August 1, 2025 • 75 mins
Please include your name in the text!
Dr. Leslie Dr. Laud brings decades of experience as a researcher, educator, and consultant focused on improving writing outcomes, especially for students who struggle. We dive into:
- What executive skills are and why they matter in writing
- How ThinkSRSD helps students regulate their emotions and thinking while writing
- How educators can shift from “assigning writing” to teaching writing
- Tools to build independence
Dr. Leslie Laud is a national educational consultant, author, and founder of ThinkSRSD, a leading organization supporting schools in implementing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model. She has authored multiple books and articles on writing instruction, most recently Executive Skills and Writing Instruction: Developing Self-Regulated, Thinking Writers. Her work empowers educators to integrate cognitive and emotional self-regulation into writing lessons, with proven results across diverse student populations.
Visit www.thinksrsd.com
Coming Soon!!! Book: Executive Skills and Writing Instruction by Leslie E. Laud
_____________________________________________________
Exclusive Offers To Literacy View Listeners
- Big Sky Summit Mentor Recordings - There will be over 25 hours of wisdom and conversations for change and we want everyone to have access to this cutting edge knowledge as we re-shape the future of literacy instruction. This is a $199.00 offer and our coupon is for $30 off!
- Coupon code: LITERACYVIEW
- Link: https://www.thetransformativereadingteacher.com/of
🌵 Tumbleweed Publishing – Decodable Texts
To get your exclusive Tumbleweed deal/discount and entrance into our surprise raffle , email us at FaithandJudy@gmail.comhttps://tumbleweedpublishing.com/
That’s FaithsndJudy@gmail.com for your 10% off code , just for Literacy View listeners..
.
“No-BS Literacy View Consulting Services with Judy and Faith are Now Available!”
Unlock Unstoppable Success: Bring Faith and Judy’s Transformative Consulting to Your School or District Today!
Please check out all of our consulting and advertising offerings at- https://theliteracyview.com/services
You can also contact us at FaithandJudy@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:02):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Literacy View.
Well, she's back by populardemand, Dr.
Leslie Lord.
We are so happy to have Lesliewith us.
Leslie is the founder of ThinkSRSD, and she is just, you know,
(00:23):
killing it out there.
Everybody, wants training inThink SRSD, and she is the queen
of writing instruction, andwe're so pleased to have her.
Leslie just wrote a new book.
It is not out yet, but I wasfortunate enough to get a copy
beforehand, and it is justwonderful.
(00:45):
Leslie, tell us a little bitabout your book before we get
started.
SPEAKER_00 (00:49):
Sure.
So this is my lifelongmanifestation of everything I've
ever loved and cared about as ateacher.
Right off in the beginning of mycareer, I was fascinated by
executive functioning.
Way back when, before anybodyever talked about ADD or EF, I
(01:09):
was fascinated by I have thisdistinct memory of watching
Carrie on Sex and the City like30 years ago who said, oh, he's
just a guy with ADD.
And it was the first time I eversaw it in the media.
And I was like, oh, and now it'ssomething that everybody talks
about.
But way back when, it wassomething that was very obscure
and I was utterly obsessed withit.
(01:30):
So
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
what is the title of your book?
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Executive Skills and Writing Instruction.
Woo!
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Yay.
And that is going to be thetopic of today's discussion,
executive function skills withwriting.
And we are going to be talkingabout the article, the
relationship between executivefunctions and writing in
children, a systematic review.
But before we do, we have a veryspecial announcement to make.
(02:03):
Judy and I are going to bepodcasting at the Big Sky
Conference.
So we are not just attending asguests.
We're not attending as speakers.
We are attending as podcastersand we are going to be
(02:23):
podcasting all these wonderfulspeakers and guess who is going
to be there?
Wesley.
So we are so thrilled.
And wait till you hear this.
When the offer was made for usto go to Big Sky and we heard
(02:47):
about, oh, we're going to haveto travel and we're going to
have to get a hotel.
And, you know, it's the summerand I'm going to be taking a
vacation, a big vacation.
And then this came up and it wasunexpected.
And Judy has her son going offto China.
We were both kind of freakingout about the expense and who
(03:10):
came in.
But Leslie said, you know what?
I have grant money.
And I am going to sponsor bothof you to be able to do this
wonderful event.
And we could not thank Leslieenough.
Thank you, Leslie.
This is grant money from IES.
(03:30):
And since we are disseminatingevidence-based practices, we are
able to work with Leslie throughher grant.
And we are just honored and sograteful.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
Thank you.
I actually got tears in my eyes.
Oh.
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
It really is a wonderful thing you're doing for
us.
We can't thank you enough.
So let's start sharing a littlebit of information about
executive functioning.
So Leslie, why don't you kickoff the findings from this paper
(04:11):
and how it ties into all thework you do with writing?
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Sure.
So executive functioning wasalways something that lived
here.
And I was fascinated by it andwanted to support my students
with it.
And then over here, I had mywriting world.
And then I began to see thatthere were ways that we could
scaffold the writing process,how to plan, how to organize,
(04:36):
that organization is actually anexecutive skill.
And it is something that wedon't just scaffold, but we can
teach and actually helpchildren.
So I began to see thoseconnections.
Executive skills are impactingeverything, every level.
(04:59):
I learned this from KellyCartwright, who wrote the
Reading and Executive Skillsbook, which is a phenomenal
read, one of my favorite,probably my favorite reading
comprehension book ever.
And I began to look at writingthrough that lens and realizing,
holy mackerel, right from stepone, from letter formation,
executive functioning iseverything.
(05:22):
And when we teach in ways thatscaffold it, we see a dramatic
difference in the rate at whichchildren can become proficient
in all areas of writing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
So Judy, you know, you and I both work with
children as well as do a millionother things.
So we certainly could seefirsthand the importance of this
executive function and how itplays into reading and writing.
(05:56):
And when Leslie mentioned letterformation, I did not know at the
time, years ago, when I knewthat there was a connection
between letter formation andrecognizing your letters.
And then of course, recognizingyour letters quickly enough to
(06:16):
be able to push the soundstogether.
It's like a domino effect.
How do you address some of thesetypes of skills, handwriting,
letter formation, letterrecognition, in terms of trying
to improve those in order toimprove decoding, and encoding
(06:42):
and all those skills that weknow that we need to be able to
read and write.
So
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
it's interesting.
I wanna just start off by sayingas a little girl, I struggled
with my executive functioningskills.
So this topic is very personalto me and I never really got a
lot of support.
I had to learn to cope with it.
And I actually improved in myorganizational skills When I got
older in life, probably at age40, I started to feel really
(07:12):
successful because life justmade me become more organized.
I became a reading specialist.
Actually, I'm going to behonest.
I became organized during myreading recovery days, as crazy
as that sounds.
Something good came out of thatbecause I had to really be
meticulous with keeping mypaperwork organized and my data
organized.
And I really started to reallyappreciate setting up systems
(07:34):
and structures for myselfbecause I was in a role where my
boss was counting on me.
And yes, we all know there weremany things happening there that
weren't good.
But for me, that's when I becamea more organized individual.
And I realized how important itwas to become more organized
because I was always the littlegirl that When I was traveling
to school as a little girl, Ihad a bus pass.
(07:56):
I was always the kid that lostmy bus pass.
I was always the kid thatcouldn't find my keys.
And I'm very often the personthat still can't find my keys.
But there's such an importantvalue in systems and structures
in general.
And they are such a big priorityfor me in the building that I'm
supporting right now.
And I think that thinking aboutwriting We know it's a really
(08:21):
difficult skill for a lot of ourstudents.
And we know that, you know, itdoesn't go separately.
So many people are focusing somuch on reading only and say,
okay, writing is going to comelater.
And yes, writing skills maydevelop later and get better
later.
but they go hand in hand.
I mean, we've seen many quotesonline that say one is breathing
(08:43):
in and the other is breathingout.
And that's how I feel to thecore of my soul.
And, you know, the system hasneglected writing for so long
and that's why it's becomingsuch a big priority in my
building.
And, you know, I just emailedLeslie and hopefully Leslie will
be in my building next year.
God willing, fingers crossed.
She just emailed me today, but,um, You know, the pillar of
(09:04):
writing has been neglected.
