October 16, 2025 • 46 mins
We explore why reading scores have fallen, what the Science of Reading actually demands in classrooms, and how AI can scale productive practice without replacing human connection. Vivek Ramakrishnan shares data, bright spots from states like Mississippi, and a grounded look at tutoring tech that helps kids decode for real.
• national reading trends and why they predate the pandemic
• foundations beneath fourth-grade comprehension scores
• what the Science of Reading supports and what it rejects
• bright spots in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama
• why early literacy beats late remediation
• explicit instruction, decodables and fluency development
• differences between math rules and English patterns
• how AI scales individualized practice and feedback
• classroom constraints, noise and practical setup
• empowered learners and the moment self-correction clicks
About our guest
Vivek Ramakrishnan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Project Read AI, an AI-powered literacy platform for educators and students alike. Project Read's Science of Reading tool suite allows teachers to generate personalized decodable texts, fluency passages and more, while its AI Tutor delivers personalized, 1-1 early literacy tutoring using speech recognition. Through its bottoms-up, teacher-driven approach, Project Read's AI tools have been adopted by educators in over 50% of US elementary schools. Viv previously was an award-winning teacher at Freedom Preparatory Charter Schools in Memphis and Co-Founder of One City Schools in Madison, Wisconsin. He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Stanford Social Impact Founder fellowship to help start Project Read.
Connect with Vivek
Project Read AI
One City Schools
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The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
What I think we are doing is trying to use
technology to fill a huge gap,which is that even the best
first grade teacher that has 30lovely little kids running
around cannot simultaneouslygive each of them the amount of
personalized productive practicethat they need.
SPEAKER_02 (00:20):
Hi, welcome to the Prenda Podcast.
I'm Kelly Smith, your host fortoday, and we'll be talking to
Viv Ramakrishnan.
Viv's the CEO and co-founder ofProject Read AI, an AI-powered
literacy platform for educatorsand students alike.
Project Read's Science ofReading Tools suite allows
teachers to generatepersonalized, decodable texts,
(00:40):
fluency passages, and more,while its AI Tutor delivers
personalized one-on-one earlyliteracy, tutoring, using speech
recognition.
Through its bottoms-upteacher-driven approach, Project
Read AI's tools have beenadopted by educators in over 50%
of U.S.
elementary schools.
Viv was previously anaward-winning teacher at Freedom
Preparatory Charter Schools inMemphis and co-founder of One
(01:04):
City Schools in Madison,Wisconsin.
He holds an MBA from StanfordGraduate School of Business,
where he received the StanfordSocial Impact Founder Fellowship
to help start Project Read.
I'm excited to be talking toViv.
We're going to geek out on allthings science of reading and
how kids actually learn to read.
You'll see that he's a personwith great heart for the work
(01:25):
and uh a connection to kids.
And he's very much in line withour goal of kindling fire for
young people and helping thembecome empowered learners.
So with that, let's get to it.
I'm excited to introduce VivRamakrishnan from Project Read
AI.
Viv, hello, welcome to the PrendPodcast.
Thanks, Kelly, for having me.
I'm looking forward to it.
You bet.
Well, let's dive right intothis.
(01:45):
I want to talk a little bitabout reading and we we have a
problem.
I think everybody in educationis talking about this.
The NAPE scores nationalassessment that's called the
nation's report card.
We just got this back and foundthat kids in America are not
reading.
In fact, we're kind of at recordlows.
Here's something from Ed Week.
I'll just read this.
(02:06):
More eighth graders than everare scoring below NAPE basic.
Basic is the lowest benchmark onthe test.
So that's one third of eighthgraders in the United States
that are not reading at basiclevel.
Uh, 40% of fourth gradersfalling below basic.
So we have fourth graders andeighth graders.
That's the pace that we testthem.
That's just basic.
(02:26):
So that's a third, 40%.
Uh, I know the numbers are evenmuch, much lower when you think
of proficient, which is likewhat we would call a functional
reader.
And those numbers are evenlower.
Can you just share a little bitabout what's going on and what
are we seeing in the results?
And you know, we'll we'll getinto why this is a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
Yeah, there's there's a lot to unpack there,
Kelly.
I think there's a couple trendsyou see from that data, one of
which is that the pandemicexacerbated trends, but it did
not start them.
And we're not, we haven't seenthe rebound that you might
expect.
So that's true for both math andreading.
It's particularly true forreading.
So that's where we have beenfocused on and where I have
(03:07):
really dove in the most.
And it's interesting becausewhen you look at fourth grade
reading, at the point thatthat's assessed, they're
typically looking atcomprehension against a given
passage.
Now, there's a whole lot ofskills that a student needs to
have developed to be able to getto that point.
And if they're not allsufficiently in place for any
(03:29):
reason, they are not going to beable to comprehend, make
meaning, answer questionsrelated to that passage.
So that's where this term, youknow, the science of reading
comes in, and I know we're goingto jump into that.
But there's a lot of things thatneed to happen in the first
years of a child's life thatlead up to that data that we see
that is really, you know,jaw-dropping for all the Rome
Blue Sans.
SPEAKER_02 (03:48):
Yeah, a lot of stuff going on.
Well, I know you this ispersonal for you.
Can you share a little bit aboutyour background at story and
when you started thinking aboutthis question of reading?
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
Yeah, it's it's a great question.
I think my deep interest andpassion for educational
opportunity goes all the wayback to high school.
I went to a really diversepublic high school in Madison,
Wisconsin.
And in short, I was the likelone kid on the hockey team that
was not white.
I was one of the few kids on thefootball team that was not
(04:20):
African American.
I just found myself as literallyand figuratively the brown guy
in the middle and saw verydifferent paths unfolding for my
friends based on, you know, kindof their background and in ways
that didn't quite feel fair tome.
And so I was feeling that likethroughout my adolescence, but
had an opportunity to actually,I think, kind of act on that
(04:42):
when my high school footballcoach was like, hey, we have so
many students that are noteligible or are at risk of not
being eligible to play on Fridaynights because they have a
failing grade in a given classon their progress report.
The teacher needs to sign off,say that they're eligible to
play, et cetera, each week.
And so he asked me to start aninternal tutoring program for
teammates that were at risk ofnot being eligible to play.
(05:04):
And that just lit the spark.
I loved doing it.
I loved working with my friends,I loved like understanding what
some of these gaps were.
And it just it made me deeplypassionate about education.
So that's kind of what lit thespark.
Now, since then, you know, whenI went to college, I did a lot
of stuff at the intersection ofeconomics and education.
(05:26):
I did a lot of tutoring.
I think all of it kind of withan eye towards maybe going to
education policy long term andcertainly with an eye towards
like how do we create moreopportunities for folks that are
typically short on that.
And that journey has nowinvolved a couple different
steps since college as well.
It involved starting a preschoolwhile I was in college as second
co-founder and and stayinginvolved from afar as we as we
(05:49):
built that in my hometown ofMadison.
It involved teaching high schoolin Memphis, Tennessee.
It involved coming back toMadison and wearing all sorts of
hats to help grow that schoolfrom teaching to facilities to
finance to everything under thesun.
I was effectively our COO, butalso long-term teacher,
long-term custodian, all those,all those fun tasks.
(06:11):
So and then as you sort ofreflect on all of your
experiences, I I love teachinghigh school, but I also
recognize that it's too late inmany cases to move the needle
for a given student as much asyou would want.
And that needs to happen inelementary school, if not before
then.
My experiences, you know, inthat setting were really
formative.
And I really came to believethat early literacy is one of,
(06:34):
if not the highest impact levelwe have to moving long-term
outcomes for students.
SPEAKER_02 (06:39):
Wow.
That's a dramatic statement.
So I want to just pause thereand drill into it a little bit
that too late.
I mean, I've I've actually saidthe same thing.
We apprend a microschools coverK through eight.
So we spend time with theyounger kids, and people always
ask me, you know, what abouthigh school?
What about these high schoolkids?
Say, yeah, I think you can do alot for high school, but it's
almost like if the mindsets andthe approach, this is really the
(06:59):
the non-cognitive side, if thosethings are set up already and
they're they're baked in, then,you know, there's only so much
that an educator, despite thelevel of passion and connection
and all the great things thatyou would want to bring, can
really do to deprogram or ununwire or rewire some of those
things.
Is that what you're talkingabout when you say too late in
high school?
Or are you talking about otherkind of foundational academic
(07:22):
and cognitive things?
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
I think it's funny.
I totally hear you.
And I think that I had moremovement on the side of like
relationship building, havinghard conversations with students
about, you know, what paths theywere on or considering.
And where I had less success wasnot in moving instructional
outcomes, like I think we, youknow, moved ACT outcomes in math
(07:45):
in under my my class like quitea bit.
But it was more on somefoundational skills that I was
just like, yeah, these are notin place.
I'm not going to be able to, weare not going to be able to get
them to where they need to bethis year.
So one kind of glass half fullway of looking at this was I I
also taught personal finance.
It's a required class inTennessee to graduate high
(08:07):
school.
And I loved teaching it becauseeven my students that didn't
understand what an exponentialfunction really was or how, you
know, to manipulate anexponential function given a
word word problem.
If I could explain to themconceptually and and show them
the impact of taking out apayday loan, what 460% APR does,
(08:29):
and we could, you know, walkaround the community and see all
these stores that offered quickcash or title loans or whatever
have you.
Like that was a battle one andset kids up to make decisions
that were in their betterinterests down the line.
So I really loved teaching thatbecause it scratched that itch
of like, how can I do right byyou, even with, you know, 11, 12
years of of education up tillthat point that, you know, are
(08:52):
already baked in.
SPEAKER_02 (08:53):
Right.
You were able to make aconnection between some sort of
purpose, some sort of reason forlearning.
You know, that's one of thethings that even as a student, I
remember in high school justlooking around and saying, we're
here because we have to be.
There's, you know, if you wereto push harder on that, there's
a very loose link, I think, fora lot of high school students
between what you're doing dayday by day and you know, what
(09:16):
you want in the rest of yourlife.
I'm sure they could rattle offsome sort of thing.
But you see this in theengagement data, right?
The reason for only 30% of highschool seniors being engaged in
school is partly that.
It's it's disconnected.
And I think part of that is, youknow, bad information.
It's actually knowing at leasthow a payday loan interest rate
(09:37):
will work is going to protectyou from making some really
devastating decisions for yourpersonal finances.
But some of it is that thestudents are right in this,
right?
They're they're kind of callingBS on a long history of, you
know, requirements and hoops andarbitrary things that that in
the end don't matter, right?
And I think it's it's hard toget at what's the truth there.
(09:57):
Students are all kids are justso good detectors of actual
authenticity and honesty.
So, you know, I I think I hearthem, I guess, is is what I'm
saying.
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
No, but I mean they're they're not they're not
irrational actors by any means,right?
Like you engage with things thatone, you either just happen to
have an interest in, you know,you you love this particular
video game, or you engage inthings that even if it's not
your like deep passion, you seehow it connects to real value
for you.
