August 6, 2025 • 48 mins
In this season-opening episode of Literacy Talks, Stacy Hurst, Donell Pons, and Lindsay Kemeny kick off the school year with a powerful conversation about the value of a reading reset. Whether you're a classroom teacher, literacy coach, or tutor, this episode will help you reflect, refocus, and realign your instruction with what matters most: evidence-based reading practices grounded in Structured Literacy.
From analyzing student data and setting intentional goals to refining your Tier 1 instruction and building momentum that lasts, this episode is full of actionable insights to help you start the year strong. Plus, the trio shares tips for new and seasoned educators alike, along with thoughtful reflections on maintaining motivation and meeting every reader’s needs—no matter where they begin.
It’s a fresh start for a new season. Let’s get back to school—and back to basics.
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Episode Transcript
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Stacy Hurst (00:00):
Welcome to this episode of literacy talks. It is
(00:03):
our first episode of our newseason, and we're so happy
you're here. My name is StacyHurst, and I'm joined by Donnell
Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, and weare going to title this episode
reading reset, and we're goingto let Donnell lead the
conversation. So Donnell,without further ado, we will
turn the time over to you.
Great.
Donell Pons (00:25):
Thank you, Stacy, I think this is a really fun
topic. It's fun to think of areset. And I think we all kind
of decided that would be a goodway to frame up, looking at this
coming year as a restart, areset, an opportunity, and
looking at it that way, everyyear is an opportunity in your
teaching. And so that's whatwe're going to discuss today, is
(00:47):
this reset and a reset inreading, and how we approach
reading. And so this can be forany grade as well. Want to make
that clear that if you're aneducator that's teaching high
school students, if you'resomeone who works with college
students that you know arestruggling with reading and
writing, there will be somethingfor you to take away. So that's
also stay tuned and keeplistening, because there will be
something for you. And it's howto reframe and how to reset with
(01:11):
back to school and the scienceof reading, and that's one way
to think of it as well. And sothere'll be lots of references
to resources that are free andavailable. Some of them will be
past podcasts that we've had.
We're just reminding you thatmaybe there might be some
resources there, and then maybesome books and things that we've
also talked about in podcasts inthe past. And maybe, if you've
looked at those, it might be atime to pull them out and take a
(01:32):
look at them again and say,yeah, yeah, and refresh yourself
with some of that information,because we realize there is a
lot of information. But just tobegin, when we talk about the
reading reset, and we want tosay, let's talk about, why is
this important? Why would areading reset be important when
we're thinking about back toschool? I'm going to throw that
to both Stacy and Lindsay andLindsay, maybe I'll have you
(01:55):
lead
Lindsay Kemeny (01:57):
out. Well, I you know, it makes me think of
reflection, and it's alwaysimportant to take some time to
reflect on your own teachingpractice and maybe what you're
doing well and what you can do alittle better. So I think we've
all had the experience wherewe've had a rather big reset,
where for me, when I learnedabout evidence based literacy
(02:20):
instruction and how some of thethings I was doing were not
what's best for kids, was notaligned with research. So I had
to do a lot of shifting andchanging. But then every year I
feel like I get a little better.
And you know, every year you'rekind of deciding, okay, what,
what am I doing moving forward?
(02:44):
Am I changing anything? What amI focusing on? What do I want to
be a little better at this year?
So, you know, I love, I loveback to school time. It's also a
stressful time, but I think it'san exciting time, because it is
you're, it's like you'restarting off with this fresh,
you know, slate and like here,here we go, here's what I'm
going to do this year.
Stacy Hurst (03:06):
I echo that, and I think back to when I was a an
elementary student myself, andthe night before the first day
of school was more exciting tome than Christmas Eve. I think
it was just and I try toapproach that as a teacher, I
tried to approach the New Yearthat same way. And I do remember
(03:26):
my time in the in the elementaryclassroom every month kind of
Marches along, right? And youfeel like at some point you're
just keeping up and and doingthe best you can do, and making
notes of, Oh, next year when weget to this point in
instruction, I want to do this,or whatever. I have had a very
(03:48):
interesting transition as I'mteaching higher ed, because we
get to do that every semester.
But I think I've also seen thevalue of that reset mindset
every semester. Just and itdoesn't have to be a total
overhaul, just making thoselittle changes that can make a
big difference things you'vebeen wanting to focus on, and
maybe just choosing one to notbe overwhelmed and say, Okay,
(04:12):
I'm gonna I'm gonna make surethat I focus on this and make
improvements
Donell Pons (04:18):
for listeners just thinking About so what are those
elements that we're talkingabout? We're going to also have
you direct your attention backto some past season that we had
where we talked about structuredliteracy, and we really broke
down all of those elements, andwe had some fantastic guests on
too that are really expertswithin each of those domains to
talk about the importance of it.
How does it integrate? Becausewe talked a lot about structured
(04:40):
literacy and integration. So Ilike that each of us talking
about, you can emphasize apiece, and maybe you need to do
a little more here, and thendrawing it all back together is
key, is critical. And so forthose who are listening and
they're saying, okay, refresh meat those structured literacy
pieces, maybe that's new for me.
Maybe I'm focused on a piece,but don't really remember. But
the other pieces we're talkingabout with structured literacy,
(05:02):
the elements are phonemicawareness, good, solid pa
phonics at the foundation of it,orthography, morphology,
vocabulary, syntax, and not justcomprehension, but discourse
comprehension, which Louisespear swirling in her book on
structured literacy, is quick topoint out, it's discourse
(05:22):
comprehension, so that'slistening and reading, and it's
beyond the sentence level, soit's getting into what things
mean and getting into deepermeaning. So I thought that was
really interesting, too. AndLouise Burling, she was one of
our guests last season, too. Soif you missed that episode, I
highly recommend going back andlistening, because she is always
so good. She has her great,structured literacy book. So if
any of these pieces are new ordifferent or you want more
(05:44):
information, that would be anice place to start. So those
are the pieces that we'retalking about when we talk about
it. And then, how do you teachthat? So those are the what
we're teaching. And then, sowhat are the how pieces? Well,
it's explicit and systematic,and there's attention to the
prerequisite skills thatstudents need to have in order
to get to those other skills,and then there's good prompt
(06:06):
feedback that gives studentsreally good information. And
there's also instructionalplanning, so that's also a key
piece, and that's why this is areally great conversation,
because we can be lookingforward to those things that I
really want to emphasize thistime, that maybe I was just
getting my feet wet last yearwith my class. This year, I'm
refocusing. So those are thethings that we're talking about.
(06:27):
We're talking about, what arethe structured literacy? What's
the science of reading? What arethe evidence based practices?
That's what we're talking aboutin reading. And they're all
essential, those pieces, andthey all go together. They're
integrated, and you don't reallymiss out on any of them. But
sometimes, as we've talkedabout, maybe there's a piece
that was easier, maybe there's apiece that's a little harder.
(06:49):
And Lindsay, you've beenfantastic because you've done a
bit of writing, I should sayjust a bit of writing. Lindsay's
got a few books out to help usin this space, particularly in
that k3 space, and it's veryhelpful. But Lindsay, you had a
book that kicked you off, andthen you've also added
additional resources. But thefirst book that really got
attention for good reason,because it did provide some of
(07:10):
those. What do I do? How do Ijust do start with something
seven mighty moves. Was the bookseven mighty moves. So Lindsay,
if there is someone sitting outthere going, geez, you know,
this year, I do want to kick itup a notch. I'd like to boost
it. You really do have some goodrecommendations.
Lindsay Kemeny (07:24):
Yeah, definitely. And those you know
the it's categorized like when Iwas making changes in my
classroom and as work, as I wasworking with my son, who was
diagnosed with dyslexia, I justfound I could organize those
changes into those seven moves.
So those are those seven bigmoves or changes I made in my
classroom after learning aboutthe research, you know, one of
those teaching phonemicawareness intentionally and and
(07:48):
I had to move like several timesthere, because first I just had
to know that it was a thing, andyou had to teach it, and then I
had to refine my knowledge. Andisn't that what we're doing all
the time, especially as we'rethinking about this reading
reset, we're refining what weknow teaching phonics explicitly
is a huge one, and sometimes thescience of reading gets a bad
(08:12):
rap because people think it'sjust about phonics. But you
know, a lot of our attention andefforts went to phonics, because
that was, like, the area thatwas the weakest. So that just
makes sense to me. You know,when a patient comes into the
hospital, you've got to stop thebleeding before you focus on
(08:32):
some of the other things thatmight be wrong. And to me, that
that's kind of like like that,where we were, like, really just
expecting students to pick it upon their their own. But so
that's not the only move,though, because we had, you
know, and the seven mind movesgoes into other moves, like
being really intentional withour fluency, with our practice,
(08:55):
so students can develop fluencyusing reading strategies in a
better way in order to promotethat vocabulary and background
knowledge and understanding howbackground knowledge plays a
role into reading and puttingtext at the center all these,
all these things right come intoplay here.
Donell Pons (09:19):
Yeah. And Stacy, how about you for because pre
service teachers, that's a bigask, and you've now been doing
it for long enough to havestudents probably give you
feedback as well. They probablyget out to their placements, and
you get some feedback. And I betthat's very useful and helpful.
How have you adapted what youteach Stacy? What are kind of
shifts and modes that you've hadas well?
Stacy Hurst (09:40):
Yeah, well, you know, it is all based on, well,
I wouldn't say all, but much ofit is that feedback and holding
it up to what I know aboutstructured literacy instruction,
and I have the added complexityof teaching my students the
components of structuredliteracy at this. Same time as
(10:00):
I'm teaching them how to teachthem, preparing them to be able
to do that. So a lot of myadjustments at this point are
really related to refining thehow and and their knowledge
about some components of it,too. But I think one of the
things that I'm focusing on, forexample, this coming year, is
(10:23):
just refining the way that mystudents look at data and what
they can glean from that. Ithink that's so important early
on, to get a lens on how tointerpret those scores or what
you're seeing from your studentand how that can guide
instruction. So that's where I'mfocusing on a little bit. And we
(10:47):
do have really good alignmentwith some of our other
expectations, like they have totake a test that helps them to
apply some of that knowledgeabout the Foundations of
Reading, and then also just, youknow, their performance going
forward as a teacher, and yeah,we do get feedback and looking
(11:08):
forward to getting more, butsome of it is along the lines
of, I know, initiatives thatwill prepare in service teachers
with more information aboutstructured literacy our students
are already familiar with someof those things, which we've
gotten a lot of feedback aboutthat, but you can always refine
and that will change, right? Sojust like Lindsay was saying
(11:32):
about refining her teaching ofphonemic awareness, like we're
learning new things all thetime, but I really have seen
already if you're if you'relike, grounded in the foundation
of the science of reading, thenthose changes will not be epic.
