February 19, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of Literacy Talks, we dive into the essential question: Why is Structured Literacy critical for all learners?
Hosts Stacy Hurst, Donell Pons, and Lindsay Kemeny explore research-backed reasons why explicit, systematic reading instruction is the most effective way to support students—especially those who struggle. They discuss the life-changing consequences of reading failure, the importance of well-trained educators, and the role Structured Literacy plays in promoting equity in education.
Tune in for an insightful, passionate conversation that reinforces why literacy is a right, not a privilege.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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
Stacey Hurst, a professor atSouthern Utah University and
(00:26):
Chief Academic Advisor forReading Horizons. 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 (00:48):
Welcome to this episode of literacy Talks. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Donnell pons and
Lindsay Kemeny. As you know, ifyou listen to our podcast, we
take turns leading discussions,and today it is Lindsay who will
be leading our discussion. SoLindsay, what are we talking
about?
Lindsay Kemeny (01:05):
Thanks, Stacey, okay, yes, I'm excited to
continue on our podcast serieson the 75th anniversary issue of
perspectives of language andliteracy the journal by Ida. And
today we're focusing on the why,why structured literacy is
important. And there are twoarticles in this issue that
(01:28):
focus on the why. The first oneis by Reed Lyon and Margaret
Goldberg, and in their article,they identify three reasons why
structured literacy is critical.
So I want to jump into thesethree. The first one, number
one, they say the negativeconsequences of reading failure
(01:51):
for children, their parents andtheir teachers are debilitating
and life changing and wow, don'twe have, you know, some
experiences with that. SoDonnell, why don't you lead us
off? Could you, I mean, that's abit of a heavy topic, but any
(02:12):
comments on that that you'd liketo share?
Donell Pons (02:17):
Yeah, oh gosh, there's so much to say about
this, and thank you for givingme an opportunity. I seem to
talk a lot about this. You know,I also want folks to pay
attention to when you startlooking at the infographic for
structured literacy, and itbreaks it out, tier one, tier
two, tier three, and it talksabout who, who those people are,
the professionals in thebuilding that fit into a tier
(02:38):
one, tier two and tier threesetting, the whole implication
is really good training allalong the way. And so we're
talking about excellent trainingfor the teacher in the
classroom, excellent andspecialized training in a tier
two, even more excellent andspecialized training in tier
three, and addressing that evena dyslexia specialist in tier
three. So even narrowing in evenmore on that number one reason
(03:00):
why a student will struggle withreading. That's why this is so
important. You can't really dothis work and do it well,
because it is, it's difficultwork. I think, well, we've
talked about that a lot in allof our podcasts that we when
people say teaching reading isrocket science. I mean, there's
a lot of things to it. I thinkthe general gist of things and
(03:20):
information that we give folks.
Sure there's a lot that you canlearn. Letters is a great
program, too, but it continuedtraining and making sure that we
have specialized training forthose kids who are going to
struggle for various reasonswith language acquisition,
reading and writing. And so I'vebeen on the receiving end when a
teacher doesn't receive thetraining. Excellent teacher in
many ways, excellent teachers inmany ways that my students had,
(03:43):
that my children had, and yetthey didn't have that very
specific, specialized trainingthat was needed. And then they'd
be handed off to somebody elsewho didn't receive it and
someone else who didn't receiveit. And so it was many layers
deep. It wasn't just the teacherin the classroom. And this is, I
think, structured literacy. Ilove the way they break it down.
It's a really helpful way todiscuss why that's important.
Lindsay Kemeny (04:06):
Yeah, you know, it's talking about these
negative consequences of readingfailure. And, wow, there are
huge consequences when studentsstruggle learning to read, when
they don't learn to read. And I,you know, I saw that firsthand.
I didn't fully understand thatuntil I had my own son with
(04:28):
dyslexia. And I'm talking, youknow, there's these
repercussions beyond just notbeing able to read, but boy, it
takes a toll on thatindividual's self esteem. And I
saw that with my son, becausewhen he was diagnosed with
dyslexia, he was diagnosed withdepression as well, and his
depression all centered aroundhis struggles learning to read.
(04:53):
And there was night after nightof sobbing, and I. Um, trigger
warning here, but of him wishinghe were dead, and he would
scream that and sob that overand over, and he would collapse
on me and just cry. And youknow, I appreciate that in this,
(05:15):
you know, article, they not onlysaid the negative consequences
for children, but also for theirparents, because that was so
hard for me to see and and I wasa teacher too, and it commented
about, you know, how this is,you know, the negative
consequences are debilitatingfor teachers as well. Because,
(05:37):
you know, as a teacher and aparent, I was so embarrassed. I
was so embarrassed that Icouldn't help my own son learn
to read. Why didn't I have theskills necessary, you know, the
basic skills I went to collegeto get, you know, and study
elementary education. Why wasn'tI taught these basic skills for
(05:58):
how to take a non reader andhelp them grow into a proficient
reader. And so, you know, itaffected my son. It affected me
as a parent. I felt terrible. Itaffected me as a teacher. I was
angry, and then I was guiltywhen I learned that some of the
(06:18):
things I had been taught werenot aligned with research. They
had been debunked by research. Imean, I can't describe how angry
I was about that. And, you know,and then I saw because we did
all these things, and when hestarted this suicide ideation,
and he did, you know, justeverything he was saying and he
(06:39):
was doing, of course, we tookhim to therapy. We got
professional help. Because I'mlike, this is beyond me. You
know, I started off on my owntrying to do little things to
help his depression, and thenwhen it got so bad, I'm like, I
need help. But out of everythingthat we did, the ability to read
(07:03):
is what helped them the most.
And I feel like, I feel like, ifI say that, people could brush
that off or be like, Oh,whatever. It's not just reading.
You know, it's not just reading.
But it really was. It wasbecause his confidence grew when
he could see that, hey, I'mcapable of this. I'm not dumb. I
(07:25):
have the skills. Now I can workon these skills, and now I can
read. And as his readingimproved, his self esteem
improved. And you know, I thinkyou hear stories, you hear about
a school to prison pipeline, andyou know that that pipeline that
is huge for these kids who can'tread, because, why? Because
(07:48):
reading opens up opportunity. Itopens up opportunities. And when
they can't read, you know, somany doors are cut off to them,
so then they turn to maybechoices that aren't the best for
them. They turn to other things.
So I just, you know, it's like,we're starting this off on this
negative note, but wow. I mean,they hit the nail on the head.
The negative consequences aredebilitating and life changing.
(08:10):
We're talking about our mostvulnerable students here, and
this is like, why I'm sopassionate. Donnell, you wanted
to see some
Donell Pons (08:20):
and you know, Lindsay, this is the thing. It
is a spectrum as well. So we'retalking about, oftentimes, we
talk about those kids withreally clear cut cases of
dyslexia, and there are otherchallenges, but there are kids
suffering all along thatspectrum. And so it may be that
maybe they didn't have thechallenges in first, second and
(08:41):
third that were so obvious, butlater it becomes clear that had
they received better instructionby fourth grade, their skills
would be better. They're kind ofhanging on by fourth grade. By
fifth grade, things are gettingpretty difficult. By sixth
grade, they're deciding, youknow what, I just don't know if
English is even for me and Idon't really want to read, and
they're missing out too. So thisgoes across a continuum for
(09:03):
folks. There might be people whocan't really understand what
we're talking about when we'retalking about a student with a
real clear cut case of dyslexia,that there will be other people
who parts of this story willresonate with them too, and they
often end up in practice with metoo. These are kids who wouldn't
have maybe been caught out inthose first, second and third
grade years, and in fact, theyhave no history. But by the time
they wanted to get to college,and it was certainly evident by
(09:25):
high school that things were fartoo hard. Literacy was too
difficult for them. And thencertainly by college, they've
done a semester here, a semesterthere, and their dreams are
dashed. That shouldn't happeneither. So as we're talking
about this and getting the skillset, getting the training for
folks, it helps so many studentson that continuum, right? We
might be talking specificallyabout some kids with dyslexia,
(09:47):
but that's many, many students.
