From FOMO to Front Row: A Deep Dive into the Reading League Summit

What happens when leading voices in literacy come together—not to lecture, but to listen, question, and grow? In this bonus episode, Donell Pons recaps her experience at the 2025 Reading League Summit, joined by co-hosts Stacy Hurst and Lindsay Kemeny and special guests Kari Kurto and Andrea Setmeyer of The Reading League. Together, they explore what made the summit so impactful—from thoughtfully curated panels and civil discourse among top researchers to the “just right” tone set by Andrea’s now-legendary Goldilocks metaphor. Whether you missed the summit or want to relive its most powerful moments, this episode brings you straight to the front row.

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Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:03):
Stacy, welcome to literacy talks, the podcast for
literacy leaders and championseverywhere, brought to you by
Reading Horizons. Literacy talksis the place to discover new
ideas, trends, insights andpractical strategies for helping
all learners reach readingproficiency. Our hosts are Stacy
Hurst, a professor at SouthernUtah University and Chief

(00:27):
Academic Advisor for ReadingHorizons. Donnell Pons, a
recognized expert and advocatein literacy, dyslexia and
special education, and LindsayKemeny, an elementary classroom
teacher, author and speaker. Nowlet's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst (00:47):
Welcome to this episode of literacy talks. This
is a very fun episode. I knowyou'll all enjoy it, and I'm
going to turn the timeimmediately over to Darnell,
because she is going tointroduce our guests and lead
the discussion today.

Donell Pons (01:03):
Great. Okay, I don't usually get to jump in
this soon, but I'm going to gofor it. I had the opportunity
this past week to attend thereading league Summit, and the
summit is different from theconference, and we'll get into
some of that in ourconversation. We also have the
pleasure of having two folksfrom the reading league with us,
Carrie curto Andrea setmeyer,who also spoke at the conference

(01:24):
and gave some some welcomeaddresses at the beginning, so
you might recognize them, too ifyou were unfamiliar, but just
kind of set the stage a littlebit for what I experienced this
past week in Chicago. Is whereit was held. It was fantastic,
and it was the third annualreading league Summit. Again,
it's different from theconference. And there were
roughly, I believe, 750 to 800people. You can correct me later

(01:45):
if I'm incorrect. I said it washeld in Chicago, which is great.
And it was over a day and ahalf. And the first day was
beginning at one 1pm which is alittle unusual, too, for a
conference, and then the secondday at 9am but what was going on
was so amazing. We had theintroduction. It all seemed very
familiar as a conference. We'reall in one big room, but there

(02:06):
things stopped, and it becamethe summit, and there were four
separate panels. It wasfantastic. Those panels were
very thoughtfully curated, youcould tell. And they were around
things from what we were goingto talk about in the reading
kind of in the reading world,about the science of reading
things that maybe have stillsome question marks, some areas
where maybe there's a divergenceof opinion about various things.

(02:29):
And those were the topics thatwere chosen. So they were very
good, as I say, veryinteresting. Each panel was
broken up, so there was a bit ofa synopsis at the beginning. And
then also during it, we hadpanel members who would give a
little bit of presentation, andthen we had some discussion. It
was within the discussion that Ithought things were really
fantastic, and the setup wasreally important, because that

(02:49):
balance was so good. And Ithought to myself, this does not
happen overnight. So Andrea andCarrie. I mean, whoever wants to
take it, you can both pick itup, but tell us a little bit
about the preparation for this,because, as I say, that was
everything to me, is how youcurated what happened over these
two days.

Unknown (03:11):
I'll be happy to take that one. I was deeply involved
in the preparation for thesummit, and it was just such an
honor. The idea for the summitwas born right around when I
joined the reading league a fewyears ago, three years ago, to
be specific, and it was also atthe same time as we were
engaging in some conversationswith the National Committee for

(03:33):
effective literacy. And this wasan advocacy group for those in
the who support multilinguallearners. And there was a white
paper they had published withsome ideas that we agreed with
and some that had us scratchingour head a little bit. And what
we decided to do was meet withthem and ask questions with

(03:55):
curiosity and the intent tolisten and learn and build trust
and to have these collaborativeconversations that hopefully
would help us kind of meet inthe middle and find out what we
had in common, which in fact,was a lot. And so as the reading
League was planning thissecondary platform the summit
right, we decided to merge thesetwo ideas and have the summit

(04:20):
support these challengingconversations, but in person and
so after meeting with folks fromNCL and friends, along with some
friends of the reading leagueover nearly a year, we really
came to terms with a lot of thethings that we've shared our You
know, passion for supportingpositive literacy outcomes,

(04:42):
particularly for Englishlearners, emergent bilingual
students. And so together, wecrafted the questions that we
would be asking to them at thesummit. But the magic was that
none of us had ever met inperson. These conversations had
not happened in person. And andthese experts with diverse

(05:02):
opinions had never had a chanceto talk together truly
collaboratively. And so that, Ithink, is the magic that
happened that first year, justgetting everybody in the same
room together. And so over that,

Donell Pons (05:19):
Carrie and say that, Andrea, you had a really
interesting welcome for us, andyou did something called a
Goldilocks metaphor about how wetalk about research. And I think
this is a good spot to put itin, because I tell you, it set
us off. And there were many goodcomments in that welcome
edition, but this really stuckwith me about how we handle
talking about research and thescience, and it was an

(05:39):
interesting metaphor. Tell us alittle bit about that.