And I think that, you know, as asystem, we've given so much
attention now for the lastcouple of years to making sure
kids get better at decoding, butthere's so much more to it.
And like Faith just mentioned,even something as basic as
handwriting, it's so neglected.
And if kids' handwriting isneglected, how can they put
their ideas down on paper withease and automaticity?
(09:28):
They can't.
So it's interesting.
I was working with a trainerfrom actually Wilson's
Fundations, and he actuallysaid, you know what, we're going
to focus on one skill a month tomake sure that it's rock solid.
And I got knots in my stomach.
One of the foci for September,actually for September or
(09:49):
October, is going to be letterformation for my kindergarten
team.
And my stomach hurt when I heardthat.
I was like, oh, man.
Because My handwriting was nevergreat.
I always struggled with it.
But then I realized, you knowwhat?
My kids deserve more.
It is an important piece of theliteracy.
(10:09):
Writing is key.
Letter formation is key.
And if we don't build thatfoundation, we're not going to
get very far.
So it's going to be prioritizedin my own building.
We're going to go deep into itbecause for so long, we just...
neglect what's important.
And we're always trying tosqueeze things in that we think
(10:30):
that is important.
And then we wonder why kidscan't write complete sentences
when they're in fourth and fifthgrade, because we're neglecting
what's really important, whichis explicit instruction in
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
writing.
that they'll just get.
And I, you know, I think it's acombination, as you said, Judy.
And one thing I love about youis how honest you are.
I think that's the first timeI'm hearing that you struggled
with these types of things.
And we've been talking for awhile and I don't think you ever
saying that.
(11:02):
So you learned
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
something.
I get a pit in my stomach.
It's something I really, um, I'malmost embarrassed.
It almost made me feel like Iwas Leslie.
Don't
SPEAKER_02 (11:12):
be embarrassed.
You're on the Literacy View.
There are only thousands ofpeople listening to
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
you.
But it's very painful.
A lot of people don't have moneyfor executive functioning
coaches.
And the fact that Leslie'sbringing something like this
possibly into classrooms whereparents might not have money.
My parents were immigrantparents.
A, they had no idea that there'sexecutive functioning coaches
(11:38):
But I struggled and I needed toovercome it on my own.
Nobody taught me how to getbetter at it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:44):
Right.
So now let's take what Judy justsaid.
I love so many things that shejust said.
So let's tease this apart.
Leslie, so do you need an EFcoach or we have your book now.
And I can say that you reallyaddress this in a very deep way.
(12:07):
What are some tips that you canoffer to teachers in the
classroom that address theseexecutive functioning skills?
Because it is the foundation fortranscription.
So transcription would be letterformation, the actual writing of
(12:30):
these letters, automatically,oral language, everything seems
to stem, if you look at thechart in the article, and I hope
people will take a look at thearticle, that executive function
skills really affect everything.
And clearly, working memory wasthe one that came up probably as
(12:54):
the leader of them all.
So if you could just talk aboutthat, because one thing I
learned when I was involved inreading first and coaching, they
said, you can't really teachthese types of things, but you
can make it easier for kids bythoroughly addressing some of
(13:14):
these foundational skills.
Could you maybe talk a littlebit about that?
I
SPEAKER_00 (13:19):
have so many thoughts on that.
So Can we teach these things?
The jury is out.
Youngsook Kim is looking at howwe can impact executive
functioning generally.
My understanding, I hope I'mquoting her right, of Kelly
Cartwright is that you reallyhave to teach the literacy and
(13:41):
the executive functioningtogether.
That you can't just pull outexecutive functioning, build
that, and then hope thatliteracy will rise, that you
have to find the tasks within.
I do think that we candefinitely impact this.
And some tips, I would say youjust said the best one, Faith.
(14:03):
My favorite is don't engage inassumption-based teachings.
And I'm quoting MichelleMiglione from Hopewell, New
Jersey.
She really drives that home.
Nothing can be assumption based.
And she and I were talking andshe was getting all fired up
about how Think SRSD supportsexecutive functioning.
(14:26):
And she said, without this,you're pouring kerosene on ADHD.
If you're not giving the kidsthese scaffolds and this kind of
instruction, I know, right?
Cheers for her.
The language skills that weteach, we're getting more
explicit about that.
(14:46):
Teaching the kids what theletter looks like, how it
sounds.
That is all very important, butthe executive skills and the
language skills are growing inparallel and you can't count on
it that teaching one will buildthe other.
So my big epiphany after writingthis book was that we have an
(15:11):
army sleeping in the heads ofour children, fast asleep.
And when you wake it up and putthem to work in the learning,
they're happy to be part of itall.
And suddenly the kids arelearning at 10 times the rate
they were before.
But we were just not.
The technical word isrecruiting.
(15:32):
And that means to pull them inand put them to work and get
them going as well.
So I also thought, well, we canscaffold, we can give an
organizer.
I didn't realize we couldactually teach and develop the
skill and the understanding oforganization with this kind of
teaching.
And if I can add something, Torelate to Judy.
Judy, I too was the kid whoalways forgot this stuff and so
(15:55):
did my buddies.
So we would have been greatbuddies.
We were always the last ones outof class trying to find our
stuff.
And I was tested for ADHD in mylate 20s and found to have it.
I went into an intense, this iswhat drove my career and why I
culminated in this book.
I went into a very intense, likeRussell Barkley, like chasing
(16:17):
them all down.
Like I was a groupie before anyof these names were known,
reading any book anywhere Icould get my hands on and
putting all kinds of structuresand things into place.
And I was tested 20 years laterand no longer made the cut.
So I don't want to put the wrongnotion out there that you can
(16:38):
fix this, but I do think 20years of intensive work can move
us.
SPEAKER_02 (16:45):
So what was pivotal in your decision?
SPEAKER_03 (16:47):
That's
SPEAKER_02 (16:48):
powerful.
First of all, I don't think Iwould have been friends with
either one of you because I wasneurotic.
We would have
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
driven you nuts.
SPEAKER_01 (16:59):
These types of things.
Wait, wait, wait.
Faith, I'm going to saysomething funny.
No wonder we have a hard timebooking flights and stuff like
that because Faith would book itlike 25 weeks in advance and I'd
probably book it the day before.
There you go.
Exactly.
And
SPEAKER_02 (17:17):
my trips are planned every minute.
Just going through
SPEAKER_01 (17:23):
the day, hoping for
SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
the best.
I should have figured it out.
I'm like, Judy, you know what?
It's a month away.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
definitely not type A.
I'm not type A.
I'm probably type B.
But passionate.
and very, very whatever.
Faith, are you type A?
SPEAKER_02 (17:48):
I don't know.
All I know is I like- Let theviewers decide what they think
in the chat one day.
I like to be planned and I feeluncomfortable when things are up
in the air.
It makes me uncomfortable.
It really depends.
(18:08):
You know, I have a hairdresserwho works on three people at
once and she gets it all doneand she's extremely efficient.
I look at her, it gets me crazy.
It's like my heart ispalpitating, but she gets it
done.
So everybody has their own wayof doing things.
It would not be my way of doingthings.
(18:30):
I like focusing on one thing ata time, but...
You know, to each his own,right?
All right, so let's move on toJudy.
What are some of your questionsthat would be practical
questions for Leslie based onthe topic?
(18:50):
What are some of your burningquestions that maybe you would
want to bring to kids and theirfamilies and teachers?
What are some of your thoughtsthat you would want to ask
Leslie?
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, I have a million and one thoughts.
I know that teachers in thefield, myself being one of them,
are really struggling withwriting instruction in general
and how to get systems andstructures in place so that kids
can be successful.
You know, they're being givenquote unquote programs.
Schools are trying to make itinto a curriculum.
(19:25):
Schools can't figure it all out.
Principals are very frustratedwith what they're seeing.
They're seeing Some improvementsin reading instruction, although
there's still debate about that,and we know that there's still
teachers that want to be betterinformed, let I say the magic
word, strategies, in conjunctionwith knowledge building, because
(19:46):
I don't want the knowledgebuilding fans to go down my
throat.
But anyway, in terms of writinginstruction, teachers really
feel ill-prepared.
in terms of writing instruction.
Now, I myself work with kidsafter school, and I've been
using a lot of the methodologyin Think SRSD.
And I know that planning is sucha big piece of writing for kids.