And like, so students, most ofmy students worked part-time.
(10:27):
They would file during thesecond semester of the course,
they would file their taxes inmy class, 1040 easy by hand and
all that good stuff.
And they would see that, hey,they saved 200 or 50% of their
return that they would have bynot going to, you know, a
middleman.
SPEAKER_02 (10:44):
Yeah, that's amazing, right?
That's a that's a life lessonright there.
Well, let's talk a little bitabout the other side of that.
So we're talking here about kindof non-cognitive or just
engaging in learning, having themindset of, you know, the
tenacity to stick with it, thebelief that you can figure this
out.
I'm sure you've run into this asa high school teacher, and you
(11:04):
probably even saw some of it inpreschool, you know, where you
have you have beliefs aboutyourself that actually prevent
you from putting in any effort,which then is a self-fulfilling
prophecy, right?
You'll never learn to read ifyou believe you can't read and
then you don't put any work intoreading, and similar with math
and and anything else.
So, yeah, can you talk a littlebit about what's how can we sort
(11:25):
of unwire that and and is therea way to do it through through
pedagogy?
I mean, there's been a lot oftalk.
You mentioned science of readingalready.
This is, you know, I guess let'sbefore we get to science of
reading, I guess what I'd liketo do is drill into what
happened, right?
There's this sold a story kindof narrative, this idea that,
you know, maybe reading was donewrong.
And can you just kind of shareyour version of what you saw
(11:47):
going on?
And I know it's not the wholethe whole story, the whole
picture.
As you mentioned, there's thingshappening before kids even get
to kindergarten.
So give me your your take on,you know, why is it so bad and
why are we struggling so much?
SPEAKER_01 (11:58):
Yeah, it's a fair question.
And I think that, you know, longbefore I was born, long before I
was thinking about any of thisstuff, these debates about how
to teach reading have been goingon for a long time.
National Reading Panel, whichpeople still look to, for
example, of or you know, whatworks came out in, you know, the
(12:19):
early 2000s, and we're stillhaving the same conversations.
So this has been an ongoingconversation for a long time,
and Soldist Story did a reallybeautiful job of putting it into
focus with a point of view thatwas backed up by real data and
evidence, right?
From from my vantage point, Ithink we need to acknowledge the
(12:39):
importance of systemic factors,poverty, things like this that
shape opportunity.
And like the way I would put itis that I think those things put
kids at risk very early on, butit's things within our control
as educators practice thatcements that risk, right?
Or mitigates it.
Right.
And historically, I think it'scemented it with practices that
(13:02):
are not shown to work for somany students that need it,
whether it's students that havedyslexia, whether it's students
that just are further behind intheir reading journey based on
opportunity gaps.
And then on the flip side, likethere's really good reasons to
see from even the nape data, thebright spots in the nape data
suggest that like poverty is notdestiny, right?
That even states with highlyvariable poverty rates, and even
(13:25):
when you control for demography,you see that certain places,
states, not just little towns orcities or school districts, are
doing better by their kids inways that you cannot ignore.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Let's talk a little bit about that.
Because you you brought this uplast time we talked, we were
geeking out on spreadsheets, andyou were specifically focused on
Wisconsin, where you grew up,and this is home for you.
I actually used to live inWisconsin too, so we have that
connection.
And then we were talking aboutMississippi, which I think most
people would point to as one ofthese bright states that people
will say the Mississippimiracle.
(13:57):
There's been growth in readingin Mississippi.
So we were talking specificallyabout the nape reading scores
for fourth graders who areblack.
And I think that that groupalone.
Can you share a little bit aboutwhat you were seeing?
And it kind of reinforces thispoint you're making.
SPEAKER_01 (14:13):
Yeah, totally.
And I think the the data was,and I might be one or two
percent off, but it was like 7%or 8% of black fourth graders in
Wisconsin could readproficiently.
And in Mississippi, it was morelike three times that.
It was like, you know, 20, 21%.
And mind you, there's also amuch higher child poverty rate
(14:34):
in Mississippi, right?
So it's not like if you omitthat variable that could explain
it.
No, in fact, it's in the face ofa higher poverty rate in
Mississippi, even for blackstudents than in Wisconsin.
And so there's something that ishappening in Mississippi, and
it's not just Mississippi.
The Mississippi Miracle, Ithink, has gained traction.
There's other bright spots inthat data.
(14:55):
Louisiana is another one,Alabama's another one, right?
So like it's actually a bunch ofsouthern states that I think
we've historically dismissed asbeing, you know, oh, you know,
making jokes about thateducation system in Mississippi.
It's like, no, jokes on us.
They figured this out.
Yeah.
They figured out I don't thinkthey would say that they're
happy with one-fifth of blackstudents reading proficiently,
(15:15):
but when that's, you know, twicethe national average and three
times higher than places thathave lower poverty rates, like
we have to acknowledge thatthere's a lot for us to learn
from what's happening in some ofthese southern states.
So what did they do?
So the the backstory here isthey have invested now not just,
you know, in the last year ortwo, but going back years,
meaning like, you know, betterpart of a decade, in high
(15:38):
quality teacher training aroundthe science of reading, getting
all their folks trained in not,you know, a one or two hour
kickoff about this, but actuallylike deep coursework around the
why, the how to implementevidence-based practices, how
the brain actually acquiresknowledge in the domain of
(15:59):
reading, right?
And so they've invested a ton intheir teachers with upfront
training and then animplementation at the state
level, with state DOE having arobust system of coaches, et
cetera, that are actually goingout into the field, visiting
these schools, working hand inglove with principals to make
sure that what happened ininitial training is actually
being implemented effectively inclassrooms and not just one or
(16:20):
two years, but over and over andover again, year after year
after year, and that compounds.
Right.
So the other thing that I thinkis helpful there is like there
is teacher mobility betweendistricts in the profession.
Like it's hard to, you know,invest a ton in a teacher and
then they leave, and thensomebody else comes in who did
not have the same training orbackground that that person
(16:40):
does.
And like, not that statewidetraining and and real commitment
to that solves that completely,but you can imagine that you
generally have a pool ofeducators moving between schools
that have shared backgroundknowledge and deep training, and
that that would be helpfulrather than districts kind of
figuring out things one-off.
SPEAKER_02 (16:59):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I would love to dive in all theway to that moment where you
have an adult sitting with a kidwho's literally working it out
in their brain and struggling todo the basics of reading.
I will just say personally, thisnever happened for me.
So I was one of the lucky ones,I think, that learned by
osmosis, so to speak.
I was around, I mean, my myparents had books in the home.
(17:20):
We were very middle class.
I didn't have tutors oranything, but it was definitely
a sense of like reading was partof my life, even before I I went
to kindergarten and I wasalready a decent reader before I
even got to kindergarten.
I don't actually remember everlearning, you know, phonics,
grammar, rules.
Like, in fact, I was sittingthere in, I think, German class
(17:41):
as a junior in high school,learning what a direct object
was and uh, you know, some ofthe the pieces of a sentence
that, you know, I think somepeople learn that explicitly.
I don't remember ever gettingthat in my I I also went to, you
know, public schools out here inArizona.
But um yeah, can you can yougive a little picture of
Mississippi is training alltheir teachers?
They're training them andAlabama and Louisiana, they're
(18:03):
training them to do to do what?
You know, what does thatactually look like?
The evidence-based practices.
Can you give us kind of a asnapshot into what that looks
like?
SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
It's as much about what to do versus what not to
do.
Okay.
For example, yeah, I also nevergot really systematic explicit
phonics instruction, and I am,you know, one of the 30 to 50%
of kids, depending on theestimates you look at, that
don't need that and can figureit out with enough reps and
pattern matching that we doimplicitly.
But you know, the so on what todo, it's really important that
(18:36):
teachers have a sense of howfluency is developed, right?
You l go from learning the mostgranular units of language,
letter sound correspondencies,the letter C can make a k sound,
right?
Like in the word cat.
And building a progressivesequence of skills that kids are
introduced to that build on oneanother and allow them to then
(18:59):
start to put together words.
Right.
So you can think about if thefirst few letter
correspondencies that youexplicitly teach to a student
are they oftentimes called a satpin.
S makes the short A sound, uh tuh, like all the like words that
you can start to make like pin,pat, sat, mat, right?
(19:22):
I sat on the mat.
And we teach them I as astandalone irregular word for
the time being, right?
So you start to help kids notjust get all this information at
once about all the possibleletter sound correspondencies,
hundreds of them, giving thempiecemeal introductions and then
opportunities to put that topractice, right?
(19:43):
In the form of actual words theyare trying to put together and
read.
Then eventually more words withdifferent patterns, then
eventually phrases, theneventually sentences, passages,
etc.
And not expecting mastery umfrom the jump, but understanding
that it's it is a continualprocess.
So that's like some of thebuilding blocks about what to
do.
(20:03):
Now it's interesting.
There's kind of a debate in thefield, and I would say that the
evidence base points one waymore than the other.
Even amongst folks in thescience of reading field, like
there are discrepancies.
Historically, phonologicalawareness, like all this stuff
just around, or phonemicawareness more specifically,
around, you know, rhyming, forexample, but with not putting
(20:24):
like teaching kids how to rhyme,different patterns of how sounds
come together, but divorced fromletters with phonics, was was
something standalone phonemicawareness has been something in
the field for a long time.
Folks are actually kind ofstarting to move away from that
because there's not a bunch ofevidence that it actually is
additive relative to juststarting to put letter sound
(20:46):
correspondences into play fromthe beginning.
So even there, there is likesome disagreement around how
folks, even in the world ofstructured literacy or science
of reading, have approachedthis.
What they all agree on, and whatthe evidence is is overwhelming
on, is that teaching students tolook for context clues as their
crutch for decoding is nothelpful.
(21:09):
So a lot of books that werelearned to read books
historically have been verypredictable books.
It's been like I sat on the mat.
Okay, cool, it sounds good.
And there's a picture of a mat.
Then it's the next page is I saton the cat.
And I mean, I'm jokes on me, butyou know, kid sitting on a cat.
(21:30):
And it's like, it's like they'renot actually decoding the words,
they're simply swapping out andfiguring out what that word is
based on the picture clues,right?
And what that does is obscuresthe signal on what a student can
actually do when those crutchesare removed.
SPEAKER_02 (21:47):
Hmm.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
I think I did a lot of that as akid.
And of course, you know, Dr.
Seuss books come to mind whereit's just all these crazy
things.
But um yeah, part of that is Iwant to talk a little bit about
the role of technology.
In this case, the technology isthe book, right?
Somebody wrote a book that, youknow, is predictable or has a
picture, or you know, there'sthings like that.
(22:08):
And um, and then the other halfof that is the role of the
person that's sitting next tothis child that's that's
learning, right?
So you can imagine that persongiving guidance, like, well,
let's look at the letters andlet's make the sounds of the
letters and then let's blendthem together.
So if the you know the word is,I don't know, I'm trying to
think of a weird word thatrhymes with cat and mat, but
it's, you know.