Unknown (05:42):
Thanks. Donell. I'd be happy to so I have a really
privileged view in my role atthe reading league right where
I'm not directly working inschools, and I have a lot of
opportunities to read researchand talk to researchers, and
also talk to lots of teachersand practitioners. And one of
the things that has just been onmy heart recently is this idea

(06:02):
of translating research topractice and what it means to be
a careful and effectivetranslator. So I use the
Goldilocks principle as a way toset us up to talk about what
happens if we translate thatresearch to practice in a way
that's too hot. What if we sayevery child need this, needs
this, or this always works, orthis is the only way, right? We

(06:25):
we likely cause confusion foreducators and harm for students.
That's that's not a goodtranslation. Similarly, we have
too cold, so we might translatesomething too cold where we say
research doesn't have anythingto do with the students in front
of me today, right? That theoryis outdated. It doesn't speak to
this situation. That's too cold,and then we miss out on all

(06:46):
that. Research has to give usthose effective starting points
for instruction. And so Iencourage people to be just
right, right, to really becareful and thoughtful about how
we're translating it, and alwaysaim for that just right, that in
between and really look to whatthe research is, is saying for
practice or not. And that'sokay, too simple.

Donell Pons (07:07):
Yeah, I really appreciate it. It's just set a
right tone. And it also washelpful to think about
ourselves, because oftentimeswhen we go to something like
this summit, you come away soexcited and invigorated, and it
was a nice way to temper, okay,all right, settle down. So
what's that? Just right way inwhich I'm going to share the
information that I'm receivingas well. So I thought it was
really nice. Yeah. Appreciatedit. Carrie was also introducing

(07:30):
us to the fact that there werethe four panels, and who was
sitting on those panels. Can yougive us an idea of those panels
and tell us what happened thereand how you chose them? Yeah?

Unknown (07:40):
So we had four panels all together, include and then a
keynote that started us all off.
And Carrie and Maria really werethe masterminds behind bringing
this together and finding theright people and the right
topics that would resonate withthe field. So I can't take any
credit for it, but I'm gratefulto be in the room and be a part
of it. So panel one started asan exploration of the simple

(08:03):
view of reading as a startingpoint for understanding reading
development in all learners. SoDr Jose Viana moderated that
one, and we had Wes Hoover, whowas one of the early proponents
of the simple view of reading,and we had Nell Duke, who's
proposed an active view ofreading, which is a different
model, and it was a fantasticconversation just about the

(08:24):
different models of readinginstruction. I don't want to go
into too many details. I'm sureyou're going to go into it, so
I'll just quickly givehighlights of the other one. So
then we use this simple view ofreading as our framework. So
panel two was moderated by DrTiffany Hogan, and was all about
language comprehension. Panelthree was moderated by Dr Louisa
most and was all about wordrecognition. And then our final

(08:46):
panel was on readingcomprehension, and that was
moderated by Dr MitchellBrookins. And
I can jump in and build off of,I think it's something that I
just thought of is, you know,Andrea's brilliant metaphor can
really be applied to theresearchers and the experts as
well. You know, sometimes we getso hot on our one subject that

(09:10):
that sometimes it's helpful totalk to others and learn about
their research and how yourscan, you know, grow there's,
there's one concept, forexample, that there might be a
book baby that comes from thesummit of two researchers on
entirely different topics thatmight collaborate, and it's so
exciting, and I think that wewant it. We were very

(09:31):
intentional with selecting theexperts and the panelists and
the moderators because of theirexpertise, but also because we
thought that there were somethings that they might be able
to learn from one another. Andif you are deep into the
literacy space and you hear someof those names that Andrea just
mentioned, you might, you know,your job might drop a little bit

(09:54):
and say, Wow, they're talkingtogether. And I think that they
were also surprised. Some ofthem, when we invited them to
these conversations, we did havea couple of people that
initially said no, but afterexplaining the situation, and I
must say, for very validreasons, right, because of the

(10:16):
idea that we are thinking andtalking in silos. But you know,
after explaining the concept andthe pre work that we were going
to do, it made folks morecomfortable. And so Maria and I
did get the opportunity to meetwith each of the panels ahead of
times, sometimes once, sometimestwice, sometimes three or more

(10:37):
times, and having a lot ofconversation via email back and
forth, and all of that felt likesuch incredible progress. You
know, even just that pre workfelt like such incredible
progress. And Maria and I weretexting back and forth as these
conversations were happening.
Can you believe that that personis just helping that person with
this thing? You know, it wasjust remarkable. And so we knew

(10:58):
that these conversations had tobe brought to a larger audience
so that you all could listen andlearn to the magic that was
happening in these pre meetings.

Donell Pons (11:10):
You know, so Carrie, I'm going to say, I have
to admit, when I saw some of themembers sitting on certain
panels and what they were goingto be talking about, I said to
myself, I've got to find a wayto get to Chicago. I have to say
this, because, as you say, ifyou're in the literacy space, a
lot of these names wereincongruous at times, and you're
thinking, oh my goodness, if wecould really get down and they
could sit down and be in thesame space at the same time,
what would that look like? Lovedit, yeah.

Unknown (11:35):
And Maria really touched upon that in the keynote
a lot, and spoke about thesesummits and these gatherings
that would happen in the 70s andthe 80s and the 90s, and really
unfortunately, have gone awaysince the internet, and, you
know, in social media andeverything, and you know, just
knowing how divisive our worldcan be, I just feel so strongly

(12:00):
that it is time to bring thisback.