(20:07):
And I know that the kids that Iwork with after work,
especially, planning is sosoothing to them because they
feel empowered.
What are some tips that you cangive so that we can, as
teachers, be empowered because Alot of teachers are struggling.
They're being given programsthat don't follow the gradual
(20:27):
release, that are all over theplace, that are focusing on
things that they don't feelimportant.
Today, you're doing anadjectical lesson.
Tomorrow, you're throwing inpronouns.
The next day, you're revising,then you're editing, then you're
doing adjectives again.
It's frustrating because a lotof teachers feel like the kids
aren't getting the basic skillsthat they need to write a piece
(20:49):
that is meaningful, And, youknow, has a topic sentence and
details and an ending.
And then, you know, there's justteachers that tell me, you know
what, we're not following what'sin the book.
We're just going to write apiece about dinosaurs.
And, you know, it's frustrating.
Give us some practical tips aspractitioners in the class.
(21:10):
What are we doing to help ourstudents?
Because I know that planning isa big piece for a lot of my
students.
SPEAKER_00 (21:16):
Yeah.
The astonishing piece of it isthat these practices are not
well known and very few teachersjust stumble upon them.
And instead, we just keepassigning writing or...
Modeling how to write a sentencenow that sentences are coming
(21:39):
into the sunshine, which is, youknow, a good thing, but we need
the holistic.
And when you start with theexecutive functioning outlook
and you're thinking about thatwhile you're teaching, then at
every letter level from rightfrom letter formation, I was
working with first and secondgraders this year and their
(22:00):
handwriting was a struggle.
And I was reading, I happened tobe writing the chapter at that
point and reading about theimportance of
self-verbalizations.
So a colleague, MichelleMiglione, again, showed me
SPEAKER_01 (22:13):
this.
Explain for our viewers whatthat is for some of us.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
Self-verbalizations, yes.
So as the kids, as we werewriting in front of the class,
the collaborative writing,modeling writing, so incredibly
important to do.
Many kindergarten teachers dothat, but then we drop it in the
older grades.
We should keep doing it.
So we were writing about PaulBunyan.
So we wanted to write Paul Andfirst, we had to help them sound
(22:37):
it out.
What do you hear?
How many sounds?
What letters do you match?
And then when we got to formingthe letter, they found it very
soothing, the ones who wanted tostay with me, when I would give
the simplest verbalizations.
And Faith or Judy may know thename of these.
It's not Peterson, but it'ssomething similar.
But it was, we're going to writePaul.
(22:58):
First letter is P.
Top line, straight down.
Top line.
curve around.
And we would give theverbalizations while they were
writing.
And that was giving them thatextra cue that made all the
difference in the world on theirhandwriting being legible.
And then apparently they weregoing into school and doing the
(23:19):
verbalizations and their teacheremailed the mom, your
handwriting is neater.
That's the kind of executivefunctioning support that is just
add water and mix and can justtake off.
Now, if you've got You know, ifyou've got other issues going
on, this won't solve it.
But for the majority of kids whojust have executive functioning
(23:42):
challenges, those little kindsof tips can help them.
And then you talked aboutplanning.
So planning is like the easiestbreeze.
And I used to make organizersfor my kids because maybe I
needed the structure as well,but I can see that they needed
the structure.
But what I didn't realize.
(24:05):
was to quote Zaretta Hammond, Icould teach them to learn how to
learn.
And that was the big surprise tome that I discovered 15 years
into my career and never knewuntil then.
I was the executive functioningfor my children.
I was like a prosthetic on theirfrontal lobe.
I would run a very structuredclassroom.
(24:27):
I would guide everything andthey were successful.
But when they left me, they fellapart.
And I didn't realize that Icould be teaching them with the
vision of getting myself out ofthe picture and getting them in
charge of organizing and guidingthemselves.
So Tide is the perfect exampleof this simplest, like a cinch
(24:50):
thing you can teach kids.
Okay, you're going to draw aTide and you're going to fill it
in.
That is how
SPEAKER_02 (24:57):
people write.
SPEAKER_00 (24:58):
Yes.
Yes.
Thank you, Faith.
T is topic, goes at the top ofyour paper.
Then you put I.D.
I is your information orimportant evidence.
D is your details or detailedanalysis.
I.D.
I.D.
down the page as you plan outyour outline.
And then at the end, the E.
is end.
(25:19):
And you teach children to writethat and then to put down their
thoughts.
That in and of itself is nightand day.
It's so hard to get teachers tochange practice, take on
something new.
But the minute they teach that,they're all bought in because
they immediately see, oh, mykids can spell now.
Well, that's because you tookthe weight off the working
(25:41):
memory.
Faith, you're right.
The working memory is the MVPand the whole executive
functioning game around writing.
And so once they have their TIDEplanner created, now they can
spell, now they can handwritemore easily, now they can add
more details because you tookthat load off their mind.
Let me
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
ask you something.
So I use TIDE on my own and tomy school.
A lot of teachers that I see inthe field are still using race.
Have you seen that they need to,in your opinion, is it better to
transition to TIDE or Or do youalso work with people and say,
okay, this is what you're using.
(26:18):
Let me show you how to work withthat struck acronym.
to have effective planning.
A lot of race going on.
I
SPEAKER_00 (26:27):
know, I know.
And Oreo and CER, they're allgood.
They all serve the same purpose.
I'm highly in love with Tide.
I see it as being the mostflexible, the easiest to use.
I don't have a hard time sellingteachers on Tide.
If they're using race, they'llnormally switch.
(26:49):
Occasionally you get a few whoare really wedded, okay?
So then use that, but then teachthe kids how to draw it and use
it independently.
But the larger question, Judy,and I'm so glad you're bringing
this up is there's no winningmnemonic.
The point is to have astructure.
SPEAKER_01 (27:06):
Yeah.
Oh my God.
That's so powerful that Lesliesaid that.
There's no winning mnemonic.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
Yeah.
So it's all about structure.
So let's, focus now on structureand working memory.
Now, I know whenever I've workedwith kids individually in a
tutoring situation, or when Iwent into schools and was the
(27:36):
consultant, the kids generallywho had the lowest profiles
often I won't say always, butmost often had working memory
issues.
It's one of those red flags whenkids are tested, they often come
(27:58):
up with low working memory.
But those people out there, whoreally are unsure of what that
actually means.
Can you talk about why workingmemory is so important for
basically all academic work?
(28:18):
And why think SRSD really does alot to work with this to help
those kids with poor workingmemory?
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Yes.
And I think one reason why I wasmade to do this or why I just
love this work so much isbecause I was the kid who
struggled with the workingmemory.
And so I understood me.
And so I looked at all this andI was like, oh, this would have
helped me.
And I was able to understand it,see its importance and teach it
(28:51):
to my kids as an insider, youknow, like friend to friend.
Like, I know this is hard foryou.
It was hard for me, too.
And this will definitely helpyou.
The working memory load, workingmemory being the ability to
juggle multiple pieces ofinformation at once without
losing them.
(29:11):
I like to think of it as kitchencounter space.
My brilliant editor said that'snot quite the right analogy
because it's not really space.
It's not really like a physicalthing, but it helps me to think
of it as kitchen counter space.
which I think I got from MelLevine decades back, and that we
can only hold on to so muchinformation and juggle it, and
(29:36):
it evaporates.
Like a bird, it's flown away.
And if you can't hold on to theinformation, you can't do the
critical thinking, you can't dothe arranging, you can't do all
of the pieces that the kids whodo have effective working memory
can do effortlessly.
But when you learn thatbeautiful, notion of
(29:56):
compensation, you can catchright up.
And by making a tied planner, itwas a whole new world for a kid
like me to be able to now holdon to the multiple pieces of
information and then look atthem and think critically about
them and think about how shouldI organize these, to be able to
(30:16):
externalize it all and put it onpaper so that I wasn't depending
on my weakness.
Just moves mountains.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
Leslie, can you tell us a little bit about what a
complete tied planner would looklike and how a student would
take what's on their planner andthen
SPEAKER_03 (30:34):
transfer it?
SPEAKER_00 (30:36):
And turn it into sentences.
So there's the really hard work.
Okay.
This is my soapbox.
You ready?
Okay.
UNKNOWN (30:44):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (30:44):
We cannot teach these skills in isolation.