(22:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like, okay, then thenwhat is that first letter?
And then we we sound it outtogether.
Yeah, it and I guess theinterplay between those two
things matters, right?
It's the material itself mattersbecause it we're making it
possible for kids to I I I don'tknow, like sneak through, I
guess, like slip throughthemselves.
(22:50):
They're gonna find the path ofleast resistance, and
everybody's looking at me, and Idon't want to be that kid that
doesn't know how to read.
And so I'm gonna guess my waythrough it.
And I think you see thathappening in some of the data
where you have these kids thataren't proficient readers, but
part of what's going on isthey're actually functioning
okay because they're able to,right?
The the pictures get them enoughand they can guess based on
(23:11):
maybe the first letter or orsomething like that.
And then the other half of it iswhat are we doing
instructionally, pedagogicallyto to you know help them really
get to the the core of it.
Um am I getting that right?
I mean, is that are those kindof the the two pieces of it that
you think about as you haveyou've now given your life to
this uh to this question.
So I, you know, I I'm not anexpert here.
SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
I think No, I think you framed it pretty well.
As and so there were things torecap, there were things we have
historically been doing in manycases, not everyone, but many
schools, including the ones thatI went to growing up, were doing
that were obscuring signal onwho could actually decode, who
was actually building the skillsthey needed to become a fluent
(23:52):
and skilled reader.
And we're kind of dilutingourselves as adults by thinking
that far more kids could do itthan could actually do it
because we wanted to, we wantedit to be true, not because, you
know, of anything nefarious.
I think everybody wants the samething for kids, which is for
them to like prosper, have allthe skills they need to prosper,
et cetera.
But we were doing things thatwere obscuring our way to
(24:14):
soberly assess that.
Now, you know, this is a processof development.
Just because you can decode aword doesn't mean you can do so
automatically.
It might be a super laboredprocess.
You know, it's not, it's notlinear.
You just because you can nowdecode words automatically
doesn't mean that you can decodephrases well at all.
(24:36):
Maybe you can make, or maybe onthe other hand, you can decode
phrases, but you're still notautomatic at the word level,
right?
So like there's all these messyways that that fluency
development, like, you know, isstill individual to
understanding what's happeningwith that student in front of
you.
But ultimately, yeah, you wantto go from students
understanding the basic lettersound correspondences to being
(24:56):
able to read any given word,then read those words in
continuation in the form of aphrase, a sentence, and
ultimately a passage withprosody.
Because if I read every wordlike this, it's different than
reading a story with you knowalmost implicit understanding
and the prosody of, you know,Kelly and Viv went to this store
on one fine day, which is verythen very different from Kelly
(25:19):
and Viv went to this door on oneday.
And like there's just somethingthat that probably implies about
how much you that passage is islanding with you, right?
Um so it's it's a process.
And then it's even beyond that,because even if you are a fluent
reader, it does not mean thatyou have the comprehension
abilities that are needed toshow up on that nape data in
(25:41):
fourth grade.
So there's all sorts of waysthat phonics is not the you
know, be all end all.
In parallel, there's all sortsof things that early elementary
school teachers even can andshould be doing to build those
skills related to comprehension.
Read alouds, talking to kids,building background knowledge,
vocab lessons, right?
So there's all sorts of waysthat in parallel, it's not just
(26:04):
a step function thing ofphonics, then comprehension,
that like these strands of thereading rope, as they say, kind
of commingle and need to fromthe beginning.
SPEAKER_02 (26:14):
This is maybe going to be a stretch, and I know
we're talking about readingright now, but it sounds like
you and I have both done mathtutoring.
In in math, especially for olderkids, you know, high school age
kids, and they I will get a kidat the desk that I'm looking at,
I'm, you know, working throughhomework assignments with them.
And I they can they they havesort of a set of rules that
(26:35):
they've memorized and they cankind of apply the rules, but
it's like conceptually what'sgoing on, it's clearly missing.
Like there, there's a a baselayer and then a higher layer.
And I think years and years ofgrade level material and having
to sort of keep up with theclass, they've found ways to
cope and they'll they'll get 70%of the problems right, even.
(26:56):
But one of the things that Ifind myself doing as a math
tutor, and I wonder if there'ssomething similar here with
really good reading tutoring, isto, in some ways, it's like a
medic, you know, that's liketearing you open more because
they they don't like it.
I I'm sort of pushing them onthe the parts where they don't,
they don't fully understand sothat we can get that cleared up.
And it's like once youunderstand this, I find myself
(27:16):
saying these words to the kid,once you understand this,
everything's gonna make moresense because every step in this
problem should be like clearlydefensible in your mind and you
you can like stand by it.
Like I would put money on this,that if I add three to this side
of the equation, I have to addthree to the other side of the
equation.
Like every time that's true.
And then you challenge them,like, does are you confident on
that?
(27:36):
Are you sure?
And they look at me like I'mused to sort of guessing based
on what the adult is doing.
It's like, like I'm sort ofcheering you on and nudging you
forward.
It's like, no, don't use me as aresource.
This needs to exist solidly inyour own brain.
I'm I'm giving this an example.
Just from having spent this timeone-on-one with kids in math.
I I think I've told you this.
(27:58):
I did not have any readingexpertise at all when I started
Prenda.
And at first I started witholder kids, fifth grade, sixth
grade, seventh grade, probablyneeded reading even then.
But then as things expanded, westarted opening the doors to
younger kids.
And I was very lucky andgrateful to find Katie
Broadbent, who had spent a lotof her life thinking about
literacy and very strongadvocate of phonics.
(28:19):
And she explained the wholething to me.
And we ended up building aself-paced, kind of student-led
version of what we're talkingabout that Prenda supports and
by the way, gives away for freeif you go to treasure hunt
reading at Prenda.
People will download this anduse it for homeschool or for
traditional education.
But, you know, all of this tolearn that and to say what's
going on in in those moments,you know, how how can we
(28:42):
understand what the buildingblocks are, find the one that's
missing?
It's it's a tall order, I guess.
It's maybe what I'm saying.
It's it's hard to do.
You're not wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (28:52):
You're not wrong.
So a couple ways where I thinkthis is similar to math, and
then one where it's not.
On one hand, yes, there's manycases when especially you're
working with an older student,where you're gonna have to go
back to blending drills, whereyou have three cards in front of
you and it's C, A, and T, andhave them read the word cat, and
then you take the littleblending board and you um remove
(29:14):
the C and you swap in an M andyou ask them, you know, you just
start doing these these drillswhere you're swapping and making
chains of words and making themtruly like go back to the stages
of understanding how theseletters sound correspondences
that they probably know in avacuum if they're older at that
point, but not understanding howto like automatically put them
together.
You're going back to the baselayer, similar to what you
(29:34):
talked about.
Now, that being said, um theEnglish language is far less
rules based than math is.
Math is rules based.
The English language has allsorts of nooks and crannies and
departures from patterns that wewould have taught kids.
So, like in parallel, what mostscopes and sequences do for
(29:56):
phonics is they are alsoteaching them irregular words
during each.
Lesson that will show up instories that are decodable.
So, like, like that example ofthe word I, I sat on the mat.
Like I might not be a lettersound correspondence they've
learned yet.
And if they do learn it, they'regoing to learn it as the short I
first, like in the word sit, notthe long I sound, right?
(30:17):
So we teach that as an irregularword or a partially irregular
word, depending on, you know,how your scope and sequence ends
up unfolding.
But all of which is to say isthat I don't think the goal can
be or is even possible to teachkids all of the possible letter
sound correspondencies in a waythat they get to some sort of
(30:39):
predefined bar of mastery.
I think the goal instead is togive them a really strong
foundation with the mostcommonly occurring patterns in a
really progressive way, likewith that scope and sequence
that cumulatively builds uponitself that has opportunities
for review and practice of theconcepts that were previously
introduced, all with the goaltowards giving them escape
(31:00):
velocity to figure it out ontheir own.
Right.
And it's giving them the toolsto figure it out on their own.
Again, I think similar to math,it's just those tools are not
always rules-based reading in anEnglish language.
SPEAKER_02 (31:12):
Yeah, you're right.
I mean English.
I'm picturing those boards whereyou have O-U-G-H and you put T
on the front.
It's like, well, that word istough, you know?
It's like that.
And then you put D on it andit's like, oh, that word is
dough.
You know?
SPEAKER_01 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And and so you could go through,and what you could do, Kelly, is
you could teach a lesson on theO U G H pattern, and you could
show them both O and you know,like all the all the variants
that you're talking about off,right?
Yeah.
Or, and and some programs willdo that because there's enough
(31:47):
words that meet that patternthat it might be worth it.
But many programs will say, hey,that's an obscure enough pattern
that you know, we're not gonnaexplicitly teach that.
SPEAKER_02 (31:56):
Yeah.
No, this is helpful for mebecause I felt deficient in not
knowing the rules.
So um I know that it isirregular and there's uh there's
exceptions.
And English beautifully pullsfrom so many different
linguistic traditions.
So how could it possibly be?
But yeah, no, that's uh thatmakes a lot of sense.
Okay, so given that that it'shard, given that we need to pull
kids back to the base layer,which involves both some science
(32:18):
in terms of knowing what theyunderstand, what they don't
understand, and where to focus,given that we also need to know
when it's a rule and when it'san irregularity, that this whole
thing is done in the context ofa human being who's gonna get
frustrated, disappointed, maybefeel like a loser because
they're, you know, 14 andlooking at cat, right?
So, like all of thepsychological elements to this,
(32:40):
um, yeah, what I mean, what doyou say, right, like to an adult
who's who's responsible forthis?
And I I'm saying this with allsort of understanding and
empathy for teachers who aretrying to do this and to trying
to do this at scale.
Um, and I'm also trying to getus to maybe a foray in the
conversation to talk abouttechnology and talk about your
(33:00):
current project, which I thinkis is really trying to step in
and help here and support.
SPEAKER_01 (33:05):
Yeah, good good questions all.
I, you know, I think that weourselves have contended with
the question of maybe less sowhat we're actually doing, to
some degree what we're doing inthe product, but certainly how
we think about it, how we frameit, between like an all-knowing,
patient, infinite AI tutorversus like repeated fluency and
(33:30):
decoding practice with real-timefeedback on overdrive.
Like that second one is way lesscatchy, but I think is also
probably true to how we thinkabout it, which is like I don't
think our AI tutor, which wecall it still, is like deeply
conversational and like thehigh-level conversations we're
having about chatbots that likeengage a student's interest and
(33:53):
develop content for them on thefly.
Like, we're not doing any ofthat.
We're talking about kidslearning how to decode and read
words.
But what I think we are doing istrying to use technology to fill
a huge gap, which is that eventhe best first grade teacher
that has 30 lovely little kidsrunning around cannot
(34:13):
simultaneously give each of themthe amount of personalized
productive practice that theyneed.
Right.
And so kids might be silentlyreading, which in the early
stages of of learning to read isnot actually very effective if
you can't already do it.
There's really bad evidence onsilent sustained reading,
actually.