Donell Pons (12:03):
Yeah, yeah. And it was fantastic, I have to say,
from a spectator part, it waswonderful to be able to listen
and watch and to hear this levelof conversation and exchange,
which you don't always get. Andthe moderators of each of those
panels, you could tell, werecarefully selected, because they
did such a fantastic job ofkeeping it on that level.
Another thing I foundinteresting that maybe you'll

(12:25):
hear later too from otherpeople. There were folks at my
table who were new to theliteracy space, so I was kind of
intrigued. They kind of just sawthe reading League, saw that the
summit was in a time period theycould attend. So they landed
into something that maybe was alittle bit more than they were
expecting. But as we hadconversations at our table, they
were really getting a lot out ofit, and in fact, using a lot of
it to look at their ownpractice, which I thought was

(12:46):
great.

Unknown (12:48):
I love that you said that done now, we actually
talked about that as we weregetting closer and planning
like, what if I'm a second gradeteacher and just walked into
this, and this was my firsttime. And what we really trusted
was that, since our wholecommunity was going to be in one
room listening to the same thingthe whole time. We trusted that
that educator would find herselfnext to somebody like you, who

(13:08):
could fill in gaps or helpexplain things in and bring it
to really be a communityexperience for learning.

Donell Pons (13:16):
Yeah, it was fantastic. I thought that was
that camaraderie right withinthe field, even amongst
educators, was fantastic too.
Were there any things thatsurprised you about what took
place over those two days?
Anything that you guys weren'tprepared for, or that you were
even yourselves? Were like,Well, that was interesting.

Unknown (13:33):
I was a little bit surprised to hear some of the
same themes throughout all ofthem. Again, I didn't get to
hear the content, but I thoughtthere was so many through lines
of conversation and aboutcertain topics that that was a
really clear takeaway for me ofthe message that I want to
translate and carry back. Andthen the main one was just this

(13:54):
need for integrating the layersof instruction we've pulled
apart all of those components,and that makes sense for
research into to really learnmore about a particular
component. But I heard everysingle panelist say, we weave
those layers of languagetogether, we need to integrate
our instruction and making surewe're giving students an
opportunity to transfer andpractice. So that was a great

(14:16):
surprise for me.
I think that a surprise for me,it was just the power of human
being together, and not evenjust on the panels, but
afterwards, just you know, asyou mentioned, Donell about the
person at your table and justseeing practitioners and experts
mingling, if you will, andreally getting A chance to

(14:39):
answer their questions in realtime, and the, you know, the
chapter event afterwards, andbeing able to see tables where
folks that you would neverimagine would be sitting and
having a meal together weresharing ideas, and it just, it
was so much growth. And. Andeven in those small moments of

(15:02):
being able to human together,

Donell Pons (15:04):
yeah, I thought it was fantastic to have a space
like this. You've created. Whatthe reading League has done is
fantastic for it, for educators,for a whole host of reasons, but
particularly to have educatorspace, but then now to add this
layer to that safe educatorspace, I thought was just
fantastic, full, fullyencompassing everything for the
educator. I thought it wasgreat. And Stacy and Lindsay,

(15:28):
you guys didn't get to attend. Iknow you both had obligations,
so you were unable to attend.
And this is kind of how we endedup in a conversation together.
So I have to share this with youguys, because it was pretty
great. I opened a document andjust started putting down. I was
just typing away as it wasoccurring, and just typing
everything. And great, the greatcomments that were sent
throughout the week, and Stacyand Lindsay were both, oh my
gosh, this is so great. And itwas almost in real time, right?

(15:49):
And Lindsay said she never hangsout in a document when someone
else is in there, but she hungout in the document the whole
time.

Lindsay Kemeny (15:56):
I felt kind of creepy. I was like, at first, I
was just reading through and I'mlike, dang, these are really
good notes. This is like, I feellike I'm there, and then I got
farther down and I could see,like, where Donell was adding in
notes. And I'm like, I feelreally kind of like a soccer
right now. I think I might needto get out of this document. I

Stacy Hurst (16:14):
rarely do this, but during class, my students were
working on something else. SoI'm like, I'm just gonna peek
over here. I'm usually 100%present for them, but I have to
admit, that day I was not. Itwas a great document. It
developed quite a lot of FOMO.

Donell Pons (16:33):
You know, that's another thing about a really
good conference that is wellthought out, is that when you
are taking notes, it flowed verywell. Oftentimes it can be
difficult to get into a flowwhen you're at a conference, to
be able to articulate and totake away some of the key points
this, though, was just had sucha good flow to it. The
preparation, you could tell wasthere. So really appreciated
that. And I'm going to, I wantyou guys to kind of comment on

(16:55):
something I think Carrie, it wasyou who might have said and
correct me if I'm wrong, but atone point, it was said, don't
just say research says, don'tuse always or never, but value
research for helping us thinkaround certain subjects. And
that right there is, is a reallyhelpful thought.

