want to
encourage teachers to do wouldbe something that I would really
want to encourage teachers todo.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
What an important reminder and I think that in
many facets of life, smallchanges are the ones that are
achievable and the reminder thatthey can really help us to make
big changes over time,particularly as I joined a
Pilates studio last week for aonce a week class thinking I can
do this once a week.
I could add one I could get upat 4.30 am once a week to get to
Pilates once a week, but withthe idea that those small
(36:14):
changes over time they really domean something.
And if that is the way that weget a bite on helping our vision
come to fruition or helping tomake impactful changes in our
lives or in the lives of others,what an important and
inspirational reminder.
So thank you for that, and Ithink that does help us to stay
(36:34):
true to our vision, because itcan be really hard to envision
how we get to big changeswithout making small steps so
right.
Love that, as always, it iswonderful talking with you,
ladies.
Thank you so much for your timetoday, thank you for the work
that you do in the world andthank you for your contributions
to education.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Good to see you, Dixie.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Thank you, lindsay.
Dr Margaret Vaughn is known forher work in student agency
teacher decision-making andreading materials for children.
Dr Vaughn is known for her workin student agency teacher
decision-making and readingmaterials for children.
Dr Vaughn's work has appearedin the Reading Teacher Reading
Research Quarterly Review ofEducational Research, reading
Psychology Theory into Practice,teaching and Teacher Education.
Children's Literature inEducation Journal of Curriculum
(37:19):
Studies.
Peabody Journal of EducationJournal of Reading Education, as
well as other journals, booksand book chapters.
Dr Vaughn is a professor ofliteracy at Washington State
University.
Dr Dixie Massey is known for herwork in the areas of literacy
development, pre-service teachereducation and children's
(37:39):
literature.
Her work has been published inthe Reading Teacher Literacy
Today, reading ResearchQuarterly Journal of Adolescent
and Adult Literacy.
Journal of Literacy ResearchTheory into Practice.
Peabody Journal of Education,social Studies and the Young
Learner Social Education, aswell as many other journals,
(38:00):
books and blogs.
She is involved with theLiteracy Research Association as
the organization's historianand the co-chair of the History
of Reading Innovative CommunityGroup.
Dr Massey is a lecturer atSeattle Pacific University.
Dixie and Margaret haveco-authored many works together,
including their 2021 booktitled Teaching with Children's
Literature Theory to Practice.
(38:21):
You can reach Margaret atmargaretvon at wsuedu.
That's m-a-r-g-a-r-e-t.
Dot.
V-a-u-g-h-n at wsuedu, and youcan reach Dixie at massed at
spuedu.
(38:41):
That's m-a-S-S-E-Y-D at SPUedu.
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
(39:05):
hear.
You can support the show bysubscribing, liking and
reviewing this podcast throughyour podcast provider.
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
(39:27):
our drop-down menu of tags,request an episode, topic or
potential guest, support ourresearch through our listener
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,
(39:49):
abaya Valuru, stephanie Bransonand Shaba Oshfath.
As always, I raise my mug toyou, teachers.
Thanks for joining me.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!