They're going to be sometimeslarger than others, but never an
(11:53):
overhaul, right? So reset is theperfect word for that, I think.
Lindsay Kemeny (11:58):
And I just wanted you know that piggyback
on what Stacy was saying aboutdata, and it's so wonderful that
she's focusing on teaching herpre service teachers about how
to use data. We're in back toschool mode here, and that is a
big thing I do in preparationfor back to school, is I'm
(12:18):
looking at data. So I actually,I mean, you guys both know,
like, I'm a nerd and I'm a datanerd, and so one of the first
things I do I when I get my listof students for my new class is
I look at their end of yearkindergarten data. So I am going
to be doing some beginning ofthe year testing, but, you know
(12:42):
that's not going to happen dayone, and I like to just be as
prepared as possible day one. SoI go back and I look at their
end of year data, and I kind ofcategorize, I'll sort my
students into little groups ofwhat I see, who's on track
overall, who is not. And thenI'll look deeper, and I'll say,
I kind of like will list themwho, you know, got the most, and
(13:06):
the the data, the assessment weuse in my district and state is
Acadians. And I love thatreading screener, so I'll take
it, and I'll kind of groupstudents with who is, who is
reading those little CVCnonsense words like
automatically, and is alreadyblending those and just reading
(13:26):
the whole word and how many theyget in a minute, and who is not,
and about how many sounds in aminute are they getting. And so
I will look, and then thephonemic awareness assessment
too, which is like the firstsound fluency in Acadians, and
they're segmenting, and so Iwill look, and I kind of already
group my students. I know thingscan change over summer, but this
(13:51):
gives me a good starting offpoint where, and I use that
information for things like,I'll make my seating charts just
to start off. And I know, hey,students that are need a little
bit more help. I'm gonna putthem in certain places, on the
rug and at their desks where Iknow I can get there a little
(14:12):
easier. I'm gonna put them nextto someone that's a little
stronger than them. Like,there's just all these things
I'm really intentional about.
And it's like, yeah, I'm notgonna solely use that piece of
information, like things aregonna change, and I'm really
flexible, like with mygroupings, once I know my
students and we do moreassessments, things are gonna
change. But it really helps meat the beginning of the year
(14:35):
just to get an idea,
Stacy Hurst (14:38):
yeah, and I know you were piggybacking off of my
comment. Can I do that withyours too? And that is
fantastic. I just hope for mystudents that they end up doing
that as their own teachers. Butif you're in a position in a
school as an instructional coachor a literacy coach, that is
also scalable. When I was aliteracy coach, I did that for
(15:02):
my teachers. We did not wait sixweeks for all the beginning of
the year assessment to happen toput students in intervention
groups. We took the data fromthe end of year, and we had
dibbles at the time. It wasbefore cadence, and we could
start, we could hit the groundrunning. And my job I was, I
(15:23):
oversaw the paraprofessionalswho were conducting those small
groups, and was responsible forscheduling that. So you can do
that, you can start early. Wesaw great gains when you can
start those intervention groupsday one. So that's a really
good, good model, Lindsay, andif all classroom teachers were
doing that too. It would justmake many hands make light work.
(15:45):
You know,
Donell Pons (15:46):
it's interesting because I was drawn to a quote
that I had read from Louisebearling again in her structured
literacy. It was at thebeginning reader profile
experts. Remember, what you'reboth talking about are reader
profiles. Each of our studentshas a reader profile. Reader
profile experts are more likelyto recognize patterns in data
and grasp their implications.
That's both are saying that verysame thing right there. So if
(16:08):
you're looking for them, youknow what you're looking for.
That data is really important,and you do want it, and you know
what to do with it. And Lindsay,I love what you said too, about
being flexible, and that's notjust in classroom, but also as a
tutor as well. So a lot of timesthe reader profile, and that's
what drives us entirely. So whenyou're talking about in the
classroom, it might not be soobvious, but one on one in a
tutoring situation, itdefinitely is right. You're
(16:29):
working with this one student,but that flexibility still
remains, and we're driven bydata as well. You need to work
with that student, butflexibility always because the
student may surprise you in somethings, and then you also need
to be ready to pivot and move.
So this has been a reallyinteresting conversation so far
for me, in thinking abouteducators of all backgrounds who
(16:51):
might be listening, and thinkingabout ways in which they could
pick up some of this informationand carry a little bit within
their classrooms. And I'm hopingthat it's feeling doable. That's
the other piece, because whatwe've talked about so far, to
me, feels really doable.
Lindsay, you haven't suggestedor recommended anything too
outrageous. We're talking aboutdata we're going to gather
anyway. Stacy, you even talkedabout, well, look at year end
data from last year. That'shelpful, too. So these are
(17:12):
pieces that should feel like,oh, I might be able to grasp a
piece of that, even if some ofit might feel difficult. I'm
wanting to talk a little bitabout the nitty gritty. So once
that teacher gets that readerprofile, How can teachers who
maybe aren't terribly familiarweave explicit instruction in
phonics, vocabulary andcomprehension into their daily
routines? It might feeldifficult, but let's talk a
(17:34):
little bit about an example ofwhat that might look like.
Lindsay, what about what do youthink?
Lindsay Kemeny (17:40):
Yeah, well, you definitely, I mean, you're
talking about all these reading,reader profiles, but the first
thing, like, the most importantthing, is to have as strong of a
tier one as you can. Like, whatare we doing in that tier one
instruction? Because so manythings can be prevented and
helped by having that strongtier one. And as a former
(18:02):
intervention teacher, you couldsee, you could tell a difference
honestly in the students likethat. I was was, you know,
giving intervention to with theones who had strong tier one
instruction and the ones whodidn't. And so, you know, in the
lower grades, I It's okay tothink, Okay, this is the phonics
(18:24):
part of my day where my maingoal is phonics. Okay, now here
is, you know, more my vocabularyand comprehension part of the
day and and my main goals withthis lesson, you know, has to do
with that, but you're alsointegrating. And I think we've
talked about this before on thepodcast where it's like, yeah,
(18:44):
my main goal I'm in my phonicslesson. My main goal is, is
teaching those letter soundcorrespondences and that
phonemic awareness. But guesswhat? I we're going to talk
about what that word means as aswell. We're going to put it in
the sentence. We're going totalk about what that means.
We're going to read ourdecodable text. And we're not
just gonna, like, ignore what ishappening in the story of the
(19:06):
Decodable text. So we want tobridge that all in and you get
better at that over time, likeat first, especially if teaching
phonics explicitly is new toyou, it might be overwhelming to
think, Oh, also, all these otherthings added in. But so you
might just do, you know, onelittle thing at a time, but
(19:27):
like, as you get better, andthat will come and you'll be
like, Oh yes, okay, or oh mygosh, I have so many English
learners. I need to do a lot. Ineed to have a lot of that tier
one vocabulary. I need to embeda lot of that into my phonics,
because what's the point if theydon't know what you're talking
about, right? So, you know, Ithink this is where it's it's an
(19:50):
art. You take what you know andyou learn how to integrate other
things into it.
Donell Pons (19:57):
And Stacy thinking about that, what are some of the
challenges? That new teachershave, you probably see things
that maybe are difficult orchallenging for new teachers.
What are some of those thingsthat might be difficult for the
new teacher in the classroomwhen we're talking about all
this?
Stacy Hurst (20:10):
Well, maybe because I'm just myopically focused
right now on on that assessmentdata and how to translate it
into targeted instruction, but Ido think that it is how to gain
a sense of that reader profile,right of that reader's profile
and everyone's different. We dohave assessment, and I think
(20:33):
assessment is key here, sohelping teachers understand that
assessment and the value that itcan bring. And I know Lindsay.
I've heard you say this amillion times. There's no point
in looking at data if you're notgoing to interpret it like and
you can have and I'll just useterminology that is probably
familiar with. People who usethe cadence or DIBELS or
(20:54):
something like that, becausethey color code the data. So the
students who are in the redcategory, which we would call
intensive. You can have 20students in that zone, and they
all have different reasons.
They're there, right? So if youfind, if you find that you're
perplexed about what ishappening with the student,
(21:15):
maybe look at the assessment,not necessarily ones that have
already been given that you'remade to use, but choosing one
that will help you get to thethe profile of that student,
what they really need, and avery good starting place are
these theoretical concepts thatwe've been learning about, like
the simple view of reading, forexample. Are there deficits in
(21:37):
the decoding realm? Are theredeficits in the language realm?
And if so, find assessment thatwill match up with that and find
out what they need ininstruction. And then what do
you need to teach? And I knowI'm oversimplifying this, but we
talked about all those resourceswith structured literacy, but
also Scarborough reading rope,that's what you need to be
(21:58):
teaching to help inform and helpthose strands come together for
the student. So I would say itcan be overwhelming to know
which assessments to use and howto interpret the data, but once
you can do that, the story tellsitself. It really does, and you
really will know what thatstudent needs. So take us a step
Donell Pons (22:21):
further, and both of you can answer this one, but
Stacy, if you want to pick itup, because you kind of brought
us to the door, and I'm going totake us through. So for that
teacher who says, Great, I'velooked at my data. I do have I
see these areas, I'm getting apicture. But how do I teach
this? So it doesn't feel likeI'm doing pull out constantly
for those because that'softentimes what I hear from
teachers is, well, I would haveto be doing pull out all the
(22:42):
time. And all the time. What'sour response to that?