But you logistically can't meetwith all the kids you would want
(34:35):
to individually to hear themread out loud.
So then you start doing thingslike small groups, which is
really what you should be doing,given all the constraints you
have on your time, all the otherthings you have to get to.
But what we know is thatstudents, like some students,
need hundreds of practiceopportunities on the same phonic
skill for that to actually startto become automatic.
Right.
(34:55):
And that typically then issupplemented either at home or
with tutors.
And that is logistically andcost-wise quite difficult.
And so we have thought aboutfilling this gap in what high
quality practice with real-timefeedback looks like as an
extension of what we know worksand what teachers can't quite
do, even the best of them.
SPEAKER_02 (35:17):
Right.
Yeah.
Give walk me through what thatis and what that looks like.
I know you've shared someexamples of the product in
action, both the AI tutorproduct and your, like you said,
your your AI-powered, uhpersonalized drill instructor
that keeps feeding theappropriate opportunities.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
Yeah, I went on that whole soliloquy about practice
as opposed to infinite, uhinfinite patiently tutors, but
we're still calling it anelegant.
SPEAKER_02 (35:42):
Yeah.
Well, I we know what what youmean.
Yeah, it's not, it's not tryingto be the human in the room.
In fact, I'm skeptical.
Like I think that's going to belater, if ever, you know, where
you can really because what akid's looking for is something
that they understand from birth,right?
This is like pre-verbal, it'snot about words on the screen.
SPEAKER_01 (36:00):
It's pre-chatbot fundamentally.
So we're talking about thesechatbot tutors, or maybe there's
some voice components on top ofit.
It's like our kids are thatwe're serving currently are not
ready for that at all,definitionally.
SPEAKER_02 (36:14):
Yeah, ours either.
I mean, they need that adult inthe room.
Thankfully, a microschool, it's10 kids.
So you you're closer to theability to have that personal
connection to each.
But even with 10, I mean, if youhad to really do this manually,
it would be a lot, which is whyI've been glad to pilot some of
the work you guys are doing andand plan to do uh do more of it
just using the tools that canreally unlock this because we
(36:36):
want each of these kids toreally learn how to read.
SPEAKER_01 (36:40):
Well, you asked for the example, so I'll try to
describe it as best I can.
And this goes all the waythrough your typical phonic
scope and sequence, um, youknow, which gets into affixes,
some of these, you know, morecomplex patterns, but let's just
keep using this example of catthat we started with.
So a student sees the word onscreen.
Teacher sets up the student,they either set them at you know
(37:03):
lesson one, which is you knowthe short A makes ah, or they
set they move them further downif they know they're ready for a
bit more.
Um, but they see, you know,sentence level practice as well
as word level practice, whatevermode the teacher wants to set
them to.
But let's say that um they setthem to word level practice and
it's lesson 14 where C makes a kis introduced, and the first
(37:26):
word they see and are asked topractice is cat.
So you have the word cat onscreen.
And the tutor says, Can you tryreading this word for me?
And the kid goes, What it'sgonna do is it's gonna break
that word into three boxes,Alkonin boxes as we call them,
where one letter soundcorrespondence is in each box.
(37:47):
So later down the line you mighthave multiple letters in the
same box, but for right now wejust have C in one box, A in one
box, T in another box.
And what it's gonna do is it'sgonna put the A and the T in
green boxes and give them alittle check mark because it
wants to indicate you actuallysaid that part of the word
right.
And then what it's gonna do forthe first letter, the box in
which C is, is it's gonna, youknow, outline it in red and have
(38:07):
like a little X and it's gonnagive them some feedback and say,
hey, can the letter C actuallymakes a sound like in the word,
you know, whatever, might giveit an example.
Um then the student can tap onthe box and a little mouth will
pop up and it will show them ina video how to make that that
articulatory gesture thatproduces that sound.
(38:29):
And so then the student startstapping successively on the
boxes and they say, they wait acouple seconds.
And ideally what happens is thestudent's able to self-correct
at that point and go cat and wesay, Great job, and we move them
on to the next word that also ismaybe now cob because we've
already taught them the short Oand we've taught them uh, you
(38:51):
know, B makes b, right?
That's the next word we theymove on to.
But if they don't get that, orthey could have missed it for
two reasons.
They could have said mat againor sob or whatever, right?
Or they might have said k atthat's common, where kids can
name the letter soundcorrespondencies, but they can't
continuously blend the word.
The thing we just released isanother scaffold or layer of
(39:15):
support for these students wherethey can run their finger over
the word cat and see the lettersand sounds play and light up and
sync so they understand how theyblend together.
So I'm really excited about thatfeature.
We spent a ton of time on theground working with kids to go
from really like hacky prototypeon my phone that I would hold up
like as they were missing wordsto like have them try it.
(39:37):
And now it's like a fullyfunctioning feature where if
that student still needssupport, they can run their
finger over the words and seehow it's blended and then try
again.
And if they try again, they getit right.
That's awesome.
And if they don't, you know,they'll get something really
kind of like, hey, that word wasactually cap, a great effort.
We're gonna keep working on it,right?
And then they they move on tothat better word cop.
SPEAKER_02 (39:58):
I love the interplay.
Like I can picture that caringadult right next to the student
that's sort of driving the thetool, but it's not, you know, it
it's like let's get through thistogether, let's learn this thing
and and I'm here to support youin it.
You know, one of the thingswe've tried to, we've tried to
really focus on when we designthe microschool environment is
(40:18):
we want that relationship to befirst and foremost a very
connective, supportiverelationship to the point where
we've said we don't want the theadult to be in the business of
evaluating, right?
So even just that feeling oflike, no, sorry, it's it's
cannot like that.
You get these little momentsthat's um it's you know,
depending on where the child'sat in their development and
(40:40):
emotionally and psychologically,that can feel like this person
doesn't like me, right?
Or this like this person's noton my team, where it's nice that
now you're getting that feedbackfrom a different avenue, and the
the adult saying, like, it'sokay, you know, like we got that
now.
We know it's like let's look atthe next one and let's read the
additional word.
Yeah, I'm picturing that thatall play out, and I I love the
(41:03):
picture of it.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
And that's the very techno-optimistic version of it,
and that's typically how itworks.
And then there's the versionwhich is like you have 30 kids
doing this at once in aclassroom, none of whom have
headphones, even though if theydid have headphones, it'd make
all the difference, especiallyheadphones like with a built-in
mic.
And then it picks up backgroundnoise from one of the other 30
kids screaming, you know, mm,you know, cot.
(41:26):
And it's like great effort, butthis word was cat, is like,
that's what I said, right?
And that's like so there's allthese ways where like the
realities of being in aclassroom do not always mesh
with how like our view of howthis would be built.
Like, I think that folks who aregoing direct to parent, like
with an app that's on an iPadthat has, you know, all of that
(41:46):
and no background noise, and aparent who's setting them up and
checking in on them, like it'sjust so fundamentally different
than building something for likelarge-scale classroom use.
And it's harder, but I thinklike those are the breakthroughs
we need to have in order toreach the kids we want to reach.
SPEAKER_02 (42:02):
Well, just like with kids, I mean, I think parents
have their own questions aboutall this, right?
And and there's a confidence gapthat I think what you you can do
is help them through and say,look, if you can be consistently
available to your child andsupportive and loving, that's
not true for everybody, but ifyou can do that, you have the
time to be there with them.
I mean, I don't even know howmuch time you would need to
(42:24):
spend.
It's not like you need sevenhours a day of doing this, you
would need some short amount oftime on a regular basis.
And your kid will learn how toread.
I mean, I think there's therewas a big uh increase in sales
of this book.
I think I have it right up here.
The teach your child to read in100 easy lessons.
You know this book.
And during COVID, parents werebuying this book because they're
like, I don't know how to teachmy child to read, but 100 easy
(42:46):
lessons, it's you know, you'rebasically taking this to the
next level because the 100 easylessons couldn't listen to the
child say the word and findwhere the the gaps are and adapt
and and kind of personalize ortailor, tailor the experience.
That's right.
Wonderful.
Well, let's talk a little bitjust as we wrap up, because I
know you have there's somevideos on your website, and I'd
(43:07):
encourage everybody to checkthis out.
We'll we'll put it in the shownotes, but just these moments
where you can see a child kindof tentatively struggling
through, and there's some somelearning gaps, and then there's
these breakthrough moments.
And one of the things we talkabout at Prenda is the empowered
learner.
There's a desire to learn and aconfidence and a swagger in it
that I can do this.
(43:27):
And every time I see that, Ijust rejoice because it's
basically my favorite thing andit transfers.
It, you know, you can do that inthe context of reading and then
go approach your mathdifferently or even sports
differently or friendshipsdifferently.
Like there's there's just a wayof being in the world, which is
it's the sense of like, I'mgonna figure this out, I can do
this.
I've seen that, you know, insome of the work you guys are
(43:47):
doing.
Can you share a little bit?
Just paint a picture for ourlisteners and our viewers who
are, I think like me, verygeeked out on this question of
empowered learners.
SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Oh yeah, that's that's the magic moment right
there, which is like a studentthat labors through their own
self-correcting, right?
And then they see the fruits ofthat labor at the end.
And when you see those moments,it's magical.
And I think that there'ssomething really powerful about
(44:16):
a student that arrives at aconclusion or or makes growth
that's truly driven by them,where they've put those points
on the board as opposed to beingspoon-fed.
And like we got to give them thecontext and the initial, you
know, direction or instructionto give them that opportunity.
So, you know, they're they'renot out there without without
any tools to work with.
(44:38):
But when you see them apply itand work through it and figure
it out, it's really cool.
So I think the example you'retalking about is a girl who, you
know, looked at the word pagesand like guessed that was like
progress or something like that.
And then it lit up the boxes andcolor-coded them based on which
parts were correct, which partswere wrong.
And she's like tapping on theboxes, she's decoding out loud
(45:00):
pag.
And then she's she startspiecing it together over the
course of like a minute, 90seconds, giving her the space
and time to explore the anatomyof the word.
And she's like, pages, pages,pages.
And then, you know, she gets in,it's like it's lovely, right?
Yeah.
Ah, it's the best.
Yeah, those are the magic moneymoments.
SPEAKER_02 (45:21):
I love that story so much.
And I applaud you for the workyou're doing and the support
you're you're giving toeducators everywhere who I
think, like you said earlier,want the same thing.
We want kids to not only get thebasic building blocks of the
skill of reading, but theconfidence that comes with what
you just described for that, forthat girl in particular.
And so let's keep it up.
(45:41):
I I appreciate you taking thetime to share with us a little
bit about science of reading andhow kids learn to read.
And I'm excited about what'spossible.
Let's drive that proficiencylevel up.
I would love to see, you know,in another two, four, six years,
I'd love to see those numberslooking much, much better as
more and more kids learn how toread.
SPEAKER_01 (46:01):
Totally.
Well, I appreciate the time.
And yeah, it's it's a funnytopic because it's just the
intersection of two very buzzyterms, right?