We can't.
There is not time.
And what are we going to say bylike November 15th?
We're going to move fromsentences now to paragraphs.
It just the brain does not learnthat way.
It does not work that way.
I remember hearing that it wasrubbing me the wrong way.
(31:05):
And then I kept seeing studyafter study.
Well, when I wrote this book, Ipulled it all together.
I have 30 pages of references,almost 400 studies cited in this
book.
And I've synthesized them alltogether.
And one area where they convergeis that you have to teach the
multiple levels of language andthe writing process together,
(31:25):
because here's the thing, wehave to orchestrate using them
together.
So when we go from the tideplanner to the piece of writing
and we're turning our ideas intosentences, think of all the
levels of language kicking in.
We have to form our letters.
We have to know how to spell.
We have to have our grammar,innate grammar device, our
(31:47):
language acquisition device thathas to be kicking in.
We have to be holding on to thegestalt of the project.
All of those things need to behappening together.
And they must be taught togetherand practiced together from the
start so kids can do them alltogether.
SPEAKER_02 (32:01):
So what if someone says to you, Leslie, they can't
write a sentence and you wantthem writing a whole essay?
And...
But I'm sure you've heard this,and I'm sure people are out
there saying the same thing,that when I see kids write, it's
(32:27):
just a complete mess.
It's a bunch of fragments.
It's no capitalization, nopunctuation.
It's just a mess.
And they're overwhelmed whenthey think of writing books.
an essay when they cannot evenwrite a sentence and isn't a
(32:48):
sentence like a minicomposition.
So I want you to address some ofthis because I think that people
need to hear this.
Since there are so manydifferent angles that we're
talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the research is, has, itconverges so beautifully.
The most recent study from KarenHarris, she called it right out,
her and Young-Soo Kim.
She taught letter formation,spelling, sentence and
composition to first graders.
UNKNOWN (33:24):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
And they all managed it.
And the pandemic was in themiddle of the study and they all
managed it.
And they came out with thesewhopping effect sizes in all
areas.
So the kids can absolutely, andyou will stunt them if you try
to break down language and teachone area at a time.
I'll try to explain it from theperspective of Linnea Arie.
(33:47):
A sentence is not a minicomposition.
A sentence is an isolated fact.
A mini composition could be ashort write.
Even three sentences, I'm okay.
But it needs to be an idea, notan isolated factual sentence.
And I heard Linnea Arie explainthis so beautifully when she
(34:10):
keynoted in New Jersey earlierthis year.
She talked about a new studythat she's...
Must be in her 80s because she'sbeen around for so many decades
and she's still doing newstudies.
She did a study with one of hergrad students who's now a
professor where they looked atchildren's learning of
vocabulary and various otheroutcomes, learning from lists of
(34:33):
sentences versus a paragraph.
And she explained it with thesediagrams so beautifully where
she showed that the pronounsfaith, the synonyms, and she had
arrows how they were all comingtogether to repeat the key
concept within a paragraph.
And when the kids were tested onthe facts presented in the list
(34:53):
versus the paragraph, theirreading comprehension was
significantly higher.
when they had been working atthe paragraph level rather than
trying to learn from a list offacts.
Facts are just disjointed.
You don't have the repetition.
You don't have the connections.
You don't have the causalrelationships.
Same thing with writing rightfrom day one.
(35:13):
When the kids are producing alittle tiny paragraph, three to
four sentences, they're makingconnections.
They're using pronoun reference.
They're using synonyms.
They've got all of this othercohesion and variation and
deeper learning and thinking andrealizations.
It's so much more joyful.
Who wants to produce 10sentences?
(35:35):
Who wants to practice putting apositives into 10 sentences?
Weave it in when I'm writingabout why Malala is so important
because she advocates for theeducation of girls.
Now I care.
Now I'm invested.
Three to four sentences.
But this idea of teaching andpracticing sentences alone in
isolation, there's just so muchresearch against doing that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
Bingo.
And I think that's importantthat Leslie just said that,
Faith, right?
Because very often you'll see onsocial media, people get
comfortable with what they'rethink is cool or in style rather
than what is the researchsaying, right?
I agree.
And I was one of those teachers,Leslie, myself.
I was doing the whole positivething for a while and in
(36:22):
isolation and thinking that wasthe biggest bang for my buck.
But once the research said thatthat wasn't the best approach, I
shifted.
SPEAKER_00 (36:30):
And we don't have any studies that show that
working like that.
And then people propose it andsay, well, there's no studies
yet, but it hasn't been studied.
Actually, it has.
We have 50 years of isolatedgrammar instruction.
And even if you link it to thecontent they're learning, that's
no different in the researchstudies.
We've got all kinds of studiesthat are looking at history
(36:51):
teachers, teaching historycontent with sentence
diagramming.
No gains.
So-
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
So this to me sounds like what we had discussed with
Trina and Doug.
So obviously their focus was onlanguage, but writing is
language.
So it seems to me that listeningto you, Leslie, and having had
(37:22):
Trina and Doug on talking abouthow you can't just you know,
pull out certain pieces that he,I forget the exact term, but he
said, if you focus on a strand,one strand, that's not it, you
know?
I
SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
think it's, if you focus on one strand, somebody's
trying to sell you something.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Yeah, something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the point, what I'm tryingto say is that there's this
holistic approach to languageand writing that And yet we know
that balanced literacy doesn'twork.
So now how do we separate thisout?
(38:08):
Because I'm sure there arelisteners saying, this certainly
sounds like balanced literacy tome.
Can you please explain Leslie,what is the difference between
holistic and a balancedapproach?
Because I think that could bevery confusing
SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
I think you hit on something very important, Faith,
because even as you weretalking, Faith, I was like
challenging myself because, youknow, what about drill and kill
or whatever, like practice,practice, practice, even things
in isolation.
Is there research behind that?
Yes, there is.
But you
SPEAKER_00 (38:49):
don't practice, practice, practice phonemic
awareness for a month.
without read-alouds, withoutapplication, without all the
other.
It's an explicit lesson, hasmultiple components to it.
I remember learningOrton-Gillingham 35 years ago,
and my lesson plan had sixchunks.
And I was teaching each part oflanguage.
(39:09):
Now, you do want to be...
I'm not saying immerse kids inreading and they're going to
magically write.
We are very explicit at everylevel, giving them the
verbalizations for the letters,modeling the letters, showing
them how to do it.
Spelling instruction needs to beexplicit, systematic with your
morphology and all your...
daily practice, but your lessonis going to have multiple
(39:31):
components.
Now, K-1-2, they really arerocket scientists because they
have to do the double work ofbuilding comprehension and all
that foundation entry work.
In a K-1-2 lesson, you've gotyour 90 or 100 minutes with an
explicit introduction of askill, modeling the skill,
practicing the skill, but thenyou bring it all together when
(39:54):
you have the kids read thedecodable and then read an
early, you know, book that theycan access, but you're bringing
it all together.
You're not spending a month onone little piece of
foundational.
We are so explicit.
At the beginning of our lesson,you would have had your 30, 60
minutes of foundationalinstruction with letter
(40:14):
formation, with spelling, allfollowing a systematic explicit,
but then you would move into,okay, now we're going to write
about chrysanthemum.
All the way to Peter's chair.
It's easier to sound those wordsout.
But we're going to write aboutwhat lesson Peter learned.
Like, it's okay to grow up.
And then the kids are engaged inthe story.
(40:37):
You've got their mind, heart,and soul because they care.
They want to talk about Peter.
But then you're showing them,here's how you do a P.
Here's how you sound out P.
Peters, you're modeling all ofthat.
And then we do something withthe gist, which I learned from
Dr.
Charles Haynes.
I uniquely merged it with thework of Sharon Vaughn, pulled in
(41:01):
K.
Wood Jemma Kumar so that westart every single day with
sentences, 180 days a year.
Who put baby in the corner?
Like, why did we ignoresentences?
It's so sad.
But it doesn't mean that now weclear the decks and that's all
we do.
We do spend five minutesexplicit, but then we get into
writing about Peter's chair.
(41:22):
And now we're bringing in secondgrade.
We were working on irregularpast tense.
So we're going to use.
SPEAKER_02 (41:28):
Can I say something?
SPEAKER_00 (41:30):
Please.