Unknown (17:13):
Yeah, I think, I think that slide was in my keynote
section, actually. And again, itgoes with that translation piece
of if we expect reading scienceto tell us what to do. As an
educator, we're we're likely tobe disappointed. It's just not
always about this nextinstructional move or this this
particular group of students tothat level of specificity, but

(17:36):
if we can shift our thinking andask research to help me
understand, help me understandwhy this is happening, or why
this type of student might beless likely to respond well to
this intervention, right then weempower educators to really have
a more robust understanding ofthose instructional settings in

(17:57):
front of them. They'll see morenuances. They'll have more ideas
of different directions to go,and it enables their
understanding. So when I thinkabout science to practice, I
always have to put the educatorin the middle, like it does.
It's not a magic wand. Itdoesn't go straight from science
to practice. It goes fromscience through that brilliant
mind of the educator, deepenstheir understanding, and then it

(18:19):
informs practice, which canimprove outcomes,

Donell Pons (18:22):
yeah, and this was a real opportunity to have that
go back the other way too,right? So educator being able to
sit down with researcher, whichI thought was great. And also,
Andre you gave the you gaveeducators the opportunity to
kind of sit with some thingsthat was that educator who
happened to walk through anddidn't realize that she was
coming into something quite likethis, but at the same time as
we're chatting at the table andgiving her an opportunity to

(18:44):
think about her practice in herclassroom, she was starting to
see opportunities where shecould implement and like, Oh, I
could adjust here. I didn'trealize that was really
interesting

Unknown (18:53):
too. I'm so glad you brought that up done now,
because that's a big part ofwhat we strive to do at the
reading link also is make this ascience and practice community
where it's not just scientistsas the experts, right, but it's
also scientists and researchersneeding to hear from classroom
educators about what happenedwhen I tried to implement this,
or what topics I need researchon next. And so trying to

(19:16):
cultivate that, we actually hadan email from a school
psychology graduate student inMichigan, who said I was just so
excited to see researchers andpractitioners together, right?
It just shows that they can cometogether, they have the same
goal, and learn together in thatsame space. It was really
special.
And I think it was on the finalpanel where we heard some of the

(19:37):
researchers also saying how muchthey've learned from the
questions, and, you know, reallyrealizing that a strong focus
needs to be on how to translateand implement their research.
And I think that's just aspowerful, because we will be
able to learn from theirresearch in a more productive

(19:57):
way. I think that way, yeah.

Stacy Hurst (20:00):
That's right. And as you were talking, I was
thinking the phrase is researchto practice, but what you're
describing and what you've setthe environment for is also
practice to research. So it's atwo way street, yeah.

Donell Pons (20:15):
And I think having us all in the same room, it
really put that into focus.
Because oftentimes I think itmight be difficult at a
conference, which also is agreat environment too, for
certain things, but this summitreally has caught on to
something that I think isneeded, and it has provided a
unique space that that reallythese kinds of things. It's not
as I don't think they're goingto happen as readily as they did
in this particular space. So Ireally appreciate the thought

(20:38):
that went into this

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Stacy Hurst (21:24):
we were talking I was able to attend the first
one, which I was so blown away.
And Carrie, I have a verydistinct memory at the end of
it, of how, well, there's noother phrase like worn out you
were, because it was such anendeavor, but so appreciated.
And I we were talking about thenumbers of people who attend. So

(21:45):
can you tell us a little bitabout how it's grown over these
three years and who you seeattending?

Unknown (21:55):
Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that. I used to
say there's no tired like Disneytired, but maybe there's no
mental exhaustion like readingleague summit mental exhaustion.
However, I have to say thatpeople were energized until the
end. I think this year I meanthat reading comprehension panel
with Mitchell, he's just such anexpert moderator. It was people

(22:19):
were still so energized and tookso much from it. So it has it
has grown. It has shifted, andwe definitely had the right
audience this year the firstsummit, it was 500 attendees in
Las Vegas. The second summit wasa follow up to that discussion,

(22:41):
they were both really, as Imentioned, focused on supporting
the needs of English learnersspecifically. And we had 1000
folks at the second summit. Butthat was also, you know, in
California, which is really thehotbed of that discussion of,
what can we learn from thescience of reading, what can we

(23:02):
learn from the research that ispart of the corpus of of the
body of knowledge that we referto as a science of reading
that's specific to supportingEnglish learners? And so we had
many attendees that were veryinterested in that conversation
for this year. I think we hadjust under 800 in Chicago in
prior years, some of theattendees were a little bit, you

(23:25):
know, they were more of thepractitioners, folks that would
come to the conference, and thestructure was different than
what they expected. But thefolks that are here this third
year for these conversations,they're the ones that are like,
Oh my gosh, this conversation ishappening, and they were really
jazzed for it. So we've refinedour audience to those folks that
really were were chomping at thebit to hear these discussions,

(23:48):
and they were not disappointed.

Lindsay Kemeny (23:50):
Are you already in talks for the next one and
what you're planning next

Unknown (23:54):
earlier today? So as soon as it was over, I felt like
the Nightmare Before Christmas.
You know, where they're like,Jack has just performed and the
mayor shows up at his door withlike, I've got the Pons for next
year. Is what I mean, Maria, wecould do this. And that we had
two researchers that came up tous and said, we got the whole
thing planned out for you nextyear. We're ready to go. I think

(24:16):
Maria's response, we were on ourway to the pizza restaurant
after she's like, yes, just yesto everything, yes, yes, yes.
Now just be quiet and eat yourpizza. But we've got some great
ideas. Oh, yeah. Can

Lindsay Kemeny (24:32):
you give us any hints? Or No? Not yet, not yet,

Unknown (24:36):
because I don't know if Maria really meant yes. I have
to check in after her vacationprobably,

Stacy Hurst (24:42):
what about time of year? Because I'm going to need
plenty of time to convince myuniversity to have graduation a
different week. If it's doingthis same week,

Unknown (24:53):
I will give folks.
We'll put in a good word foryou. Stacy, no promises.