Stacy Hurst (22:45):
Yeah, well, developmentally, what needs to
happen in the brain needs tohappen for everybody, right? So
it really is for some students,if you're doing, if you're
addressing those issues wholeclass, and you do look at your
data whole class, you can say,you know, I have many students
with this challenge, so I'm itwould be appropriate to address
(23:07):
it in tier one, depending onwhat it is, as well. You Why not
take a few minutes to address itin tier one? It will be a review
for some. It will not be harmfulto those students who already
have mastered whatever you'refocusing on. There are probably
many ways to look at that. AndI'm sure Lindsay could add more
context, because she's in thethick of it. But that would be,
(23:29):
initially, what I would say,
Lindsay Kemeny (23:30):
Yeah, I would agree, like you can look at
patterns across all yourstudents to say, oh, yeah, okay.
Like 60% of them, or 70% ofthem, you know, didn't do too
well here, or could use supporthere, and that can help inform
what you do. Also, I wouldn'tjump like at the beginning of
(23:50):
the year. You know, sometimesyou have a lot of students in
red or yellow, and when I saythat, I'm talking about the
Acadians, but like, wherethey're well below or below
benchmark, but some of thosestudents are going to come up
just with strong tier one, orlike when I taught second grade,
(24:11):
and I share this a lot, in apresentation where I started a
class wide reading intervention,because I had so many students
that were so far behind and andSome of that, you know that
class wide intervention and justyour class wide instruction
really helped shrink the amountof students who were below or
well below, and and so then,okay, that's much more
(24:33):
manageable to be thinking, Oh,I've got about five students
that I'm like, really providingmore Intense intervention for
than, like half your class. So,yeah, I definitely think looking
at patterns and again, like mybest defense, my first line of
defense is a strong, strong,strong tier one.
Donell Pons (24:51):
Yeah, absolutely that explicit, systematic
instruction with all thosecomponents. What's interesting
when you two are both talking,yeah, I'm thinking of older.
Students. So there might befolks who are thinking about,
what do you do once a student isolder? Here's what's really
interesting. As an Englishteacher, I learned very quickly
that when there are readingchallenges, and they're pretty
widespread, which you'lloftentimes find, like, say, a
(25:13):
whole seventh grade class, andyou've got a large number of
students who are struggling withbasic skills of reading and
writing. So they're coming outof other schools, feeder
schools, that probably didn'thave good instruction. So that's
why you'll be seeing quite a fewstudents oftentimes. I was in a
situation like that for one ofmy first teaching opportunities
in English, and I realized thatthat was happening. I was
(25:35):
getting a whole lot of studentsthat hadn't received basic
skills. And so there I did thevery same thing you guys are
talking about. Well, if the datais telling me which it did, told
me that my students need helpwith these basic skills, then
I'm going there. I'm going toteach what my students need.
Now, others would say, butdidn't you have an expectation
of grade level material? And Idid, and so I was creating
(25:56):
scaffolds to help my students beable to meet that text. And was
I able to Yes, we were able todo it. So it took some thought.
Obviously, it took a lot ofeffort on my part because I
hadn't received the training.
You guys are so lucky becauseyou have the podcast and so many
other resources. So yay for you.
But early in those days, thiswas new information, really new
(26:17):
information. We've all talkedabout how we came to be here,
and it was, you know, differentroutes to get here. None of it
was direct for any of us. Ithink we've all talked about
having gone through teacherprograms that taught us a lot of
really good things, none ofwhich had to do with reading.
And in the end, we found outreading was essential, and was
probably the key component for alot of our students. And so I
was just thinking how much thisapplies also to older students.
(26:40):
Then you meet them where theyare, and figure out how to help
them get the skills that theyneed. And there are resources
for that as well. This hasreally got me thinking you guys
about I mean, first of all,would love to have any of my
children in any of yourclassrooms at any time. That
would have been great. And Stacywould love to have been a
teacher in your teacher prepprogram would have been
fantastic for me. But justthinking, for educators who are
(27:04):
like, Okay, you guys have gottenme excited. This feels really,
really good. How do you maintainmomentum? So we might get
excited, and it might bechallenging, but we're obviously
going to get to some hurdles,and you guys know that those
hurdles exist. What's youradvice for that person who's
listening to say, Yes, I'mexcited now, and I think I even
have a focus. But what happenswhen three weeks in I run out of
(27:26):
steam a little bit and thingsget difficult because we've all
been there, what are somerecommendations that you have to
kind of keep the momentum going?
Stacy, what do you think?
Stacy Hurst (27:34):
And I'm gonna, yeah, mine will be a little bit
more high level. And I'mthinking about about teachers in
the classroom right now, I wouldsay, be very clear on whatever
area you're resetting or wantingto focus on, set a goal, and I
think that is motivating,because if you see progress
(27:54):
towards that goal, then that isgoing to maintain that momentum
or energy and keep you going.
And if you're not seeing theprogress, that's okay too.
Realign right? Ask yourself thequestions, am I giving the right
kind of assessment? What can Ichange in my instruction? And
there are a lot of resources,but I would say that, and then
(28:15):
looking for the wins, lookingfor. I you know what? This is.
One thing I am actually teachingmy students to do in their
profile work too, because we areso conditioned to look for the
weaknesses. We're so conditionedto look for what is a student
need, what does the studentneed? But their strengths also
(28:35):
help inform those weaknesses. Solooking for those bright spots,
what can your students do? Whathave you seen change as a result
of your teaching? Right thatthey couldn't do at the
beginning of the year? One thingthat I did for writing my
students wrote every day, and II knew of srsd, but I did not
(28:56):
apply it in my classroom. Iwish, like you're saying,
Daniel, I wish I had had thatinformation when I was teaching.
But we did write every day, andI put date stamps in their
journal, and like, over thecourse of a year, you could just
pull those and look at how muchprogress your students have just
made in that area. So lookingfor that progress. Don't get so
(29:19):
hung up on what you feel like,even as a teacher, your
weaknesses look for your ownstrengths, too. Glows and grows,
we call them, but and set a goaland measure it and work towards
it.
Lindsay Kemeny (29:35):
Yeah. And I would say, okay, so to keep your
momentum going, I would say,find a friend who you someone
safe that you can vent to.
Because I think we all need,like, you know, we all need,
sometimes, to let a little steamout, right? So a safe place
where you can do that, but alsosomeone that inspires you. And
(29:57):
kind of. Encourages you to keepgoing when it does get tough.
And I would say, like, I lovedoing pre assessments, my
assessments as early in the yearas possible, because that really
keeps me going to see thegrowth. I love doing a pre
(30:18):
assessment in writing like thatfirst week of school. And you
know, maybe after three weeksyou're not going to see the
hugest jump, but maybe after sixto 10 weeks, you are. And for
me, it's so motivating to belike, that's because of me,
like, that's because of what Itaught them. And it won't be
(30:39):
perfect, but you still, you seeimprovements in, like, their
letter formation, theirhandwriting and spacing, the
content, the, you know, thespelling. I think it's really
motivating to me. Same with, youknow, with like, first grade, we
start the year like, with theletter names and sounds, because
(31:00):
they don't all come in knowingor remembering that from
kindergarten. And that's onethat's really fun, that you will
see a difference. And I remembereven just last year where I
assessed a certain student onhow many letter names and sounds
he did, and then I normallywouldn't assess that the very
(31:21):
next week, but I did, because Iwas a little frustrated that
there was a problem with ourbeginning of the year screener,
and they still hadn'tadministered it. And I was like,
it's not gonna be as accurate,because they've been in school
learning. And so, like, a weeklater, you know, I assessed him,
and he had like, nine moreletter names and sounds than he
(31:42):
did the week before. And I'mlike, I mean, that is exciting
when you like, can see thoseresults. So for me, that really
helps to keep me going and giveme momentum. And even if it's a
puzzle, like, if you're like, ohmy gosh, this, this student,
hasn't made huge growth. Well,look at it as like, you know, be
(32:03):
the detective. Figure it out.
I've got to do something, maybedifferent, maybe more
intentional, maybe more time,maybe smaller group. What can I
do to figure this out? So Idon't know. Those things help me
to keep going.
Stacy Hurst (32:20):
Donnell, I have a question for you, because you're
in a you tutor like you don'tnecessarily have a you tutor all
year, right? Year round. So yourstudents have a reset, in the
sense that some of them are inschool and they start a new
year, but you are consistentlywith them. So I guess. And as
(32:43):
Lindsay is you and I have beentalking about this too, I can't
help but think of some thingslike the summer slide, which
Donnell, I know you prevent foryour students that are in school
like they're continuouslygrowing because they're getting
your your instruction. But howdo you like? What does reset
mean for you in that situation,and how do you maintain that
(33:05):
momentum? Because you are withthem all the time.
Donell Pons (33:10):
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, because as I'm
listening to both of you, thingsresonate that also are
applicable within a tutoringsetting as well, and it's those
you know, celebrating thosegains that you see, making sure
that you're you are takingopportunities to recognize that
for you and for the student,right, to keep them motivated.
(33:30):
And then I also think interest,maintaining interest, can be
challenging in a tutoringsetting, because it's you and
that student. You're notchanging a new teacher and
setting every year that kind ofgives it a new glow, right?
Maybe, maybe there are thingsyou liked better about the year
before, but there are new thingsthat you gain. It's just you and
that student, right? For whichcan be four years, depending on
the difficulties and challengesand what is you're trying to
(33:53):
accomplish with a student. So itcan be the two of you for years.
And for me, that's been thebigger challenge. Is maintaining
interest, helping my studentmaintain interest, because it's
really great the beginning, whenyou get a bunch of new skills
that you didn't have before, andyou can really grab a student's
attention by being able to teachthem things that somebody else
was unable to because theydidn't have the background to
help their student. So you getmight get their attention rather
(34:14):
quickly, and they glob right on,like, oh my gosh, I'm learning
these things for the first time,maintaining that over the next
so many years, as you increaseyour student skill, that can be
tricky, that can be challenging,because they also, not only are
they getting older, and the twoof you have been together a
while, their interests arechanging too, right? These
people are maturing. Yourstudents are maturing.