And so when we talk about thatemotional, social emotional
impact, it's huge, and there arefar more students that can
relate to that than any of uswould be comfortable knowing
about as. Educators,
Lindsay Kemeny (10:01):
Ian, we're talking about, so why? Why
structured literacy isimportant. And I just think that
is the biggest reason rightthere. And structured literacy
is the best thing we've got toprevent some of these issues.
So, you know, there was, youknow, there's big social media
storm a while back when I was,you know, someone that worked
for a certain company said, youknow, something along the lines
(10:23):
of, are we really going to turneducation upside down for the
these 10 to 20% of the of ourclassroom? And you know, so
much, so many of us were soangry or heard that was like,
yes, because you know what, it'slife and death for some of these
kids. We're talking about ourmost vulnerable kids. So yes, we
want to give everyone the bestchance at success, and yes, some
(10:48):
are going to or could learnusing any approach, but this
approach doesn't harm anybody,and we can still differentiate,
and we could still challenge theones that don't you know, need
as much of this intensiveinstruction, but this is going
to be, you know, the best chancefor everyone in the class. So,
(11:11):
number two, their their secondreason for why structured
literacy is critical is they saythere is extensive replicated
research that shows children canand must develop proficiency in
the reading related languagedomains included in the
structured literacy models. SoStacy, could you explain what
(11:34):
exactly that that means? Whatare these domains that they're
talking about here when theysaid reading related language
domains. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (11:42):
and I'm actually just turning in my issue to page
45 which actually covers thosedomains of language. So
phonology, morphology, syntax,semantics, and one that I often
overlook, pragmatics. So I thinkthat's really important,
(12:05):
including discourse. And theytalk about how those are
different in spoken language,related to listening and
speaking and written language,with reading and writing.
Lindsay Kemeny (12:15):
Now maybe explain pragmatics, in case some
of our listeners aren't familiarwith that.
Stacy Hurst (12:20):
Yeah, yeah. I think of pragmatics as what how to
know when to use which aspect oflanguage that we're talking
about differences between ifyou're having if you're writing,
let's say, in writing, andyou're writing about a
conversation that's discoursethat would be a different
format, say, than if you'redoing academic writing, where
you're not using thatconversational kind of a focus,
(12:44):
or even just knowing things likethe difference between spoken
and written language, andknowing when to use when you can
be more formal in your speechand less formal depending on The
situation,
Donell Pons (13:00):
and if folks are thinking about different
students who don't necessarilyhave dyslexia, but may, for
other reasons, struggle withpragmatics, see how structured
literacy already is bearingfruit. So as we're looking at
these key areas, there may bestudents with other challenges
where areas of language can beimpacted. And if we have a
structured literacy background,we're not missing those students
(13:21):
as well see. So that continuum Iwas talking about of many, many
students, we might think of asmall percentage of students
with dyslexia, relatively,although it's rather large when
you think about it, but there's,you know, another 40% for their
40% so this is where you startto get in. And you go, Oh, Aha,
I see how this is very useful,not just for a few students, but
all students, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (13:41):
I have pragmatics, especially, too for students who
have various dialects that aredealing with like they're really
a lot of benefits to that, andthat's only one aspect of the
structure. And
Lindsay Kemeny (13:52):
you know, that was just a fast little overview,
but we're going to be diving alittle more deeply into those
things in this special, youknow, season that we're having
where we're we're going to diveinto all aspects of structured
literacy, and this, this issueof perspectives, so and then,
you know, remember that in thatnumber two, they did say
(14:14):
extensive replicated scientificresearch has shown that children
must develop proficiency in allthose domains. So it's not just
someone saying, oh, we should dothat. There is research to
support instruction in thesedomains and then read lion and
Margaret Goldberg, third reasonwhy structured literacy is
(14:36):
critical says there isoverwhelming evidence that
direct, systematic and explicitinstruction is the most reliable
method for building expertise inword reading and reading
comprehension. So why wouldn'twe do it? Right? We have
overwhelming evidence. Donnellsaid. You work with adults
(15:01):
learning to read. Could youshare any specific examples of
how this direct, systematic,explicit instruction might look
in your one on one settings?
Donell Pons (15:16):
Yeah. So it's interesting, because I've worked
with a lot of different ages.
Adults are as appreciative of adirect explanation of something
explicit examples of itopportunities to be explicit
when they're now saying, is thisthe way it looks? Is this what
I'm supposed to be doing, beingvery explicit through that whole
process. Adults appreciate italmost more than younger
(15:37):
students do, because these areadults who never had the
opportunity to have it taught ina manner in which they could
understand it. They were oftenleft in a classroom to sit in
the back going, is that whatthey would What does that even
mean? I can't connect that I'mnot making and they were
shuffled along to the next gradeor wherever else, or maybe they
spent time out in a hallway. Ihave many students who have
(15:59):
memories of sitting in a hallwaywaiting for the right person to
arrive who might be able to helpthem, and that never really
happened, so spending a lot oftime just busying themselves in
a hallway there, every bit isengaged. I it's really
interesting to watch adultstudents are hungry for this
type of teaching where you'redirect and explicit with what it
is you'd like the student to do,create opportunities where they
(16:21):
can be direct and explicit. Backwith what is this? What you
would like is this how it isdone, and you have these
conversations and they're ableto master that particular point
before you move on. It'sbeautiful to watch. Yeah, we
Lindsay Kemeny (16:36):
can almost all appreciate it. I think I
remember sitting in aprofessional development class.
I was sitting next to my sister,and she leaned over and she's
like, teachers needs needexplicit instruction to like,
just tell us what to do. Justexplain it to us. So you know,
we can all benefit. Stacy, howdo you teach your pre service
(16:58):
teachers the importance of thisdirect, systematic, explicit
instruction
Stacy Hurst (17:04):
the same way, in fact, I start by teaching them
explicitly, directly andsystematically. Many of them
don't know something as simpleas the fact that we have 42 to
46 phonemes in the language andover 250 spellings for those
that fact alone, which mightseem minor at this point in our
(17:25):
careers, to them, is an ahamoment and oh, there's structure
to it. And then just talkingabout and demonstrating that
they needed explicit instructionto be able to teach it, you need
to know it explicitly. Explicitinstruction requires explicit
knowledge, right? So, the sameway, it's the same way.
Lindsay Kemeny (17:49):
And I am in the first in first grade setting, I
was gonna say. And you know,when I think of explicit
instruction, I try to make myinstructions as clear and
concise as I can. I don't wantto be too wordy when I'm talking
with my students, and then, youknow, immediately, I want to
give them a lot of opportunitiesto respond. You guys, can hear
(18:14):
the Anita Archer training in me,right? I do something, they do
something. I say something. Theysay something. I write
something, they write somethingthat is where the engagement
comes in. And you don't need asuper creative fun activity or
lesson to get students engagedand learning. We want those
(18:36):
learning outcomes, and as weimprove, increase the amount of
opportunities they have torespond. We increase the
learning outcomes and so andthen, of course, if they don't
understand something, I'm goingto explain it again, but always
try trying to do it as clearlyas I can.
Donell Pons (18:55):
And you know, Lindsay, This hearkens back to
the heart of language. I'm justI'm going to share with
everybody, because I love havingthis new grandbaby in my life.
I've got the first grandchild,and I'm talking about him all
the time, but it's reallyinteresting to me how language
so natural. I mean, we talkabout it all the time, right? We
talk about the fact thatlanguage is very natural.
Speaking this oral language partis very natural to us and to be
(19:18):
able to pick this up. Butwatching this baby try to engage
with his parents. It never moretrue to me to just have those
that lens in those eyes watchingthis occur and trying to form,
and his little lips are movinghis little time. And he's tiny.
He's brand new. November is whenhe was born, and it just harkens
back to we need theopportunities to do these
things. As you said, Lindsay,very quickly and explicit,
(19:39):
direct instruction right away.