Stacy Hurst (24:59):
Let's see what we can. Do Yeah, we were just so
glad that Donell was there, andit sounded like it was just such
a great, energizingconversation. And as you're
talking all these thoughts,there was one panel in
particular that the three of uswere like, oh, and that was the
one on word recognition, becausewe had all as a community, seen

(25:23):
that kind of play out in socialmedia, just not too many years
ago, right? And there were somevery acerbic interchanges in
that process. And I know have itfrom having attended the first
summit, these conversations arenot that. They're very civil,

(25:43):
they're very welcoming, they'revery I don't know what the word
I'm looking for is it just itgenerates a lot of
understanding. I think, is thething and thought beyond, beyond
our blind with our blinders on.

Unknown (26:01):
Stacy, I agree with that. I'm so glad you could feel
that from afar, right? Like thatwas one of the goals of this. As
a lot of educators are new toreading research, and maybe
haven't been trained in how aresearch study is conducted and
spent time in a lab, and likehave seen the evolution of
science over time, if theirfirst exposure to the science of

(26:22):
reading are these nasty fightson social media like that's a
really terrible representationof what the research community
is doing. And so I was so proudto be a part of the reading link
and watch those conversationshappen. And there were times
when people disagreed and it wasokay. They were civil, they were
polite, they stated their case,and then they said, well, we'll

(26:42):
keep learning together. It was,I was really proud of that,
and I think that was animportant part of the pre
meetings as well. Was just kindof getting rid of that
expectation that we're here tosolve all the problems and
answer all the questions,because that's never going to
happen. That's not what researchis. Research is constantly
evolving, and we are constantlylearning from it. And so naming

(27:05):
that, there are some things thatI I'll bet this audience doesn't
know, that you all agree onthese things, and there are also
things that require furtherresearch, and let's name that so
it's not this back and forth. Ithink this, I think that we need
more research to fullyunderstand what the best

(27:26):
practice for the situation is.
And that was a relief, I think,for the experts as well. Yeah,

Donell Pons (27:32):
that was really interesting, the way that the
panel so on the paneldiscussion, particularly the one
Stacy is referring to, becauseit was highly anticipated. It
was really interesting to seethat in the same space, like
you've mentioned, Carrie, theydidn't agree on some things, but
they were able to state theircase, did exactly why they felt

(27:52):
the way that they did. And then,okay, we'll leave this open.
We'll see where we go from here.
And that, to me, was sorefreshing to see that, and like
you said, you'd made itcomfortable enough. There was
enough trust there. The spacewas comfortable enough. I think
the moderator was well selected.
I mean, you're in good handswith Louis emotes. I think you
can feel safe there. But

Unknown (28:14):
here's the understatement of a century,
right?

Donell Pons (28:20):
So I really appreciated that, because that
was, as you say, it's importantto also be able to still
maintain that, hey, we stilldon't agree, and this is the
main piece as to why we don'tagree, and be specific about it.
That's good and healthy, butalso to have laid the groundwork
with what we do agree we agreeon a fair amount, and then we
might have these key points,right? Could

Lindsay Kemeny (28:41):
you name, could you name that for listeners and
those of us aren't that weren'tthere? What were the things that
they agreed upon, what were somethings that they were
disagreeing and that we stillneed more research on?

Unknown (28:54):
One of the items from the first panel that sticks out
to me is I think all thepanelists were in agreement that
we have different models ofreading that serve different
purposes, right? So reallyunderstanding why the simple
view of reading was developedand why the active view of
reading was developed, or whyScarborough's reading rope was
developed, really gives you aninsight into how to use it. And

(29:14):
so there was a lot of agreementaround that of the simple view
and active view aren't trying todo the same thing, and that was
helpful for everybody to agreeon what was different, right?
Was, like, the relativeimportance of their models in
the goals that they had, right?
Like, there's still, I think,some disagreement about, well,
my model is really about this,and I think that's really the

(29:35):
most important thing to focuson, and that's okay to have
those disagreements. As long asthe audience can say when I need
this purpose or when I'm lookingfor to answer this question,
then I might use a differentmodel of reading.
And then for the next I guess wecould kind of go panel by panel.
I think the panel two talkingabout language comprehension,

(29:59):
they had a lot that. Agreed onright as a field, we need to
make sure that we are focusingon language. Julie Van Dyke
says, you know, language iseverything, and syntax is the
most important building block oflanguage. So syntax is
everything. We had peep hourstalking about morphology. We had
Teresa Chriselle from wida, whowas talking about assessment.

(30:24):
And I think although they mostlyagreed on everything, what was
interesting is that they didn'tknow one another ahead of time.
And so the synergy of beingcollaborative and understanding
that as a science of readingcommunity, we place, must place
and do place equal importance tothe development of language as

(30:44):
word recognition was reallypowerful for them to all
understand that, to take thatback to their audiences and the
folks like, for example, WIDA.
There are many states that areWIDA states, and the hope would
be that they then take back theidea that the science of reading
is more than just thesemisunderstandings that are
surfacing around. So I thoughtthat was a really powerful piece

(31:07):
to panel two.