(34:35):
Oftentimes, I get students whoare already for fifth grade and
still reading it like that, evena pre reader skill. I mean, I've
had some students, it's justbeen really very, very difficult
to receive a student in fourthor fifth grade who still is a
pre reader and to take thatstudent so early gains are very
great for that student. They'revery interested in the
beginning, but they still have alot of ground to be made up and
(34:58):
and, but with that. I always saywe set goals, because it's
always asking the student, asthey mature and get older, what
is it that you would like toaccomplish? So I think, as a
tutor, that becomes a lot of thefocus and attention is helping
your student be part of thatlearning journey, and having
them have some some sort of sayover it by saying, Well, I would
(35:18):
really like to be able to dothis or that. I'd like to be
able to read this text. Myfriends have always read it. I
would like to attempt it. So wetalk about what it would take to
get there, and then we worktowards those things. The other
thing is, I think pickingmaterials or choosing materials
that are interesting to thestudent and providing background
knowledge for the students, sothey feel like they're really
(35:39):
gaining something, not justlearning the skills which you're
teaching that explicit,systematic we're teaching the
phonics and the phonemicawareness, perhaps if needed,
morphology, vocabulary, syntax,but we're doing it within the
context where they feel likethey're really gaining
something, so that when they goback into a classroom, they feel
enriched. So they're bringingsomething, maybe additional into
a classroom for the time thatthey've had to spend outside of
(36:01):
the classroom. Those are thekind of the challenges I run
into.
Stacy Hurst (36:05):
Thank you for answering that question, and I
think it kind of brings to lighttoo that a certain percentage of
our students are going to havethose long term needs that are
more intensive than thetypically developing reader, and
as it no matter the role youplay in that child's life, it's
(36:25):
more important to focus on thoseglows and to make sure you're
because it's a long road, right?
And Lindsay, I know you've hadstudents that you've done a lot
for, too, and then get they youhave to pass them on. And you
know that their their journey tobeing a proficient reader is
more uphill than others, and soI think that's an important
(36:47):
point. Thank you for answeringthat question. Yeah.
Donell Pons (36:51):
And you know, Stacy, it's interesting because
I just had a conversation I'vementioned many times my son, who
has dyslexia now he's older.
He's in his 20s. He's doingcollege. We had this
conversation just the other day,which is really interesting. He
brought it up himself, talkingabout, when was it? He was
asking me, because, of course,as you say, the journey was
long. And he said, When was it,Mom, that you noticed that I
finally got it? And I said, Whatdo you mean by got it? And he
(37:16):
said that I was reading, that Iwas able to read fluently, and
that I was enjoying it. When didyou notice? I thought that was
really interesting. I had to. Isaid, Wow, that's a really great
question. I've got to thinkabout that, because there was so
much work. And I thought back,okay, let's see. It definitely
wasn't fifth, sixth, seventh,eighth, and we did some middle
school tutoring. Hmm. I said,Boy, I don't think I really
(37:39):
noticed until about high school,ninth or 10th grade, and my son
said for him, it felt like aclick, because he said it was
just all hard work. And he said,that's all I remember. It wasn't
a day that I went to tutoring,left tutoring and said, Boy, I
feel like I'm there. That neverhappened. He said it was, it was
gradual, and then just sort ofhe realized that he was reading
(38:00):
something for enjoyment it. Hehad picked it up to read it for
enjoyment. He said it was justkind of gradual. So I thought
that was really interesting, thetime and effort that some of the
students, like, I say he hasdyslexia, some of our students
will have to put forth in orderto become if, if it's their
desire, that's the thing too.
You have to ask that student,because they have some autonomy
(38:22):
along in this, if it's theirdesire to continue with this
kind of effort. But he reallydid want to his siblings were
reading, and it was something ofvalue to his to those he was
around. So he wanted it, but hehe does now have it today. The
amount of work that it took,though, was pretty
extraordinary. So this has beena fantastic conversation. Thank
you so much. I mean, it's got metaking back to some of the key
(38:45):
pieces that we brought from lastseason, and bringing them and
refreshing them for the resetfor this season, for classrooms
in any sort of educationalsetting where we're approaching
teaching, reading. I'm justwondering if there's anything
any of you want to add that wedidn't touch on. Did we get to
everything you wanted to say?
Lindsay Kemeny (39:03):
I think so. I mean, there's always more I
could talk about when we allcould, but like, specifically
thinking about this, like, backto school. Like, I kind of think
of resetting back to school.
What do I have to do at thebeginning of the year? Which
certainly is monumental. There'slike, a huge list, but, you
know, I talked about, one of thefirst things I like to do is
(39:25):
looking at that data, groupingmy students, making my seating
chart, knowing that it's all canchange and it will change,
looking at like, if I havestudents on IEPs, looking over
those IEPs before the sosometimes when we think back to
school, we think of all the likeputting names on everything,
(39:45):
setting up the classroom, butthere's like this whole other
side. And I can do this otherside earlier, because I have to
wait till like the very lastsecond to put names on things,
because sometimes you getsomeone who registers like.
Like, the day of the open house,and then you have to, like, redo
everything and re alphabetizeyour you know, anyways, so, but
it's good, because I can usethis opportunity to do those
(40:08):
other things. Look at the data,look at the IEPs, look at
special challenges. I know somepeople like it just to be fresh.
And like all the students, it'slike a blank slate. I like to
look at, like, whatinterventions, what comments did
their teacher put in from lastyear? I want to know about the
extreme behaviors. And I feellike I'm pretty good with taking
(40:31):
what another teacher says withthe grain of salt, right? Like,
but for me, it's helpful toknow, oh my gosh, this teacher
really struggled with thestudent. So I've got, I'm going
to be very intentional when Imeet that student at back to
school night. I'm going to makesure, like, of course, I want to
be greet and talk to everystudent, but I need to make sure
I have some back and forth withthat student. And like, start
(40:53):
building that relationship. Youknow, sometimes I have severe,
different health challengesstudents have, or things I need
to be aware of. And then I guessanother thing I would say is,
like, looking at my schedule andlike, this is what I hate about
the beginning of the year, issometimes like, you're waiting
for your administration to getyou the schedule, and someone
(41:14):
complains about it, and then itlike, changes a couple hours
later, and then it changes acouple hours later, and you're
like, just recess, and you're beokay, like, so, like, once I get
that in, I like, you know, thenI want to, like, schedule my
block and how everything's gonnago. So those are just some of
those important back to schoolthings that might get overlooked
(41:36):
when you're just thinking about,you know, back to school, lists,
parent welcome letters, youknow, all the things.
Donell Pons (41:45):
Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay, I like, I like youmentioning when you talk about
making sure that you touch basewith a student who might have a
particular need or something,and taking the time to do that,
I always really appreciatedthat, as the parent of a child
in a classroom thinking that's ateacher who understands that not
every student needs the samething at the same time, so a
little extra attention here isgoing to make things run
smoothly for everybody. Sothat's really nice that you
(42:07):
mentioned that maybe calm down alittle bit if you see a teacher
making extra effort here,because overall it makes
everything run smoother. I loveto see that sometimes
Lindsay Kemeny (42:15):
it's nice too, because sometimes there are,
like, pretty big needs, and it'skind of nice to know earlier in
the summer, so that I can wrapmy head around it and maybe do
some extra reading about it.
Like, you know, I've had astudent with select mutism
before, or, you know, I've justthese different unique
situations that it's nice tohave some knowledge about. And
Stacy Hurst (42:35):
of course, I'm going to be thinking about that
first year teacher, or maybethose in their provisional years
of teaching, and I think so foryou seasoned teachers, these
things are going to be likeprobably old hat. But there are
some pieces of advice I give tomy students. A this is your
first year. Play the rookiecard. Do it just because
(42:58):
otherwise you risk overstressing yourself and burning
out early, just this is yourfirst time getting to know what
those students are capable of,getting a sense of your whole
class. But here are some ways toexpedite that feeling of
excitement and confidence. Getto know each of your students
individually. Lindsay alreadymentioned, get to know their
(43:20):
data, I would get a copy of lastyear's yearbook, memorize their
faces and their names, know themwhen they walk through the door
day one, names and face if youhave the opportunity to reach
out to their parents before dothat. But also within the first
weeks of school, I would make achecklist for every student and
(43:41):
make sure that I noticedsomething positive about that
student, and reached out to theparent to share that this is
what I'm noticing with yourstudent. Those kind of things
will make it go, make your yeargo so much smoother. You need to
not only know your yourstudents, reader profile, but
you need to know them as aperson, individually and done
(44:03):
elements of yet what you weresaying about making learning
relevant will be helpful there,if you know what their interests
are, and you will see, I knowthis. In my first grade
classroom we had, depending onthe year, there was a lot of
interest in the same thing. Soyou could turn that. Take that
into your whole class as well,and then lean on those people.
(44:25):
Lindsay said it find yourpeople. Find somebody that you
can turn to as a mentor and askquestions. Don't be afraid of
that. Get to know yourinstructional coaches, your
speech and language pathologistsin the building, and ask
questions you are a detectivewhen you have a student that is
stumping you. And finally, Iwould say, you know more than
(44:47):
you think you do. And thatactually goes for any teacher,
no matter how long they've beenteaching. You know more than you
actually think you do. So trustthat
Lindsay Kemeny (44:56):
sometimes, the more I learn, the more I think I
don't know. Actually, Jason.
Stacy Hurst (45:00):
Good sign that you know more than you think you do.
That's what you look for. It'sthe person who has all the
answers that is suspect, right?
You know?
Donell Pons (45:09):
And I would add, for those who tutor, who are
helping support students outsideof a school setting, I always
like the beginning of the yearto help the student get reset
for how they're going to besupported, for all their
literacy and reading needs, andI like them to give me a little
report of what their what theythink their challenges are going
to be. So I give them a week toget their schedule under their
belt. Kind of think about it.
And then we start looking atstrategies and ways to help
(45:31):
them. And they set goals. So wealso set goals about this may be
challenging right now. Wherewould you like to see yourself
in the next three months withthat class? And then we check
back to see how do you feel. Andoften, you know, obviously we
make progress, and the studentsare always happy to do that.
That's a way in which you cansupport the learning in school
as well. So that's great. Thishas been fun. Thank you, Stacy
and Lindsay. It's been awesome.
