November 5, 2025 • 44 mins
In this special recap episode, Stacy Hurst and Donell Pons share key takeaways from the 2025 International Dyslexia Association Conference. While Lindsay Kemeny wasn’t able to attend, she joins the conversation to reflect on the insights and themes that emerged — including the newly revised definition of dyslexia, the critical role of literacy leadership, and the power of early, high-quality instruction. Whether you attended or not, this episode offers a practical and reflective look at what truly matters in literacy education today.
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Episode Transcript
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Narrator (00:03):
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. Donell 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. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Lindsay Kemeny and
Donell Pons, and we get to talktoday about the International
Dyslexia Association conferencethat was just held as of this
recording last week, and Donelland I got to
(01:10):
attend it in person, so wethought we'd do our recaps like
we do anyway. Lindsay, we missedyou, but we know you're
teaching.
Lindsay Kemeny (01:19):
I saw lots of pictures online. It looked
fantastic. Sad I missed out, butit's just it was hard. With
October, I already went to thereading league conference, and I
can't. My students need me, so Iwas needed in the classroom, but
I'm excited to hear about ittoday.
Stacy Hurst (01:36):
Yeah, that is understandable. In fact, I think
this year it was a week. We hada week in between the reading
league conference and thisconference. But next year, Ida
moved their conference toNovember, right? Donell, so
there's going to be a thereading league will be in
Chicago in October, and then,oh, this is other big news. The
(01:59):
IDA conference is going to be inLas Vegas, Nevada, in November.
Lindsay Kemeny (02:04):
That's awesome for us, because that's so cool.
I
Stacy Hurst (02:08):
know, I know, I know, I'm excited about that so
Donell, I just thought we couldstart maybe from the beginning
of the conference, and I I gotto go a day early because I met
with some higher ed people, andwe had a little some of our own
(02:30):
to talk about the benefits ofIda accreditation in our
university programs. And can Ijust tell you throughout the
conference, Ida did a reallygood job of focusing on higher
ed and all the work that's beingdone to ensure that our pre
service teachers are prepared toteach reading. So I of course,
(02:51):
that's my current situation. Soit was really effectual for me
in that way too. And I justwanted to highlight one
superintendent as you know, theconference is in Atlantis, so
they had a superintendent namedGrant Rivera, and he is a
superintendent in Mariettaschools and Lindsay, as I read
(03:12):
some of the things that he said,I just want you to be thinking
like as a teacher, how greatwould it be to have this type of
leadership? He has said thatthey are literacy is their
number one priority. Andeverything he shared really
proved that. So he has, hestarted with the question, how
do we provide teachers with timeto do the work? And I know, how
(03:35):
many times do we attendprofessional learning and then
we're expected to somehow takethe time to absorb it all and
implement it. So he was focusingthat, and he cited the the
philosophy of Home Depot, sayingit should be that we're using
company people on company timesolving company problems. So he
is not going to ask teachers todo it outside of contract time.
(03:57):
So he's done a lot to providethem with time to do that. And
then he said his their guidingquestion is, if we were to spare
every resource to ensure everystudent can read, what would
that look like? And he they'vehad great results, as an example
of it, all of their scores havegone up, even in math as they're
(04:17):
focusing on that. He shared somestatistics about how district
and state scores have also goneup, but their their district
scores have superseded that. Soit's paying off to focus on
literacy. And he was just said alot of really impressive things.
Donell Pons (04:39):
And you know, Stacy at the conference. And Lindsay,
this was interesting. They'reemphasizing the relationship
between reading challenges andmath challenges. And in fact, I
was in one presentation wherethey went so far as to say, if
you have a student who's beenscreened out, receiving services
for reading intervention, andthey're having reading
difficulties and you have notlooked at their math, you have
not done service to that childthat. How often they co occur.
(05:01):
Thought that was reallyinteresting. We're finally
talking about that link, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (05:05):
and that did come up frequently, no matter the
topic of the the session.
Lindsay Kemeny (05:10):
Yeah. I just think, wow. Like so powerful to
have leaders in your district orstate who are prioritizing
literacy, you know, and itsounds like they really are, and
not just saying it because it'skind of like, well, put your
money where your mouth is right.
Like, do your budget decisionsreflect the fact that you're
prioritizing literacy? And itsounds like they are, and their
(05:31):
decisions do reflect that? Yeah,that
Stacy Hurst (05:36):
is what he said. He said that's how we show what we
value. Is the way we spend ourresources, money and time and
people. And he gave thisspecific example of their
district finance person, andthey were having, it sounded
like a letters training,something similar to that. And
the finance person said, Well,why do I need to be there? Do I
need to be there? And he said,you absolutely need to be there,
(05:57):
because this is how we're goingto be spending our money, and
you need to understand whatthat's going to go into. It was
really powerful. Anyway, Irecommend following them. And
then in that same day, it keptgetting mentioned over and over
again that we have 720 schooldays from kindergarten to third
(06:18):
grade to teach a student how toread. And that's another thing I
loved about this conference. Ofcourse, it's dyslexia is in the
name. But we everything wasfocused on how to meet the needs
of every student. So I reallyliked that. Donell, what? What
was one of the first sessionsthat really stood out to you,
(06:40):
that you had a great takeawayfrom before
Donell Pons (06:44):
we dive in, and there were great sessions, but
I'm just going to say they don'tever provide a paper map at all
or schedule. Oh, yeah. So you'rein the app constantly, and the
app disappeared right after theconference, so now you have to
wait on Yeah, it's gone. Can'taccess it, and I have to wait
for them to then put theresources back out. I'm just
(07:06):
saying how much I love Yeah,because then you can go back
through and you have a visual infront of you so you can remember
the things it's all so jumbledup in your mind.
Stacy Hurst (07:15):
Yeah. Donell, what do you think of the venue?
Donell Pons (07:19):
On the plus side, that's about to say there was
plenty of room I felt like andyou could make it into. I did
every session, and many of themwere full. People wanted to be
in them, but there was enoughhappening. It was spread across,
and the rooms were sufficient. Iloved that piece of it. Yeah, I
Stacy Hurst (07:35):
don't remember one session that I was in that
people were sitting on the flooror either, yeah, but full
sessions, though, and it was inAtlanta, Georgia, always a
beautiful place, but also, yeah,just a lot of people. I really
liked that. There were so manyattendees, but yeah, I didn't
(07:56):
feel like we were on top of eachother.
Donell Pons (07:58):
Yeah, I didn't either. It was nice.
Stacy Hurst (08:02):
Okay, so where do we want to start? Donell,
Donell Pons (08:05):
yeah, opening up.
One of my first ones was theygave out these awards at Ida,
and then the individual whoreceives the award does a
presentation. And one of themwas, and I'm gonna probably
slaughter the name. She's fromthe Netherlands. I take it with
my Americanization as Elsie, butit's E, l, s, j, e, Van Bergen,
I think I can get the last partCorrect. Van Bergen research in
the Netherlands. As I said,really good presentation, not
(08:26):
someone I'm familiar with.
That's what I like about Ida aswell, because it's
international, and they bring inpeople that you don't normally
see. Stanislaus de Hain he wasone from France that we got to
see for the first time at Ida,at least I did for the first
time. So I really appreciatethat about this conference. And
she was discussing some researchthat she has done, and that's
(08:47):
mainly on looking at theheritability of, well, it was a
lot of things, but heritabilityof dyslexia. And she asked a
really interesting question inwell, she presented some
information and asked later in abreakout session, which I also
attended, and she posited thequestion, what's the best way to
tell if a student is going tostruggle with reading because of
dyslexia? Is it looking at thestudent's DNA, or is it, number
(09:10):
two, looking to see whethermother or father or someone
close in that family has had areading difficulty? And of
course, a lot of folks are DNA,right? DNA, DNA. And she said,
unfortunately, because it is sodifficult to trace that it's
just it's just so multifactorialthat isn't right. Now, the best
way, and the best way would be,to look at is there a close
family member with a readingdifficulty, which was
(09:31):
interesting, and that also ledto some of her research in
looking at the profile of thebrain of individuals who are
have dyslexia, and that youcan't compare brain to brain
because there's so manydifferences, that would be a
really poor way to be looking atit. So anyway, very interesting
research. And again, it was, itwas nice to have someone I
hadn't seen before. What aboutyou, Stacy?
Stacy Hurst (09:51):
Yeah, you know, as you were talking, I'm trying to
find the page. I actually tookso many notes during this
conference. I love that. But I.
I want to say it was during, oh,the keynote Doug Fuchs. Oh, very
good. Oh, he was talking aboutthe percentages of who's likely
to have dyslexia. So related tothat. And it was a little bit
(10:16):
surprising, because he said 7%and this could have been someone
else. I'm still looking 7% ofthe population, the chance of in
the general population, anybodyhas 7% of having a reading
difficulty, having dyslexia,specifically, and then if you
(10:36):
have a if you have a languagedelay, that is 17% of students
are likely to have dyslexia. Butif you have a language delay and
a relative with dyslexia, thenthat's where the 50% comes in,
like now you're really likely tohave dyslexia. So I thought that
(10:58):
was interesting, too, how theyparsed it out like that. And
then they really spent a lot oftime talking about the fact that
we just need to treat thesymptoms like when it shows up,
and not worry about brainimages, necessarily. But they
also said ideally, oh, maybe ina perfect world, we wouldn't
(11:24):
need the term dyslexia, becausewe're just addressing the needs
of every student. And I am sorrythat I Oh, I think that was
during the definition ofdyslexia,
Donell Pons (11:38):
yeah, I was gonna say that felt like, yeah, when
they went over the newdefinition,
Stacy Hurst (11:42):
which is major, do you think we should skip to that
to talk about that next Donell,because that was what we were
kind of looking forward to aswell. Talk about that whole
session.