One artificial intelligence andtwo science of reading.
Yeah.
And I think like the task forfor folks like me who are
building at that intersection isto go from these really lofty
movements, language, et cetera,and make that very concrete for
(46:22):
the students that we want toserve.
SPEAKER_02 (46:24):
I can tell you're doing it.
Vivek Ramakrishna, thank you forbeing here today.
Thanks for having me, Kelly.
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing microschool
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
Podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn.
And if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
microschool, just go toPrenda.com.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep Kindling.
Bye.
What I think we are doing is trying to use
technology to fill a huge gap,which is that even the best
first grade teacher that has 30lovely little kids running
around cannot simultaneouslygive each of them the amount of
personalized productive practicethat they need.
SPEAKER_02 (00:20):
Hi, welcome to the Prenda Podcast.
I'm Kelly Smith, your host fortoday, and we'll be talking to
Viv Ramakrishnan.
Viv's the CEO and co-founder ofProject Read AI, an AI-powered
literacy platform for educatorsand students alike.
Project Read's Science ofReading Tools suite allows
teachers to generatepersonalized, decodable texts,
(00:40):
fluency passages, and more,while its AI Tutor delivers
personalized one-on-one earlyliteracy, tutoring, using speech
recognition.
Through its bottoms-upteacher-driven approach, Project
Read AI's tools have beenadopted by educators in over 50%
of U.S.
elementary schools.
Viv was previously anaward-winning teacher at Freedom
Preparatory Charter Schools inMemphis and co-founder of One
(01:04):
City Schools in Madison,Wisconsin.
He holds an MBA from StanfordGraduate School of Business,
where he received the StanfordSocial Impact Founder Fellowship
to help start Project Read.
I'm excited to be talking toViv.
We're going to geek out on allthings science of reading and
how kids actually learn to read.
You'll see that he's a personwith great heart for the work
(01:25):
and uh a connection to kids.
And he's very much in line withour goal of kindling fire for
young people and helping thembecome empowered learners.
So with that, let's get to it.
I'm excited to introduce VivRamakrishnan from Project Read
AI.
Viv, hello, welcome to the PrendPodcast.
Thanks, Kelly, for having me.
I'm looking forward to it.
You bet.
Well, let's dive right intothis.
(01:45):
I want to talk a little bitabout reading and we we have a
problem.
I think everybody in educationis talking about this.
The NAPE scores nationalassessment that's called the
nation's report card.
We just got this back and foundthat kids in America are not
reading.
In fact, we're kind of at recordlows.
Here's something from Ed Week.
I'll just read this.
(02:06):
More eighth graders than everare scoring below NAPE basic.
Basic is the lowest benchmark onthe test.
So that's one third of eighthgraders in the United States
that are not reading at basiclevel.
Uh, 40% of fourth gradersfalling below basic.
So we have fourth graders andeighth graders.
That's the pace that we testthem.
That's just basic.
(02:26):
So that's a third, 40%.
Uh, I know the numbers are evenmuch, much lower when you think
of proficient, which is likewhat we would call a functional
reader.
And those numbers are evenlower.
Can you just share a little bitabout what's going on and what
are we seeing in the results?
And you know, we'll we'll getinto why this is a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
Yeah, there's there's a lot to unpack there,
Kelly.
I think there's a couple trendsyou see from that data, one of
which is that the pandemicexacerbated trends, but it did
not start them.
And we're not, we haven't seenthe rebound that you might
expect.
So that's true for both math andreading.
It's particularly true forreading.
So that's where we have beenfocused on and where I have
(03:07):
really dove in the most.
And it's interesting becausewhen you look at fourth grade
reading, at the point thatthat's assessed, they're
typically looking atcomprehension against a given
passage.
Now, there's a whole lot ofskills that a student needs to
have developed to be able to getto that point.
And if they're not allsufficiently in place for any
(03:29):
reason, they are not going to beable to comprehend, make
meaning, answer questionsrelated to that passage.
So that's where this term, youknow, the science of reading
comes in, and I know we're goingto jump into that.
But there's a lot of things thatneed to happen in the first
years of a child's life thatlead up to that data that we see
that is really, you know,jaw-dropping for all the Rome
Blue Sans.
SPEAKER_02 (03:48):
Yeah, a lot of stuff going on.
Well, I know you this ispersonal for you.
Can you share a little bit aboutyour background at story and
when you started thinking aboutthis question of reading?
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
Yeah, it's it's a great question.
I think my deep interest andpassion for educational
opportunity goes all the wayback to high school.
I went to a really diversepublic high school in Madison,
Wisconsin.
And in short, I was the likelone kid on the hockey team that
was not white.
I was one of the few kids on thefootball team that was not
(04:20):
African American.
I just found myself as literallyand figuratively the brown guy
in the middle and saw verydifferent paths unfolding for my
friends based on, you know, kindof their background and in ways
that didn't quite feel fair tome.
And so I was feeling that likethroughout my adolescence, but
had an opportunity to actually,I think, kind of act on that
(04:42):
when my high school footballcoach was like, hey, we have so
many students that are noteligible or are at risk of not
being eligible to play on Fridaynights because they have a
failing grade in a given classon their progress report.
The teacher needs to sign off,say that they're eligible to
play, et cetera, each week.
And so he asked me to start aninternal tutoring program for
teammates that were at risk ofnot being eligible to play.
(05:04):
And that just lit the spark.
I loved doing it.
I loved working with my friends,I loved like understanding what
some of these gaps were.
And it just it made me deeplypassionate about education.
So that's kind of what lit thespark.
Now, since then, you know, whenI went to college, I did a lot
of stuff at the intersection ofeconomics and education.
(05:26):
I did a lot of tutoring.
I think all of it kind of withan eye towards maybe going to
education policy long term andcertainly with an eye towards
like how do we create moreopportunities for folks that are
typically short on that.
And that journey has nowinvolved a couple different
steps since college as well.
It involved starting a preschoolwhile I was in college as second
co-founder and and stayinginvolved from afar as we as we
(05:49):
built that in my hometown ofMadison.
It involved teaching high schoolin Memphis, Tennessee.
It involved coming back toMadison and wearing all sorts of
hats to help grow that schoolfrom teaching to facilities to
finance to everything under thesun.
I was effectively our COO, butalso long-term teacher,
long-term custodian, all those,all those fun tasks.
(06:11):
So and then as you sort ofreflect on all of your
experiences, I I love teachinghigh school, but I also
recognize that it's too late inmany cases to move the needle
for a given student as much asyou would want.
And that needs to happen inelementary school, if not before
then.
My experiences, you know, inthat setting were really
formative.
And I really came to believethat early literacy is one of,
(06:34):
if not the highest impact levelwe have to moving long-term
outcomes for students.
SPEAKER_02 (06:39):
Wow.
That's a dramatic statement.
So I want to just pause thereand drill into it a little bit
that too late.
I mean, I've I've actually saidthe same thing.
We apprend a microschools coverK through eight.
So we spend time with theyounger kids, and people always
ask me, you know, what abouthigh school?
What about these high schoolkids?
Say, yeah, I think you can do alot for high school, but it's
almost like if the mindsets andthe approach, this is really the
(06:59):
the non-cognitive side, if thosethings are set up already and
they're they're baked in, then,you know, there's only so much
that an educator, despite thelevel of passion and connection
and all the great things thatyou would want to bring, can
really do to deprogram or ununwire or rewire some of those
things.
Is that what you're talkingabout when you say too late in
high school?
Or are you talking about otherkind of foundational academic
(07:22):
and cognitive things?
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
I think it's funny.
I totally hear you.
And I think that I had moremovement on the side of like
relationship building, havinghard conversations with students
about, you know, what paths theywere on or considering.
And where I had less success wasnot in moving instructional
outcomes, like I think we, youknow, moved ACT outcomes in math
(07:45):
in under my my class like quitea bit.
But it was more on somefoundational skills that I was
just like, yeah, these are notin place.
I'm not going to be able to, weare not going to be able to get
them to where they need to bethis year.
So one kind of glass half fullway of looking at this was I I
also taught personal finance.
It's a required class inTennessee to graduate high
(08:07):
school.
And I loved teaching it becauseeven my students that didn't
understand what an exponentialfunction really was or how, you
know, to manipulate anexponential function given a
word word problem.
If I could explain to themconceptually and and show them
the impact of taking out apayday loan, what 460% APR does,
(08:29):
and we could, you know, walkaround the community and see all
these stores that offered quickcash or title loans or whatever
have you.
Like that was a battle one andset kids up to make decisions
that were in their betterinterests down the line.
So I really loved teaching thatbecause it scratched that itch
of like, how can I do right byyou, even with, you know, 11, 12
years of of education up tillthat point that, you know, are
(08:52):
already baked in.
SPEAKER_02 (08:53):
Right.
You were able to make aconnection between some sort of
purpose, some sort of reason forlearning.
You know, that's one of thethings that even as a student, I
remember in high school justlooking around and saying, we're
here because we have to be.
There's, you know, if you wereto push harder on that, there's
a very loose link, I think, fora lot of high school students
between what you're doing dayday by day and you know, what
(09:16):
you want in the rest of yourlife.
I'm sure they could rattle offsome sort of thing.
But you see this in theengagement data, right?
The reason for only 30% of highschool seniors being engaged in
school is partly that.
It's it's disconnected.
And I think part of that is, youknow, bad information.
It's actually knowing at leasthow a payday loan interest rate
(09:37):
will work is going to protectyou from making some really
devastating decisions for yourpersonal finances.
But some of it is that thestudents are right in this,
right?
They're they're kind of callingBS on a long history of, you
know, requirements and hoops andarbitrary things that that in
the end don't matter, right?
And I think it's it's hard toget at what's the truth there.
(09:57):
Students are all kids are justso good detectors of actual
authenticity and honesty.
So, you know, I I think I hearthem, I guess, is is what I'm
saying.
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
No, but I mean they're they're not they're not
irrational actors by any means,right?
Like you engage with things thatone, you either just happen to
have an interest in, you know,you you love this particular
video game, or you engage inthings that even if it's not
your like deep passion, you seehow it connects to real value
for you.
And like, so students, most ofmy students worked part-time.
(10:27):
They would file during thesecond semester of the course,
they would file their taxes inmy class, 1040 easy by hand and
all that good stuff.
And they would see that, hey,they saved 200 or 50% of their
return that they would have bynot going to, you know, a
middleman.
SPEAKER_02 (10:44):
Yeah, that's amazing, right?
That's a that's a life lessonright there.
Well, let's talk a little bitabout the other side of that.
So we're talking here about kindof non-cognitive or just
engaging in learning, having themindset of, you know, the
tenacity to stick with it, thebelief that you can figure this
out.
I'm sure you've run into this asa high school teacher, and you
(11:04):
probably even saw some of it inpreschool, you know, where you
have you have beliefs aboutyourself that actually prevent
you from putting in any effort,which then is a self-fulfilling
prophecy, right?