We're engaged. This is notsomething you sit back and
someone provides. That's theexplicit, direct experience with
this. Students are right awayperforming, doing, engaged, and
you're short and concise in whatyou're giving the students. So
they're immediately given theopportunity to come back in with
what they're what they'relearning. I love,
Lindsay Kemeny (19:59):
attend. Teaching Anita Archer session, because
she just does that with you andthe audience. And I feel like
I'm still not really good atdoing that when I'm giving a
presentation. I mean, she has itmastered, you know, I do it with
my students, but I'm like, I'mstill working how to do that
when I'm, you know, teachingother teachers
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Lindsay Kemeny (21:11):
Okay, so we're going to be talking with
Margaret Goldberg in our nextepisode. We're going to talk
more about this article that sheco wrote with Reed Lyon, as well
as her journey and the wonderfulwork that she is doing. So let's
move on to the second article onthe why of structured literacy,
which is written by KareemWeaver, called inclusivity and
(21:37):
excellence. Why structuredliteracy is essential to
safeguard students civil rights.
So I've seen, you know, a lot oftimes I've seen science of
reading being criticized thatit's one size fits all right,
and especially when there's ascript, and then you see it kind
of, you know, a lot of peopleharshly judge that. And I love
that in this article, Weaversays teachers adjustments can
(22:02):
occur from a well groundeddesign that's intended to get
the greatest number of childrento read. We talked a little bit
about that just a few minutesago, right? This is our best
chance at getting the greatestnumber of children to read, and
we need these well designed,research based programs. But
that's not all we need, becausewe have to as teachers, we have
(22:27):
to make adjustments, and we needthe flexibility to make those
adjustments and go off thescript a little bit when we need
to. Louisa moat said, programsdon't teach teachers do right,
but we need, as teachers, weneed to be well informed so we
understand what to do when weneed to go off the script, or
(22:49):
when we understand maybe what'smissing in a program I love. I
attended a session by Jamiepeople are last year, and I love
this analogy. I think I talkedabout it on here, but she talked
about how a program is like aroad map, right? You have this
road map that's going to tellyou what to do, but it's not a
GPS. It's not like Google Maps,so it's not going to tell you
(23:14):
what to do when something goeswrong. You know? Whereas when
you are using Google Maps todrive somewhere and you take a
wrong turn, it just takes asecond reroute, and it's going
to help you get back on track.
And that's that's the job of theteacher. That's kind of what we
need to do right is to knowthose things and what to do so
(23:35):
so I've never used a programwhere I haven't had to adjust
something I've always had tomake an adjustment. I mean that
being said, there's definitelyprograms that are better than
others, and some I have to makea lot of adjustments to, and
some, not so many. So Couldeither of you share an example
of an adjustment you've had tomake when using a program? Yes,
Stacy Hurst (24:01):
it'll just be a matter of deciding which one
right, because you always haveto make adjustments. I feel like
and sorry the question caught meoff guard only because my mind
was thinking about, AI, we'reliving in a world where
companies are claiming andaspiring to being able to make
those adjustments based on AI,but I go back to we've jokingly
(24:28):
referred to him on our podcastas Donald's boyfriend, but
Haynes book how we learn, and headdressed that. But AI is only
as good as the input it has,right? And so as teachers, we
know currently, if we have theinformation, we know how to make
(24:48):
adjustments to a program, Iwould say one off the top of my
head that I can think of, nomatter the reading program I've
used, I've always had to infusewriting into. Intentionally.
It's not always included, so Ialways have to extend it that
way for example, but that's justone example and and until you
(25:10):
know AI knows what we know whichwe don't, we'll never our
unconstrained skill teaching isso I don't think AI will ever
really know how to adapt as wellas a knowledgeable teacher.
Honestly, I don't know, sorry tothrow AI into that question, but
(25:31):
it's a good one, because I don'tthink there is a program to your
point, Lindsay, that youwouldn't have to make a change
to
Lindsay Kemeny (25:38):
well. And AI doesn't know my students. Ai
doesn't know that. Oh, I knowthis. One struggles with this,
and I'm going to need to do thisbecause I saw this. Doesn't know
the reading behaviors, you know,
Donell Pons (25:48):
and you know, I tend to have, because we've had
this conversation before, andI'm just going to put a plug in
there and hope that one day weget an AI version none of us are
familiar with. We couldn't evenconceptualize. Because I think
that would be truly theequalizer. Because I think there
are always going to be placeswhere finding really good
literacy instruction ischallenging for whatever reason,
(26:08):
you know, whether it'sgeographically or whatever else,
and so I think that's probablywhat it would take in order to
really see a leveling of accessto good literacy instruction. I
don't know, but I'm just that'sthat's a challenge. I'm throwing
that out there to SiliconValley. I guess that's my
challenge. Is if it really couldbecome that good, that places
(26:29):
where it really is verychallenging to get very good,
highly trained, exceptionaleducators teaching literacy, I
don't know.
Lindsay Kemeny (26:36):
So some changes I've made, I always have to
build in more practiceopportunities, always, and you
know, and that makes sense,because all kids need different
amounts of practice, right? So Ilove when a program has, you
know, an extra bank of wordsthat you could use, an extra
word chain, some extra connectedtext that you can use because,
(27:02):
you know, kids need varyingamounts of practice. I also
always need to build in, likethat practice with connected
text. Sometimes that's not builtinto the lesson at all, and it's
just kind of, also, here's adecodable or whatever, and I,
you know, they need a lot oftime applying the skill, you
(27:25):
know, they'll, you'll, a lot oftimes have students that, hey,
they can spell the word with,you know, AI. They can, well, I
used AI because we were talkingabout artificial intelligence.
I'm talking about AI for a theycan, you know, read words. They
can write. When I'm doingdictation, they can write them,
and then you give them apassage, and suddenly there,
(27:46):
there's a lot of differentletter sound correspondences in
there. So, you know, now they'vegot to remember AI, plus all
these other things that we'velearned. So it's a lot harder,
and they need a lot morepractice, I think, than they're
typically getting. So that's ahuge one. Dictation, like
Donnell was talking, I mean,Stacy, you were mentioning
(28:07):
writing. That's just one part ofwriting, but I've had to build
in dictation a lot when it's notin the lesson. I do it every day
anyway.
Stacy Hurst (28:14):
You know what? A lot of programs also don't
account for fluency orautomaticity. They're just hyper
focused on accuracy. So as ateacher, you have to be aware
Lindsay Kemeny (28:23):
that's where the practice
Stacy Hurst (28:24):
comes in. I think, yeah, exactly. I think
everything we've said actuallycould fall into the realm of
practice and making sure theycan transfer it, generalize it,
yeah, and
Donell Pons (28:34):
it's understanding which students are going to need
what kind of support, becausemaybe it's a bigger cognitive
load for some of those students,executive functioning at play. I
mean, there's just so manyaspects, as you say, knowing
those students. Oh,
Lindsay Kemeny (28:45):
another one that I build in with a program are
those response opportunitiesthat we were talking about
earlier. So sometimes,especially if you have a
scripted program, and, you know,sometimes you look at it and I'm
like, Whoa, there's like, threeparagraphs of, like, long, big
paragraphs of just the teachertalking, okay, if I do that,
just how it's written, mystudents will be checked out and
(29:09):
bored to tears. They won't belistening to anything. So I've
got to, you know, build in, evenif it's just like, you know,
the, you know, some people thinkshooting stars is, you know, are
meteors, but, or no, are reallystars, but they're actually
meteors. What is it? You know,just a little quick, what word
Meteor? What's a meteor? Youknow, I didn't get to that, but,
(29:32):
yeah, it's, it's a space rock.
So, you know, what's a spacerock? A meteor, just building in
little things you can tell, likewhat we're learning about
because today talking aboutspace, but just building in
little. It just, it can be soeasy. It can just be echoing
something you just said, youknow, anything that you can do
to bring that engagement, okay,all right, so here's a quote.