Donell Pons (11:53):
Yeah, it was a highlight for the conference,
because we had been tipped offearlier, and some of us had an
opportunity to make publiccomment. Unfortunately, I don't
think that went wide enough forpeople to know that they could
make a comment if they wantedto. And so I talked to some
people after it had closed forpublic comment that, yeah, you
could have made a comment aboutthe new definition, and they
were providing a sort ofabstract of what they thought
(12:15):
the definition would change tofrom the 2002 definition we've
been using for so long that'soften seen in many states
legislation about dyslexia thatthey were going to change it,
update it. And again, the ideais that this should happen
regularly. As more informationbecomes available, our
understanding becomes greater,we should have an update to the
definition. Does not mean wedon't know what dyslexia is.
That's not what they're sayingat all. We've known for a very
(12:37):
long time, going back to the1800s we can trace that history
for you, if you'd like. We'renot changing that at all. What
we're saying is we're updatingour information, and that should
come with a better, morespecific definition. At the
conference, they were going tounveil, or reveal the
culmination of a bunch ofindividuals and researchers
sitting together all of thecomments that were brought
together, and give you thedefinition which they did
(12:59):
present. And they had a verylengthy presentation, and I
thought it was interestingbefore they presented it.
Lindsay, you'll find thisinteresting too. They said, Now
we don't want you to rush outwith this definition immediately
feel like you have to dosomething with it. Take your
time with it, digest it, youknow, put it out. Make sure
other people have a chance tolook at it. So they wanted you
to be slow in your reaction,right? Slow you down, because it
(13:21):
can be very divisive, and letyou just kind of sit with it for
a little bit. So that was acaution. I'm just putting that
out there because we're going totalk about it. So that was a bit
of a caution for them. But it's,it's longer, it's much longer. I
bet it's double what it used tobe, but it covers a lot of
ground. I thought, yeah.
Stacy Hurst (13:40):
And then at the end, we were encouraged to
advocate for the definition. Butin that whole session, they
literally went sentence bysentence. They went over the
whole process of how theyrevised the definition,
including the research that wehave access to compared to
before, and then they went evencolor coded section by section
(14:05):
and addressed it, yeah.
Donell Pons (14:07):
And they also talked about ways in which you
might use it. You don't have touse the whole definition. Maybe
there's a part of it that speaksto certain audiences, and to
feel like you can do that, youcan take it apart and use the
portions that are most relevantto what you're talking about.
Thought that was interesting.
Lindsay Kemeny (14:23):
Too. Awesome. So do we want to do that? Do you
guys want to go sentence bysentence and share?
Donell Pons (14:28):
Yeah, we're up for it. Okay?
Stacy Hurst (14:30):
I think so. Let's do it. Okay? Donell,
Donell Pons (14:34):
yeah. So to begin with, this might sound familiar.
Dyslexia is a specific learningdisability that's not new,
characterized by difficulties inWord, reading and or spelling
that is new to add the or tospelling, because here we go,
that involve accuracy, speed orboth, and vary depending on the
orthography that's new toacknowledge different
(14:56):
orthographies, right, and how itmight appear differently.
Lindsay Kemeny (14:59):
So. Right?
Because English is very complexlithography, right? So it's it's
going to be harder, probablyright, for students to learn
English because of thecomplexity. And
Stacy Hurst (15:11):
it does go along with what Donell was saying
earlier about this being a focuson international language
development in reading andwriting, because in most every
session, they address that theytalked about how even something
like Ran is such adifferentiator, because in some
languages, accuracy is not theissue, because it is such a
(15:33):
shallow orthography compared toEnglish. So that was very
inclusive, I think, to add thatinto the
Lindsay Kemeny (15:38):
definition. And I imagine you know, because we
know dyslexia is on thespectrum, so the fact that it's
saying it's characterized bydifficulties in Word, reading
and or spelling, I just think ifyou have a more mild case of
dyslexia, you might, you know,they might be reading fine. It's
in the spelling where it reallybecomes apparent, right?
Donell Pons (16:00):
These difficulties occur along a continuum of
severity. We just talked alittle bit about that, and
persist even with instructionthat is effective for the
individual's peers. Now I justwant to point out right here. It
was really interesting becausesomebody asked Hugh Katz, so
what if a student has a lot ofthese reading challenges, but,
but you're, you're not callingit dyslexia. What is that? So,
is all of it dyslexia? Is onlysome of it dyslexia? You can't.
(16:23):
Said something reallyinteresting. He said, Oh, if
that student's really strugglingwith these things, and you
provide that same intervention,and that student starts to make
really good progress, I'm nottalking dyslexia. That student
had other challenges and issuesthat were going on. They needed
additional instruction if itpersists. So that's that
persistent part. And he reallytalked about that, the severity
and the persistence of it, evenwith instruction that is
(16:45):
effective for the individual'speers. Katz really came in on
that one. I thought it wasinteresting.
Stacy Hurst (16:49):
Also, do you remember they had a panel, and
we were able to ask questions ofthe people, and somebody asked
the question. Nadine Gabbanswered it, but she said she
sometimes describes dyslexialike depression, there are
different reasons people havedepression. Some of it is
clinical, some of it'ssituational, but the difference
is the persistence. If you'relikely to have that as a
(17:12):
persistent problem, then it'smore chronic, and something you
have to address your entirelife. If it's situational, then
you address it and it goes away.
Like those kind of when she wastalking about reading
difficulties, but that she said,That's sometimes the comparison
she makes. What
Donell Pons (17:29):
do you think?
Lindsay Kemeny (17:30):
Lindsay, so I think this is a little like,
this is, this is a little grayarea I feel like, because it's
not like, if they have dyslexia,an intervention can't work and
they won't learn to readsuccessfully, right? So I think
this is just a little it's alittle more complicated, a
little more nuanced, becausethey will improve and make
progress even though they havedyslexia. But I guess the key
(17:53):
is, then you you add in anothervowel team, and you add in
something else, and there's,it's still going to be this, you
know, it's going to take a lotof work for each new skill right
to acquire, of course, dependingon the severity of the
Stacy Hurst (18:07):
dyslexia, yeah, the amount of practice. Yeah matters
there too.
Donell Pons (18:12):
Yeah. Okay, so here we get into the causes of
dyslexia are complex and involvecombinations of genetic,
neurobiological andenvironmental influences that
interact throughout development.
That was interesting, thecomplexity of it, right? That we
were talking about, does anybodywant to stop there?
Stacy Hurst (18:32):
Are we good? Well, I'll just reiterate, maybe
that's what Nadine Gabb wasaddressing when she was
comparing it to depression,something like depression, yeah,
yeah.
Lindsay Kemeny (18:41):
Yeah. And it's, it's not just one of those,
right? So it's saying it's allthree, so it couldn't just be
environmental influences, right?
That's when we're like, there'san instruction issue, not
dyslexia, if it's onlyenvironmental issues, that how
you like, that's how I interpretthat. So it's a combination of
all three, genetic,neurobiological and
environmental influences. And to
Donell Pons (19:03):
your point, Lindsay, if it's environmental
strictly, then with the rightinstruction, we should see that
student moving right, makingprogress. Yeah, okay, underlying
difficulties with phonologicaland morphological processing are
common, but not universal. Andearly oral language weaknesses
often foreshadow literacychallenges.
Lindsay Kemeny (19:23):
I was taken aback with morphological
processing a little bit becauseI'm like, why that? Why not just
say, you know, multi syllabicreading or words, or something,
multi syllabic words. Whymorphological any? Do you guys
have any thoughts or insights,or did they talk about that?
Stacy Hurst (19:41):
Well, I think it's because the morphology informs
spelling and orthographyreflects morphology. So when the
code breaks down, so to speak,that we teach in phonics, then
we need to be aware ofmorphology and how that would
in. Form, the spelling of aword, and therefore retrieval
(20:03):
and meaning and all that that'sinvolved with that. I don't know
what, what do you
Donell Pons (20:06):
think? I thought it was interesting also to
acknowledge here that they saidare common, but again, not
universal, pointing that out,right?
Lindsay Kemeny (20:13):
Yeah, that's what makes it so complex, is
that it does look different anddifferent, you know, in
Stacy Hurst (20:18):
each case, yeah.
And again, though that's wherethey really emphasize, the
persistent nature of dyslexia isthe differentiator
Donell Pons (20:28):
the early oral language weakness. That was
interesting because it hasn'tbeen there before, right?
Stacy Hurst (20:33):
Okay, remember when I was quoting statistics earlier
without knowing where they were?
I found them, and it was duringCharles hulmes speech, and he
talked about, if you havedevelopmental language delay at
the age of three and a half,there's a 35% chance that you'll
acquire dyslexia. I was all offon that. And if you have just
family risk, then that is less,but if you have both, then you
(20:59):
have almost 50% chance.
Donell Pons (21:05):
I work with readers of all ages, and one thing I've
learned, when instruction alignswith the science, learners start
to believe in themselves. Again.
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It's everything you need todeliver structured literacy, and
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(21:28):
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Stacy Hurst (21:34):
So back to the language, and I know at Big Sky,
and we talked about this, DrHill emphasized and re
emphasized that language iseverything this kind of hearkens
to that.
Lindsay Kemeny (21:48):
And Donell, your kids with dyslexia, did they
have oral language weaknessesearly on? No, and mine did. He
was late to speak,
Donell Pons (21:59):
so mine did not.