Stacy Hurst (31:11):
Yeah, the word

Unknown (31:13):
recognition panel had a couple of, I think hanging
disagreements, right? So thefirst one that I heard was
really about syllableinstruction, I think we heard
consensus that starting withsyllable thinking that starting
with syllable, blending andsegmenting will lead to better
phoneme. Blending and segmentingwas dispel I think everybody
agreed with that. You don'tnecessarily need to start with

(31:34):
that to get to the phonemelevel. But what is the role of
syllables? Is there value in it?
Maybe later on an instruction Ithink there was some just
outstanding disagreement on thattopic. And then, of course, we
got to the teaching phonemicawareness with and without
letters, which is personallywhat I was on the edge of my
seat for. And I think again, wewere able to summarize and say,
The research is clear. Again,we're integrating these systems

(31:57):
of language. We want to teachphonics and phonemic awareness
together. There are reciprocalbenefits to putting those two
things together in ourinstructional practice. But I
loved Louisa at the end, shecouldn't just let it hang there
as a disagreement. Do we do itwith or without? She said, well,
well, it's maybe not acompletely either or right? Of
course, we want to move tosegmenting and blending with

(32:21):
letters, that's what's going toenable skilled reading. We've
got to get the student there.
But if we err on the side againof being too hot or too cold and
interpreting and saying never,don't, ever use phonemic
awareness activities withoutletters, we're really doing
teachers a disservice, becausethere could be a time in place
to pull back the letters,regroup attention, think really

(32:44):
carefully about this skill ofsegmenting and blending, always
knowing we're moving back toletters, we're connecting it to
words as quickly as possible.
And the other area of requiringfurther research, I think, is
this idea of phonemeproficiency. That was the big
discussion between you know,David Kilpatrick and Susan
Brady, and we do need moreresearch right in David's point

(33:05):
of view, he sees the developmentof phoneme awareness as
something separate for the moststruggling readers, thinking
about the simple view andorthographic mapping, and that
that this idea of phonemeproficiency might support these
older, struggling readers not tohappen and occur in a tier one

(33:26):
classroom for all students, andin the pre meetings, he
clarified that was never theintent. And Susan's point of
view was perhaps, I think we alllove that, that moment where she
just said, perhaps, and alsomaybe we could do that by having
the students continue to focuson final, you know, initial,
final and medial phonemes, andthat might support them better.

(33:52):
And the last, the last panel,Carrie,
do you want to start with thatone? I don't have any notes
about specific areas that wereleft for further research. So
I think that a big conversationthere was on background
knowledge. What does backgroundknowledge really mean? And the

(34:13):
idea of strategy instruction. SoReed Smith discussed background
knowledge. K wijakumar sharedsome of her incredible results
using her framework, and wetalked about the role of writing
and syntax and everything withinreading comprehension. And

(34:35):
really, yes, you know,background knowledge will help
us understand the contentbetter, but thinking about some
of the limitations of even, forexample, the baseball study, and
how specific the vocabularywithin that study was, and how
do we teach all of it? And Ithink the panel came to the
agreement is of well, we need toteach them. Way to learn that

(35:02):
background knowledge, and so wedo need some level of strategy
instruction and making sure thatthat is present and ever present
in the classroom. And we are nottalking about using short,
disconnected paragraphs just toteach strategy instruction, but
we have to make sure that ourstudents have a framework, have

(35:23):
a way of supporting theircomprehension while they are
learning this content knowledge.
Yeah, and I loved Dr laud in hersessions, Leslie laud actually
shared a quote from the baseballstudy from Leslie and rec, and
it was like really clear in oneparagraph about the need for

(35:44):
both building backgroundknowledge and strategy
instruction that the baseballstudy was never meant to prove
one is more important than theother, that that it was really
meant to communicate the role ofboth actively during
comprehension. Isthis helping your promos Stacy
or making it worse? No

Stacy Hurst (36:00):
worse. I could see that clear. But also I am
thinking about, I'm part of thethe appeal of our podcast, I
guess, or the foundation of itis the different perspectives
that Donell and Lindsay and Iare in right now in the world of
literacy. And as you're talking,I'm thinking constantly, like I

(36:24):
have this I don't I don't knowif I want to use the word
balance, but how do I prepare mypre service teachers with a
solid foundation, while at thesame time saying, and I do this
frequently, and I hope I don'tconfuse them, but saying, you
got to keep your eye on thescience, because that's the
nature of science. It evolves.
We learn more, we learn better.

(36:46):
And as I was, as I'm processingall of this, I'm wondering,
Lindsay and Donell, what are,what were? Are you thinking
Donell, especially because youwere there in how you're going
to take all of this informationand apply it to what you're
doing now? Yeah,

Donell Pons (37:02):
I think it offered a great deal of clarity, as we
say, on some specific points,some key specific points, and
that will be very helpful. Andit's okay to say even the
experts got to a certain pointand they said we need more. Even
the experts say we need more. Sothat's always nice to be able to
say as well, something MariaMurray said in the beginning,
that kind of resonated with mehere too. And Stacy, I thought

(37:23):
of it when you were speaking,was something about the fact
that science doesn't swing. Ilove this way she said, science
doesn't swing. It lands with athud, right? It's science. It
lands. And I thought that wasreally good, because that's
oftentimes what you'll hear, ispeople will talk about this
pendulum. And that one alwaysconcerns me, because I think
we're not talking about apendulum when there's science.