(29:57):
From Kareem Weaver, he says inthis article, calls for equity
without ensuring that systematicdirect explicit instruction is
provided, open the door for biasand assumption to enter into the
classroom. So I'm going to readthat one more time, calls for
equity without ensuring thatsystematic, direct, explicit
(30:20):
instruction is provided open thedoor for bias and assumption to
enter into the classroom. Sowhat do you guys think he means
by that? And could you share anexample? Donnell, why don't you
go first?
Donell Pons (30:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think you can take this a few
different ways, and I reallyappreciate him, because it's
kind of a nuanced sentence thathe's he's provided there. But I
think it's interesting thatinevitably, if you don't have
appropriate training andbackground, and again, if you
haven't had the opportunity toteach in such a way where you
know that you can reach everystudent, right, you know you can
(31:02):
then that's the room where wemight make assumptions or have
ideas about students and whatthey're capable of, because we
don't know any better. And sooftentimes, I think that's often
a reason why we fall into sayingthings about students are just
erroneous, things about notspending enough time doing this.
And I think they might bespeaking a different language at
home, and that might beimpacting so we're saying things
(31:23):
that we fall back on because wedon't know better. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (31:26):
certain populations, I am thinking about
my time as a literacy coach, andthe times that educators would
make a comment referring to astudent because of their
socioeconomic standing orotherwise, and say, Oh, that
student will always be behind orthat student will never learn to
(31:47):
read. And those are the kind ofvery dangerous assumptions, I
think that he's talking aboutsomething else that came to my
mind were some of theconferences I've attended as an
educator over the years, over 20years, oh my gosh, let's not do
that math. But that I knowbecause I came into education
(32:12):
with also a sociology degree,and I remember attending some
conferences where the focus wasso much on what he's saying,
what other normally people mighthave a bias towards a certain
population or something? Iremember sitting in those
conferences and agreeing witheverything was being said. And
(32:33):
yes, we need to be aware and weneed to address the needs. And
from a sociology perspective, Iwas thinking, this is what I
would expect at a sociologicalconference, but how are we going
to teach them to read? And itwas almost secondary to what we
were talking about otherwise,right? And so in every case, and
(32:55):
I think I've talked about thisperson before, there was
somebody very brave thatactually stood up to the
Goodmans with this very topic,like, Yes, but how are we going
to explicitly teach them toread? Because everybody deserves
that. And it was pretty muchdismissed because we were over
(33:15):
focusing on we were focusing onother things in place of or not
giving credence to the fact theyneed direct, explicit
instruction. Everybody does. AndI'm also thinking about
assumptions of kids, kind ofgoing back to the beginning of
our conversation, your son,Lindsay, I think, as you were
(33:36):
telling your story, how lucky ina sense, that he is that a he's
an expressive kid. So you and hehas the parents, he does same
thing with your children.
Donnell, they he has parents whocould be responsive that were in
that situation. But how manytimes are students suffering in
silence because they're notgoing to say anything and they
(33:59):
don't their parents or theirteachers may not know enough to
pick up on it, but once we startteaching with the structured
literacy in mind, those of uswho know structured literacy
will start noticing will be moreavailable to collaborate and
calibrate, is the word I thinkhe uses in the article
(34:19):
instruction based on what eachstudent needs. So sorry, that
was a very lengthy response, butI think it's important sentence
that you called out. And
Donell Pons (34:32):
Stacy, you've tipped me off. Lindsay, this has
gone a lot of different places.
Like I said, it seems like asentence that's pretty but it
has a lot of implications, andit made me think of when you
were saying, oh, Lindsay, youryoung man was so lucky to have
and Donnell with you too. And Iremember having a conversation
with it was a school mentalhealth professional, and she was
asking the question of megenuinely, okay, so tell me a
(34:55):
little bit of this backgroundabout what you did in order. To
help your son become a reader.
This is all the way down theroad after we've already gone
the whole journey. Please tellme a little bit about that
journey, and I start aiming offthe first year that we realize
that I go back to school, thedouble master's degree, the
teaching, the Special EducationCertification, all the
(35:16):
publications, me driving aroundthe country, all the different
trainings and tears startrolling down her face. I was
kind of shocked myself, andthese tears roll down her face.
And she said, I cannot evenimagine what you what you had to
do in order to help your childlearn to read. I I don't think
(35:40):
I've ever heard anything sooverwhelming. She said, I don't
think I've ever heard anythingso overwhelming that should not
be so that's what we're talkingabout here. When we're talking
about well trained with what weknow is the way to teach is
sparing people
Unknown (35:56):
that experience.
Lindsay Kemeny (35:59):
Yeah, powerful words. I love Stacy, saying
Everyone deserves to readabsolutely. And yes, I've often
thought, you know, I will alwaysbe there for my son. I will
always be advocating for him.
And I've often thought, butwho's gonna advocate for
everyone else? And you know,there's these students sometimes
that come. You know, this is whyI'm teaching, because I have
(36:21):
students sometimes in myclassroom, and I have to
advocate for them, right? Andnot only am I going to, you
know, teach them explicitly andsystematically because this is
their best chance, but I mayalso additionally need to
advocate for them, set up thingsto have in place as they go
throughout their school years,and it's just so important. And
(36:43):
thank you, both for like,everything you do, and for this
conversation and all of ourlisteners. I mean, just the fact
that you are listening to aliteracy podcast in your free
time speaks volumes about thetype of educator you are, and so
we're so grateful, and we hopejust more and more will learn
(37:05):
about structure, literacy andunderstand why it's important.
Because if you don't understandwhy it's important, you're not
going to really give it yourbest effort, most likely, right?
So in just you know, these twoarticles and understanding the
why are huge. The cream saysstructured literacy is anti
(37:26):
exclusionary. All kids, bydesign, are included in the
scope and sequence. Absolutely.
We want all kids to learn toread. They all deserve it, and
so thanks for this conversation.
You guys on the why. To ourlisteners. If you haven't read
these two articles, remember,you can download a free copy of
this edition of perspectives oflanguage and literacy. We'll
(37:52):
also put a link in the shownotes. And so if you haven't
read these two articles on thewhy, go ahead and do that next
time, we'll have MargaretGoldberg, and then after that,
we'll be reading the overview,which is a little bit longer,
right? Stacy and Stacey is goingto lead us in that in two more
sessions, right? Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (38:13):
mark it down.
Lindsay and Donnell. Thank youso much for this conversation.
The why is everything right?
Like you said, if, if you care.
Actually, a colleague just saidthis to me today. She was
talking about pre serviceteachers, of course, college
students, and saying, if youcare, I can help you be amazing.
You know, if you have the heart,we can take care of everything
(38:34):
else. So I know that being ateacher does require us to be an
advocate. And as you weretalking, Lindsay about
advocating for your firstgraders, I'm thinking short
term, like in front of our face,here's Donnell, who is an
advocate for all students. Ithink being a teacher, you are
an advocate, that is part ofwhat you're doing. And Lindsay,
(38:57):
you called out our listeners,and I know if they're listening
to this podcast, this is not theonly literacy podcast they
listen to, right? Or books thatyou read or things that you do
to just meet the needs of thatone student who you can't quite
figure out but you're putting inthe time for. So thank you for
the conversation, and I reallylove this issue of perspectives
(39:18):
as we're getting more and moreinto it too, because it really
does give us the framework,right? And then the direction
too. And I think if I were tosum up this episode in one word,
one thing I'm going to rememberis calibrate, so we can
calibrate like a GPS orcalibrate for our students
needs, right? And I don't. I'mactually going to go look up the
(39:42):
etymology for that word afterwe're done here, so if I had
thought about it ahead of time,I could share that with
everybody, but that'severybody's assignment. How
about we do that anyway? Thankyou all for joining us for this
episode of literacy talks.
Please join us for the next one.
You. Thanks
Narrator (40:00):
for joining us today.