And I got asked that all thetime, and when I couldn't answer
that with a yes, I would get aside eye when I said, but we
have these other difficultiesand challenges. I got the side
eye for quite a while because ofthat interesting
Lindsay Kemeny (22:12):
and then my son like so he was late to speak,
but then he did have a reallygood vocabulary later on, so
that when he was diagnosed withdyslexia, I just had family
members that were reallysurprised, because they were
like, well, he speaks so well,and he has such a robust
vocabulary, right? So hedefinitely made up for that the
oral language. But we, we had noidea about the dyslexia until he
(22:32):
was seven, so didn't do much tohelp him there. I mean, did a
lot, but it didn't have theknowledge to truly help them
until later.
Stacy Hurst (22:41):
That's interesting.
Yeah, Charles Hume also said,Without language, reading
doesn't exist at all. So itmakes sense that we're, you
know, calling out the language
Donell Pons (22:52):
and just to call out again to Charles Hume, who
also received an award and wasone of the speakers, just
phenomenal work, and his hisdelivery just gets better and
better as we Americanize him alittle bit more American every
time he
Lindsay Kemeny (23:08):
talks like the choral responses he likes when
he did it again and then stopand we don't have to say
everything. I was so funny. He
Stacy Hurst (23:20):
did that again, but not quite as many repetitions,
still trying to emphasize that,yeah,
Donell Pons (23:31):
all right.
Secondary consequences includereading comprehension problems
and reduced reading and writingexperience that can impede
growth in language knowledge,written expression and overall
academic achievement. Anythoughts there?
Lindsay Kemeny (23:49):
Yeah, just that's like, no surprises, yeah,
of course. You know what I mean.
Like, of course, now it's gonnaimpact other Yeah.
Donell Pons (23:55):
Love that they though expanded it, don't you?
Lindsay that they expanded it tosay that can impede growth in
language, knowledge, writtenexpression and overall academic
achievement, really laying itout, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (24:05):
yeah, because it's gonna affect every like
every subject, right? So, yeah,it is good that they said that
Stacy Hurst (24:12):
explicitly. You will be limited if you cannot
access text. No matter what kindof technology we have today, you
will be limited what you canlearn.
Lindsay Kemeny (24:23):
And isn't it so common for people to jump to
it's a reading comprehensionproblem? Oh, this student has a
reading comprehension problemwhen it's actually a decoding,
like a reading, you know, it'sself problem. And of course,
then you're going to have acomprehension problem because it
can't read the words. So I kindof like that this sort of it
clarifies that, that now it'sgoing to impact the reading
(24:47):
comprehension, right?
Donell Pons (24:49):
Yeah, I thought that was so good, okay, and
we'll continue on, because thisis additional and really
important psychological wellbeing and employment
opportunities also may beaffected. Hadn't been mentioned
before. Four althoughidentification and targeted
instruction are important at anyage, language and literacy
support before and during theearly years of education is
particularly effective. What dowe think of that ending
Stacy Hurst (25:14):
and man that was emphasized in almost every
session, that earlyidentification, addressing it
early, not waiting to addressthe issues, even if a student
doesn't receive a classificationtill second grade. Let's meet
the need before then.
Lindsay Kemeny (25:32):
And circling back to our conversation at the
beginning of this the leadersare, you know, district leaders
need to probably be prioritizingliteracy and their budget,
budget decisions should bereflecting that right, because
this is just showing you howimportant it is, not just for
students with dyslexia, becauseit is critical for them, but
it's also critical for everyonethat we get it right as quickly
(25:55):
and early as we can.
Stacy Hurst (25:56):
Yeah, I this is becoming very comprehensive,
just going through thedefinition, but I also thinking
about that, did they refer to itas social, emotional or not? But
they were talking about logicalwell being Yes. So that is
becoming more and more prevalenttoo. We cited in previous
(26:17):
episodes meta analyzes that havebeen done saying that if you
cannot read, no matter the theissue actually just if you
cannot read, then you're itincreases things like anxiety
and depression and ADHD and allkinds of things. Has a bigger
(26:37):
effect if you can't read onthose things, then if you have
those things and you can't thathas on reading. So again, like
you were saying Lindsay from thebeginning, I feel like we need
to get that message out theremore and more, because if you
can address it early on, thenwe're going to have a healthier
society all around
Donell Pons (26:58):
and the clinical psychologist who stated in the
one session that we attended,and she clearly said, which is
first the reading disability oranxiety. And she said, I'm here
to say it's the readingdisability and then the anxiety.
That's That's it. That's the wayit goes, reading disability
anxiety. So
Lindsay Kemeny (27:16):
when we have like these mandates from the
district where where they'resaying, Oh, you need to do these
social emotional lessons, or youneed to fit these in any you
know, sometime in your in yourday, it cannot replace the
literacy instruction. And I feellike it is. It's so frustrating,
because I think teachers get allthese things piled on, and it's
(27:39):
at some point you have to belike, okay, when would you like
me to do that during our readingtime or during our math time?
You know, what is that supposedto replace? Because, let's be
honest, we can't do everything.
Stacy Hurst (27:51):
So I went to a fantastic session that speaks to
this, Stephanie allotaiba et al,I'll just say they actually have
a whole curriculum. It's focusedon dialogic read alouds and
language. So it is literacy, buttheir themes and the topics are,
oh, I think I wrote some of themdown. They're beautiful. I
(28:14):
thought, like the last one thatI remember was, you know, I can
basically, I can do hard things.
I can set goals and achievethem. I can be kind to other
people. I can, and it was stillmeeting that aspect of
development, but throughliteracy. So like you're saying,
Lindsay, the more informed ourleaders are, the less likely
(28:34):
they are to say, Okay, you haveto do this on top of everything
else you're doing. Like this ishow you can integrate it and
give resources to do that, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (28:44):
yeah. And that'd be the best way, if you can't,
if it is connected to a, youknow, beautiful literature that
you're reading to them, and youcan pull that in, yeah,
connected
Stacy Hurst (28:53):
and integrated, right? We keep saying
Donell Pons (28:55):
that. And the clinical psychologist pointed
out in the moment, working withthe student and and having
strategies to hand that you canuse to say to the student to
continue and support motivationfor the student, where this is
really, really hard, that's morehelpful than say, talking about
strategies outside of thesetting, right? Makes sense that
by finding a few of thosestrategies in the moment, that's
(29:16):
a lot more helpful to parent toteacher than talking about them
outside of, right?
Stacy Hurst (29:21):
Yeah, yeah, the immediate context, I think back
to Lindsay, what you're doing inyour classroom with srsd. It's
not unrelated. I mean, you know,sticking with something when
it's hard, and in the context,that immediate context for the
student,
Lindsay Kemeny (29:35):
yeah, and then they it does carry into other
parts of the day, right? Andhopefully, and you could talk
about, oh, after school, did youhave basketball practice? Did
you have to keep, you know,persevering and trying as you're
you know? And you can extend itto other things for sure? Yeah.
So we've
Donell Pons (29:50):
spent a good deal of time on the definition, so
I'm just going to quickly getbecause that was really
important. And like Stacy said,it was the highlight of the
conference. I think a lot of uswere there to hear about the new
definition. Position that'sgoing to be really impactful.
It's in legislation across thecountry, so it might be
impacting legislation as wespeak. Hopefully it causes
conversations in those settingsthat goes beyond just looking at
(30:10):
well, are we screeningappropriately? Are we making
sure we're getting the rightreading interventions? Are we
really tracking that data? Arewe making sure that we're
supporting those students? Howbig are we going in order to
support in reading. So that'llbe interesting. Dr Eric treatise
was part of a conversationdiscussion. He's always really
good talking about executivefunction, and that's been
another big topic, is executivefunction and the importance of
(30:33):
it, and the challenges that canoccur when you have students
with different learningdifferences, and the support
that they might need with that,he talked about child self
direction, helping children beself directed and goal oriented,
and making sure those areattainable goals. And he also
talked about not structuring toomuch and scaffolding too much of
(30:54):
the student to where we'remanaging them so much they don't
have an opportunity to managethemselves. So talking about
what are the things that we canallow the student to manage that
won't impact the learning so wecontinue that's a priority. Make
sure that's still happening. Butare ways in which the student
can take over some autonomy andstart gaining some which is
interesting, and instead ofoffering too many scaffolds,
maybe some prompts withstrategies, like we have
(31:17):
strategies and prompts. So Ithought that was an interesting
thought too. He talked about thedifference between a four to
five year old in executivefunction to a six to nine year
old. There isn't a whole lotsaying so he says, Would you
leave them on their own? Yeah,no
Lindsay Kemeny (31:32):
surprises the first grade
Donell Pons (31:34):
teacher. He says, Come to that the 11 year old you
leave on your own. Did you trustthat one?
Lindsay Kemeny (31:43):
Yeah, my teenagers were so mad when I was
like, Come on, get up, you know,and we can do it. And then
today, guess what? They slept inbecause I was because I thought,
well, I then I don't have towake up early for them. And so I
didn't, and they did it.
Stacy Hurst (31:59):
Yeah, scaffolds are good until they become a
permanent fixture.
Donell Pons (32:07):
He talked about the impulsivity too, right? And
sustained inhibition being ablethat's required for so many
parts of learning. And we don'treally talk about what we do to
support students who might havechallenges in those areas, and
that's very impactful in thelearning. So that's interesting.
Lindsay Kemeny (32:22):
Do they have some helpful tips, strategies?
Donell Pons (32:25):
It was explicit conversation around you, the
behavior you're seeing happeningin that moment. Say, for
instance, every time you wantthe student to read, maybe from
top to bottom, and they'reracing because they want to get
to the bottom, you have adiscussion about what I really
want you to do is and refocusthe student I'm not racing to
the bottom of the page. Givethem a goal or a focus that
(32:46):
isn't about the speed, so thathaving those explicit
conversations is not assumingthat they understand that that's
what we'll be doing. Andreiterate it.