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
So many moons ago, when I taught first grade, going
back quite a long time now, wedid DOL, daily oral language.
And we would put up a sentenceon the board.
and correct it together everysingle day.
And then we would get on withour other work.
(41:55):
And so it's so interesting to mehow these types of things come
back.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
That's funny.
If I had a matchbox, I'd likefired all those DOL books.
I don't agree.
SPEAKER_02 (42:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
No, no DOL.
The gist is tied to what you'relearning and the gist has a
double purpose.
You're going to write a sentencethat summarizes Peter's chair,
and then you're going to bringin all the vocabulary you
learned from and that you usedin your gist.
And now you're going to use itwhen you go to write and you're
going to pick up your gistsentences and use them in your
paragraph later.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
And is the main reason that you're doing the
gist is so that kids understandwhat they just read?
SPEAKER_00 (42:34):
It's two things, Judy.
It's so that you build a mentalmodel, not only check for
understanding, but buildunderstanding, build a mental
model of what they've just read,but then also give them practice
in capitals, periods,grammatically complete
sentences.
And it's quick.
It's five minutes, but it'sproduction.
It's not evaluation of somebodyelse's.
(42:57):
You're producing it.
SPEAKER_02 (42:58):
Okay, but...
How many kids can do this in adirect lesson, as you said
before, Leslie?
And then it comes to the pointwhere they have to write an
essay on their own.
It all goes out the window.
The capitalization, thepunctuation, things that they
were able to spell, all of asudden, they can't do it anymore
(43:23):
because of the working memory.
It's kind of like they just...
They were able to do it whenit's short and finite and they
could show you they know what todo.
But then once they have to thinkof their ideas and then they
have to plan and get it down, bythe time they actually sit to
(43:45):
write it, so much of that goesout the window.
SPEAKER_00 (43:50):
Unless if.
Unless if.
Go ahead, say it.
You're working off of a tideplanner.
And they've had extensivemodeling in, as I keep coming
back, to teach theorchestration.
Teach it from the first day ofschool.
Teach it when you go to write infront of your class.
When I write in front of myfirst graders and we write Paul,
(44:13):
we do...
We're doing phonemic awareness.
SPEAKER_02 (44:16):
We
SPEAKER_00 (44:16):
straight down, around.
What's that all?
A-U, right.
Okay.
Around, down.
And we're bringing it all overin as we're modeling and we're
teaching them to do theself-talk and the verbalizations
so that when they go to write ontheir own, you're literally
hearing...
I don't know if you can hear it,but I heard my little John
tapping under the table.
(44:37):
I said, what are you doing?
He goes, oh, I learned this inWilson.
I should tap out my words.
But he was creating a paragraphabout Neanderthal man.
So he was orchestrating.
He was pulling it all together.
He had a planner, whichalleviated the working memory.
And then he had the tools and Ihad modeled and shown him how to
bring up and use it all.
(44:58):
That's why we can't lose a dayon isolated.
Only one thing has to be all.
SPEAKER_02 (45:05):
Oh, I just wanted to ask you, Judy, what I'm hearing
is a problem of being pulled outfor intervention.
So what I'm hearing Leslie say,at least from my point of view
is, You could be sending thesekids to intervention and they're
(45:26):
working in isolation.
Then when they get back to theirclassroom, it's like a different
language again.
I have
SPEAKER_01 (45:35):
to be honest.
I'm seeing a lot less of that.
I'm seeing a lot of interventiontime is taking place that
everybody's working onintervention during intervention
time.
So kids are missing.
I see a lot less kids in thefield missing core instruction.
So that's a really positivething.
So that's good, right?
But the other thing I wasthinking about also is, this is
(45:59):
really important to me.
So a lot of administrators,they're like, oh, you know,
we're teaching them thesescaffolds and these planners and
on the state test, they don'thave these planners.
And when I walked around duringthe state exam, because I was a
proctor, you know, you're notsupposed to look at the test,
but you know, you see what kidsare doing.
(46:21):
And I don't see a lot of kidsplanning on these stay tests.
So is the goal to be that thekids are creating their own
little planner on a sheet ofpaper and then going at it?
Is that the goal?
Because I honestly still don'tsee enough kids doing it.
And I can't imagine, I couldonly imagine how much better
their writing would be if theyplanned.
(46:41):
And I don't know if everybodyis, in education understands how
important planning is and howcritical and how much better
writing could be.
And I think a lot of peoplestill see it as a waste of time
or that it's not authentic orthey'll think about themselves
and maybe they don't know how toplan.
So they're like, oh, I don'tplan when I write.
(47:02):
I just plan.
You're
SPEAKER_00 (47:03):
in New York City.
That's where they think thatway.
But yeah, I know.
And I was in that that town aswell, that that beautiful city
as well, where I would get allthat insane pushback.
But Judy, next year, it's goingto look different.
I Every March, I get theseexcited emails, texts.
(47:25):
And then in September, I getsobbing calls from special
educators who tell me everysingle child built a tie.
SPEAKER_01 (47:32):
What do you do with a principal or principals in
general?
They're like, okay, noteverybody needs a graphic
organizer.
Why are we giving you a graphicorganizer?
Or what happens?
SPEAKER_00 (47:43):
I take out my BS button.
SPEAKER_01 (47:46):
But what happens during the state exam?
They have to make it.
They have to draw it.
Do you know that they barelygive kids space on state exams
to plan?
Scrap paper.
So right from day one, we offerthem scrap paper.
Oh, wait.
Now I'm going to get crazy onthe literacy view.
I'm about to go wild.
(48:07):
This year, the state exam was ona computer for fourth grade and
fifth grade.
So let me tell you, There wasn'ta lot of planning going on
because kids barely know how tokeyboard when they're so young.
So there was the planning stage.
And even if kids do plan, let metell you, they don't even give a
(48:30):
lot of space on these damn stateexams for planning.
So guess who doesn't prioritizeplanning?
SPEAKER_00 (48:38):
Cooper.
Even with the computer, our kidsall grab the scrap paper and
make a tide.
We've drilled it into them andmade them self-regulating right
from the beginning.
So wouldn't that be great if thewhole
SPEAKER_01 (48:51):
universe was equitable in who's getting scrap
paper, who's not getting scrappaper, and who's given these
strategies?
UNKNOWN (49:02):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (49:03):
Thank you so much.
(49:33):
them out in their classrooms forfree just from watching the
people who are posting, which isthe most exciting thing.
But yeah, it needs to scale.
SPEAKER_02 (49:43):
So here's something that I'm thinking about, what
Judy said about equitablepractices.
And she's just talking about thestate exam now.
But that's something that goesthroughout the whole year, that
we have...
you know, these differentprograms, I'll call it what it
(50:06):
is, different programs wherethey throw in a million
different types of things andlet teachers choose their own
adventure.
And the children are the oneswho have to figure it all out.
And yet then there are someschools where they really make
it a priority to make this adaily habit that when we write,
(50:28):
this is the way we roll.
This is what we do.
So how do we really compareschools at this point?
You know, are we looking at theteaching?
Are we looking at the teachers?
Are we looking at thecurriculum?
Are we looking at the programsthat are being chosen?
SPEAKER_01 (50:50):
What's the con or what tool or what tool are kids
being given?
Is this kid given the chance toactually write with a pencil or
are they being forced when theydon't know how to keyboard to
keyboard?
Or maybe some kids likekeyboarding.
SPEAKER_00 (51:02):
The keyboarding thing is a real problem and the
kids do need the before andafter school.
Adria Truckin Miller is doingincredible research.
If you don't know her research,you need to look her up.
And she's lifted up the hood tosee what are the most powerful
levers for writing instruction.
And typing fluency is one of thebig ones.
(51:25):
The other two biggies are Tide,including all the parts of Tide
and having a language box.
But back to a minute ago, again,it's kerosene.
It's pouring kerosene on ADHDwhen we do not give these
scaffolds.
And when we do give them, I callit magic pixie dust.
(51:46):
That's what I call it in thebook.
And I never had a word for it,but it comes back to Zaretta
Hammond again, this paradigmaticshift that changed my whole
world of it's not me structuringthem.
It's me teaching them how tostructure themselves.
And we call it magic pixie dustbecause every March, the
(52:07):
teachers call me and say, everysingle kid made a planner.