Literacy talks comes to you fromReading Horizons, where literacy
momentum begins. Visit Readinghorizons.com/literacy. Talks to
access episodes and resources tosupport your journey in the
science of reading. You.
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
Stacey Hurst, a professor atSouthern Utah University and
(00:26):
Chief Academic Advisor forReading Horizons. 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 (00:48):
Welcome to this episode of literacy Talks. My
name is Stacy Hurst, and I'mjoined by Donnell pons and
Lindsay Kemeny. As you know, ifyou listen to our podcast, we
take turns leading discussions,and today it is Lindsay who will
be leading our discussion. SoLindsay, what are we talking
about?
Lindsay Kemeny (01:05):
Thanks, Stacey, okay, yes, I'm excited to
continue on our podcast serieson the 75th anniversary issue of
perspectives of language andliteracy the journal by Ida. And
today we're focusing on the why,why structured literacy is
important. And there are twoarticles in this issue that
(01:28):
focus on the why. The first oneis by Reed Lyon and Margaret
Goldberg, and in their article,they identify three reasons why
structured literacy is critical.
So I want to jump into thesethree. The first one, number
one, they say the negativeconsequences of reading failure
(01:51):
for children, their parents andtheir teachers are debilitating
and life changing and wow, don'twe have, you know, some
experiences with that. SoDonnell, why don't you lead us
off? Could you, I mean, that's abit of a heavy topic, but any
(02:12):
comments on that that you'd liketo share?
Donell Pons (02:17):
Yeah, oh gosh, there's so much to say about
this, and thank you for givingme an opportunity. I seem to
talk a lot about this. You know,I also want folks to pay
attention to when you startlooking at the infographic for
structured literacy, and itbreaks it out, tier one, tier
two, tier three, and it talksabout who, who those people are,
the professionals in thebuilding that fit into a tier
(02:38):
one, tier two and tier threesetting, the whole implication
is really good training allalong the way. And so we're
talking about excellent trainingfor the teacher in the
classroom, excellent andspecialized training in a tier
two, even more excellent andspecialized training in tier
three, and addressing that evena dyslexia specialist in tier
three. So even narrowing in evenmore on that number one reason
(03:00):
why a student will struggle withreading. That's why this is so
important. You can't really dothis work and do it well,
because it is, it's difficultwork. I think, well, we've
talked about that a lot in allof our podcasts that we when
people say teaching reading isrocket science. I mean, there's
a lot of things to it. I thinkthe general gist of things and
(03:20):
information that we give folks.
Sure there's a lot that you canlearn. Letters is a great
program, too, but it continuedtraining and making sure that we
have specialized training forthose kids who are going to
struggle for various reasonswith language acquisition,
reading and writing. And so I'vebeen on the receiving end when a
teacher doesn't receive thetraining. Excellent teacher in
many ways, excellent teachers inmany ways that my students had,
(03:43):
that my children had, and yetthey didn't have that very
specific, specialized trainingthat was needed. And then they'd
be handed off to somebody elsewho didn't receive it and
someone else who didn't receiveit. And so it was many layers
deep. It wasn't just the teacherin the classroom. And this is, I
think, structured literacy. Ilove the way they break it down.
It's a really helpful way todiscuss why that's important.
Lindsay Kemeny (04:06):
Yeah, you know, it's talking about these
negative consequences of readingfailure. And, wow, there are
huge consequences when studentsstruggle learning to read, when
they don't learn to read. And I,you know, I saw that firsthand.
I didn't fully understand thatuntil I had my own son with
(04:28):
dyslexia. And I'm talking, youknow, there's these
repercussions beyond just notbeing able to read, but boy, it
takes a toll on thatindividual's self esteem. And I
saw that with my son, becausewhen he was diagnosed with
dyslexia, he was diagnosed withdepression as well, and his
depression all centered aroundhis struggles learning to read.
(04:53):
And there was night after nightof sobbing, and I. Um, trigger
warning here, but of him wishinghe were dead, and he would
scream that and sob that overand over, and he would collapse
on me and just cry. And youknow, I appreciate that in this,
(05:15):
you know, article, they not onlysaid the negative consequences
for children, but also for theirparents, because that was so
hard for me to see and and I wasa teacher too, and it commented
about, you know, how this is,you know, the negative
consequences are debilitatingfor teachers as well. Because,
(05:37):
you know, as a teacher and aparent, I was so embarrassed. I
was so embarrassed that Icouldn't help my own son learn
to read. Why didn't I have theskills necessary, you know, the
basic skills I went to collegeto get, you know, and study
elementary education. Why wasn'tI taught these basic skills for
(05:58):
how to take a non reader andhelp them grow into a proficient
reader. And so, you know, itaffected my son. It affected me
as a parent. I felt terrible. Itaffected me as a teacher. I was
angry, and then I was guiltywhen I learned that some of the
(06:18):
things I had been taught werenot aligned with research. They
had been debunked by research. Imean, I can't describe how angry
I was about that. And, you know,and then I saw because we did
all these things, and when hestarted this suicide ideation,
and he did, you know, justeverything he was saying and he
(06:39):
was doing, of course, we tookhim to therapy. We got
professional help. Because I'mlike, this is beyond me. You
know, I started off on my owntrying to do little things to
help his depression, and thenwhen it got so bad, I'm like, I
need help. But out of everythingthat we did, the ability to read
(07:03):
is what helped them the most.
And I feel like, I feel like, ifI say that, people could brush
that off or be like, Oh,whatever. It's not just reading.
You know, it's not just reading.
But it really was. It wasbecause his confidence grew when
he could see that, hey, I'mcapable of this. I'm not dumb. I
(07:25):
have the skills. Now I can workon these skills, and now I can
read. And as his readingimproved, his self esteem
improved. And you know, I thinkyou hear stories, you hear about
a school to prison pipeline, andyou know that that pipeline that
is huge for these kids who can'tread, because, why? Because
(07:48):
reading opens up opportunity. Itopens up opportunities. And when
they can't read, you know, somany doors are cut off to them,
so then they turn to maybechoices that aren't the best for
them. They turn to other things.
So I just, you know, it's like,we're starting this off on this
negative note, but wow. I mean,they hit the nail on the head.
The negative consequences aredebilitating and life changing.
(08:10):
We're talking about our mostvulnerable students here, and
this is like, why I'm sopassionate. Donnell, you wanted
to see some
Donell Pons (08:20):
and you know, Lindsay, this is the thing. It
is a spectrum as well. So we'retalking about, oftentimes, we
talk about those kids withreally clear cut cases of
dyslexia, and there are otherchallenges, but there are kids
suffering all along thatspectrum. And so it may be that
maybe they didn't have thechallenges in first, second and
(08:41):
third that were so obvious, butlater it becomes clear that had
they received better instructionby fourth grade, their skills
would be better. They're kind ofhanging on by fourth grade. By
fifth grade, things are gettingpretty difficult. By sixth
grade, they're deciding, youknow what, I just don't know if
English is even for me and Idon't really want to read, and
they're missing out too. So thisgoes across a continuum for
(09:03):
folks. There might be people whocan't really understand what
we're talking about when we'retalking about a student with a
real clear cut case of dyslexia,that there will be other people
who parts of this story willresonate with them too, and they
often end up in practice with metoo. These are kids who wouldn't
have maybe been caught out inthose first, second and third
grade years, and in fact, theyhave no history. But by the time
they wanted to get to college,and it was certainly evident by
(09:25):
high school that things were fartoo hard. Literacy was too
difficult for them. And thencertainly by college, they've
done a semester here, a semesterthere, and their dreams are
dashed. That shouldn't happeneither. So as we're talking
about this and getting the skillset, getting the training for
folks, it helps so many studentson that continuum, right? We
might be talking specificallyabout some kids with dyslexia,
(09:47):
but that's many, many students.