Lindsay Kemeny (32:53):
Yeah, I have a student right now that's really
struggles with any kind ofmanaging himself and just all
that's all about selfregulation, executive
functioning, and I cannot. Icannot give him several
directions. I have to do andeven if I'm like, put the game
in your backpack. I can't I haveto be like, get out your
backpack. Put it on your chair,unzip it, push it open. Wow.
(33:20):
Insane. But she really has ahard time, you know? And it's
like, I you have to be on himfollowing through. It's it's one
thing
Donell Pons (33:30):
he did bring up, which I think is interesting.
And he's not the only one to doit was modeling, and modeling in
those situations. So finding astudent who is is patient but
capable, and having that studentwatch I have John put his away.
You want to watch John do that?
That kind of a thing? Yeah. Ithought that was interesting
too, because I often, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (33:48):
what happens other kids will just want to do
it for him, you know, to just tobe like, hurry, we're going and
they'll just do it. But I likethat. We're just like, have
someone kind of, he needs tolearn how to do it, and just
have someone kind of gentlyfollowing up with them. Yeah,
you
Donell Pons (34:03):
know what's funny?
Lindsay, I had an experience atthe airport just after we'd had
this conference, and I watchedTSA explaining to some people
around me that they wantedeverything they had in one
bucket, which at differentairports. That's not the case,
so it's unusual, and then theywanted them placed in there in a
certain way. I had watched thevideo because I was bored stiff.
Had nothing better to do. Theyclearly had not watched the
video. And the TSA kept gettingthe voice got higher, and they
(34:26):
were more insistent. And theindividual, who's an adult, got
more confused. And the backpackhe was twisting around, and I
noticed I did. I just took itand stuck it in the bin like it
needed to be. He leans over tous, thank you. So even as
adults, can happen to us, right?
Stacy Hurst (34:44):
We get overwhelmed.
Yeah, good example. Did hemention the power of non
examples in that too, likewatching another student do
successfully, then also what itdoesn't look like? Did he
mention that?
Donell Pons (34:56):
Yeah, the non example, yeah, I was thinking of
first.
Stacy Hurst (35:00):
Grader who is an adult now, and now that I'm
thinking about, I'm like, Iwonder how he's doing in life,
but I really had to say to him,your number one goal every time
I give a direction is to getstarted. Just get started,
because he had like. But then Ihad to follow up by saying in
that, with this assignment,Getting Started looks like what
(35:21):
it doesn't look like, you know?
Yeah, lots of need for that. Idid attend a session where Mary
Ann wolf spoke. I always love tohear her talk. She was talking
about just how we need to RedFlag some of the ways the AI
might be utilized in ourprofession, and she said that
(35:43):
she shared the impact ofoffloading some of these
thinking processes to AI. Shealso said we shouldn't refer to
them as tools, because they arenot they're offloading thinking,
is what she's saying. And shesaid we need to be very aware of
that. But this is what I thoughtwas a powerful statement out of
(36:05):
it. She said the impact ofcognitive offloading and over
reliance on AI. So she sayscognitive offload, or
offloading, and its overreliance reduce critical
thinking, long term memory,storage and reflection. And then
she said, Children expend lesstime and effort on tasks that
(36:27):
build the circuits necessary fordeep reading processes that
underline the ability theunderlie the ability to evaluate
truth of information and buildempathy. And then she related it
kind of to society today, andmaybe at the heart of every
(36:48):
issue is the inability torecognize truth or to have
empathy for
Donell Pons (36:54):
someone else. Wow, something to think about these
days. So it's
Stacy Hurst (36:58):
not nothing right, like we need to proceed with
caution. Yeah. So I thought thatwas interesting, too. Wow.
Donell Pons (37:06):
So I'm not gonna I obviously we can't get to every
speaker. It's they were allphenomenal, but I'm just gonna
talk about one more, and thenI'm probably done, because it's
been a lot and a lot of reallygood stuff, but a lot. There was
an individual who could not makeit. She got covid at the last
minute, but had taped arecording. Had a recording or
video. Her name was EVFedorenko, and she was in the
syntax. She was part of thesyntax group that Julie Van Dyke
(37:30):
put together. And again, if youhaven't done the two
perspectives editions, part oneand two on syntax, I highly
recommend getting on thewebsite. If you're a member, you
have access to the perspectivespublication. They were both
really good. If you were a bigsky you received both of them,
and Julie put together afantastic range of individuals
who spoke on syntax. Couldn'tget to it all, but here's a
(37:52):
couple of quotes from from EV inher video that I thought were
really good. Language systems,either by ear or eye, is the
same that supports languageunderstanding. So whether you're
getting it by ear or eye,they're both fantastic. It goes
into the language system andit's the same. It goes into that
same system or network thatsupports language understanding.
And once a word is decoded, itgoes into the higher level
(38:14):
language region. Reading,speaking, writing depends on the
strength of the higher levellanguage regions. These areas
keep increasing until age 16,the system engages for all
languages, and even made uplanguages, which I thought was
interesting. So anything that isin a language system, how do we
(38:35):
how do we increase linguisticcompetence, exposure matters,
reading to kids, having kidsread act on the vocabulary. Kids
are good at inferring wordmeaning, have them do it. We
increase competence based onexposure and use of the
language. Yeah, it's reallygood.
Stacy Hurst (38:53):
Yeah, that is really good. I also I'm glad she
got to video that then that wasgood. That was a good solution.
One thing that I wanted tomention was Doug Fuchs talk. He
spent a lot of his presentationtalking about the research
behind basically inclusionversus pull out instruction in
(39:18):
schools. And it was surprisingto me that it the research is
kind of all over the place fordifferent reasons, but the
really important takeaway wasthe quality of instruction, the
how, was more important than thewhere, almost in every case. And
I love that. He said this, so Iwrote it down. I'm probably
going to print it and have it inmy office, but he said we should
(39:42):
be excruciatingly interested inthe quality of instruction and
like starting in teacher prep.
And then he said, Who else canwe prepare to become
instructional specialists, whichis what we need when we're
talking about something asimportant as reading.
Donell Pons (40:00):
Hmm, yeah, he was really good. Doug Fuchs, yeah.
Stacy Hurst (40:03):
And you know what I will say a little something
about his delivery. I know we'vetalked about this before, but
his his slides, which I did takepictures of many of them, so
thankfully, with my phone, so Ihave to rely on the app. But
literally, it was word for word,what he was saying. It's a lot
of text on the slides, and hewent through them, but his
(40:26):
message was really powerful, andI can see why he did that,
because there's some reallycritical information densely
packed into that, that wholepresentation every it seemed
like every other minute, I waslike, oh, oh, oh, that's
interesting. Oh, he kind of tookus on a journey. Yeah, he did.
He really did. It was reallygreat.
Donell Pons (40:46):
It's been a great month between this and reading
League, right?
Stacy Hurst (40:50):
Yeah, really, October is the month, right? And
then we, I love how we keepreferring back to other
conferences we've attended to,because it really does highlight
and emphasize the fact that whatwe call the science of reading
is a converging body ofknowledge. No matter the
(41:10):
setting, we're getting the sameinformation because the research
is showing similar strands andwhere we don't know, well, we
find out more about which I loveI love that.
Donell Pons (41:22):
Yeah, and a hero this month. I want to do a shout
out Matt burns, because I wasable to hear him at two
conferences. He was at the planetalk for dyslexia, as well as at
the reading league conference.
And I have to say, yeah, he wasa standout this month. And
that's saying something, becausethere were a lot of standouts
this
Stacy Hurst (41:38):
month. Yeah, agreed. And I love that. As you
the listeners know who have beenwith us for all however many
episodes we've had now, Matt wasour second guest ever, right
after Anita Archer, I think weneed to have him on again. But
there are so many things that Iwe say this, don't follow people
(42:01):
follow, you know, concepts andideas. But I think the reason
why he deserves, he's deservingof that shout out, is because of
his concepts, ideas andresearch, and he has such an
ease with it, but also it's justfun to watch what he focuses on.
And I think because he has sucha strong practitioner side.
(42:23):
Whatever he shares, however heinterprets things, is always
very actionable and relevant.
It's not pie in the sky. Okay,let's like work through this,
but it's an immediate gateway topractice. So maybe we need to
have Matt on again. Matt, ifyou're listening, yeah, somebody
want to share this with them.
We'll reach out. You've beenofficially invited. Okay, yeah,
(42:49):
it was a great conference. Itreally was awesome. I'm glad I
was able to make it this year.
We did miss you. Lindsay, I knowlast year I well
Lindsay Kemeny (42:58):
be awesome.
Yeah, November sounds good,
Stacy Hurst (43:01):
right down the street. Oh, and we were, did you
write down the dates? Donell, Iwant to say it was the 14th
through the 17th.
Lindsay Kemeny (43:07):
I think 12th to 14th, right? Yes, that was it
12th to 14th. November. 12 to14th. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (43:13):
doable, yeah. For those of us in the West, it'll
be great. Okay, well, thank youfor the conversation, and we'll
look forward to all three of usbeing there next year. And
we'll, we'll do a take two oranother edition of the IDA
recap, and thanks, as always,for those of you who are
(43:34):
following along, we wish wecould cover absolutely
everything. These recaps are funfor us, but they're just the tip
of the iceberg. Wouldn't youguys say that every time we do a
recap, there's so much. So ifyou ever get the opportunity to
attend one of these conferences,we in a perfect world, teachers
could go for free. I thinkthat'd be so great. But please
(43:57):
do attend, and as always, thanksfor listening, and we hope that
you'll join us for our nextepisode of literacy
Narrator (44:08):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momentum begins. Visit
reading horizons.com/literacy.