And like, how did that happen?
And every time I run theseclasses, I think, is it going to
happen?
But I was...
teaching first and second gradethis year.
And my little second graders byabout the fourth or fifth class,
I was teaching and they weresitting there and they were
(52:27):
doing something on paper.
And I realized and I said, whatare you doing there?
And she said, I'm working on myessay.
I don't want to.
And she was trying to be polite,but she had realized how she
could make it better.
She had made a little plannerand she was fixing her work and
I had not asked her to.
And this is that thing thatkicks in.
And it's like a scary thingbecause it's like, will it kick
(52:49):
in?
And the teachers in ourworkshops will constantly say, I
think I'm going to be the firstone to break it.
And I'll say, I don't think itcan be broken.
If you teach in this way, youwill set them on their path and
they will take off and you willwatch them go like Khalil
Gilbert.
And, you know, I'm the archer.
I let you go.
It's not me guiding it.
(53:10):
And it's magic pixie dust to seeit happen.
And it's not me in control.
It's Karen Harris used to say tome, it's not regulation, Leslie,
it's self-regulation.
And that is incredibly powerful,that distinction.
SPEAKER_02 (53:25):
So, Leslie, name three BS practices ever.
I thought you were going to sayfive.
Well, I could do ten.
You could do ten.
Fabulous.
Name at least...
Wait,
SPEAKER_01 (53:41):
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_02 (53:43):
Get your BS button.
I don't have it.
I'm moving.
I don't even know where anythingis.
It's already downstairs and I'min a different computer.
So what I usually have isorganized.
I'm sitting now in my husband'soffice because all my stuff has
(54:04):
been packed up.
But so I'm going to ask you,please, if you could name at
least three three BS practicesin writing and at least three
practices that you would give abig cheers to.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (54:21):
Number one is this thing that's taken the nation by
storm of we have to putsentences first.
We have to work on onlysentences.
We have to spend a month or twomonths on only this skill.
It will not transfer.
You're not going to seemeaningful gains in quality.
You may see longer sentences,but according to Adria
(54:42):
Trockenmiller, that's not even apredictor of writing quality.
Sentence correctness is.
You do want to have a goodcapital period, things like But
longer sentences do not equateto better, richer, deeper
quality.
So I would banish that one.
I would say spend your fiveminutes a day on sentences, but
then get into composing, goingthrough the writing process,
(55:05):
creating a little outline,creating your piece and being
sure to model.
how to compose and bring infaith, all of those intervention
pieces, model using them in anintegrated way.
Another BS is to do writing oncea week.
Well, that will never workbecause the kids need to see how
(55:28):
to integrate and orchestrateevery single day.
It's as important as reading.
A second one, exemplars arestultifying.
That's a New York thing, Judy, Iknow.
I used to hear it in the NewYork City schools.
I think it I don't know where,but no, kids, it's like a human
right.
(55:48):
They need to see what it iswe're asking them to do.
But the goal is to go beyond theexemplar.
And if you only show oneexemplar, sure, you might get
formulaic writing.
You have to show multiple andshow them various ways that they
can get there.
That planning is not necessaryand planning can be stultifying.
Planning is absolutelyessential.
(56:09):
There is no way around it.
There are many ways you canplan.
You can plan in fluid ways, butyou absolutely have to plan.
Okay.
The idea of, well, I don't knowif this is such a BS, but like,
okay, I'm done and I turn it inand now the teacher scores it
all.
No, no, no.
And teachers are going to likethis one.
You have to do the work.
(56:31):
Who's the one doing the workhere?
You have to self-score it.
Your peer has to give youfeedback.
You have to color code it.
And then this is whereinhibition kicks in.
Working memory is a piece ofcake.
I will take a working memory kidany day of the week because they
build a planner and now you'rehalfway there.
It's inhibition that's reallyhard.
(56:54):
Once the kids have finished, I'mdone.
And that's where you have tohave like speed bumps.
And the speed bumps are, no,first color code it, make all
your strong words blue,self-score it, peer score it.
Think, look at your past goals,go back and revise for your past
goals.
This is all drawing oninhibition and inhibition is a
(57:15):
much harder executive skill todevelop and support, but we can,
and we can have this impact.
And when you develop it, that'swhen you get the kids on the
state assessments, because thinkabout it to independently create
an organizer is not just workingmemory at scaffolds, but it
(57:36):
requires inhibition.
to stop before you jump in andstart drafting to remind myself
to take that pause.
Adele Diamond, she's a big guruin the executive functioning
world.
She says, time is the antidoteto inhibition.
So as long as they get like aminute to just breathe or pause,
(57:59):
and if they've written powerevery single day on the top of
their paper all year long, andit just happens, like it's just
motor memory, writing power atthe top of their page and then
crossing- Can you remind themwhat power is?
Oh, power is plan, organize,write, edit, revise.
I remember seeing it posted in aclassroom when I was a sub when
I was 22.
I was like, oh, look, that's thewriting process.
(58:20):
I had no idea it would becomesomething that would be part of
my every single day life when Itaught because it is the anchor
that allows kids to guidethemselves and it facilitates
the inhibition, which is so muchharder.
SPEAKER_02 (58:34):
So what do you want to give big cheers to?
SPEAKER_00 (58:40):
To Faith, I keep saying this in podcasts, but I,
like you, lived through readingfirst and lived through striving
readers and just watched themfail again and, you know,
watched everything get blamedfor why it went wrong.
And, you know, we do need tolook in the mirror.
(59:00):
But I think this time isdifferent.
And I do think there's a realwave.
And I think we're going to lookback in a decade and say that
was when it happened.
And I think a big difference isthe translators.
And that is you, Faith.
And that is you, Judy.
That Faith is reading thesearticles and Judy is in a
(59:21):
classroom and the two of you arecoming together to try to bring
what's in the research world toteachers.
We didn't used to do that.
We would just, we had thissecret body of knowledge.
We would say, well, the researchsays, and if we took out an
article, it was this scary blackon white paper thing and nobody
understood the Greek letters andit was two worlds.
(59:42):
This time we have somethingdifferent.
This time we have translators.
and more and more of them.
And the two of you do it sobeautifully that I think cheers
because science of writing istaking off everywhere.
Our little Facebook group is at15,000 now.
And it's starting to likemushroom where again, as I said,
(01:00:04):
people are telling me thatthey're spending an hour looking
through a podcast or a video andthen getting it up and running
in their school.
And I think the schools arehungry.
And somehow through the magic ofsocial media, Facebook, I don't
know, we're just reaching moreand more corners.
And I'm excited at where this isall going and how kids are going
(01:00:28):
to have an easier time learningto write.
And they're going to writebetter and as a result, think
better.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:34):
Well, Leslie, your book is amazing.
And I really recommend thateveryone in education gets their
hands on your book because it isgroundbreaking.
Everybody is trying to do thiswithout understanding what the
(01:00:54):
foundation really is and lookingat these kids and understanding
what's holding them back.
Judy, first thing on my mindthat Leslie said is never
assumed.
And that reminds me of the oddcouple.
And you know what I'm talkingabout.
Never assume unless you make anass out of you and me.
(01:01:17):
And I just always see thoseletters from the odd couple.
And I do see a lot of peopleassuming that these kids are
able to do way more because it'sassumed that they have oh, they
could write, they have thehandwriting, but how quickly can
they get it down?
And how can they coordinate whatthey're thinking with what their
(01:01:41):
hand is doing?
What are some of your takeaways,Judy, from our conversation with
Leslie?
SPEAKER_01 (01:01:47):
That we still have a lot of work to do in terms of
writing instruction and gettingit right.
That we need to pay moreattention to planning.
And it's been neglected for waytoo long.
And I want every administratorthat's listening to this podcast
and every teacher to realizeit's a non-negotiable.
It has to happen.
(01:02:09):
If we want kids to generategreater ideas and write a way
stronger piece of writing, giveplanning the respect that it
deserves, Also, another bigtakeaway for me is let's bring
back exemplars, whether they'reexemplars that I use this year
myself from Think SRSD that wereready-made.
Thank you, Leslie.
(01:02:29):
Thank you.
Free to the public.
Amazing.
My teachers loved it.
We got a lot of informationabout kids and their writing
based off of those exemplars.