And so when we talk about thatemotional, social emotional
impact, it's huge, and there arefar more students that can
relate to that than any of uswould be comfortable knowing
about as. Educators,
Lindsay Kemeny (10:01):
Ian, we're talking about, so why? Why
structured literacy isimportant. And I just think that
is the biggest reason rightthere. And structured literacy
is the best thing we've got toprevent some of these issues.
So, you know, there was, youknow, there's big social media
storm a while back when I was,you know, someone that worked
for a certain company said, youknow, something along the lines
(10:23):
of, are we really going to turneducation upside down for the
these 10 to 20% of the of ourclassroom? And you know, so
much, so many of us were soangry or heard that was like,
yes, because you know what, it'slife and death for some of these
kids. We're talking about ourmost vulnerable kids. So yes, we
want to give everyone the bestchance at success, and yes, some
(10:48):
are going to or could learnusing any approach, but this
approach doesn't harm anybody,and we can still differentiate,
and we could still challenge theones that don't you know, need
as much of this intensiveinstruction, but this is going
to be, you know, the best chancefor everyone in the class. So,
(11:11):
number two, their their secondreason for why structured
literacy is critical is they saythere is extensive replicated
research that shows children canand must develop proficiency in
the reading related languagedomains included in the
structured literacy models. SoStacy, could you explain what
(11:34):
exactly that that means? Whatare these domains that they're
talking about here when theysaid reading related language
domains. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (11:42):
and I'm actually just turning in my issue to page
45 which actually covers thosedomains of language. So
phonology, morphology, syntax,semantics, and one that I often
overlook, pragmatics. So I thinkthat's really important,
(12:05):
including discourse. And theytalk about how those are
different in spoken language,related to listening and
speaking and written language,with reading and writing.
Lindsay Kemeny (12:15):
Now maybe explain pragmatics, in case some
of our listeners aren't familiarwith that.
Stacy Hurst (12:20):
Yeah, yeah. I think of pragmatics as what how to
know when to use which aspect oflanguage that we're talking
about differences between ifyou're having if you're writing,
let's say, in writing, andyou're writing about a
conversation that's discoursethat would be a different
format, say, than if you'redoing academic writing, where
you're not using thatconversational kind of a focus,
(12:44):
or even just knowing things likethe difference between spoken
and written language, andknowing when to use when you can
be more formal in your speechand less formal depending on The
situation,
Donell Pons (13:00):
and if folks are thinking about different
students who don't necessarilyhave dyslexia, but may, for
other reasons, struggle withpragmatics, see how structured
literacy already is bearingfruit. So as we're looking at
these key areas, there may bestudents with other challenges
where areas of language can beimpacted. And if we have a
structured literacy background,we're not missing those students
(13:21):
as well see. So that continuum Iwas talking about of many, many
students, we might think of asmall percentage of students
with dyslexia, relatively,although it's rather large when
you think about it, but there's,you know, another 40% for their
40% so this is where you startto get in. And you go, Oh, Aha,
I see how this is very useful,not just for a few students, but
all students, yeah,
Stacy Hurst (13:41):
I have pragmatics, especially, too for students who
have various dialects that aredealing with like they're really
a lot of benefits to that, andthat's only one aspect of the
structure. And
Lindsay Kemeny (13:52):
you know, that was just a fast little overview,
but we're going to be diving alittle more deeply into those
things in this special, youknow, season that we're having
where we're we're going to diveinto all aspects of structured
literacy, and this, this issueof perspectives, so and then,
you know, remember that in thatnumber two, they did say
(14:14):
extensive replicated scientificresearch has shown that children
must develop proficiency in allthose domains. So it's not just
someone saying, oh, we should dothat. There is research to
support instruction in thesedomains and then read lion and
Margaret Goldberg, third reasonwhy structured literacy is
(14:36):
critical says there isoverwhelming evidence that
direct, systematic and explicitinstruction is the most reliable
method for building expertise inword reading and reading
comprehension. So why wouldn'twe do it? Right? We have
overwhelming evidence. Donnellsaid. You work with adults
(15:01):
learning to read. Could youshare any specific examples of
how this direct, systematic,explicit instruction might look
in your one on one settings?
Donell Pons (15:16):
Yeah. So it's interesting, because I've worked
with a lot of different ages.
Adults are as appreciative of adirect explanation of something
explicit examples of itopportunities to be explicit
when they're now saying, is thisthe way it looks? Is this what
I'm supposed to be doing, beingvery explicit through that whole
process. Adults appreciate italmost more than younger
(15:37):
students do, because these areadults who never had the
opportunity to have it taught ina manner in which they could
understand it. They were oftenleft in a classroom to sit in
the back going, is that whatthey would What does that even
mean? I can't connect that I'mnot making and they were
shuffled along to the next gradeor wherever else, or maybe they
spent time out in a hallway. Ihave many students who have
(15:59):
memories of sitting in a hallwaywaiting for the right person to
arrive who might be able to helpthem, and that never really
happened, so spending a lot oftime just busying themselves in
a hallway there, every bit isengaged. I it's really
interesting to watch adultstudents are hungry for this
type of teaching where you'redirect and explicit with what it
is you'd like the student to do,create opportunities where they
(16:21):
can be direct and explicit. Backwith what is this? What you
would like is this how it isdone, and you have these
conversations and they're ableto master that particular point
before you move on. It'sbeautiful to watch. Yeah, we
Lindsay Kemeny (16:36):
can almost all appreciate it. I think I
remember sitting in aprofessional development class.
I was sitting next to my sister,and she leaned over and she's
like, teachers needs needexplicit instruction to like,
just tell us what to do. Justexplain it to us. So you know,
we can all benefit. Stacy, howdo you teach your pre service
(16:58):
teachers the importance of thisdirect, systematic, explicit
instruction
Stacy Hurst (17:04):
the same way, in fact, I start by teaching them
explicitly, directly andsystematically. Many of them
don't know something as simpleas the fact that we have 42 to
46 phonemes in the language andover 250 spellings for those
that fact alone, which mightseem minor at this point in our
(17:25):
careers, to them, is an ahamoment and oh, there's structure
to it. And then just talkingabout and demonstrating that
they needed explicit instructionto be able to teach it, you need
to know it explicitly. Explicitinstruction requires explicit
knowledge, right? So, the sameway, it's the same way.
Lindsay Kemeny (17:49):
And I am in the first in first grade setting, I
was gonna say. And you know,when I think of explicit
instruction, I try to make myinstructions as clear and
concise as I can. I don't wantto be too wordy when I'm talking
with my students, and then, youknow, immediately, I want to
give them a lot of opportunitiesto respond. You guys, can hear
(18:14):
the Anita Archer training in me,right? I do something, they do
something. I say something. Theysay something. I write
something, they write somethingthat is where the engagement
comes in. And you don't need asuper creative fun activity or
lesson to get students engagedand learning. We want those
(18:36):
learning outcomes, and as weimprove, increase the amount of
opportunities they have torespond. We increase the
learning outcomes and so andthen, of course, if they don't
understand something, I'm goingto explain it again, but always
try trying to do it as clearlyas I can.
Donell Pons (18:55):
And you know, Lindsay, This hearkens back to
the heart of language. I'm justI'm going to share with
everybody, because I love havingthis new grandbaby in my life.
I've got the first grandchild,and I'm talking about him all
the time, but it's reallyinteresting to me how language
so natural. I mean, we talkabout it all the time, right? We
talk about the fact thatlanguage is very natural.
Speaking this oral language partis very natural to us and to be
(19:18):
able to pick this up. Butwatching this baby try to engage
with his parents. It never moretrue to me to just have those
that lens in those eyes watchingthis occur and trying to form,
and his little lips are movinghis little time. And he's tiny.
He's brand new. November is whenhe was born, and it just harkens
back to we need theopportunities to do these
things. As you said, Lindsay,very quickly and explicit,
(19:39):
direct instruction right away.