Talks to access episodes andresources to support your
journey in the science ofreading.
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. Donell 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. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Lindsay Kemeny and
Donell Pons, and we get to talktoday about the International
Dyslexia Association conferencethat was just held as of this
recording last week, and Donelland I got to
(01:10):
attend it in person, so wethought we'd do our recaps like
we do anyway. Lindsay, we missedyou, but we know you're
teaching.
Lindsay Kemeny (01:19):
I saw lots of pictures online. It looked
fantastic. Sad I missed out, butit's just it was hard. With
October, I already went to thereading league conference, and I
can't. My students need me, so Iwas needed in the classroom, but
I'm excited to hear about ittoday.
Stacy Hurst (01:36):
Yeah, that is understandable. In fact, I think
this year it was a week. We hada week in between the reading
league conference and thisconference. But next year, Ida
moved their conference toNovember, right? Donell, so
there's going to be a thereading league will be in
Chicago in October, and then,oh, this is other big news. The
(01:59):
IDA conference is going to be inLas Vegas, Nevada, in November.
Lindsay Kemeny (02:04):
That's awesome for us, because that's so cool.
I
Stacy Hurst (02:08):
know, I know, I know, I'm excited about that so
Donell, I just thought we couldstart maybe from the beginning
of the conference, and I I gotto go a day early because I met
with some higher ed people, andwe had a little some of our own
(02:30):
to talk about the benefits ofIda accreditation in our
university programs. And can Ijust tell you throughout the
conference, Ida did a reallygood job of focusing on higher
ed and all the work that's beingdone to ensure that our pre
service teachers are prepared toteach reading. So I of course,
(02:51):
that's my current situation. Soit was really effectual for me
in that way too. And I justwanted to highlight one
superintendent as you know, theconference is in Atlantis, so
they had a superintendent namedGrant Rivera, and he is a
superintendent in Mariettaschools and Lindsay, as I read
(03:12):
some of the things that he said,I just want you to be thinking
like as a teacher, how greatwould it be to have this type of
leadership? He has said thatthey are literacy is their
number one priority. Andeverything he shared really
proved that. So he has, hestarted with the question, how
do we provide teachers with timeto do the work? And I know, how
(03:35):
many times do we attendprofessional learning and then
we're expected to somehow takethe time to absorb it all and
implement it. So he was focusingthat, and he cited the the
philosophy of Home Depot, sayingit should be that we're using
company people on company timesolving company problems. So he
is not going to ask teachers todo it outside of contract time.
(03:57):
So he's done a lot to providethem with time to do that. And
then he said his their guidingquestion is, if we were to spare
every resource to ensure everystudent can read, what would
that look like? And he they'vehad great results, as an example
of it, all of their scores havegone up, even in math as they're
(04:17):
focusing on that. He shared somestatistics about how district
and state scores have also goneup, but their their district
scores have superseded that. Soit's paying off to focus on
literacy. And he was just said alot of really impressive things.
Donell Pons (04:39):
And you know, Stacy at the conference. And Lindsay,
this was interesting. They'reemphasizing the relationship
between reading challenges andmath challenges. And in fact, I
was in one presentation wherethey went so far as to say, if
you have a student who's beenscreened out, receiving services
for reading intervention, andthey're having reading
difficulties and you have notlooked at their math, you have
not done service to that childthat. How often they co occur.
(05:01):
Thought that was reallyinteresting. We're finally
talking about that link, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (05:05):
and that did come up frequently, no matter the
topic of the the session.
Lindsay Kemeny (05:10):
Yeah. I just think, wow. Like so powerful to
have leaders in your district orstate who are prioritizing
literacy, you know, and itsounds like they really are, and
not just saying it because it'skind of like, well, put your
money where your mouth is right.
Like, do your budget decisionsreflect the fact that you're
prioritizing literacy? And itsounds like they are, and their
(05:31):
decisions do reflect that? Yeah,that
Stacy Hurst (05:36):
is what he said. He said that's how we show what we
value. Is the way we spend ourresources, money and time and
people. And he gave thisspecific example of their
district finance person, andthey were having, it sounded
like a letters training,something similar to that. And
the finance person said, Well,why do I need to be there? Do I
need to be there? And he said,you absolutely need to be there,
(05:57):
because this is how we're goingto be spending our money, and
you need to understand whatthat's going to go into. It was
really powerful. Anyway, Irecommend following them. And
then in that same day, it keptgetting mentioned over and over
again that we have 720 schooldays from kindergarten to third
(06:18):
grade to teach a student how toread. And that's another thing I
loved about this conference. Ofcourse, it's dyslexia is in the
name. But we everything wasfocused on how to meet the needs
of every student. So I reallyliked that. Donell, what? What
was one of the first sessionsthat really stood out to you,
(06:40):
that you had a great takeawayfrom before
Donell Pons (06:44):
we dive in, and there were great sessions, but
I'm just going to say they don'tever provide a paper map at all
or schedule. Oh, yeah. So you'rein the app constantly, and the
app disappeared right after theconference, so now you have to
wait on Yeah, it's gone. Can'taccess it, and I have to wait
for them to then put theresources back out. I'm just
(07:06):
saying how much I love Yeah,because then you can go back
through and you have a visual infront of you so you can remember
the things it's all so jumbledup in your mind.
Stacy Hurst (07:15):
Yeah. Donell, what do you think of the venue?
Donell Pons (07:19):
On the plus side, that's about to say there was
plenty of room I felt like andyou could make it into. I did
every session, and many of themwere full. People wanted to be
in them, but there was enoughhappening. It was spread across,
and the rooms were sufficient. Iloved that piece of it. Yeah, I
Stacy Hurst (07:35):
don't remember one session that I was in that
people were sitting on the flooror either, yeah, but full
sessions, though, and it was inAtlanta, Georgia, always a
beautiful place, but also, yeah,just a lot of people. I really
liked that. There were so manyattendees, but yeah, I didn't
(07:56):
feel like we were on top of eachother.
Donell Pons (07:58):
Yeah, I didn't either. It was nice.
Stacy Hurst (08:02):
Okay, so where do we want to start? Donell,
Donell Pons (08:05):
yeah, opening up.
One of my first ones was theygave out these awards at Ida,
and then the individual whoreceives the award does a
presentation. And one of themwas, and I'm gonna probably
slaughter the name. She's fromthe Netherlands. I take it with
my Americanization as Elsie, butit's E, l, s, j, e, Van Bergen,
I think I can get the last partCorrect. Van Bergen research in
the Netherlands. As I said,really good presentation, not
(08:26):
someone I'm familiar with.
That's what I like about Ida aswell, because it's
international, and they bring inpeople that you don't normally
see. Stanislaus de Hain he wasone from France that we got to
see for the first time at Ida,at least I did for the first
time. So I really appreciatethat about this conference. And
she was discussing some researchthat she has done, and that's
(08:47):
mainly on looking at theheritability of, well, it was a
lot of things, but heritabilityof dyslexia. And she asked a
really interesting question inwell, she presented some
information and asked later in abreakout session, which I also
attended, and she posited thequestion, what's the best way to
tell if a student is going tostruggle with reading because of
dyslexia? Is it looking at thestudent's DNA, or is it, number
(09:10):
two, looking to see whethermother or father or someone
close in that family has had areading difficulty? And of
course, a lot of folks are DNA,right? DNA, DNA. And she said,
unfortunately, because it is sodifficult to trace that it's
just it's just so multifactorialthat isn't right. Now, the best
way, and the best way would be,to look at is there a close
family member with a readingdifficulty, which was
(09:31):
interesting, and that also ledto some of her research in
looking at the profile of thebrain of individuals who are
have dyslexia, and that youcan't compare brain to brain
because there's so manydifferences, that would be a
really poor way to be looking atit. So anyway, very interesting
research. And again, it was, itwas nice to have someone I
hadn't seen before. What aboutyou, Stacy?
Stacy Hurst (09:51):
Yeah, you know, as you were talking, I'm trying to
find the page. I actually tookso many notes during this
conference. I love that. But I.
I want to say it was during, oh,the keynote Doug Fuchs. Oh, very
good. Oh, he was talking aboutthe percentages of who's likely
to have dyslexia. So related tothat. And it was a little bit
(10:16):
surprising, because he said 7%and this could have been someone
else. I'm still looking 7% ofthe population, the chance of in
the general population, anybodyhas 7% of having a reading
difficulty, having dyslexia,specifically, and then if you
(10:36):
have a if you have a languagedelay, that is 17% of students
are likely to have dyslexia. Butif you have a language delay and
a relative with dyslexia, thenthat's where the 50% comes in,
like now you're really likely tohave dyslexia. So I thought that
(10:58):
was interesting, too, how theyparsed it out like that. And
then they really spent a lot oftime talking about the fact that
we just need to treat thesymptoms like when it shows up,
and not worry about brainimages, necessarily. But they
also said ideally, oh, maybe ina perfect world, we wouldn't
(11:24):
need the term dyslexia, becausewe're just addressing the needs
of every student. And I am sorrythat I Oh, I think that was
during the definition ofdyslexia,
Donell Pons (11:38):
yeah, I was gonna say that felt like, yeah, when
they went over the newdefinition,
Stacy Hurst (11:42):
which is major, do you think we should skip to that
to talk about that next Donell,because that was what we were
kind of looking forward to aswell. Talk about that whole
session.