You'll never learn to read ifyou believe you can't read and
then you don't put any work intoreading, and similar with math
and and anything else.
So, yeah, can you talk a littlebit about what's how can we sort
(11:25):
of unwire that and and is therea way to do it through through
pedagogy?
I mean, there's been a lot oftalk.
You mentioned science of readingalready.
This is, you know, I guess let'sbefore we get to science of
reading, I guess what I'd liketo do is drill into what
happened, right?
There's this sold a story kindof narrative, this idea that,
you know, maybe reading was donewrong.
And can you just kind of shareyour version of what you saw
(11:47):
going on?
And I know it's not the wholethe whole story, the whole
picture.
As you mentioned, there's thingshappening before kids even get
to kindergarten.
So give me your your take on,you know, why is it so bad and
why are we struggling so much?
SPEAKER_01 (11:58):
Yeah, it's a fair question.
And I think that, you know, longbefore I was born, long before I
was thinking about any of thisstuff, these debates about how
to teach reading have been goingon for a long time.
National Reading Panel, whichpeople still look to, for
example, of or you know, whatworks came out in, you know, the
(12:19):
early 2000s, and we're stillhaving the same conversations.
So this has been an ongoingconversation for a long time,
and Soldist Story did a reallybeautiful job of putting it into
focus with a point of view thatwas backed up by real data and
evidence, right?
From from my vantage point, Ithink we need to acknowledge the
(12:39):
importance of systemic factors,poverty, things like this that
shape opportunity.
And like the way I would put itis that I think those things put
kids at risk very early on, butit's things within our control
as educators practice thatcements that risk, right?
Or mitigates it.
Right.
And historically, I think it'scemented it with practices that
(13:02):
are not shown to work for somany students that need it,
whether it's students that havedyslexia, whether it's students
that just are further behind intheir reading journey based on
opportunity gaps.
And then on the flip side, likethere's really good reasons to
see from even the nape data, thebright spots in the nape data
suggest that like poverty is notdestiny, right?
That even states with highlyvariable poverty rates, and even
(13:25):
when you control for demography,you see that certain places,
states, not just little towns orcities or school districts, are
doing better by their kids inways that you cannot ignore.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Let's talk a little bit about that.
Because you you brought this uplast time we talked, we were
geeking out on spreadsheets, andyou were specifically focused on
Wisconsin, where you grew up,and this is home for you.
I actually used to live inWisconsin too, so we have that
connection.
And then we were talking aboutMississippi, which I think most
people would point to as one ofthese bright states that people
will say the Mississippimiracle.
(13:57):
There's been growth in readingin Mississippi.
So we were talking specificallyabout the nape reading scores
for fourth graders who areblack.
And I think that that groupalone.
Can you share a little bit aboutwhat you were seeing?
And it kind of reinforces thispoint you're making.
SPEAKER_01 (14:13):
Yeah, totally.
And I think the the data was,and I might be one or two
percent off, but it was like 7%or 8% of black fourth graders in
Wisconsin could readproficiently.
And in Mississippi, it was morelike three times that.
It was like, you know, 20, 21%.
And mind you, there's also amuch higher child poverty rate
(14:34):
in Mississippi, right?
So it's not like if you omitthat variable that could explain
it.
No, in fact, it's in the face ofa higher poverty rate in
Mississippi, even for blackstudents than in Wisconsin.
And so there's something that ishappening in Mississippi, and
it's not just Mississippi.
The Mississippi Miracle, Ithink, has gained traction.
There's other bright spots inthat data.
(14:55):
Louisiana is another one,Alabama's another one, right?
So like it's actually a bunch ofsouthern states that I think
we've historically dismissed asbeing, you know, oh, you know,
making jokes about thateducation system in Mississippi.
It's like, no, jokes on us.
They figured this out.
Yeah.
They figured out I don't thinkthey would say that they're
happy with one-fifth of blackstudents reading proficiently,
(15:15):
but when that's, you know, twicethe national average and three
times higher than places thathave lower poverty rates, like
we have to acknowledge thatthere's a lot for us to learn
from what's happening in some ofthese southern states.
So what did they do?
So the the backstory here isthey have invested now not just,
you know, in the last year ortwo, but going back years,
meaning like, you know, betterpart of a decade, in high
(15:38):
quality teacher training aroundthe science of reading, getting
all their folks trained in not,you know, a one or two hour
kickoff about this, but actuallylike deep coursework around the
why, the how to implementevidence-based practices, how
the brain actually acquiresknowledge in the domain of
(15:59):
reading, right?
And so they've invested a ton intheir teachers with upfront
training and then animplementation at the state
level, with state DOE having arobust system of coaches, et
cetera, that are actually goingout into the field, visiting
these schools, working hand inglove with principals to make
sure that what happened ininitial training is actually
being implemented effectively inclassrooms and not just one or
(16:20):
two years, but over and over andover again, year after year
after year, and that compounds.
Right.
So the other thing that I thinkis helpful there is like there
is teacher mobility betweendistricts in the profession.
Like it's hard to, you know,invest a ton in a teacher and
then they leave, and thensomebody else comes in who did
not have the same training orbackground that that person
(16:40):
does.
And like, not that statewidetraining and and real commitment
to that solves that completely,but you can imagine that you
generally have a pool ofeducators moving between schools
that have shared backgroundknowledge and deep training, and
that that would be helpfulrather than districts kind of
figuring out things one-off.
SPEAKER_02 (16:59):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I would love to dive in all theway to that moment where you
have an adult sitting with a kidwho's literally working it out
in their brain and struggling todo the basics of reading.
I will just say personally, thisnever happened for me.
So I was one of the lucky ones,I think, that learned by
osmosis, so to speak.
I was around, I mean, my myparents had books in the home.
(17:20):
We were very middle class.
I didn't have tutors oranything, but it was definitely
a sense of like reading was partof my life, even before I I went
to kindergarten and I wasalready a decent reader before I
even got to kindergarten.
I don't actually remember everlearning, you know, phonics,
grammar, rules.
Like, in fact, I was sittingthere in, I think, German class
(17:41):
as a junior in high school,learning what a direct object
was and uh, you know, some ofthe the pieces of a sentence
that, you know, I think somepeople learn that explicitly.
I don't remember ever gettingthat in my I I also went to, you
know, public schools out here inArizona.
But um yeah, can you can yougive a little picture of
Mississippi is training alltheir teachers?
They're training them andAlabama and Louisiana, they're
(18:03):
training them to do to do what?
You know, what does thatactually look like?
The evidence-based practices.
Can you give us kind of a asnapshot into what that looks
like?
SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
It's as much about what to do versus what not to
do.
Okay.
For example, yeah, I also nevergot really systematic explicit
phonics instruction, and I am,you know, one of the 30 to 50%
of kids, depending on theestimates you look at, that
don't need that and can figureit out with enough reps and
pattern matching that we doimplicitly.
But you know, the so on what todo, it's really important that
(18:36):
teachers have a sense of howfluency is developed, right?
You l go from learning the mostgranular units of language,
letter sound correspondencies,the letter C can make a k sound,
right?
Like in the word cat.
And building a progressivesequence of skills that kids are
introduced to that build on oneanother and allow them to then
(18:59):
start to put together words.
Right.
So you can think about if thefirst few letter
correspondencies that youexplicitly teach to a student
are they oftentimes called a satpin.
S makes the short A sound, uh tuh, like all the like words that
you can start to make like pin,pat, sat, mat, right?
(19:22):
I sat on the mat.
And we teach them I as astandalone irregular word for
the time being, right?
So you start to help kids notjust get all this information at
once about all the possibleletter sound correspondencies,
hundreds of them, giving thempiecemeal introductions and then
opportunities to put that topractice, right?
(19:43):
In the form of actual words theyare trying to put together and
read.
Then eventually more words withdifferent patterns, then
eventually phrases, theneventually sentences, passages,
etc.
And not expecting mastery umfrom the jump, but understanding
that it's it is a continualprocess.
So that's like some of thebuilding blocks about what to
do.
(20:03):
Now it's interesting.
There's kind of a debate in thefield, and I would say that the
evidence base points one waymore than the other.
Even amongst folks in thescience of reading field, like
there are discrepancies.
Historically, phonologicalawareness, like all this stuff
just around, or phonemicawareness more specifically,
around, you know, rhyming, forexample, but with not putting
(20:24):
like teaching kids how to rhyme,different patterns of how sounds
come together, but divorced fromletters with phonics, was was
something standalone phonemicawareness has been something in
the field for a long time.
Folks are actually kind ofstarting to move away from that
because there's not a bunch ofevidence that it actually is
additive relative to juststarting to put letter sound
(20:46):
correspondences into play fromthe beginning.
So even there, there is likesome disagreement around how
folks, even in the world ofstructured literacy or science
of reading, have approachedthis.
What they all agree on, and whatthe evidence is is overwhelming
on, is that teaching students tolook for context clues as their
crutch for decoding is nothelpful.
(21:09):
So a lot of books that werelearned to read books
historically have been verypredictable books.
It's been like I sat on the mat.
Okay, cool, it sounds good.
And there's a picture of a mat.
Then it's the next page is I saton the cat.
And I mean, I'm jokes on me, butyou know, kid sitting on a cat.
(21:30):
And it's like, it's like they'renot actually decoding the words,
they're simply swapping out andfiguring out what that word is
based on the picture clues,right?
And what that does is obscuresthe signal on what a student can
actually do when those crutchesare removed.
SPEAKER_02 (21:47):
Hmm.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
I think I did a lot of that as akid.
And of course, you know, Dr.
Seuss books come to mind whereit's just all these crazy
things.
But um yeah, part of that is Iwant to talk a little bit about
the role of technology.
In this case, the technology isthe book, right?
Somebody wrote a book that, youknow, is predictable or has a
picture, or you know, there'sthings like that.
(22:08):
And um, and then the other halfof that is the role of the
person that's sitting next tothis child that's that's
learning, right?
So you can imagine that persongiving guidance, like, well,
let's look at the letters andlet's make the sounds of the
letters and then let's blendthem together.
So if the you know the word is,I don't know, I'm trying to
think of a weird word thatrhymes with cat and mat, but
it's, you know.
(22:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like, okay, then thenwhat is that first letter?
And then we we sound it outtogether.
Yeah, it and I guess theinterplay between those two
things matters, right?
It's the material itself mattersbecause it we're making it
possible for kids to I I I don'tknow, like sneak through, I
guess, like slip throughthemselves.
(22:50):
They're gonna find the path ofleast resistance, and
everybody's looking at me, and Idon't want to be that kid that
doesn't know how to read.
And so I'm gonna guess my waythrough it.
And I think you see thathappening in some of the data
where you have these kids thataren't proficient readers, but
part of what's going on isthey're actually functioning
okay because they're able to,right?
The the pictures get them enoughand they can guess based on
(23:11):
maybe the first letter or orsomething like that.
And then the other half of it iswhat are we doing
instructionally, pedagogicallyto to you know help them really
get to the the core of it.
Um am I getting that right?