We're engaged. This is notsomething you sit back and
someone provides. That's theexplicit, direct experience with
this. Students are right awayperforming, doing, engaged, and
you're short and concise in whatyou're giving the students. So
they're immediately given theopportunity to come back in with
what they're what they'relearning. I love,
Lindsay Kemeny (19:59):
attend. Teaching Anita Archer session, because
she just does that with you andthe audience. And I feel like
I'm still not really good atdoing that when I'm giving a
presentation. I mean, she has itmastered, you know, I do it with
my students, but I'm like, I'mstill working how to do that
when I'm, you know, teachingother teachers
Narrator (20:17):
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Lindsay Kemeny (21:11):
Okay, so we're going to be talking with
Margaret Goldberg in our nextepisode. We're going to talk
more about this article that sheco wrote with Reed Lyon, as well
as her journey and the wonderfulwork that she is doing. So let's
move on to the second article onthe why of structured literacy,
which is written by KareemWeaver, called inclusivity and
(21:37):
excellence. Why structuredliteracy is essential to
safeguard students civil rights.
So I've seen, you know, a lot oftimes I've seen science of
reading being criticized thatit's one size fits all right,
and especially when there's ascript, and then you see it kind
of, you know, a lot of peopleharshly judge that. And I love
that in this article, Weaversays teachers adjustments can
(22:02):
occur from a well groundeddesign that's intended to get
the greatest number of childrento read. We talked a little bit
about that just a few minutesago, right? This is our best
chance at getting the greatestnumber of children to read, and
we need these well designed,research based programs. But
that's not all we need, becausewe have to as teachers, we have
(22:27):
to make adjustments, and we needthe flexibility to make those
adjustments and go off thescript a little bit when we need
to. Louisa moat said, programsdon't teach teachers do right,
but we need, as teachers, weneed to be well informed so we
understand what to do when weneed to go off the script, or
(22:49):
when we understand maybe what'smissing in a program I love. I
attended a session by Jamiepeople are last year, and I love
this analogy. I think I talkedabout it on here, but she talked
about how a program is like aroad map, right? You have this
road map that's going to tellyou what to do, but it's not a
GPS. It's not like Google Maps,so it's not going to tell you
(23:14):
what to do when something goeswrong. You know? Whereas when
you are using Google Maps todrive somewhere and you take a
wrong turn, it just takes asecond reroute, and it's going
to help you get back on track.
And that's that's the job of theteacher. That's kind of what we
need to do right is to knowthose things and what to do so
(23:35):
so I've never used a programwhere I haven't had to adjust
something I've always had tomake an adjustment. I mean that
being said, there's definitelyprograms that are better than
others, and some I have to makea lot of adjustments to, and
some, not so many. So Couldeither of you share an example
of an adjustment you've had tomake when using a program? Yes,
Stacy Hurst (24:01):
it'll just be a matter of deciding which one
right, because you always haveto make adjustments. I feel like
and sorry the question caught meoff guard only because my mind
was thinking about, AI, we'reliving in a world where
companies are claiming andaspiring to being able to make
those adjustments based on AI,but I go back to we've jokingly
(24:28):
referred to him on our podcastas Donald's boyfriend, but
Haynes book how we learn, and headdressed that. But AI is only
as good as the input it has,right? And so as teachers, we
know currently, if we have theinformation, we know how to make
(24:48):
adjustments to a program, Iwould say one off the top of my
head that I can think of, nomatter the reading program I've
used, I've always had to infusewriting into. Intentionally.
It's not always included, so Ialways have to extend it that
way for example, but that's justone example and and until you
(25:10):
know AI knows what we know whichwe don't, we'll never our
unconstrained skill teaching isso I don't think AI will ever
really know how to adapt as wellas a knowledgeable teacher.
Honestly, I don't know, sorry tothrow AI into that question, but
(25:31):
it's a good one, because I don'tthink there is a program to your
point, Lindsay, that youwouldn't have to make a change
to
Lindsay Kemeny (25:38):
well. And AI doesn't know my students. Ai
doesn't know that. Oh, I knowthis. One struggles with this,
and I'm going to need to do thisbecause I saw this. Doesn't know
the reading behaviors, you know,
Donell Pons (25:48):
and you know, I tend to have, because we've had
this conversation before, andI'm just going to put a plug in
there and hope that one day weget an AI version none of us are
familiar with. We couldn't evenconceptualize. Because I think
that would be truly theequalizer. Because I think there
are always going to be placeswhere finding really good
literacy instruction ischallenging for whatever reason,
(26:08):
you know, whether it'sgeographically or whatever else,
and so I think that's probablywhat it would take in order to
really see a leveling of accessto good literacy instruction. I
don't know, but I'm just that'sthat's a challenge. I'm throwing
that out there to SiliconValley. I guess that's my
challenge. Is if it really couldbecome that good, that places
(26:29):
where it really is verychallenging to get very good,
highly trained, exceptionaleducators teaching literacy, I
don't know.
Lindsay Kemeny (26:36):
So some changes I've made, I always have to
build in more practiceopportunities, always, and you
know, and that makes sense,because all kids need different
amounts of practice, right? So Ilove when a program has, you
know, an extra bank of wordsthat you could use, an extra
word chain, some extra connectedtext that you can use because,
(27:02):
you know, kids need varyingamounts of practice. I also
always need to build in, likethat practice with connected
text. Sometimes that's not builtinto the lesson at all, and it's
just kind of, also, here's adecodable or whatever, and I,
you know, they need a lot oftime applying the skill, you
(27:25):
know, they'll, you'll, a lot oftimes have students that, hey,
they can spell the word with,you know, AI. They can, well, I
used AI because we were talkingabout artificial intelligence.
I'm talking about AI for a theycan, you know, read words. They
can write. When I'm doingdictation, they can write them,
and then you give them apassage, and suddenly there,
(27:46):
there's a lot of differentletter sound correspondences in
there. So, you know, now they'vegot to remember AI, plus all
these other things that we'velearned. So it's a lot harder,
and they need a lot morepractice, I think, than they're
typically getting. So that's ahuge one. Dictation, like
Donnell was talking, I mean,Stacy, you were mentioning
(28:07):
writing. That's just one part ofwriting, but I've had to build
in dictation a lot when it's notin the lesson. I do it every day
anyway.
Stacy Hurst (28:14):
You know what? A lot of programs also don't
account for fluency orautomaticity. They're just hyper
focused on accuracy. So as ateacher, you have to be aware
Lindsay Kemeny (28:23):
that's where the practice
Stacy Hurst (28:24):
comes in. I think, yeah, exactly. I think
everything we've said actuallycould fall into the realm of
practice and making sure theycan transfer it, generalize it,
yeah, and
Donell Pons (28:34):
it's understanding which students are going to need
what kind of support, becausemaybe it's a bigger cognitive
load for some of those students,executive functioning at play. I
mean, there's just so manyaspects, as you say, knowing
those students. Oh,
Lindsay Kemeny (28:45):
another one that I build in with a program are
those response opportunitiesthat we were talking about
earlier. So sometimes,especially if you have a
scripted program, and, you know,sometimes you look at it and I'm
like, Whoa, there's like, threeparagraphs of, like, long, big
paragraphs of just the teachertalking, okay, if I do that,
just how it's written, mystudents will be checked out and
(29:09):
bored to tears. They won't belistening to anything. So I've
got to, you know, build in, evenif it's just like, you know,
the, you know, some people thinkshooting stars is, you know, are
meteors, but, or no, are reallystars, but they're actually
meteors. What is it? You know,just a little quick, what word
Meteor? What's a meteor? Youknow, I didn't get to that, but,
(29:32):
yeah, it's, it's a space rock.
So, you know, what's a spacerock? A meteor, just building in
little things you can tell, likewhat we're learning about
because today talking aboutspace, but just building in
little. It just, it can be soeasy. It can just be echoing
something you just said, youknow, anything that you can do
to bring that engagement, okay,all right, so here's a quote.