Stacy Hurst (45:55):
Yeah, thank you, and thank you for the topic. I
do get excited about the idea ofresetting. I love it, and I'm
gonna, I'm gonna re listen tothis episode and gather things
that it will help me in myupcoming school year, and I'm
sure you all will too. We havean exciting season ahead. Some
of the things that we talkedabout today, we will have some
(46:17):
guests that will directlyaddress some of those things. So
we hope that part of your resetis resetting time to listen to
this podcast and the many othersthat will help inform our
teaching. Help inform all of ourteaching. I guess I should say
so. Thank you for joining us,and hopefully we will have you
(46:38):
as a guest on our next episodeof literacy talks.
Welcome to this episode of literacy talks. It is
(00:03):
our first episode of our newseason, and we're so happy
you're here. My name is StacyHurst, and I'm joined by Donnell
Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, and weare going to title this episode
reading reset, and we're goingto let Donnell lead the
conversation. So Donnell,without further ado, we will
turn the time over to you.
Great.
Donell Pons (00:25):
Thank you, Stacy, I think this is a really fun
topic. It's fun to think of areset. And I think we all kind
of decided that would be a goodway to frame up, looking at this
coming year as a restart, areset, an opportunity, and
looking at it that way, everyyear is an opportunity in your
teaching. And so that's whatwe're going to discuss today, is
(00:47):
this reset and a reset inreading, and how we approach
reading. And so this can be forany grade as well. Want to make
that clear that if you're aneducator that's teaching high
school students, if you'resomeone who works with college
students that you know arestruggling with reading and
writing, there will be somethingfor you to take away. So that's
also stay tuned and keeplistening, because there will be
something for you. And it's howto reframe and how to reset with
(01:11):
back to school and the scienceof reading, and that's one way
to think of it as well. And sothere'll be lots of references
to resources that are free andavailable. Some of them will be
past podcasts that we've had.
We're just reminding you thatmaybe there might be some
resources there, and then maybesome books and things that we've
also talked about in podcasts inthe past. And maybe, if you've
looked at those, it might be atime to pull them out and take a
(01:32):
look at them again and say,yeah, yeah, and refresh yourself
with some of that information,because we realize there is a
lot of information. But just tobegin, when we talk about the
reading reset, and we want tosay, let's talk about, why is
this important? Why would areading reset be important when
we're thinking about back toschool? I'm going to throw that
to both Stacy and Lindsay andLindsay, maybe I'll have you
(01:55):
lead
Lindsay Kemeny (01:57):
out. Well, I you know, it makes me think of
reflection, and it's alwaysimportant to take some time to
reflect on your own teachingpractice and maybe what you're
doing well and what you can do alittle better. So I think we've
all had the experience wherewe've had a rather big reset,
where for me, when I learnedabout evidence based literacy
(02:20):
instruction and how some of thethings I was doing were not
what's best for kids, was notaligned with research. So I had
to do a lot of shifting andchanging. But then every year I
feel like I get a little better.
And you know, every year you'rekind of deciding, okay, what,
what am I doing moving forward?
(02:44):
Am I changing anything? What amI focusing on? What do I want to
be a little better at this year?
So, you know, I love, I loveback to school time. It's also a
stressful time, but I think it'san exciting time, because it is
you're, it's like you'restarting off with this fresh,
you know, slate and like here,here we go, here's what I'm
going to do this year.
Stacy Hurst (03:06):
I echo that, and I think back to when I was a an
elementary student myself, andthe night before the first day
of school was more exciting tome than Christmas Eve. I think
it was just and I try toapproach that as a teacher, I
tried to approach the New Yearthat same way. And I do remember
(03:26):
my time in the in the elementaryclassroom every month kind of
Marches along, right? And youfeel like at some point you're
just keeping up and and doingthe best you can do, and making
notes of, Oh, next year when weget to this point in
instruction, I want to do this,or whatever. I have had a very
(03:48):
interesting transition as I'mteaching higher ed, because we
get to do that every semester.
But I think I've also seen thevalue of that reset mindset
every semester. Just and itdoesn't have to be a total
overhaul, just making thoselittle changes that can make a
big difference things you'vebeen wanting to focus on, and
maybe just choosing one to notbe overwhelmed and say, Okay,
(04:12):
I'm gonna I'm gonna make surethat I focus on this and make
improvements
Donell Pons (04:18):
for listeners just thinking About so what are those
elements that we're talkingabout? We're going to also have
you direct your attention backto some past season that we had
where we talked about structuredliteracy, and we really broke
down all of those elements, andwe had some fantastic guests on
too that are really expertswithin each of those domains to
talk about the importance of it.
How does it integrate? Becausewe talked a lot about structured
(04:40):
literacy and integration. So Ilike that each of us talking
about, you can emphasize apiece, and maybe you need to do
a little more here, and thendrawing it all back together is
key, is critical. And so forthose who are listening and
they're saying, okay, refresh meat those structured literacy
pieces, maybe that's new for me.
Maybe I'm focused on a piece,but don't really remember. But
the other pieces we're talkingabout with structured literacy,
(05:02):
the elements are phonemicawareness, good, solid pa
phonics at the foundation of it,orthography, morphology,
vocabulary, syntax, and not justcomprehension, but discourse
comprehension, which Louisespear swirling in her book on
structured literacy, is quick topoint out, it's discourse
(05:22):
comprehension, so that'slistening and reading, and it's
beyond the sentence level, soit's getting into what things
mean and getting into deepermeaning. So I thought that was
really interesting, too. AndLouise Burling, she was one of
our guests last season, too. Soif you missed that episode, I
highly recommend going back andlistening, because she is always
so good. She has her great,structured literacy book. So if
any of these pieces are new ordifferent or you want more
(05:44):
information, that would be anice place to start. So those
are the pieces that we'retalking about when we talk about
it. And then, how do you teachthat? So those are the what
we're teaching. And then, sowhat are the how pieces? Well,
it's explicit and systematic,and there's attention to the
prerequisite skills thatstudents need to have in order
to get to those other skills,and then there's good prompt
(06:06):
feedback that gives studentsreally good information. And
there's also instructionalplanning, so that's also a key
piece, and that's why this is areally great conversation,
because we can be lookingforward to those things that I
really want to emphasize thistime, that maybe I was just
getting my feet wet last yearwith my class. This year, I'm
refocusing. So those are thethings that we're talking about.
(06:27):
We're talking about, what arethe structured literacy? What's
the science of reading? What arethe evidence based practices?
That's what we're talking aboutin reading. And they're all
essential, those pieces, andthey all go together. They're
integrated, and you don't reallymiss out on any of them. But
sometimes, as we've talkedabout, maybe there's a piece
that was easier, maybe there's apiece that's a little harder.
(06:49):
And Lindsay, you've beenfantastic because you've done a
bit of writing, I should sayjust a bit of writing. Lindsay's
got a few books out to help usin this space, particularly in
that k3 space, and it's veryhelpful. But Lindsay, you had a
book that kicked you off, andthen you've also added
additional resources. But thefirst book that really got
attention for good reason,because it did provide some of
(07:10):
those. What do I do? How do Ijust do start with something
seven mighty moves. Was the bookseven mighty moves. So Lindsay,
if there is someone sitting outthere going, geez, you know,
this year, I do want to kick itup a notch. I'd like to boost
it. You really do have some goodrecommendations.
Lindsay Kemeny (07:24):
Yeah, definitely. And those you know
the it's categorized like when Iwas making changes in my
classroom and as work, as I wasworking with my son, who was
diagnosed with dyslexia, I justfound I could organize those
changes into those seven moves.
So those are those seven bigmoves or changes I made in my
classroom after learning aboutthe research, you know, one of
those teaching phonemicawareness intentionally and and
(07:48):
I had to move like several timesthere, because first I just had
to know that it was a thing, andyou had to teach it, and then I
had to refine my knowledge. Andisn't that what we're doing all
the time, especially as we'rethinking about this reading
reset, we're refining what weknow teaching phonics explicitly
is a huge one, and sometimes thescience of reading gets a bad
(08:12):
rap because people think it'sjust about phonics. But you
know, a lot of our attention andefforts went to phonics, because
that was, like, the area thatwas the weakest. So that just
makes sense to me. You know,when a patient comes into the
hospital, you've got to stop thebleeding before you focus on
(08:32):
some of the other things thatmight be wrong. And to me, that
that's kind of like like that,where we were, like, really just
expecting students to pick it upon their their own. But so
that's not the only move,though, because we had, you
know, and the seven mind movesgoes into other moves, like
being really intentional withour fluency, with our practice,
(08:55):
so students can develop fluencyusing reading strategies in a
better way in order to promotethat vocabulary and background
knowledge and understanding howbackground knowledge plays a
role into reading and puttingtext at the center all these,
all these things right come intoplay here.
Donell Pons (09:19):
Yeah. And Stacy, how about you for because pre
service teachers, that's a bigask, and you've now been doing
it for long enough to havestudents probably give you
feedback as well. They probablyget out to their placements, and
you get some feedback. And I betthat's very useful and helpful.
How have you adapted what youteach Stacy? What are kind of
shifts and modes that you've hadas well?
Stacy Hurst (09:40):
Yeah, well, you know, it is all based on, well,
I wouldn't say all, but much ofit is that feedback and holding
it up to what I know aboutstructured literacy instruction,
and I have the added complexityof teaching my students the
components of structuredliteracy at this. Same time as
(10:00):
I'm teaching them how to teachthem, preparing them to be able
to do that. So a lot of myadjustments at this point are
really related to refining thehow and and their knowledge
about some components of it,too. But I think one of the
things that I'm focusing on, forexample, this coming year, is
(10:23):
just refining the way that mystudents look at data and what
they can glean from that. Ithink that's so important early
on, to get a lens on how tointerpret those scores or what
you're seeing from your studentand how that can guide
instruction. So that's where I'mfocusing on a little bit. And we
(10:47):
do have really good alignmentwith some of our other
expectations, like they have totake a test that helps them to
apply some of that knowledgeabout the Foundations of
Reading, and then also just, youknow, their performance going
forward as a teacher, and yeah,we do get feedback and looking
(11:08):
forward to getting more, butsome of it is along the lines
of, I know, initiatives thatwill prepare in service teachers
with more information aboutstructured literacy our students
are already familiar with someof those things, which we've
gotten a lot of feedback aboutthat, but you can always refine
and that will change, right? Sojust like Lindsay was saying
(11:32):
about refining her teaching ofphonemic awareness, like we're
learning new things all thetime, but I really have seen
already if you're if you'relike, grounded in the foundation
of the science of reading, thenthose changes will not be epic.