(37:43):
That's not what we're talkingabout here. That might have been
with other things that were verymuch theorized, but not when
you're talking about science.
And so I really appreciatedMaria saying that, and thought
I'm going to file that one away,but it did make me think about
having some really goodinformation around these key
critical points and being ableto say it's okay for now, if
this is where we are with whatwe know,

Unknown (38:05):
and Donna, what I usually say about the pendulum
is that's an implementation,right? And we hold the pendulum
in our hands. Every educationaldecision maker, whether you're
just, you know, you're sittingin front of a student and making
a decision, or you're in controlof the scheduling, or you're a
building leader. You're acurriculum decision maker.
You're a policy maker. You holda piece of that pendulum. So in

(38:27):
those decisions, you have tomake sure that you are not
swinging the pendulum. Theresearchers provide us with the
impetus to understand what mean.
You know how to make sure thatthat pendulum is in the middle.
It's not their job. They're notswinging anything, but it is our
job to take that research andapply it in a manner that keeps
that pendulum going.

Donell Pons (38:49):
That's so good. So if we're getting motion
sickness, we need to look

Unknown (38:54):
at ourselves

Stacy Hurst (38:57):
good analogy also.
And I don't know Andrea andCarrie, if you know this, but
donells First profession was areporter, and so the level of
the the notes on this documentreally demonstrated that. And so
I have the opportunity to talklike I was there, but I wasn't.
But another thing that she wrotein that document that resonated

(39:18):
with me about as we're talkingabout implementation is, and I
think it was Dr Murray who said,you don't need to know the
science of reading to use acurriculum. You need to know the
science of reading when yourstudents need more than that. I
thought that was prettyprofound. Anybody want to add to
that,

Lindsay Kemeny (39:36):
since that program doesn't tell you what to
do, when, when, when things gowrong when students don't reach
that destination, right? Andlike, I think, you know, it's
you hear about the research. Butlike, as teachers, I love that.
Dr Tiffany Hogan said, We're theultimate implementation
scientists as teachers, because,you know, through the course of
a day, even like five minutes, Iam making so. So many decisions,

(40:02):
and there's not always, youknow, so I'm never just going to
be like, well, that studyexactly said this. So I have to
do this, even though I just sawmy student do this, right? Like,
we're constantly, like, we'retaking what we know from
research, and we are taking whatwe know from the students in
front of us, and we're takingour knowledge and using, like,

(40:22):
the best judgment we can. Butthat's why I think teacher
knowledge is so important,because that helps us to make
the most informed decisions. Butwhen I'm, like, working with a
child and I and like, I wouldn'tsay, well, oh my goodness, we
have to do phonemic awarenesswith letters, when that child
doesn't know letters, or it'sjust taking so long for them to,
you know, pull out and retrievethose sounds. But I still want

(40:44):
to be working on some blendingand segmenting at the same time.
You know, that's where I use myjudgment. Okay, right now we're
doing some without and then overhere we're going to do it with
the five letters they know, orwhatever you know. So I just
like implementation is whereit's at, and I'm excited for
implementation science, like, Ithink that's an area we've

(41:04):
talked about it before on thispodcast. I think is really
exciting, because it is talkingabout that communication between
the researchers and theeducators. How can we come
together and work together?
Lindsay, I love

Unknown (41:15):
that you shared that, like, moment by moment,
experience of what it's like tobe teaching, right? Like, that
is that's so real and soimportant for us to remember
when we're talking about this,we use an analogy at the summit
of an astronaut in space andNASA engineers on the ground.
And I said, Okay, who knows moreabout flying a space shuttle?

(41:36):
Well, clearly, the astronautshave to know a lot, right?
They're out there doing it, andthey're making some of those
decisions, but when somethinggoes wrong, they say, Houston,
we've got a problem, right? Isaid, How awesome would it be if
we had classroom educators havethat little phone in their
classroom and be like, hey,researchers, this didn't go as
planned. I've got a problem. Youknow, help me think about it.
But really, we're relying on youall to to be those

(41:59):
implementation scientists thatsaid really beautifully done.
Now I would, I would love tohear some of your takeaways.
What thoughts resonated with youas you're thinking about the
panel a few days later?

Donell Pons (42:11):
Yeah, I so first off, I thought it was a great
selection. I all the topics werereally important, word
recognition, comprehension,you're hitting all the
highlights of what we'rediscussing these days, and being
able to have thoseconversations, and also the
language comprehension, whichwas really important.
Thankfully, we're seeing moreand more of that, but we haven't
for a long time. Julie Van Dykeis someone that you don't really

(42:34):
get to see much. She's She's notone of those researchers that is
out in the forefront, but I havereally appreciated her work,
particularly working with olderstudents, and her product called
cascade reading that she's beeninvolved with that helps put
they know the text in differentformat for students. So she's
really doing some reallyfantastic work, but her her

(42:55):
statements about eye movement,record is the story of
comprehension. Comprehension isa dynamic compositional word by
word process bounded bysomebody's attention, language
and motivation. Wow, that justdrove it home. So pleased to be
able to hear her say that,because I'm gonna really have to
think about that. And again,that's that individual sitting

(43:18):
with a student you cannotthere's just no replacement for
a good teacher with a backgroundobserving and watching and then
knowing what to do. And boy, didJulie really sum it up there.
But I enjoyed the whole thing. Ithink it was great from start to
finish,