We were doing baseline writingfrom your Think SRSD, but
exemplars and also generatingour own exemplars and also
creating Guys, there's no excuseanymore.
(01:02:51):
You have AI to help you creategreat exemplars too.
You have Leslie's, you have yourown brain, but kids need to see
examples.
But another great thing that I'mtaking away, and I wanna hear
Faith's takeaways from the bookbecause I haven't read it yet.
I haven't seen a copy yet, butcolor coding and the power of
(01:03:12):
color coding.
Color coding when you model foryour students, but also...
As an accountability check.
Okay, you said you finished?
Show me.
Color code those bold words.
Color code your topic sentence.
Color code your conclusion.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:29):
Where are your
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:29):
details?
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:30):
That's all the inhibition, the self-monitoring,
self-evaluation.
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:36):
Exactly.
And also the other great thing,and, you know, I'm definitely
not an expert in Think SRSD, butI've been playing with it.
I've seen the modules.
I've...
you know, explored the book.
I've joined the Facebook groupto push myself.
Those little report cards thatyou make after a piece, those
checklists, kids love them.
(01:03:58):
I've worked with private clientsin my house where a kid would
score themselves.
And then the parent is sittingat the desk, you know, because
they sometimes stay for mysessions.
And then a parent is scoringtheir kid's writing.
And it's such a powerful thing.
collaboration and the kid islooking at the father and the
father gave only a half a pointto something.
And then there's a discussion onhow you could improve.
(01:04:20):
And that's such a powerful thingto be able to, A, receive
feedback as a child, but also tobe able to have that
communication on how we couldget better as writers.
Because you know what?
You know what was happening inthe balanced literacy days?
A lot of kids were told, gowrite.
Go write some more.
Go write five pages.
(01:04:41):
And then that was your writinglesson.
And maybe the teacher showed youa little bit.
But do you know how many kidswere sitting and writing and
never got feedback and wasted somuch precious time?
And kids don't have time towaste.
And the other big thing that isimportant for me, principals,
districts, don't just squeeze inwriting.
Give writing the attention itdeserves.
(01:05:02):
Don't put it at the end of theday just to get it over and done
with.
It really is important.
But I have one more question forLeslie.
One more before we go.
So a lot of programs that I'mseeing did not connect the
reading and writing.
Reading about one genre andwriting about a completely
different genre.
Burn them.
Okay, but what do we do?
(01:05:23):
We don't have a choice.
We want to...
We want to make a bonfire, butwe can't.
We've been told this is mandatedresearch evidence, blah, blah,
blah.
Now it's on a list.
What do we do?
In my perspective, it makes itdamn harder for teachers because
it's like when they're startingtheir lesson, it's like starting
from scratch rather than itbeing seamless.
(01:05:46):
And in balanced literacy,sometimes we have thematic units
and we were writing about thesame thing in reading and
writing.
So what's your take on that onebefore we go?
We
SPEAKER_00 (01:05:56):
need the BS button.
Reading and writing should notbe disconnected.
(01:06:27):
Yeah.
task or whatever you read, themain selection, and blow that up
(01:06:51):
and spend the whole weekpreparing for that.
And then at the end of the week,evaluate that as a class, peer,
self-score, class score, butblow up your writing that's in
response to the reading you didthat week.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:05):
So to wrap up, Judy wanted to know what I found to
be a takeaway from the book.
And What's apparent is Leslielives this.
And there are some authors thatwrite about things, but there's
(01:07:25):
no evidence that they do it.
You cannot say that afterreading this book.
You just can't.
I mean, she...
lives this, and her examples arefrom her lived experiences.
So I always appreciate from apractitioner's point of view,
(01:07:47):
and Leslie's both.
She's a researcher and apractitioner.
So I have the utmost respect forher work.
I thank you, Leslie, for beinghere.
This was a delight.
Can't wait to see you inMontana.
And this is a really excitingopportunity for us to be able to
(01:08:11):
be the podcasters for aconference.
We are honored to have beenasked.
Thank you, Danielle.
And we are just so delightedthat you thought of us and that
you think highly of our work.
And we hope we're going to makeyou very proud.
(01:08:32):
So
SPEAKER_01 (01:08:33):
Faith, I think we're making history.
I think we're the first officialpodcasters at the conference.
This is so exciting becausethink about how much, A, we're
going to be getting so muchprofessional development
ourselves.
B, we're going to be sharing somuch of what's happening with
the whole world.
We're going to speak to all thepeople that are presenting and
(01:08:53):
guess who asks really goodquestions?
Faith is going to ask somereally good questions.
I just cannot wait to see it inaction.
And I want to thank Leslie forone more thing.
You introduced us to thegreatest people.
I mean, Trina and Doug.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:09):
Oh, Trina.
Doug is great, and Trina isjust, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09:14):
They're
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:15):
going to be at Big Sky, too.
I know, yay.
We love them, and I can't waitto meet them in person.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09:22):
Yes.
Literacy View is going furtherthan just talking about one
pillar of instruction.
We really believe that readingand writing is so many factors
are so critical.
And we're giving them theattention that they deserve.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:42):
this conference is called Language is Everything.
That's the headline, Language isEverything.
And I think language is reallygetting the spotlight this year
in 2025, along with writing.
So I'm excited about that.
And this is just going to be afabulous opportunity.
And we are going to bring it allto you.
(01:10:05):
And I hope you're going tofollow along with us.
Can I just
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:10):
add that I want to thank you both for the public
service that you do, yourgenuineness and your dedication
to children.
I am always so proud toassociate with the two of you
because you are doing the realwork.
Judy, you're going into a publicschool every day.
Faith, you're going in andhelping the public school
teachers every single day andgetting real impact.
(01:10:32):
And that is, you're a service toour nation So thank
SPEAKER_02 (01:10:37):
you.
Thank you.
Well, you know, you're our No BSBestie.
You are in the club.
So, and that's a very eliteselect group.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10:50):
I think she's a No BS Bestie MVP.
100%.
All right, everyone.
So long.
Thank you.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Literacy View.
Well, she's back by populardemand, Dr.
Leslie Lord.
We are so happy to have Lesliewith us.
Leslie is the founder of ThinkSRSD, and she is just, you know,
(00:23):
killing it out there.
Everybody, wants training inThink SRSD, and she is the queen
of writing instruction, andwe're so pleased to have her.
Leslie just wrote a new book.
It is not out yet, but I wasfortunate enough to get a copy
beforehand, and it is justwonderful.
(00:45):
Leslie, tell us a little bitabout your book before we get
started.
SPEAKER_00 (00:49):
Sure.
So this is my lifelongmanifestation of everything I've
ever loved and cared about as ateacher.
Right off in the beginning of mycareer, I was fascinated by
executive functioning.
Way back when, before anybodyever talked about ADD or EF, I
(01:09):
was fascinated by I have thisdistinct memory of watching
Carrie on Sex and the City like30 years ago who said, oh, he's
just a guy with ADD.
And it was the first time I eversaw it in the media.
And I was like, oh, and now it'ssomething that everybody talks
about.
But way back when, it wassomething that was very obscure
and I was utterly obsessed withit.
(01:30):
So
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
what is the title of your book?
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Executive Skills and Writing Instruction.
Woo!
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Yay.
And that is going to be thetopic of today's discussion,
executive function skills withwriting.
And we are going to be talkingabout the article, the
relationship between executivefunctions and writing in
children, a systematic review.
But before we do, we have a veryspecial announcement to make.
(02:03):
Judy and I are going to bepodcasting at the Big Sky
Conference.
So we are not just attending asguests.
We're not attending as speakers.
We are attending as podcastersand we are going to be
(02:23):
podcasting all these wonderfulspeakers and guess who is going
to be there?
Wesley.
So we are so thrilled.
And wait till you hear this.
When the offer was made for usto go to Big Sky and we heard
(02:47):
about, oh, we're going to haveto travel and we're going to
have to get a hotel.
And, you know, it's the summerand I'm going to be taking a
vacation, a big vacation.
And then this came up and it wasunexpected.
And Judy has her son going offto China.
We were both kind of freakingout about the expense and who
(03:10):
came in.
But Leslie said, you know what?
I have grant money.
And I am going to sponsor bothof you to be able to do this
wonderful event.
And we could not thank Leslieenough.
Thank you, Leslie.