Donell Pons (11:53):
Yeah, it was a highlight for the conference,
because we had been tipped offearlier, and some of us had an
opportunity to make publiccomment. Unfortunately, I don't
think that went wide enough forpeople to know that they could
make a comment if they wantedto. And so I talked to some
people after it had closed forpublic comment that, yeah, you
could have made a comment aboutthe new definition, and they
were providing a sort ofabstract of what they thought
(12:15):
the definition would change tofrom the 2002 definition we've
been using for so long that'soften seen in many states
legislation about dyslexia thatthey were going to change it,
update it. And again, the ideais that this should happen
regularly. As more informationbecomes available, our
understanding becomes greater,we should have an update to the
definition. Does not mean wedon't know what dyslexia is.
That's not what they're sayingat all. We've known for a very
(12:37):
long time, going back to the1800s we can trace that history
for you, if you'd like. We'renot changing that at all. What
we're saying is we're updatingour information, and that should
come with a better, morespecific definition. At the
conference, they were going tounveil, or reveal the
culmination of a bunch ofindividuals and researchers
sitting together all of thecomments that were brought
together, and give you thedefinition which they did
(12:59):
present. And they had a verylengthy presentation, and I
thought it was interestingbefore they presented it.
Lindsay, you'll find thisinteresting too. They said, Now
we don't want you to rush outwith this definition immediately
feel like you have to dosomething with it. Take your
time with it, digest it, youknow, put it out. Make sure
other people have a chance tolook at it. So they wanted you
to be slow in your reaction,right? Slow you down, because it
(13:21):
can be very divisive, and letyou just kind of sit with it for
a little bit. So that was acaution. I'm just putting that
out there because we're going totalk about it. So that was a bit
of a caution for them. But it's,it's longer, it's much longer. I
bet it's double what it used tobe, but it covers a lot of
ground. I thought, yeah.
Stacy Hurst (13:40):
And then at the end, we were encouraged to
advocate for the definition. Butin that whole session, they
literally went sentence bysentence. They went over the
whole process of how theyrevised the definition,
including the research that wehave access to compared to
before, and then they went evencolor coded section by section
(14:05):
and addressed it, yeah.
Donell Pons (14:07):
And they also talked about ways in which you
might use it. You don't have touse the whole definition. Maybe
there's a part of it that speaksto certain audiences, and to
feel like you can do that, youcan take it apart and use the
portions that are most relevantto what you're talking about.
Thought that was interesting.
Lindsay Kemeny (14:23):
Too. Awesome. So do we want to do that? Do you
guys want to go sentence bysentence and share?
Donell Pons (14:28):
Yeah, we're up for it. Okay?
Stacy Hurst (14:30):
I think so. Let's do it. Okay? Donell,
Donell Pons (14:34):
yeah. So to begin with, this might sound familiar.
Dyslexia is a specific learningdisability that's not new,
characterized by difficulties inWord, reading and or spelling
that is new to add the or tospelling, because here we go,
that involve accuracy, speed orboth, and vary depending on the
orthography that's new toacknowledge different
(14:56):
orthographies, right, and how itmight appear differently.
Lindsay Kemeny (14:59):
So. Right?
Because English is very complexlithography, right? So it's it's
going to be harder, probablyright, for students to learn
English because of thecomplexity. And
Stacy Hurst (15:11):
it does go along with what Donell was saying
earlier about this being a focuson international language
development in reading andwriting, because in most every
session, they address that theytalked about how even something
like Ran is such adifferentiator, because in some
languages, accuracy is not theissue, because it is such a
(15:33):
shallow orthography compared toEnglish. So that was very
inclusive, I think, to add thatinto the
Lindsay Kemeny (15:38):
definition. And I imagine you know, because we
know dyslexia is on thespectrum, so the fact that it's
saying it's characterized bydifficulties in Word, reading
and or spelling, I just think ifyou have a more mild case of
dyslexia, you might, you know,they might be reading fine. It's
in the spelling where it reallybecomes apparent, right?
Donell Pons (16:00):
These difficulties occur along a continuum of
severity. We just talked alittle bit about that, and
persist even with instructionthat is effective for the
individual's peers. Now I justwant to point out right here. It
was really interesting becausesomebody asked Hugh Katz, so
what if a student has a lot ofthese reading challenges, but,
but you're, you're not callingit dyslexia. What is that? So,
is all of it dyslexia? Is onlysome of it dyslexia? You can't.
(16:23):
Said something reallyinteresting. He said, Oh, if
that student's really strugglingwith these things, and you
provide that same intervention,and that student starts to make
really good progress, I'm nottalking dyslexia. That student
had other challenges and issuesthat were going on. They needed
additional instruction if itpersists. So that's that
persistent part. And he reallytalked about that, the severity
and the persistence of it, evenwith instruction that is
(16:45):
effective for the individual'speers. Katz really came in on
that one. I thought it wasinteresting.
Stacy Hurst (16:49):
Also, do you remember they had a panel, and
we were able to ask questions ofthe people, and somebody asked
the question. Nadine Gabbanswered it, but she said she
sometimes describes dyslexialike depression, there are
different reasons people havedepression. Some of it is
clinical, some of it'ssituational, but the difference
is the persistence. If you'relikely to have that as a
(17:12):
persistent problem, then it'smore chronic, and something you
have to address your entirelife. If it's situational, then
you address it and it goes away.
Like those kind of when she wastalking about reading
difficulties, but that she said,That's sometimes the comparison
she makes. What
Donell Pons (17:29):
do you think?
Lindsay Kemeny (17:30):
Lindsay, so I think this is a little like,
this is, this is a little grayarea I feel like, because it's
not like, if they have dyslexia,an intervention can't work and
they won't learn to readsuccessfully, right? So I think
this is just a little it's alittle more complicated, a
little more nuanced, becausethey will improve and make
progress even though they havedyslexia. But I guess the key
(17:53):
is, then you you add in anothervowel team, and you add in
something else, and there's,it's still going to be this, you
know, it's going to take a lotof work for each new skill right
to acquire, of course, dependingon the severity of the
Stacy Hurst (18:07):
dyslexia, yeah, the amount of practice. Yeah matters
there too.
Donell Pons (18:12):
Yeah. Okay, so here we get into the causes of
dyslexia are complex and involvecombinations of genetic,
neurobiological andenvironmental influences that
interact throughout development.
That was interesting, thecomplexity of it, right? That we
were talking about, does anybodywant to stop there?
Stacy Hurst (18:32):
Are we good? Well, I'll just reiterate, maybe
that's what Nadine Gabb wasaddressing when she was
comparing it to depression,something like depression, yeah,
yeah.
Lindsay Kemeny (18:41):
Yeah. And it's, it's not just one of those,
right? So it's saying it's allthree, so it couldn't just be
environmental influences, right?
That's when we're like, there'san instruction issue, not
dyslexia, if it's onlyenvironmental issues, that how
you like, that's how I interpretthat. So it's a combination of
all three, genetic,neurobiological and
environmental influences. And to
Donell Pons (19:03):
your point, Lindsay, if it's environmental
strictly, then with the rightinstruction, we should see that
student moving right, makingprogress. Yeah, okay, underlying
difficulties with phonologicaland morphological processing are
common, but not universal. Andearly oral language weaknesses
often foreshadow literacychallenges.
Lindsay Kemeny (19:23):
I was taken aback with morphological
processing a little bit becauseI'm like, why that? Why not just
say, you know, multi syllabicreading or words, or something,
multi syllabic words. Whymorphological any? Do you guys
have any thoughts or insights,or did they talk about that?
Stacy Hurst (19:41):
Well, I think it's because the morphology informs
spelling and orthographyreflects morphology. So when the
code breaks down, so to speak,that we teach in phonics, then
we need to be aware ofmorphology and how that would
in. Form, the spelling of aword, and therefore retrieval
(20:03):
and meaning and all that that'sinvolved with that. I don't know
what, what do you
Donell Pons (20:06):
think? I thought it was interesting also to
acknowledge here that they saidare common, but again, not
universal, pointing that out,right?
Lindsay Kemeny (20:13):
Yeah, that's what makes it so complex, is
that it does look different anddifferent, you know, in
Stacy Hurst (20:18):
each case, yeah.
And again, though that's wherethey really emphasize, the
persistent nature of dyslexia isthe differentiator
Donell Pons (20:28):
the early oral language weakness. That was
interesting because it hasn'tbeen there before, right?
Stacy Hurst (20:33):
Okay, remember when I was quoting statistics earlier
without knowing where they were?
I found them, and it was duringCharles hulmes speech, and he
talked about, if you havedevelopmental language delay at
the age of three and a half,there's a 35% chance that you'll
acquire dyslexia. I was all offon that. And if you have just
family risk, then that is less,but if you have both, then you
(20:59):
have almost 50% chance.
Donell Pons (21:05):
I work with readers of all ages, and one thing I've
learned, when instruction alignswith the science, learners start
to believe in themselves. Again.
That's why this free teacherlicense to Reading Horizons
Discovery is such a big deal.
It's everything you need todeliver structured literacy, and
it's free for the whole schoolyear. So simple to use, and it
makes a real difference. Go toreading horizons.com/free, and
(21:28):
get started. Seriously. This isa win for you and your students.
Stacy Hurst (21:34):
So back to the language, and I know at Big Sky,
and we talked about this, DrHill emphasized and re
emphasized that language iseverything this kind of hearkens
to that.
Lindsay Kemeny (21:48):
And Donell, your kids with dyslexia, did they
have oral language weaknessesearly on? No, and mine did. He
was late to speak,
Donell Pons (21:59):
so mine did not.
And I got asked that all thetime, and when I couldn't answer
that with a yes, I would get aside eye when I said, but we
have these other difficultiesand challenges. I got the side
eye for quite a while because ofthat interesting
Lindsay Kemeny (22:12):
and then my son like so he was late to speak,
but then he did have a reallygood vocabulary later on, so
that when he was diagnosed withdyslexia, I just had family
members that were reallysurprised, because they were
like, well, he speaks so well,and he has such a robust
vocabulary, right? So hedefinitely made up for that the
oral language. But we, we had noidea about the dyslexia until he
(22:32):
was seven, so didn't do much tohelp him there. I mean, did a
lot, but it didn't have theknowledge to truly help them
until later.