Unknown (43:34):
some of Julie's visuals too, just showing the just so
many decisions that our brainshave to make while we're
thinking and listening andcomprehending, is just in one of
the planning sessions. I thinkin the chat I wrote, I'm just so
proud of our brains. It's reallyIt's exceptional, and it just

(44:00):
helps to understand why we haveto continue to teach language
and, you know, ensure that ourlanguage learners are getting
the language instruction thatthey need in particular, because
those decisions are going tochange from one language to
another, right? The syntacticdevelopment, the grammatical
structures of languages are sodifferent that we really need to

(44:23):
make sure that we're emphasizinglanguage. And I think that a lot
of her slides and her modelsreally showed that. And then
Pete Bowers at the end with thethis is what you can do in a
hands on way, and really to, youknow, to teach structured word
inquiry and morphology. I had alot of takeaways from that panel
was excellent.

Donell Pons (44:43):
And you know, you saying about the the wonder of
what the brain can do, and I'malso thinking about we really
this is honoring all that thebrain can do. When you say we
understand this is a verychallenging thing that we expect
all of us to be able to do. Weunderstand that there may be x.
Are difficulties for individualsbased on a whole host of reasons

(45:03):
as to why this could bechallenging and even more
challenging, and so going afterit and having the best
background and support forindividuals whose job it is to
do this thing and support it,that we're really honoring the
human experience in a way thatcan't be duplicated when you
think about our life experiencewas fantastic. Great job. I look

(45:24):
forward to the next one,

Lindsay Kemeny (45:27):
and if you want to have the next one in Utah, we
will help you organize it. Justgoing to throw that out. I'm
volunteering Donell and Stacytoo. Shameless

Stacy Hurst (45:35):
plug, yeah. Well, rural Utah is beautiful. We're
close to, like, four nationalparks in our backyard. I'm just
saying Southern Utah Universitymight be a great place to host
it, and then I don't have tomiss anything.

Unknown (45:53):
You know, we might have an angle there. When Maria was
talking about all of those greatreading research conferences
that used to happen. They werealways in these amazing places
like Hawaii or Australia. So Ithink we could make a pitch for
a national park expedition, orif you want to be back in
Hawaii. I mean, that's probablygoing to be fine too, sure.
So everybody email Madeline. I'mnot going to give her Matt,

(46:16):
that's a that's for Maddie.
Hopefully she'll listen to thispodcast and get that feedback.
Yeah, we just

Lindsay Kemeny (46:21):
need, like, group discount on flights,
right? Let's do it in January orFebruary, because that's when
it's really yucky here.

Stacy Hurst (46:33):
When can we expect information about the next one
friends?

Unknown (46:37):
It's really tentative, right? Now, I hate to, like,
say, a date and then have it bewrong. So just know that the
reading league team is small butmighty and working really hard
to plan meaningful nationallearning opportunities. So we're
gearing up for our conference,which will be back in Chicago in
October, and so it's really alot of careful planning getting
ready for that experience, butwe will make sure to let the

(47:01):
world know when we're ready toannounce what next year's summit
will be.
Sign up for the newsletter,follow social media, and we will
be sure to let you know as soonas we know.

Stacy Hurst (47:12):
Okay, yeah, we looking forward to that. And I
know you. I feel like at lastyear's conference, we knew about
this summit, so maybe at leastby then, right

Unknown (47:23):
and always happy to hear about topics that the world
is interested in. Right? As thereading League, we are as strong
as all of the members of ourleague, which is every person
listening to this podcast. Andwe would love to know what you
want to know about. It's reallyhelpful, and we do make
decisions based on what folksneed, because it's what we do,

(47:45):
and we would love to learn fromyou all too. Yeah, I feel like
that's what makes the summit somuch harder to plan in advance,
because we're trying to be soresponsive to what's going on in
the field and where we needconversation. So the conference
is more like choose your ownadventure. You can pick the
sessions and strands that speakto you, but to plan the summit
too far in advance, we mightmiss out on the topic that the

(48:06):
field really needs.

Stacy Hurst (48:09):
That makes sense, for sure. And just to just give,
like a lot of gratitude to thereading League and everything
that your organization our it'sours, right? Collectively, we're
all part of it, but all thethings that you do to help us
bridge that that gap is soimportant. Thank you so much. I

(48:30):
know my career would bedrastically different without
it. So thank you so much.

Unknown (48:36):
Well, right back at you, all three of you are
amazing in your own right, indoing just really careful
translation work and bringingthis research to practice in a
lot of really great ways thatresonate across the country. So
we're grateful for partners likeyou.

Stacy Hurst (48:52):
Well Donell thanks for leading our just
conversation today. Thank youfor joining us today. This has
been just the pleasure of thisrecap, and for those of you who
are listening, hopefully you'llbe able to join the reading,
whether it's at the conferenceor the summit, or just by
reading our journals or goingonline. And the website is a

(49:15):
plethora of resources foreducators, and we hope that
you'll join us for the nextepisode of literacy talks
whatever that's going to beabout. Thanks for joining us
today.

Unknown (49:29):
Such an honor. Thanks for having

Lindsay Kemeny (49:31):
me. Thank you, you guys.

Narrator (49:33):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momentum begins. Visit
Reading horizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and
resources to support yourjourney in the science of
reading. You.