They're going to be sometimeslarger than others, but never an
(11:53):
overhaul, right? So reset is theperfect word for that, I think.
Lindsay Kemeny (11:58):
And I just wanted you know that piggyback
on what Stacy was saying aboutdata, and it's so wonderful that
she's focusing on teaching herpre service teachers about how
to use data. We're in back toschool mode here, and that is a
big thing I do in preparationfor back to school, is I'm
(12:18):
looking at data. So I actually,I mean, you guys both know,
like, I'm a nerd and I'm a datanerd, and so one of the first
things I do I when I get my listof students for my new class is
I look at their end of yearkindergarten data. So I am going
to be doing some beginning ofthe year testing, but, you know
(12:42):
that's not going to happen dayone, and I like to just be as
prepared as possible day one. SoI go back and I look at their
end of year data, and I kind ofcategorize, I'll sort my
students into little groups ofwhat I see, who's on track
overall, who is not. And thenI'll look deeper, and I'll say,
I kind of like will list themwho, you know, got the most, and
(13:06):
the the data, the assessment weuse in my district and state is
Acadians. And I love thatreading screener, so I'll take
it, and I'll kind of groupstudents with who is, who is
reading those little CVCnonsense words like
automatically, and is alreadyblending those and just reading
(13:26):
the whole word and how many theyget in a minute, and who is not,
and about how many sounds in aminute are they getting. And so
I will look, and then thephonemic awareness assessment
too, which is like the firstsound fluency in Acadians, and
they're segmenting, and so Iwill look, and I kind of already
group my students. I know thingscan change over summer, but this
(13:51):
gives me a good starting offpoint where, and I use that
information for things like,I'll make my seating charts just
to start off. And I know, hey,students that are need a little
bit more help. I'm gonna putthem in certain places, on the
rug and at their desks where Iknow I can get there a little
(14:12):
easier. I'm gonna put them nextto someone that's a little
stronger than them. Like,there's just all these things
I'm really intentional about.
And it's like, yeah, I'm notgonna solely use that piece of
information, like things aregonna change, and I'm really
flexible, like with mygroupings, once I know my
students and we do moreassessments, things are gonna
change. But it really helps meat the beginning of the year
(14:35):
just to get an idea,
Stacy Hurst (14:38):
yeah, and I know you were piggybacking off of my
comment. Can I do that withyours too? And that is
fantastic. I just hope for mystudents that they end up doing
that as their own teachers. Butif you're in a position in a
school as an instructional coachor a literacy coach, that is
also scalable. When I was aliteracy coach, I did that for
(15:02):
my teachers. We did not wait sixweeks for all the beginning of
the year assessment to happen toput students in intervention
groups. We took the data fromthe end of year, and we had
dibbles at the time. It wasbefore cadence, and we could
start, we could hit the groundrunning. And my job I was, I
(15:23):
oversaw the paraprofessionalswho were conducting those small
groups, and was responsible forscheduling that. So you can do
that, you can start early. Wesaw great gains when you can
start those intervention groupsday one. So that's a really
good, good model, Lindsay, andif all classroom teachers were
doing that too. It would justmake many hands make light work.
(15:45):
You know,
Donell Pons (15:46):
it's interesting because I was drawn to a quote
that I had read from Louisebearling again in her structured
literacy. It was at thebeginning reader profile
experts. Remember, what you'reboth talking about are reader
profiles. Each of our studentshas a reader profile. Reader
profile experts are more likelyto recognize patterns in data
and grasp their implications.
That's both are saying that verysame thing right there. So if
(16:08):
you're looking for them, youknow what you're looking for.
That data is really important,and you do want it, and you know
what to do with it. And Lindsay,I love what you said too, about
being flexible, and that's notjust in classroom, but also as a
tutor as well. So a lot of timesthe reader profile, and that's
what drives us entirely. So whenyou're talking about in the
classroom, it might not be soobvious, but one on one in a
tutoring situation, itdefinitely is right. You're
(16:29):
working with this one student,but that flexibility still
remains, and we're driven bydata as well. You need to work
with that student, butflexibility always because the
student may surprise you in somethings, and then you also need
to be ready to pivot and move.
So this has been a reallyinteresting conversation so far
for me, in thinking abouteducators of all backgrounds who
(16:51):
might be listening, and thinkingabout ways in which they could
pick up some of this informationand carry a little bit within
their classrooms. And I'm hopingthat it's feeling doable. That's
the other piece, because whatwe've talked about so far, to
me, feels really doable.
Lindsay, you haven't suggestedor recommended anything too
outrageous. We're talking aboutdata we're going to gather
anyway. Stacy, you even talkedabout, well, look at year end
data from last year. That'shelpful, too. So these are
(17:12):
pieces that should feel like,oh, I might be able to grasp a
piece of that, even if some ofit might feel difficult. I'm
wanting to talk a little bitabout the nitty gritty. So once
that teacher gets that readerprofile, How can teachers who
maybe aren't terribly familiarweave explicit instruction in
phonics, vocabulary andcomprehension into their daily
routines? It might feeldifficult, but let's talk a
(17:34):
little bit about an example ofwhat that might look like.
Lindsay, what about what do youthink?
Lindsay Kemeny (17:40):
Yeah, well, you definitely, I mean, you're
talking about all these reading,reader profiles, but the first
thing, like, the most importantthing, is to have as strong of a
tier one as you can. Like, whatare we doing in that tier one
instruction? Because so manythings can be prevented and
helped by having that strongtier one. And as a former
(18:02):
intervention teacher, you couldsee, you could tell a difference
honestly in the students likethat. I was was, you know,
giving intervention to with theones who had strong tier one
instruction and the ones whodidn't. And so, you know, in the
lower grades, I It's okay tothink, Okay, this is the phonics
(18:24):
part of my day where my maingoal is phonics. Okay, now here
is, you know, more my vocabularyand comprehension part of the
day and and my main goals withthis lesson, you know, has to do
with that, but you're alsointegrating. And I think we've
talked about this before on thepodcast where it's like, yeah,
(18:44):
my main goal I'm in my phonicslesson. My main goal is, is
teaching those letter soundcorrespondences and that
phonemic awareness. But guesswhat? I we're going to talk
about what that word means as aswell. We're going to put it in
the sentence. We're going totalk about what that means.
We're going to read ourdecodable text. And we're not
just gonna, like, ignore what ishappening in the story of the
(19:06):
Decodable text. So we want tobridge that all in and you get
better at that over time, likeat first, especially if teaching
phonics explicitly is new toyou, it might be overwhelming to
think, Oh, also, all these otherthings added in. But so you
might just do, you know, onelittle thing at a time, but
(19:27):
like, as you get better, andthat will come and you'll be
like, Oh yes, okay, or oh mygosh, I have so many English
learners. I need to do a lot. Ineed to have a lot of that tier
one vocabulary. I need to embeda lot of that into my phonics,
because what's the point if theydon't know what you're talking
about, right? So, you know, Ithink this is where it's it's an
(19:50):
art. You take what you know andyou learn how to integrate other
things into it.
Donell Pons (19:57):
And Stacy thinking about that, what are some of the
challenges? That new teachershave, you probably see things
that maybe are difficult orchallenging for new teachers.
What are some of those thingsthat might be difficult for the
new teacher in the classroomwhen we're talking about all
this?
Stacy Hurst (20:10):
Well, maybe because I'm just myopically focused
right now on on that assessmentdata and how to translate it
into targeted instruction, but Ido think that it is how to gain
a sense of that reader profile,right of that reader's profile
and everyone's different. We dohave assessment, and I think
(20:33):
assessment is key here, sohelping teachers understand that
assessment and the value that itcan bring. And I know Lindsay.
I've heard you say this amillion times. There's no point
in looking at data if you're notgoing to interpret it like and
you can have and I'll just useterminology that is probably
familiar with. People who usethe cadence or DIBELS or
(20:54):
something like that, becausethey color code the data. So the
students who are in the redcategory, which we would call
intensive. You can have 20students in that zone, and they
all have different reasons.
They're there, right? So if youfind, if you find that you're
perplexed about what ishappening with the student,
(21:15):
maybe look at the assessment,not necessarily ones that have
already been given that you'remade to use, but choosing one
that will help you get to thethe profile of that student,
what they really need, and avery good starting place are
these theoretical concepts thatwe've been learning about, like
the simple view of reading, forexample. Are there deficits in
(21:37):
the decoding realm? Are theredeficits in the language realm?
And if so, find assessment thatwill match up with that and find
out what they need ininstruction. And then what do
you need to teach? And I knowI'm oversimplifying this, but we
talked about all those resourceswith structured literacy, but
also Scarborough reading rope,that's what you need to be
(21:58):
teaching to help inform and helpthose strands come together for
the student. So I would say itcan be overwhelming to know
which assessments to use and howto interpret the data, but once
you can do that, the story tellsitself. It really does, and you
really will know what thatstudent needs. So take us a step
Donell Pons (22:21):
further, and both of you can answer this one, but
Stacy, if you want to pick itup, because you kind of brought
us to the door, and I'm going totake us through. So for that
teacher who says, Great, I'velooked at my data. I do have I
see these areas, I'm getting apicture. But how do I teach
this? So it doesn't feel likeI'm doing pull out constantly
for those because that'softentimes what I hear from
teachers is, well, I would haveto be doing pull out all the
(22:42):
time. And all the time. What'sour response to that?
Stacy Hurst (22:45):
Yeah, well, developmentally, what needs to
happen in the brain needs tohappen for everybody, right? So
it really is for some students,if you're doing, if you're
addressing those issues wholeclass, and you do look at your
data whole class, you can say,you know, I have many students
with this challenge, so I'm itwould be appropriate to address
(23:07):
it in tier one, depending onwhat it is, as well. You Why not
take a few minutes to address itin tier one? It will be a review
for some. It will not be harmfulto those students who already
have mastered whatever you'refocusing on. There are probably
many ways to look at that. AndI'm sure Lindsay could add more
context, because she's in thethick of it. But that would be,
(23:29):
initially, what I would say,
Lindsay Kemeny (23:30):
Yeah, I would agree, like you can look at
patterns across all yourstudents to say, oh, yeah, okay.