Stacy Hurst (22:41):
That's interesting.
Yeah, Charles Hume also said,Without language, reading
doesn't exist at all. So itmakes sense that we're, you
know, calling out the language
Donell Pons (22:52):
and just to call out again to Charles Hume, who
also received an award and wasone of the speakers, just
phenomenal work, and his hisdelivery just gets better and
better as we Americanize him alittle bit more American every
time he
Lindsay Kemeny (23:08):
talks like the choral responses he likes when
he did it again and then stopand we don't have to say
everything. I was so funny. He
Stacy Hurst (23:20):
did that again, but not quite as many repetitions,
still trying to emphasize that,yeah,
Donell Pons (23:31):
all right.
Secondary consequences includereading comprehension problems
and reduced reading and writingexperience that can impede
growth in language knowledge,written expression and overall
academic achievement. Anythoughts there?
Lindsay Kemeny (23:49):
Yeah, just that's like, no surprises, yeah,
of course. You know what I mean.
Like, of course, now it's gonnaimpact other Yeah.
Donell Pons (23:55):
Love that they though expanded it, don't you?
Lindsay that they expanded it tosay that can impede growth in
language, knowledge, writtenexpression and overall academic
achievement, really laying itout, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (24:05):
yeah, because it's gonna affect every like
every subject, right? So, yeah,it is good that they said that
Stacy Hurst (24:12):
explicitly. You will be limited if you cannot
access text. No matter what kindof technology we have today, you
will be limited what you canlearn.
Lindsay Kemeny (24:23):
And isn't it so common for people to jump to
it's a reading comprehensionproblem? Oh, this student has a
reading comprehension problemwhen it's actually a decoding,
like a reading, you know, it'sself problem. And of course,
then you're going to have acomprehension problem because it
can't read the words. So I kindof like that this sort of it
clarifies that, that now it'sgoing to impact the reading
(24:47):
comprehension, right?
Donell Pons (24:49):
Yeah, I thought that was so good, okay, and
we'll continue on, because thisis additional and really
important psychological wellbeing and employment
opportunities also may beaffected. Hadn't been mentioned
before. Four althoughidentification and targeted
instruction are important at anyage, language and literacy
support before and during theearly years of education is
particularly effective. What dowe think of that ending
Stacy Hurst (25:14):
and man that was emphasized in almost every
session, that earlyidentification, addressing it
early, not waiting to addressthe issues, even if a student
doesn't receive a classificationtill second grade. Let's meet
the need before then.
Lindsay Kemeny (25:32):
And circling back to our conversation at the
beginning of this the leadersare, you know, district leaders
need to probably be prioritizingliteracy and their budget,
budget decisions should bereflecting that right, because
this is just showing you howimportant it is, not just for
students with dyslexia, becauseit is critical for them, but
it's also critical for everyonethat we get it right as quickly
(25:55):
and early as we can.
Stacy Hurst (25:56):
Yeah, I this is becoming very comprehensive,
just going through thedefinition, but I also thinking
about that, did they refer to itas social, emotional or not? But
they were talking about logicalwell being Yes. So that is
becoming more and more prevalenttoo. We cited in previous
(26:17):
episodes meta analyzes that havebeen done saying that if you
cannot read, no matter the theissue actually just if you
cannot read, then you're itincreases things like anxiety
and depression and ADHD and allkinds of things. Has a bigger
(26:37):
effect if you can't read onthose things, then if you have
those things and you can't thathas on reading. So again, like
you were saying Lindsay from thebeginning, I feel like we need
to get that message out theremore and more, because if you
can address it early on, thenwe're going to have a healthier
society all around
Donell Pons (26:58):
and the clinical psychologist who stated in the
one session that we attended,and she clearly said, which is
first the reading disability oranxiety. And she said, I'm here
to say it's the readingdisability and then the anxiety.
That's That's it. That's the wayit goes, reading disability
anxiety. So
Lindsay Kemeny (27:16):
when we have like these mandates from the
district where where they'resaying, Oh, you need to do these
social emotional lessons, or youneed to fit these in any you
know, sometime in your in yourday, it cannot replace the
literacy instruction. And I feellike it is. It's so frustrating,
because I think teachers get allthese things piled on, and it's
(27:39):
at some point you have to belike, okay, when would you like
me to do that during our readingtime or during our math time?
You know, what is that supposedto replace? Because, let's be
honest, we can't do everything.
Stacy Hurst (27:51):
So I went to a fantastic session that speaks to
this, Stephanie allotaiba et al,I'll just say they actually have
a whole curriculum. It's focusedon dialogic read alouds and
language. So it is literacy, buttheir themes and the topics are,
oh, I think I wrote some of themdown. They're beautiful. I
(28:14):
thought, like the last one thatI remember was, you know, I can
basically, I can do hard things.
I can set goals and achievethem. I can be kind to other
people. I can, and it was stillmeeting that aspect of
development, but throughliteracy. So like you're saying,
Lindsay, the more informed ourleaders are, the less likely
(28:34):
they are to say, Okay, you haveto do this on top of everything
else you're doing. Like this ishow you can integrate it and
give resources to do that, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (28:44):
yeah. And that'd be the best way, if you can't,
if it is connected to a, youknow, beautiful literature that
you're reading to them, and youcan pull that in, yeah,
connected
Stacy Hurst (28:53):
and integrated, right? We keep saying
Donell Pons (28:55):
that. And the clinical psychologist pointed
out in the moment, working withthe student and and having
strategies to hand that you canuse to say to the student to
continue and support motivationfor the student, where this is
really, really hard, that's morehelpful than say, talking about
strategies outside of thesetting, right? Makes sense that
by finding a few of thosestrategies in the moment, that's
(29:16):
a lot more helpful to parent toteacher than talking about them
outside of, right?
Stacy Hurst (29:21):
Yeah, yeah, the immediate context, I think back
to Lindsay, what you're doing inyour classroom with srsd. It's
not unrelated. I mean, you know,sticking with something when
it's hard, and in the context,that immediate context for the
student,
Lindsay Kemeny (29:35):
yeah, and then they it does carry into other
parts of the day, right? Andhopefully, and you could talk
about, oh, after school, did youhave basketball practice? Did
you have to keep, you know,persevering and trying as you're
you know? And you can extend itto other things for sure? Yeah.
So we've
Donell Pons (29:50):
spent a good deal of time on the definition, so
I'm just going to quickly getbecause that was really
important. And like Stacy said,it was the highlight of the
conference. I think a lot of uswere there to hear about the new
definition. Position that'sgoing to be really impactful.
It's in legislation across thecountry, so it might be
impacting legislation as wespeak. Hopefully it causes
conversations in those settingsthat goes beyond just looking at
(30:10):
well, are we screeningappropriately? Are we making
sure we're getting the rightreading interventions? Are we
really tracking that data? Arewe making sure that we're
supporting those students? Howbig are we going in order to
support in reading. So that'llbe interesting. Dr Eric treatise
was part of a conversationdiscussion. He's always really
good talking about executivefunction, and that's been
another big topic, is executivefunction and the importance of
(30:33):
it, and the challenges that canoccur when you have students
with different learningdifferences, and the support
that they might need with that,he talked about child self
direction, helping children beself directed and goal oriented,
and making sure those areattainable goals. And he also
talked about not structuring toomuch and scaffolding too much of
(30:54):
the student to where we'remanaging them so much they don't
have an opportunity to managethemselves. So talking about
what are the things that we canallow the student to manage that
won't impact the learning so wecontinue that's a priority. Make
sure that's still happening. Butare ways in which the student
can take over some autonomy andstart gaining some which is
interesting, and instead ofoffering too many scaffolds,
maybe some prompts withstrategies, like we have
(31:17):
strategies and prompts. So Ithought that was an interesting
thought too. He talked about thedifference between a four to
five year old in executivefunction to a six to nine year
old. There isn't a whole lotsaying so he says, Would you
leave them on their own? Yeah,no
Lindsay Kemeny (31:32):
surprises the first grade
Donell Pons (31:34):
teacher. He says, Come to that the 11 year old you
leave on your own. Did you trustthat one?
Lindsay Kemeny (31:43):
Yeah, my teenagers were so mad when I was
like, Come on, get up, you know,and we can do it. And then
today, guess what? They slept inbecause I was because I thought,
well, I then I don't have towake up early for them. And so I
didn't, and they did it.
Stacy Hurst (31:59):
Yeah, scaffolds are good until they become a
permanent fixture.
Donell Pons (32:07):
He talked about the impulsivity too, right? And
sustained inhibition being ablethat's required for so many
parts of learning. And we don'treally talk about what we do to
support students who might havechallenges in those areas, and
that's very impactful in thelearning. So that's interesting.
Lindsay Kemeny (32:22):
Do they have some helpful tips, strategies?
Donell Pons (32:25):
It was explicit conversation around you, the
behavior you're seeing happeningin that moment. Say, for
instance, every time you wantthe student to read, maybe from
top to bottom, and they'reracing because they want to get
to the bottom, you have adiscussion about what I really
want you to do is and refocusthe student I'm not racing to
the bottom of the page. Givethem a goal or a focus that
(32:46):
isn't about the speed, so thathaving those explicit
conversations is not assumingthat they understand that that's
what we'll be doing. Andreiterate it.