I mean, is that are those kindof the the two pieces of it that
you think about as you haveyou've now given your life to
this uh to this question.
So I, you know, I I'm not anexpert here.
SPEAKER_01 (23:31):
I think No, I think you framed it pretty well.
As and so there were things torecap, there were things we have
historically been doing in manycases, not everyone, but many
schools, including the ones thatI went to growing up, were doing
that were obscuring signal onwho could actually decode, who
was actually building the skillsthey needed to become a fluent
(23:52):
and skilled reader.
And we're kind of dilutingourselves as adults by thinking
that far more kids could do itthan could actually do it
because we wanted to, we wantedit to be true, not because, you
know, of anything nefarious.
I think everybody wants the samething for kids, which is for
them to like prosper, have allthe skills they need to prosper,
et cetera.
But we were doing things thatwere obscuring our way to
(24:14):
soberly assess that.
Now, you know, this is a processof development.
Just because you can decode aword doesn't mean you can do so
automatically.
It might be a super laboredprocess.
You know, it's not, it's notlinear.
You just because you can nowdecode words automatically
doesn't mean that you can decodephrases well at all.
(24:36):
Maybe you can make, or maybe onthe other hand, you can decode
phrases, but you're still notautomatic at the word level,
right?
So like there's all these messyways that that fluency
development, like, you know, isstill individual to
understanding what's happeningwith that student in front of
you.
But ultimately, yeah, you wantto go from students
understanding the basic lettersound correspondences to being
(24:56):
able to read any given word,then read those words in
continuation in the form of aphrase, a sentence, and
ultimately a passage withprosody.
Because if I read every wordlike this, it's different than
reading a story with you knowalmost implicit understanding
and the prosody of, you know,Kelly and Viv went to this store
on one fine day, which is verythen very different from Kelly
(25:19):
and Viv went to this door on oneday.
And like there's just somethingthat that probably implies about
how much you that passage is islanding with you, right?
Um so it's it's a process.
And then it's even beyond that,because even if you are a fluent
reader, it does not mean thatyou have the comprehension
abilities that are needed toshow up on that nape data in
(25:41):
fourth grade.
So there's all sorts of waysthat phonics is not the you
know, be all end all.
In parallel, there's all sortsof things that early elementary
school teachers even can andshould be doing to build those
skills related to comprehension.
Read alouds, talking to kids,building background knowledge,
vocab lessons, right?
So there's all sorts of waysthat in parallel, it's not just
(26:04):
a step function thing ofphonics, then comprehension,
that like these strands of thereading rope, as they say, kind
of commingle and need to fromthe beginning.
SPEAKER_02 (26:14):
This is maybe going to be a stretch, and I know
we're talking about readingright now, but it sounds like
you and I have both done mathtutoring.
In in math, especially for olderkids, you know, high school age
kids, and they I will get a kidat the desk that I'm looking at,
I'm, you know, working throughhomework assignments with them.
And I they can they they havesort of a set of rules that
(26:35):
they've memorized and they cankind of apply the rules, but
it's like conceptually what'sgoing on, it's clearly missing.
Like there, there's a a baselayer and then a higher layer.
And I think years and years ofgrade level material and having
to sort of keep up with theclass, they've found ways to
cope and they'll they'll get 70%of the problems right, even.
(26:56):
But one of the things that Ifind myself doing as a math
tutor, and I wonder if there'ssomething similar here with
really good reading tutoring, isto, in some ways, it's like a
medic, you know, that's liketearing you open more because
they they don't like it.
I I'm sort of pushing them onthe the parts where they don't,
they don't fully understand sothat we can get that cleared up.
And it's like once youunderstand this, I find myself
(27:16):
saying these words to the kid,once you understand this,
everything's gonna make moresense because every step in this
problem should be like clearlydefensible in your mind and you
you can like stand by it.
Like I would put money on this,that if I add three to this side
of the equation, I have to addthree to the other side of the
equation.
Like every time that's true.
And then you challenge them,like, does are you confident on
that?
(27:36):
Are you sure?
And they look at me like I'mused to sort of guessing based
on what the adult is doing.
It's like, like I'm sort ofcheering you on and nudging you
forward.
It's like, no, don't use me as aresource.
This needs to exist solidly inyour own brain.
I'm I'm giving this an example.
Just from having spent this timeone-on-one with kids in math.
I I think I've told you this.
(27:58):
I did not have any readingexpertise at all when I started
Prenda.
And at first I started witholder kids, fifth grade, sixth
grade, seventh grade, probablyneeded reading even then.
But then as things expanded, westarted opening the doors to
younger kids.
And I was very lucky andgrateful to find Katie
Broadbent, who had spent a lotof her life thinking about
literacy and very strongadvocate of phonics.
(28:19):
And she explained the wholething to me.
And we ended up building aself-paced, kind of student-led
version of what we're talkingabout that Prenda supports and
by the way, gives away for freeif you go to treasure hunt
reading at Prenda.
People will download this anduse it for homeschool or for
traditional education.
But, you know, all of this tolearn that and to say what's
going on in in those moments,you know, how how can we
(28:42):
understand what the buildingblocks are, find the one that's
missing?
It's it's a tall order, I guess.
It's maybe what I'm saying.
It's it's hard to do.
You're not wrong.
SPEAKER_01 (28:52):
You're not wrong.
So a couple ways where I thinkthis is similar to math, and
then one where it's not.
On one hand, yes, there's manycases when especially you're
working with an older student,where you're gonna have to go
back to blending drills, whereyou have three cards in front of
you and it's C, A, and T, andhave them read the word cat, and
then you take the littleblending board and you um remove
(29:14):
the C and you swap in an M andyou ask them, you know, you just
start doing these these drillswhere you're swapping and making
chains of words and making themtruly like go back to the stages
of understanding how theseletters sound correspondences
that they probably know in avacuum if they're older at that
point, but not understanding howto like automatically put them
together.
You're going back to the baselayer, similar to what you
(29:34):
talked about.
Now, that being said, um theEnglish language is far less
rules based than math is.
Math is rules based.
The English language has allsorts of nooks and crannies and
departures from patterns that wewould have taught kids.
So, like in parallel, what mostscopes and sequences do for
(29:56):
phonics is they are alsoteaching them irregular words
during each.
Lesson that will show up instories that are decodable.
So, like, like that example ofthe word I, I sat on the mat.
Like I might not be a lettersound correspondence they've
learned yet.
And if they do learn it, they'regoing to learn it as the short I
first, like in the word sit, notthe long I sound, right?
(30:17):
So we teach that as an irregularword or a partially irregular
word, depending on, you know,how your scope and sequence ends
up unfolding.
But all of which is to say isthat I don't think the goal can
be or is even possible to teachkids all of the possible letter
sound correspondencies in a waythat they get to some sort of
(30:39):
predefined bar of mastery.
I think the goal instead is togive them a really strong
foundation with the mostcommonly occurring patterns in a
really progressive way, likewith that scope and sequence
that cumulatively builds uponitself that has opportunities
for review and practice of theconcepts that were previously
introduced, all with the goaltowards giving them escape
(31:00):
velocity to figure it out ontheir own.
Right.
And it's giving them the toolsto figure it out on their own.
Again, I think similar to math,it's just those tools are not
always rules-based reading in anEnglish language.
SPEAKER_02 (31:12):
Yeah, you're right.
I mean English.
I'm picturing those boards whereyou have O-U-G-H and you put T
on the front.
It's like, well, that word istough, you know?
It's like that.
And then you put D on it andit's like, oh, that word is
dough.
You know?
SPEAKER_01 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And and so you could go through,and what you could do, Kelly, is
you could teach a lesson on theO U G H pattern, and you could
show them both O and you know,like all the all the variants
that you're talking about off,right?
Yeah.
Or, and and some programs willdo that because there's enough
(31:47):
words that meet that patternthat it might be worth it.
But many programs will say, hey,that's an obscure enough pattern
that you know, we're not gonnaexplicitly teach that.
SPEAKER_02 (31:56):
Yeah.
No, this is helpful for mebecause I felt deficient in not
knowing the rules.
So um I know that it isirregular and there's uh there's
exceptions.
And English beautifully pullsfrom so many different
linguistic traditions.
So how could it possibly be?
But yeah, no, that's uh thatmakes a lot of sense.
Okay, so given that that it'shard, given that we need to pull
kids back to the base layer,which involves both some science
(32:18):
in terms of knowing what theyunderstand, what they don't
understand, and where to focus,given that we also need to know
when it's a rule and when it'san irregularity, that this whole
thing is done in the context ofa human being who's gonna get
frustrated, disappointed, maybefeel like a loser because
they're, you know, 14 andlooking at cat, right?
So, like all of thepsychological elements to this,
(32:40):
um, yeah, what I mean, what doyou say, right, like to an adult
who's who's responsible forthis?
And I I'm saying this with allsort of understanding and
empathy for teachers who aretrying to do this and to trying
to do this at scale.
Um, and I'm also trying to getus to maybe a foray in the
conversation to talk abouttechnology and talk about your
(33:00):
current project, which I thinkis is really trying to step in
and help here and support.
SPEAKER_01 (33:05):
Yeah, good good questions all.
I, you know, I think that weourselves have contended with
the question of maybe less sowhat we're actually doing, to
some degree what we're doing inthe product, but certainly how
we think about it, how we frameit, between like an all-knowing,
patient, infinite AI tutorversus like repeated fluency and
(33:30):
decoding practice with real-timefeedback on overdrive.
Like that second one is way lesscatchy, but I think is also
probably true to how we thinkabout it, which is like I don't
think our AI tutor, which wecall it still, is like deeply
conversational and like thehigh-level conversations we're
having about chatbots that likeengage a student's interest and
(33:53):
develop content for them on thefly.
Like, we're not doing any ofthat.
We're talking about kidslearning how to decode and read
words.
But what I think we are doing istrying to use technology to fill
a huge gap, which is that eventhe best first grade teacher
that has 30 lovely little kidsrunning around cannot
(34:13):
simultaneously give each of themthe amount of personalized
productive practice that theyneed.
Right.
And so kids might be silentlyreading, which in the early
stages of of learning to read isnot actually very effective if
you can't already do it.
There's really bad evidence onsilent sustained reading,
actually.
But you logistically can't meetwith all the kids you would want
(34:35):
to individually to hear themread out loud.
So then you start doing thingslike small groups, which is
really what you should be doing,given all the constraints you
have on your time, all the otherthings you have to get to.
But what we know is thatstudents, like some students,
need hundreds of practiceopportunities on the same phonic
skill for that to actually startto become automatic.
Right.
(34:55):
And that typically then issupplemented either at home or
with tutors.
And that is logistically andcost-wise quite difficult.
And so we have thought aboutfilling this gap in what high
quality practice with real-timefeedback looks like as an
extension of what we know worksand what teachers can't quite
do, even the best of them.
SPEAKER_02 (35:17):
Right.
Yeah.
Give walk me through what thatis and what that looks like.