Like 60% of them, or 70% ofthem, you know, didn't do too
well here, or could use supporthere, and that can help inform
what you do. Also, I wouldn'tjump like at the beginning of
(23:50):
the year. You know, sometimesyou have a lot of students in
red or yellow, and when I saythat, I'm talking about the
Acadians, but like, wherethey're well below or below
benchmark, but some of thosestudents are going to come up
just with strong tier one, orlike when I taught second grade,
(24:11):
and I share this a lot, in apresentation where I started a
class wide reading intervention,because I had so many students
that were so far behind and andSome of that, you know that
class wide intervention and justyour class wide instruction
really helped shrink the amountof students who were below or
well below, and and so then,okay, that's much more
(24:33):
manageable to be thinking, Oh,I've got about five students
that I'm like, really providingmore Intense intervention for
than, like half your class. So,yeah, I definitely think looking
at patterns and again, like mybest defense, my first line of
defense is a strong, strong,strong tier one.
Donell Pons (24:51):
Yeah, absolutely that explicit, systematic
instruction with all thosecomponents. What's interesting
when you two are both talking,yeah, I'm thinking of older.
Students. So there might befolks who are thinking about,
what do you do once a student isolder? Here's what's really
interesting. As an Englishteacher, I learned very quickly
that when there are readingchallenges, and they're pretty
widespread, which you'lloftentimes find, like, say, a
(25:13):
whole seventh grade class, andyou've got a large number of
students who are struggling withbasic skills of reading and
writing. So they're coming outof other schools, feeder
schools, that probably didn'thave good instruction. So that's
why you'll be seeing quite a fewstudents oftentimes. I was in a
situation like that for one ofmy first teaching opportunities
in English, and I realized thatthat was happening. I was
(25:35):
getting a whole lot of studentsthat hadn't received basic
skills. And so there I did thevery same thing you guys are
talking about. Well, if the datais telling me which it did, told
me that my students need helpwith these basic skills, then
I'm going there. I'm going toteach what my students need.
Now, others would say, butdidn't you have an expectation
of grade level material? And Idid, and so I was creating
(25:56):
scaffolds to help my students beable to meet that text. And was
I able to Yes, we were able todo it. So it took some thought.
Obviously, it took a lot ofeffort on my part because I
hadn't received the training.
You guys are so lucky becauseyou have the podcast and so many
other resources. So yay for you.
But early in those days, thiswas new information, really new
(26:17):
information. We've all talkedabout how we came to be here,
and it was, you know, differentroutes to get here. None of it
was direct for any of us. Ithink we've all talked about
having gone through teacherprograms that taught us a lot of
really good things, none ofwhich had to do with reading.
And in the end, we found outreading was essential, and was
probably the key component for alot of our students. And so I
was just thinking how much thisapplies also to older students.
(26:40):
Then you meet them where theyare, and figure out how to help
them get the skills that theyneed. And there are resources
for that as well. This hasreally got me thinking you guys
about I mean, first of all,would love to have any of my
children in any of yourclassrooms at any time. That
would have been great. And Stacywould love to have been a
teacher in your teacher prepprogram would have been
fantastic for me. But justthinking, for educators who are
(27:04):
like, Okay, you guys have gottenme excited. This feels really,
really good. How do you maintainmomentum? So we might get
excited, and it might bechallenging, but we're obviously
going to get to some hurdles,and you guys know that those
hurdles exist. What's youradvice for that person who's
listening to say, Yes, I'mexcited now, and I think I even
have a focus. But what happenswhen three weeks in I run out of
(27:26):
steam a little bit and thingsget difficult because we've all
been there, what are somerecommendations that you have to
kind of keep the momentum going?
Stacy, what do you think?
Stacy Hurst (27:34):
And I'm gonna, yeah, mine will be a little bit
more high level. And I'mthinking about about teachers in
the classroom right now, I wouldsay, be very clear on whatever
area you're resetting or wantingto focus on, set a goal, and I
think that is motivating,because if you see progress
(27:54):
towards that goal, then that isgoing to maintain that momentum
or energy and keep you going.
And if you're not seeing theprogress, that's okay too.
Realign right? Ask yourself thequestions, am I giving the right
kind of assessment? What can Ichange in my instruction? And
there are a lot of resources,but I would say that, and then
(28:15):
looking for the wins, lookingfor. I you know what? This is.
One thing I am actually teachingmy students to do in their
profile work too, because we areso conditioned to look for the
weaknesses. We're so conditionedto look for what is a student
need, what does the studentneed? But their strengths also
(28:35):
help inform those weaknesses. Solooking for those bright spots,
what can your students do? Whathave you seen change as a result
of your teaching? Right thatthey couldn't do at the
beginning of the year? One thingthat I did for writing my
students wrote every day, and II knew of srsd, but I did not
(28:56):
apply it in my classroom. Iwish, like you're saying,
Daniel, I wish I had had thatinformation when I was teaching.
But we did write every day, andI put date stamps in their
journal, and like, over thecourse of a year, you could just
pull those and look at how muchprogress your students have just
made in that area. So lookingfor that progress. Don't get so
(29:19):
hung up on what you feel like,even as a teacher, your
weaknesses look for your ownstrengths, too. Glows and grows,
we call them, but and set a goaland measure it and work towards
it.
Lindsay Kemeny (29:35):
Yeah. And I would say, okay, so to keep your
momentum going, I would say,find a friend who you someone
safe that you can vent to.
Because I think we all need,like, you know, we all need,
sometimes, to let a little steamout, right? So a safe place
where you can do that, but alsosomeone that inspires you. And
(29:57):
kind of. Encourages you to keepgoing when it does get tough.
And I would say, like, I lovedoing pre assessments, my
assessments as early in the yearas possible, because that really
keeps me going to see thegrowth. I love doing a pre
(30:18):
assessment in writing like thatfirst week of school. And you
know, maybe after three weeksyou're not going to see the
hugest jump, but maybe after sixto 10 weeks, you are. And for
me, it's so motivating to belike, that's because of me,
like, that's because of what Itaught them. And it won't be
(30:39):
perfect, but you still, you seeimprovements in, like, their
letter formation, theirhandwriting and spacing, the
content, the, you know, thespelling. I think it's really
motivating to me. Same with, youknow, with like, first grade, we
start the year like, with theletter names and sounds, because
(31:00):
they don't all come in knowingor remembering that from
kindergarten. And that's onethat's really fun, that you will
see a difference. And I remembereven just last year where I
assessed a certain student onhow many letter names and sounds
he did, and then I normallywouldn't assess that the very
(31:21):
next week, but I did, because Iwas a little frustrated that
there was a problem with ourbeginning of the year screener,
and they still hadn'tadministered it. And I was like,
it's not gonna be as accurate,because they've been in school
learning. And so, like, a weeklater, you know, I assessed him,
and he had like, nine moreletter names and sounds than he
(31:42):
did the week before. And I'mlike, I mean, that is exciting
when you like, can see thoseresults. So for me, that really
helps to keep me going and giveme momentum. And even if it's a
puzzle, like, if you're like, ohmy gosh, this, this student,
hasn't made huge growth. Well,look at it as like, you know, be
(32:03):
the detective. Figure it out.
I've got to do something, maybedifferent, maybe more
intentional, maybe more time,maybe smaller group. What can I
do to figure this out? So Idon't know. Those things help me
to keep going.
Stacy Hurst (32:20):
Donnell, I have a question for you, because you're
in a you tutor like you don'tnecessarily have a you tutor all
year, right? Year round. So yourstudents have a reset, in the
sense that some of them are inschool and they start a new
year, but you are consistentlywith them. So I guess. And as
(32:43):
Lindsay is you and I have beentalking about this too, I can't
help but think of some thingslike the summer slide, which
Donnell, I know you prevent foryour students that are in school
like they're continuouslygrowing because they're getting
your your instruction. But howdo you like? What does reset
mean for you in that situation,and how do you maintain that
(33:05):
momentum? Because you are withthem all the time.
Donell Pons (33:10):
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, because as I'm
listening to both of you, thingsresonate that also are
applicable within a tutoringsetting as well, and it's those
you know, celebrating thosegains that you see, making sure
that you're you are takingopportunities to recognize that
for you and for the student,right, to keep them motivated.
(33:30):
And then I also think interest,maintaining interest, can be
challenging in a tutoringsetting, because it's you and
that student. You're notchanging a new teacher and
setting every year that kind ofgives it a new glow, right?
Maybe, maybe there are thingsyou liked better about the year
before, but there are new thingsthat you gain. It's just you and
that student, right? For whichcan be four years, depending on
the difficulties and challengesand what is you're trying to
(33:53):
accomplish with a student. So itcan be the two of you for years.
And for me, that's been thebigger challenge. Is maintaining
interest, helping my studentmaintain interest, because it's
really great the beginning, whenyou get a bunch of new skills
that you didn't have before, andyou can really grab a student's
attention by being able to teachthem things that somebody else
was unable to because theydidn't have the background to
help their student. So you getmight get their attention rather
(34:14):
quickly, and they glob right on,like, oh my gosh, I'm learning
these things for the first time,maintaining that over the next
so many years, as you increaseyour student skill, that can be
tricky, that can be challenging,because they also, not only are
they getting older, and the twoof you have been together a
while, their interests arechanging too, right? These
people are maturing. Yourstudents are maturing.
(34:35):
Oftentimes, I get students whoare already for fifth grade and
still reading it like that, evena pre reader skill. I mean, I've
had some students, it's justbeen really very, very difficult
to receive a student in fourthor fifth grade who still is a
pre reader and to take thatstudent so early gains are very
great for that student. They'revery interested in the
beginning, but they still have alot of ground to be made up and
(34:58):
and, but with that. I always saywe set goals, because it's
always asking the student, asthey mature and get older, what
is it that you would like toaccomplish? So I think, as a
tutor, that becomes a lot of thefocus and attention is helping
your student be part of thatlearning journey, and having
them have some some sort of sayover it by saying, Well, I would
(35:18):
really like to be able to dothis or that. I'd like to be
able to read this text. Myfriends have always read it. I
would like to attempt it. So wetalk about what it would take to
get there, and then we worktowards those things. The other
thing is, I think pickingmaterials or choosing materials
that are interesting to thestudent and providing background
knowledge for the students, sothey feel like they're really
(35:39):
gaining something, not justlearning the skills which you're
teaching that explicit,systematic we're teaching the
phonics and the phonemicawareness, perhaps if needed,
morphology, vocabulary, syntax,but we're doing it within the
context where they feel likethey're really gaining
something, so that when they goback into a classroom, they feel
enriched. So they're bringingsomething, maybe additional into
a classroom for the time thatthey've had to spend outside of
(36:01):
the classroom. Those are thekind of the challenges I run
into.