(29:57):
From Kareem Weaver, he says inthis article, calls for equity
without ensuring that systematicdirect explicit instruction is
provided, open the door for biasand assumption to enter into the
classroom. So I'm going to readthat one more time, calls for
equity without ensuring thatsystematic, direct, explicit
(30:20):
instruction is provided open thedoor for bias and assumption to
enter into the classroom. Sowhat do you guys think he means
by that? And could you share anexample? Donnell, why don't you
go first?
Donell Pons (30:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think you can take this a few
different ways, and I reallyappreciate him, because it's
kind of a nuanced sentence thathe's he's provided there. But I
think it's interesting thatinevitably, if you don't have
appropriate training andbackground, and again, if you
haven't had the opportunity toteach in such a way where you
know that you can reach everystudent, right, you know you can
(31:02):
then that's the room where wemight make assumptions or have
ideas about students and whatthey're capable of, because we
don't know any better. And sooftentimes, I think that's often
a reason why we fall into sayingthings about students are just
erroneous, things about notspending enough time doing this.
And I think they might bespeaking a different language at
home, and that might beimpacting so we're saying things
(31:23):
that we fall back on because wedon't know better. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (31:26):
certain populations, I am thinking about
my time as a literacy coach, andthe times that educators would
make a comment referring to astudent because of their
socioeconomic standing orotherwise, and say, Oh, that
student will always be behind orthat student will never learn to
(31:47):
read. And those are the kind ofvery dangerous assumptions, I
think that he's talking aboutsomething else that came to my
mind were some of theconferences I've attended as an
educator over the years, over 20years, oh my gosh, let's not do
that math. But that I knowbecause I came into education
(32:12):
with also a sociology degree,and I remember attending some
conferences where the focus wasso much on what he's saying,
what other normally people mighthave a bias towards a certain
population or something? Iremember sitting in those
conferences and agreeing witheverything was being said. And
(32:33):
yes, we need to be aware and weneed to address the needs. And
from a sociology perspective, Iwas thinking, this is what I
would expect at a sociologicalconference, but how are we going
to teach them to read? And itwas almost secondary to what we
were talking about otherwise,right? And so in every case, and
(32:55):
I think I've talked about thisperson before, there was
somebody very brave thatactually stood up to the
Goodmans with this very topic,like, Yes, but how are we going
to explicitly teach them toread? Because everybody deserves
that. And it was pretty muchdismissed because we were over
(33:15):
focusing on we were focusing onother things in place of or not
giving credence to the fact theyneed direct, explicit
instruction. Everybody does. AndI'm also thinking about
assumptions of kids, kind ofgoing back to the beginning of
our conversation, your son,Lindsay, I think, as you were
(33:36):
telling your story, how lucky ina sense, that he is that a he's
an expressive kid. So you and hehas the parents, he does same
thing with your children.
Donnell, they he has parents whocould be responsive that were in
that situation. But how manytimes are students suffering in
silence because they're notgoing to say anything and they
(33:59):
don't their parents or theirteachers may not know enough to
pick up on it, but once we startteaching with the structured
literacy in mind, those of uswho know structured literacy
will start noticing will be moreavailable to collaborate and
calibrate, is the word I thinkhe uses in the article
(34:19):
instruction based on what eachstudent needs. So sorry, that
was a very lengthy response, butI think it's important sentence
that you called out. And
Donell Pons (34:32):
Stacy, you've tipped me off. Lindsay, this has
gone a lot of different places.
Like I said, it seems like asentence that's pretty but it
has a lot of implications, andit made me think of when you
were saying, oh, Lindsay, youryoung man was so lucky to have
and Donnell with you too. And Iremember having a conversation
with it was a school mentalhealth professional, and she was
asking the question of megenuinely, okay, so tell me a
(34:55):
little bit of this backgroundabout what you did in order. To
help your son become a reader.
This is all the way down theroad after we've already gone
the whole journey. Please tellme a little bit about that
journey, and I start aiming offthe first year that we realize
that I go back to school, thedouble master's degree, the
teaching, the Special EducationCertification, all the
(35:16):
publications, me driving aroundthe country, all the different
trainings and tears startrolling down her face. I was
kind of shocked myself, andthese tears roll down her face.
And she said, I cannot evenimagine what you what you had to
do in order to help your childlearn to read. I I don't think
(35:40):
I've ever heard anything sooverwhelming. She said, I don't
think I've ever heard anythingso overwhelming that should not
be so that's what we're talkingabout here. When we're talking
about well trained with what weknow is the way to teach is
sparing people
Unknown (35:56):
that experience.
Lindsay Kemeny (35:59):
Yeah, powerful words. I love Stacy, saying
Everyone deserves to readabsolutely. And yes, I've often
thought, you know, I will alwaysbe there for my son. I will
always be advocating for him.
And I've often thought, butwho's gonna advocate for
everyone else? And you know,there's these students sometimes
that come. You know, this is whyI'm teaching, because I have
(36:21):
students sometimes in myclassroom, and I have to
advocate for them, right? Andnot only am I going to, you
know, teach them explicitly andsystematically because this is
their best chance, but I mayalso additionally need to
advocate for them, set up thingsto have in place as they go
throughout their school years,and it's just so important. And
(36:43):
thank you, both for like,everything you do, and for this
conversation and all of ourlisteners. I mean, just the fact
that you are listening to aliteracy podcast in your free
time speaks volumes about thetype of educator you are, and so
we're so grateful, and we hopejust more and more will learn
(37:05):
about structure, literacy andunderstand why it's important.
Because if you don't understandwhy it's important, you're not
going to really give it yourbest effort, most likely, right?
So in just you know, these twoarticles and understanding the
why are huge. The cream saysstructured literacy is anti
(37:26):
exclusionary. All kids, bydesign, are included in the
scope and sequence. Absolutely.
We want all kids to learn toread. They all deserve it, and
so thanks for this conversation.
You guys on the why. To ourlisteners. If you haven't read
these two articles, remember,you can download a free copy of
this edition of perspectives oflanguage and literacy. We'll
(37:52):
also put a link in the shownotes. And so if you haven't
read these two articles on thewhy, go ahead and do that next
time, we'll have MargaretGoldberg, and then after that,
we'll be reading the overview,which is a little bit longer,
right? Stacy and Stacey is goingto lead us in that in two more
sessions, right? Yeah,
Stacy Hurst (38:13):
mark it down.
Lindsay and Donnell. Thank youso much for this conversation.
The why is everything right?
Like you said, if, if you care.
Actually, a colleague just saidthis to me today. She was
talking about pre serviceteachers, of course, college
students, and saying, if youcare, I can help you be amazing.
You know, if you have the heart,we can take care of everything
(38:34):
else. So I know that being ateacher does require us to be an
advocate. And as you weretalking, Lindsay about
advocating for your firstgraders, I'm thinking short
term, like in front of our face,here's Donnell, who is an
advocate for all students. Ithink being a teacher, you are
an advocate, that is part ofwhat you're doing. And Lindsay,
(38:57):
you called out our listeners,and I know if they're listening
to this podcast, this is not theonly literacy podcast they
listen to, right? Or books thatyou read or things that you do
to just meet the needs of thatone student who you can't quite
figure out but you're putting inthe time for. So thank you for
the conversation, and I reallylove this issue of perspectives
(39:18):
as we're getting more and moreinto it too, because it really
does give us the framework,right? And then the direction
too. And I think if I were tosum up this episode in one word,
one thing I'm going to rememberis calibrate, so we can
calibrate like a GPS orcalibrate for our students
needs, right? And I don't. I'mactually going to go look up the
(39:42):
etymology for that word afterwe're done here, so if I had
thought about it ahead of time,I could share that with
everybody, but that'severybody's assignment. How
about we do that anyway? Thankyou all for joining us for this
episode of literacy talks.
Please join us for the next one.
You. Thanks
Narrator (40:00):
for joining us today.
Literacy talks comes to you fromReading Horizons, where literacy
momentum begins. Visit Readinghorizons.com/literacy. Talks to
access episodes and resources tosupport your journey in the
science of reading. You.
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