I know you've shared someexamples of the product in
action, both the AI tutorproduct and your, like you said,
your your AI-powered, uhpersonalized drill instructor
that keeps feeding theappropriate opportunities.
SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
Yeah, I went on that whole soliloquy about practice
as opposed to infinite, uhinfinite patiently tutors, but
we're still calling it anelegant.
SPEAKER_02 (35:42):
Yeah.
Well, I we know what what youmean.
Yeah, it's not, it's not tryingto be the human in the room.
In fact, I'm skeptical.
Like I think that's going to belater, if ever, you know, where
you can really because what akid's looking for is something
that they understand from birth,right?
This is like pre-verbal, it'snot about words on the screen.
SPEAKER_01 (36:00):
It's pre-chatbot fundamentally.
So we're talking about thesechatbot tutors, or maybe there's
some voice components on top ofit.
It's like our kids are thatwe're serving currently are not
ready for that at all,definitionally.
SPEAKER_02 (36:14):
Yeah, ours either.
I mean, they need that adult inthe room.
Thankfully, a microschool, it's10 kids.
So you you're closer to theability to have that personal
connection to each.
But even with 10, I mean, if youhad to really do this manually,
it would be a lot, which is whyI've been glad to pilot some of
the work you guys are doing andand plan to do uh do more of it
just using the tools that canreally unlock this because we
(36:36):
want each of these kids toreally learn how to read.
SPEAKER_01 (36:40):
Well, you asked for the example, so I'll try to
describe it as best I can.
And this goes all the waythrough your typical phonic
scope and sequence, um, youknow, which gets into affixes,
some of these, you know, morecomplex patterns, but let's just
keep using this example of catthat we started with.
So a student sees the word onscreen.
Teacher sets up the student,they either set them at you know
(37:03):
lesson one, which is you knowthe short A makes ah, or they
set they move them further downif they know they're ready for a
bit more.
Um, but they see, you know,sentence level practice as well
as word level practice, whatevermode the teacher wants to set
them to.
But let's say that um they setthem to word level practice and
it's lesson 14 where C makes a kis introduced, and the first
(37:26):
word they see and are asked topractice is cat.
So you have the word cat onscreen.
And the tutor says, Can you tryreading this word for me?
And the kid goes, What it'sgonna do is it's gonna break
that word into three boxes,Alkonin boxes as we call them,
where one letter soundcorrespondence is in each box.
(37:47):
So later down the line you mighthave multiple letters in the
same box, but for right now wejust have C in one box, A in one
box, T in another box.
And what it's gonna do is it'sgonna put the A and the T in
green boxes and give them alittle check mark because it
wants to indicate you actuallysaid that part of the word
right.
And then what it's gonna do forthe first letter, the box in
which C is, is it's gonna, youknow, outline it in red and have
(38:07):
like a little X and it's gonnagive them some feedback and say,
hey, can the letter C actuallymakes a sound like in the word,
you know, whatever, might giveit an example.
Um then the student can tap onthe box and a little mouth will
pop up and it will show them ina video how to make that that
articulatory gesture thatproduces that sound.
(38:29):
And so then the student startstapping successively on the
boxes and they say, they wait acouple seconds.
And ideally what happens is thestudent's able to self-correct
at that point and go cat and wesay, Great job, and we move them
on to the next word that also ismaybe now cob because we've
already taught them the short Oand we've taught them uh, you
(38:51):
know, B makes b, right?
That's the next word we theymove on to.
But if they don't get that, orthey could have missed it for
two reasons.
They could have said mat againor sob or whatever, right?
Or they might have said k atthat's common, where kids can
name the letter soundcorrespondencies, but they can't
continuously blend the word.
The thing we just released isanother scaffold or layer of
(39:15):
support for these students wherethey can run their finger over
the word cat and see the lettersand sounds play and light up and
sync so they understand how theyblend together.
So I'm really excited about thatfeature.
We spent a ton of time on theground working with kids to go
from really like hacky prototypeon my phone that I would hold up
like as they were missing wordsto like have them try it.
(39:37):
And now it's like a fullyfunctioning feature where if
that student still needssupport, they can run their
finger over the words and seehow it's blended and then try
again.
And if they try again, they getit right.
That's awesome.
And if they don't, you know,they'll get something really
kind of like, hey, that word wasactually cap, a great effort.
We're gonna keep working on it,right?
And then they they move on tothat better word cop.
SPEAKER_02 (39:58):
I love the interplay.
Like I can picture that caringadult right next to the student
that's sort of driving the thetool, but it's not, you know, it
it's like let's get through thistogether, let's learn this thing
and and I'm here to support youin it.
You know, one of the thingswe've tried to, we've tried to
really focus on when we designthe microschool environment is
(40:18):
we want that relationship to befirst and foremost a very
connective, supportiverelationship to the point where
we've said we don't want the theadult to be in the business of
evaluating, right?
So even just that feeling oflike, no, sorry, it's it's
cannot like that.
You get these little momentsthat's um it's you know,
depending on where the child'sat in their development and
(40:40):
emotionally and psychologically,that can feel like this person
doesn't like me, right?
Or this like this person's noton my team, where it's nice that
now you're getting that feedbackfrom a different avenue, and the
the adult saying, like, it'sokay, you know, like we got that
now.
We know it's like let's look atthe next one and let's read the
additional word.
Yeah, I'm picturing that thatall play out, and I I love the
(41:03):
picture of it.
SPEAKER_01 (41:04):
And that's the very techno-optimistic version of it,
and that's typically how itworks.
And then there's the versionwhich is like you have 30 kids
doing this at once in aclassroom, none of whom have
headphones, even though if theydid have headphones, it'd make
all the difference, especiallyheadphones like with a built-in
mic.
And then it picks up backgroundnoise from one of the other 30
kids screaming, you know, mm,you know, cot.
(41:26):
And it's like great effort, butthis word was cat, is like,
that's what I said, right?
And that's like so there's allthese ways where like the
realities of being in aclassroom do not always mesh
with how like our view of howthis would be built.
Like, I think that folks who aregoing direct to parent, like
with an app that's on an iPadthat has, you know, all of that
(41:46):
and no background noise, and aparent who's setting them up and
checking in on them, like it'sjust so fundamentally different
than building something for likelarge-scale classroom use.
And it's harder, but I thinklike those are the breakthroughs
we need to have in order toreach the kids we want to reach.
SPEAKER_02 (42:02):
Well, just like with kids, I mean, I think parents
have their own questions aboutall this, right?
And and there's a confidence gapthat I think what you you can do
is help them through and say,look, if you can be consistently
available to your child andsupportive and loving, that's
not true for everybody, but ifyou can do that, you have the
time to be there with them.
I mean, I don't even know howmuch time you would need to
(42:24):
spend.
It's not like you need sevenhours a day of doing this, you
would need some short amount oftime on a regular basis.
And your kid will learn how toread.
I mean, I think there's therewas a big uh increase in sales
of this book.
I think I have it right up here.
The teach your child to read in100 easy lessons.
You know this book.
And during COVID, parents werebuying this book because they're
like, I don't know how to teachmy child to read, but 100 easy
(42:46):
lessons, it's you know, you'rebasically taking this to the
next level because the 100 easylessons couldn't listen to the
child say the word and findwhere the the gaps are and adapt
and and kind of personalize ortailor, tailor the experience.
That's right.
Wonderful.
Well, let's talk a little bitjust as we wrap up, because I
know you have there's somevideos on your website, and I'd
(43:07):
encourage everybody to checkthis out.
We'll we'll put it in the shownotes, but just these moments
where you can see a child kindof tentatively struggling
through, and there's some somelearning gaps, and then there's
these breakthrough moments.
And one of the things we talkabout at Prenda is the empowered
learner.
There's a desire to learn and aconfidence and a swagger in it
that I can do this.
(43:27):
And every time I see that, Ijust rejoice because it's
basically my favorite thing andit transfers.
It, you know, you can do that inthe context of reading and then
go approach your mathdifferently or even sports
differently or friendshipsdifferently.
Like there's there's just a wayof being in the world, which is
it's the sense of like, I'mgonna figure this out, I can do
this.
I've seen that, you know, insome of the work you guys are
(43:47):
doing.
Can you share a little bit?
Just paint a picture for ourlisteners and our viewers who
are, I think like me, verygeeked out on this question of
empowered learners.
SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
Oh yeah, that's that's the magic moment right
there, which is like a studentthat labors through their own
self-correcting, right?
And then they see the fruits ofthat labor at the end.
And when you see those moments,it's magical.
And I think that there'ssomething really powerful about
(44:16):
a student that arrives at aconclusion or or makes growth
that's truly driven by them,where they've put those points
on the board as opposed to beingspoon-fed.
And like we got to give them thecontext and the initial, you
know, direction or instructionto give them that opportunity.
So, you know, they're they'renot out there without without
any tools to work with.
(44:38):
But when you see them apply itand work through it and figure
it out, it's really cool.
So I think the example you'retalking about is a girl who, you
know, looked at the word pagesand like guessed that was like
progress or something like that.
And then it lit up the boxes andcolor-coded them based on which
parts were correct, which partswere wrong.
And she's like tapping on theboxes, she's decoding out loud
(45:00):
pag.
And then she's she startspiecing it together over the
course of like a minute, 90seconds, giving her the space
and time to explore the anatomyof the word.
And she's like, pages, pages,pages.
And then, you know, she gets in,it's like it's lovely, right?
Yeah.
Ah, it's the best.
Yeah, those are the magic moneymoments.
SPEAKER_02 (45:21):
I love that story so much.
And I applaud you for the workyou're doing and the support
you're you're giving toeducators everywhere who I
think, like you said earlier,want the same thing.
We want kids to not only get thebasic building blocks of the
skill of reading, but theconfidence that comes with what
you just described for that, forthat girl in particular.
And so let's keep it up.
(45:41):
I I appreciate you taking thetime to share with us a little
bit about science of reading andhow kids learn to read.
And I'm excited about what'spossible.
Let's drive that proficiencylevel up.
I would love to see, you know,in another two, four, six years,
I'd love to see those numberslooking much, much better as
more and more kids learn how toread.
SPEAKER_01 (46:01):
Totally.
Well, I appreciate the time.
And yeah, it's it's a funnytopic because it's just the
intersection of two very buzzyterms, right?
One artificial intelligence andtwo science of reading.
Yeah.
And I think like the task forfor folks like me who are
building at that intersection isto go from these really lofty
movements, language, et cetera,and make that very concrete for
(46:22):
the students that we want toserve.
SPEAKER_02 (46:24):
I can tell you're doing it.
Vivek Ramakrishna, thank you forbeing here today.
Thanks for having me, Kelly.
SPEAKER_00 (46:29):
The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda.
Prenda makes it easy to startand run an amazing microschool
based on all the ideas we talkabout here on the Kindled
Podcast.
Don't forget to follow us onsocial media at Prenda Learn.
And if you'd like moreinformation about starting a
microschool, just go toPrenda.com.
Thanks for listening andremember to keep Kindling.
Bye.
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