Stacy Hurst (36:05):
Thank you for answering that question, and I
think it kind of brings to lighttoo that a certain percentage of
our students are going to havethose long term needs that are
more intensive than thetypically developing reader, and
as it no matter the role youplay in that child's life, it's
(36:25):
more important to focus on thoseglows and to make sure you're
because it's a long road, right?
And Lindsay, I know you've hadstudents that you've done a lot
for, too, and then get they youhave to pass them on. And you
know that their their journey tobeing a proficient reader is
more uphill than others, and soI think that's an important
(36:47):
point. Thank you for answeringthat question. Yeah.
Donell Pons (36:51):
And you know, Stacy, it's interesting because
I just had a conversation I'vementioned many times my son, who
has dyslexia now he's older.
He's in his 20s. He's doingcollege. We had this
conversation just the other day,which is really interesting. He
brought it up himself, talkingabout, when was it? He was
asking me, because, of course,as you say, the journey was
long. And he said, When was it,Mom, that you noticed that I
finally got it? And I said, Whatdo you mean by got it? And he
(37:16):
said that I was reading, that Iwas able to read fluently, and
that I was enjoying it. When didyou notice? I thought that was
really interesting. I had to. Isaid, Wow, that's a really great
question. I've got to thinkabout that, because there was so
much work. And I thought back,okay, let's see. It definitely
wasn't fifth, sixth, seventh,eighth, and we did some middle
school tutoring. Hmm. I said,Boy, I don't think I really
(37:39):
noticed until about high school,ninth or 10th grade, and my son
said for him, it felt like aclick, because he said it was
just all hard work. And he said,that's all I remember. It wasn't
a day that I went to tutoring,left tutoring and said, Boy, I
feel like I'm there. That neverhappened. He said it was, it was
gradual, and then just sort ofhe realized that he was reading
(38:00):
something for enjoyment it. Hehad picked it up to read it for
enjoyment. He said it was justkind of gradual. So I thought
that was really interesting, thetime and effort that some of the
students, like, I say he hasdyslexia, some of our students
will have to put forth in orderto become if, if it's their
desire, that's the thing too.
You have to ask that student,because they have some autonomy
(38:22):
along in this, if it's theirdesire to continue with this
kind of effort. But he reallydid want to his siblings were
reading, and it was something ofvalue to his to those he was
around. So he wanted it, but hehe does now have it today. The
amount of work that it took,though, was pretty
extraordinary. So this has beena fantastic conversation. Thank
you so much. I mean, it's got metaking back to some of the key
(38:45):
pieces that we brought from lastseason, and bringing them and
refreshing them for the resetfor this season, for classrooms
in any sort of educationalsetting where we're approaching
teaching, reading. I'm justwondering if there's anything
any of you want to add that wedidn't touch on. Did we get to
everything you wanted to say?
Lindsay Kemeny (39:03):
I think so. I mean, there's always more I
could talk about when we allcould, but like, specifically
thinking about this, like, backto school. Like, I kind of think
of resetting back to school.
What do I have to do at thebeginning of the year? Which
certainly is monumental. There'slike, a huge list, but, you
know, I talked about, one of thefirst things I like to do is
(39:25):
looking at that data, groupingmy students, making my seating
chart, knowing that it's all canchange and it will change,
looking at like, if I havestudents on IEPs, looking over
those IEPs before the sosometimes when we think back to
school, we think of all the likeputting names on everything,
(39:45):
setting up the classroom, butthere's like this whole other
side. And I can do this otherside earlier, because I have to
wait till like the very lastsecond to put names on things,
because sometimes you getsomeone who registers like.
Like, the day of the open house,and then you have to, like, redo
everything and re alphabetizeyour you know, anyways, so, but
it's good, because I can usethis opportunity to do those
(40:08):
other things. Look at the data,look at the IEPs, look at
special challenges. I know somepeople like it just to be fresh.
And like all the students, it'slike a blank slate. I like to
look at, like, whatinterventions, what comments did
their teacher put in from lastyear? I want to know about the
extreme behaviors. And I feellike I'm pretty good with taking
(40:31):
what another teacher says withthe grain of salt, right? Like,
but for me, it's helpful toknow, oh my gosh, this teacher
really struggled with thestudent. So I've got, I'm going
to be very intentional when Imeet that student at back to
school night. I'm going to makesure, like, of course, I want to
be greet and talk to everystudent, but I need to make sure
I have some back and forth withthat student. And like, start
(40:53):
building that relationship. Youknow, sometimes I have severe,
different health challengesstudents have, or things I need
to be aware of. And then I guessanother thing I would say is,
like, looking at my schedule andlike, this is what I hate about
the beginning of the year, issometimes like, you're waiting
for your administration to getyou the schedule, and someone
(41:14):
complains about it, and then itlike, changes a couple hours
later, and then it changes acouple hours later, and you're
like, just recess, and you're beokay, like, so, like, once I get
that in, I like, you know, thenI want to, like, schedule my
block and how everything's gonnago. So those are just some of
those important back to schoolthings that might get overlooked
(41:36):
when you're just thinking about,you know, back to school, lists,
parent welcome letters, youknow, all the things.
Donell Pons (41:45):
Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay, I like, I like youmentioning when you talk about
making sure that you touch basewith a student who might have a
particular need or something,and taking the time to do that,
I always really appreciatedthat, as the parent of a child
in a classroom thinking that's ateacher who understands that not
every student needs the samething at the same time, so a
little extra attention here isgoing to make things run
smoothly for everybody. Sothat's really nice that you
(42:07):
mentioned that maybe calm down alittle bit if you see a teacher
making extra effort here,because overall it makes
everything run smoother. I loveto see that sometimes
Lindsay Kemeny (42:15):
it's nice too, because sometimes there are,
like, pretty big needs, and it'skind of nice to know earlier in
the summer, so that I can wrapmy head around it and maybe do
some extra reading about it.
Like, you know, I've had astudent with select mutism
before, or, you know, I've justthese different unique
situations that it's nice tohave some knowledge about. And
Stacy Hurst (42:35):
of course, I'm going to be thinking about that
first year teacher, or maybethose in their provisional years
of teaching, and I think so foryou seasoned teachers, these
things are going to be likeprobably old hat. But there are
some pieces of advice I give tomy students. A this is your
first year. Play the rookiecard. Do it just because
(42:58):
otherwise you risk overstressing yourself and burning
out early, just this is yourfirst time getting to know what
those students are capable of,getting a sense of your whole
class. But here are some ways toexpedite that feeling of
excitement and confidence. Getto know each of your students
individually. Lindsay alreadymentioned, get to know their
(43:20):
data, I would get a copy of lastyear's yearbook, memorize their
faces and their names, know themwhen they walk through the door
day one, names and face if youhave the opportunity to reach
out to their parents before dothat. But also within the first
weeks of school, I would make achecklist for every student and
(43:41):
make sure that I noticedsomething positive about that
student, and reached out to theparent to share that this is
what I'm noticing with yourstudent. Those kind of things
will make it go, make your yeargo so much smoother. You need to
not only know your yourstudents, reader profile, but
you need to know them as aperson, individually and done
(44:03):
elements of yet what you weresaying about making learning
relevant will be helpful there,if you know what their interests
are, and you will see, I knowthis. In my first grade
classroom we had, depending onthe year, there was a lot of
interest in the same thing. Soyou could turn that. Take that
into your whole class as well,and then lean on those people.
(44:25):
Lindsay said it find yourpeople. Find somebody that you
can turn to as a mentor and askquestions. Don't be afraid of
that. Get to know yourinstructional coaches, your
speech and language pathologistsin the building, and ask
questions you are a detectivewhen you have a student that is
stumping you. And finally, Iwould say, you know more than
(44:47):
you think you do. And thatactually goes for any teacher,
no matter how long they've beenteaching. You know more than you
actually think you do. So trustthat
Lindsay Kemeny (44:56):
sometimes, the more I learn, the more I think I
don't know. Actually, Jason.
Stacy Hurst (45:00):
Good sign that you know more than you think you do.
That's what you look for. It'sthe person who has all the
answers that is suspect, right?
You know?
Donell Pons (45:09):
And I would add, for those who tutor, who are
helping support students outsideof a school setting, I always
like the beginning of the yearto help the student get reset
for how they're going to besupported, for all their
literacy and reading needs, andI like them to give me a little
report of what their what theythink their challenges are going
to be. So I give them a week toget their schedule under their
belt. Kind of think about it.
And then we start looking atstrategies and ways to help
(45:31):
them. And they set goals. So wealso set goals about this may be
challenging right now. Wherewould you like to see yourself
in the next three months withthat class? And then we check
back to see how do you feel. Andoften, you know, obviously we
make progress, and the studentsare always happy to do that.
That's a way in which you cansupport the learning in school
as well. So that's great. Thishas been fun. Thank you, Stacy
and Lindsay. It's been awesome.
Stacy Hurst (45:55):
Yeah, thank you, and thank you for the topic. I
do get excited about the idea ofresetting. I love it, and I'm
gonna, I'm gonna re listen tothis episode and gather things
that it will help me in myupcoming school year, and I'm
sure you all will too. We havean exciting season ahead. Some
of the things that we talkedabout today, we will have some
(46:17):
guests that will directlyaddress some of those things. So
we hope that part of your resetis resetting time to listen to
this podcast and the many othersthat will help inform our
teaching. Help inform all of ourteaching. I guess I should say
so. Thank you for joining us,and hopefully we will have you
(46:38):
as a guest on our next episodeof literacy talks.
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