Lindsay Kemeny (32:53):
Yeah, I have a student right now that's really
struggles with any kind ofmanaging himself and just all
that's all about selfregulation, executive
functioning, and I cannot. Icannot give him several
directions. I have to do andeven if I'm like, put the game
in your backpack. I can't I haveto be like, get out your
backpack. Put it on your chair,unzip it, push it open. Wow.
(33:20):
Insane. But she really has ahard time, you know? And it's
like, I you have to be on himfollowing through. It's it's one
thing
Donell Pons (33:30):
he did bring up, which I think is interesting.
And he's not the only one to doit was modeling, and modeling in
those situations. So finding astudent who is is patient but
capable, and having that studentwatch I have John put his away.
You want to watch John do that?
That kind of a thing? Yeah. Ithought that was interesting
too, because I often, yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny (33:48):
what happens other kids will just want to do
it for him, you know, to just tobe like, hurry, we're going and
they'll just do it. But I likethat. We're just like, have
someone kind of, he needs tolearn how to do it, and just
have someone kind of gentlyfollowing up with them. Yeah,
you
Donell Pons (34:03):
know what's funny?
Lindsay, I had an experience atthe airport just after we'd had
this conference, and I watchedTSA explaining to some people
around me that they wantedeverything they had in one
bucket, which at differentairports. That's not the case,
so it's unusual, and then theywanted them placed in there in a
certain way. I had watched thevideo because I was bored stiff.
Had nothing better to do. Theyclearly had not watched the
video. And the TSA kept gettingthe voice got higher, and they
(34:26):
were more insistent. And theindividual, who's an adult, got
more confused. And the backpackhe was twisting around, and I
noticed I did. I just took itand stuck it in the bin like it
needed to be. He leans over tous, thank you. So even as
adults, can happen to us, right?
Stacy Hurst (34:44):
We get overwhelmed.
Yeah, good example. Did hemention the power of non
examples in that too, likewatching another student do
successfully, then also what itdoesn't look like? Did he
mention that?
Donell Pons (34:56):
Yeah, the non example, yeah, I was thinking of
first.
Stacy Hurst (35:00):
Grader who is an adult now, and now that I'm
thinking about, I'm like, Iwonder how he's doing in life,
but I really had to say to him,your number one goal every time
I give a direction is to getstarted. Just get started,
because he had like. But then Ihad to follow up by saying in
that, with this assignment,Getting Started looks like what
(35:21):
it doesn't look like, you know?
Yeah, lots of need for that. Idid attend a session where Mary
Ann wolf spoke. I always love tohear her talk. She was talking
about just how we need to RedFlag some of the ways the AI
might be utilized in ourprofession, and she said that
(35:43):
she shared the impact ofoffloading some of these
thinking processes to AI. Shealso said we shouldn't refer to
them as tools, because they arenot they're offloading thinking,
is what she's saying. And shesaid we need to be very aware of
that. But this is what I thoughtwas a powerful statement out of
(36:05):
it. She said the impact ofcognitive offloading and over
reliance on AI. So she sayscognitive offload, or
offloading, and its overreliance reduce critical
thinking, long term memory,storage and reflection. And then
she said, Children expend lesstime and effort on tasks that
(36:27):
build the circuits necessary fordeep reading processes that
underline the ability theunderlie the ability to evaluate
truth of information and buildempathy. And then she related it
kind of to society today, andmaybe at the heart of every
(36:48):
issue is the inability torecognize truth or to have
empathy for
Donell Pons (36:54):
someone else. Wow, something to think about these
days. So it's
Stacy Hurst (36:58):
not nothing right, like we need to proceed with
caution. Yeah. So I thought thatwas interesting, too. Wow.
Donell Pons (37:06):
So I'm not gonna I obviously we can't get to every
speaker. It's they were allphenomenal, but I'm just gonna
talk about one more, and thenI'm probably done, because it's
been a lot and a lot of reallygood stuff, but a lot. There was
an individual who could not makeit. She got covid at the last
minute, but had taped arecording. Had a recording or
video. Her name was EVFedorenko, and she was in the
syntax. She was part of thesyntax group that Julie Van Dyke
(37:30):
put together. And again, if youhaven't done the two
perspectives editions, part oneand two on syntax, I highly
recommend getting on thewebsite. If you're a member, you
have access to the perspectivespublication. They were both
really good. If you were a bigsky you received both of them,
and Julie put together afantastic range of individuals
who spoke on syntax. Couldn'tget to it all, but here's a
(37:52):
couple of quotes from from EV inher video that I thought were
really good. Language systems,either by ear or eye, is the
same that supports languageunderstanding. So whether you're
getting it by ear or eye,they're both fantastic. It goes
into the language system andit's the same. It goes into that
same system or network thatsupports language understanding.
And once a word is decoded, itgoes into the higher level
(38:14):
language region. Reading,speaking, writing depends on the
strength of the higher levellanguage regions. These areas
keep increasing until age 16,the system engages for all
languages, and even made uplanguages, which I thought was
interesting. So anything that isin a language system, how do we
(38:35):
how do we increase linguisticcompetence, exposure matters,
reading to kids, having kidsread act on the vocabulary. Kids
are good at inferring wordmeaning, have them do it. We
increase competence based onexposure and use of the
language. Yeah, it's reallygood.
Stacy Hurst (38:53):
Yeah, that is really good. I also I'm glad she
got to video that then that wasgood. That was a good solution.
One thing that I wanted tomention was Doug Fuchs talk. He
spent a lot of his presentationtalking about the research
behind basically inclusionversus pull out instruction in
(39:18):
schools. And it was surprisingto me that it the research is
kind of all over the place fordifferent reasons, but the
really important takeaway wasthe quality of instruction, the
how, was more important than thewhere, almost in every case. And
I love that. He said this, so Iwrote it down. I'm probably
going to print it and have it inmy office, but he said we should
(39:42):
be excruciatingly interested inthe quality of instruction and
like starting in teacher prep.
And then he said, Who else canwe prepare to become
instructional specialists, whichis what we need when we're
talking about something asimportant as reading.
Donell Pons (40:00):
Hmm, yeah, he was really good. Doug Fuchs, yeah.
Stacy Hurst (40:03):
And you know what I will say a little something
about his delivery. I know we'vetalked about this before, but
his his slides, which I did takepictures of many of them, so
thankfully, with my phone, so Ihave to rely on the app. But
literally, it was word for word,what he was saying. It's a lot
of text on the slides, and hewent through them, but his
(40:26):
message was really powerful, andI can see why he did that,
because there's some reallycritical information densely
packed into that, that wholepresentation every it seemed
like every other minute, I waslike, oh, oh, oh, that's
interesting. Oh, he kind of tookus on a journey. Yeah, he did.
He really did. It was reallygreat.
Donell Pons (40:46):
It's been a great month between this and reading
League, right?
Stacy Hurst (40:50):
Yeah, really, October is the month, right? And
then we, I love how we keepreferring back to other
conferences we've attended to,because it really does highlight
and emphasize the fact that whatwe call the science of reading
is a converging body ofknowledge. No matter the
(41:10):
setting, we're getting the sameinformation because the research
is showing similar strands andwhere we don't know, well, we
find out more about which I loveI love that.
Donell Pons (41:22):
Yeah, and a hero this month. I want to do a shout
out Matt burns, because I wasable to hear him at two
conferences. He was at the planetalk for dyslexia, as well as at
the reading league conference.
And I have to say, yeah, he wasa standout this month. And
that's saying something, becausethere were a lot of standouts
this
Stacy Hurst (41:38):
month. Yeah, agreed. And I love that. As you
the listeners know who have beenwith us for all however many
episodes we've had now, Matt wasour second guest ever, right
after Anita Archer, I think weneed to have him on again. But
there are so many things that Iwe say this, don't follow people
(42:01):
follow, you know, concepts andideas. But I think the reason
why he deserves, he's deservingof that shout out, is because of
his concepts, ideas andresearch, and he has such an
ease with it, but also it's justfun to watch what he focuses on.
And I think because he has sucha strong practitioner side.
(42:23):
Whatever he shares, however heinterprets things, is always
very actionable and relevant.
It's not pie in the sky. Okay,let's like work through this,
but it's an immediate gateway topractice. So maybe we need to
have Matt on again. Matt, ifyou're listening, yeah, somebody
want to share this with them.
We'll reach out. You've beenofficially invited. Okay, yeah,
(42:49):
it was a great conference. Itreally was awesome. I'm glad I
was able to make it this year.
We did miss you. Lindsay, I knowlast year I well
Lindsay Kemeny (42:58):
be awesome.
Yeah, November sounds good,
Stacy Hurst (43:01):
right down the street. Oh, and we were, did you
write down the dates? Donell, Iwant to say it was the 14th
through the 17th.
Lindsay Kemeny (43:07):
I think 12th to 14th, right? Yes, that was it
12th to 14th. November. 12 to14th. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (43:13):
doable, yeah. For those of us in the West, it'll
be great. Okay, well, thank youfor the conversation, and we'll
look forward to all three of usbeing there next year. And
we'll, we'll do a take two oranother edition of the IDA
recap, and thanks, as always,for those of you who are
(43:34):
following along, we wish wecould cover absolutely
everything. These recaps are funfor us, but they're just the tip
of the iceberg. Wouldn't youguys say that every time we do a
recap, there's so much. So ifyou ever get the opportunity to
attend one of these conferences,we in a perfect world, teachers
could go for free. I thinkthat'd be so great. But please
(43:57):
do attend, and as always, thanksfor listening, and we hope that
you'll join us for our nextepisode of literacy
Narrator (44:08):
Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to
you from Reading Horizons, whereliteracy momentum begins. Visit
reading horizons.com/literacy.
Talks to access episodes andresources to support your
journey in the science ofreading.
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