This is grant money from IES.
(03:30):
And since we are disseminatingevidence-based practices, we are
able to work with Leslie throughher grant.
And we are just honored and sograteful.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
Thank you.
I actually got tears in my eyes.
Oh.
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
It really is a wonderful thing you're doing for
us.
We can't thank you enough.
So let's start sharing a littlebit of information about
executive functioning.
So Leslie, why don't you kickoff the findings from this paper
(04:11):
and how it ties into all thework you do with writing?
SPEAKER_00 (04:16):
Sure.
So executive functioning wasalways something that lived
here.
And I was fascinated by it andwanted to support my students
with it.
And then over here, I had mywriting world.
And then I began to see thatthere were ways that we could
scaffold the writing process,how to plan, how to organize,
(04:36):
that organization is actually anexecutive skill.
And it is something that wedon't just scaffold, but we can
teach and actually helpchildren.
So I began to see thoseconnections.
Executive skills are impactingeverything, every level.
(04:59):
I learned this from KellyCartwright, who wrote the
Reading and Executive Skillsbook, which is a phenomenal
read, one of my favorite,probably my favorite reading
comprehension book ever.
And I began to look at writingthrough that lens and realizing,
holy mackerel, right from stepone, from letter formation,
executive functioning iseverything.
(05:22):
And when we teach in ways thatscaffold it, we see a dramatic
difference in the rate at whichchildren can become proficient
in all areas of writing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
So Judy, you know, you and I both work with
children as well as do a millionother things.
So we certainly could seefirsthand the importance of this
executive function and how itplays into reading and writing.
(05:56):
And when Leslie mentioned letterformation, I did not know at the
time, years ago, when I knewthat there was a connection
between letter formation andrecognizing your letters.
And then of course, recognizingyour letters quickly enough to
(06:16):
be able to push the soundstogether.
It's like a domino effect.
How do you address some of thesetypes of skills, handwriting,
letter formation, letterrecognition, in terms of trying
to improve those in order toimprove decoding, and encoding
(06:42):
and all those skills that weknow that we need to be able to
read and write.
So
SPEAKER_01 (06:50):
it's interesting.
I wanna just start off by sayingas a little girl, I struggled
with my executive functioningskills.
So this topic is very personalto me and I never really got a
lot of support.
I had to learn to cope with it.
And I actually improved in myorganizational skills When I got
older in life, probably at age40, I started to feel really
(07:12):
successful because life justmade me become more organized.
I became a reading specialist.
Actually, I'm going to behonest.
I became organized during myreading recovery days, as crazy
as that sounds.
Something good came out of thatbecause I had to really be
meticulous with keeping mypaperwork organized and my data
organized.
And I really started to reallyappreciate setting up systems
(07:34):
and structures for myselfbecause I was in a role where my
boss was counting on me.
And yes, we all know there weremany things happening there that
weren't good.
But for me, that's when I becamea more organized individual.
And I realized how important itwas to become more organized
because I was always the littlegirl that When I was traveling
to school as a little girl, Ihad a bus pass.
(07:56):
I was always the kid that lostmy bus pass.
I was always the kid thatcouldn't find my keys.
And I'm very often the personthat still can't find my keys.
But there's such an importantvalue in systems and structures
in general.
And they are such a big priorityfor me in the building that I'm
supporting right now.
And I think that thinking aboutwriting We know it's a really
(08:21):
difficult skill for a lot of ourstudents.
And we know that, you know, itdoesn't go separately.
So many people are focusing somuch on reading only and say,
okay, writing is going to comelater.
And yes, writing skills maydevelop later and get better
later.
but they go hand in hand.
I mean, we've seen many quotesonline that say one is breathing
(08:43):
in and the other is breathingout.
And that's how I feel to thecore of my soul.
And, you know, the system hasneglected writing for so long
and that's why it's becomingsuch a big priority in my
building.
And, you know, I just emailedLeslie and hopefully Leslie will
be in my building next year.
God willing, fingers crossed.
She just emailed me today, but,um, You know, the pillar of
(09:04):
writing has been neglected.
And I think that, you know, as asystem, we've given so much
attention now for the lastcouple of years to making sure
kids get better at decoding, butthere's so much more to it.
And like Faith just mentioned,even something as basic as
handwriting, it's so neglected.
And if kids' handwriting isneglected, how can they put
their ideas down on paper withease and automaticity?
(09:28):
They can't.
So it's interesting.
I was working with a trainerfrom actually Wilson's
Fundations, and he actuallysaid, you know what, we're going
to focus on one skill a month tomake sure that it's rock solid.
And I got knots in my stomach.
One of the foci for September,actually for September or
(09:49):
October, is going to be letterformation for my kindergarten
team.
And my stomach hurt when I heardthat.
I was like, oh, man.
Because My handwriting was nevergreat.
I always struggled with it.
But then I realized, you knowwhat?
My kids deserve more.
It is an important piece of theliteracy.
(10:09):
Writing is key.
Letter formation is key.
And if we don't build thatfoundation, we're not going to
get very far.
So it's going to be prioritizedin my own building.
We're going to go deep into itbecause for so long, we just...
neglect what's important.
And we're always trying tosqueeze things in that we think
(10:30):
that is important.
And then we wonder why kidscan't write complete sentences
when they're in fourth and fifthgrade, because we're neglecting
what's really important, whichis explicit instruction in
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
writing.
that they'll just get.
And I, you know, I think it's acombination, as you said, Judy.
And one thing I love about youis how honest you are.
I think that's the first timeI'm hearing that you struggled
with these types of things.
And we've been talking for awhile and I don't think you ever
saying that.
(11:02):
So you learned
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
something.
I get a pit in my stomach.
It's something I really, um, I'malmost embarrassed.
It almost made me feel like Iwas Leslie.
Don't
SPEAKER_02 (11:12):
be embarrassed.
You're on the Literacy View.
There are only thousands ofpeople listening to
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
you.
But it's very painful.
A lot of people don't have moneyfor executive functioning
coaches.
And the fact that Leslie'sbringing something like this
possibly into classrooms whereparents might not have money.
My parents were immigrantparents.
A, they had no idea that there'sexecutive functioning coaches
(11:38):
But I struggled and I needed toovercome it on my own.
Nobody taught me how to getbetter at it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:44):
Right.
So now let's take what Judy justsaid.
I love so many things that shejust said.
So let's tease this apart.
Leslie, so do you need an EFcoach or we have your book now.
And I can say that you reallyaddress this in a very deep way.
(12:07):
What are some tips that you canoffer to teachers in the
classroom that address theseexecutive functioning skills?
Because it is the foundation fortranscription.
So transcription would be letterformation, the actual writing of
(12:30):
these letters, automatically,oral language, everything seems
to stem, if you look at thechart in the article, and I hope
people will take a look at thearticle, that executive function
skills really affect everything.
And clearly, working memory wasthe one that came up probably as
(12:54):
the leader of them all.
So if you could just talk aboutthat, because one thing I
learned when I was involved inreading first and coaching, they
said, you can't really teachthese types of things, but you
can make it easier for kids bythoroughly addressing some of
(13:14):
these foundational skills.
Could you maybe talk a littlebit about that?
I
SPEAKER_00 (13:19):
have so many thoughts on that.
So Can we teach these things?
The jury is out.
Youngsook Kim is looking at howwe can impact executive
functioning generally.
My understanding, I hope I'mquoting her right, of Kelly
Cartwright is that you reallyhave to teach the literacy and
(13:41):
the executive functioningtogether.
That you can't just pull outexecutive functioning, build
that, and then hope thatliteracy will rise, that you
have to find the tasks within.
I do think that we candefinitely impact this.
And some tips, I would say youjust said the best one, Faith.
(14:03):
My favorite is don't engage inassumption-based teachings.
And I'm quoting MichelleMiglione from Hopewell, New
Jersey.
She really drives that home.
Nothing can be assumption based.
And she and I were talking andshe was getting all fired up
about how Think SRSD supportsexecutive functioning.
(14:26):
And she said, without this,you're pouring kerosene on ADHD.
If you're not giving the kidsthese scaffolds and this kind of
instruction, I know, right?
Cheers for her.
The language skills that weteach, we're getting more
explicit about that.
(14:46):
Teaching the kids what theletter looks like, how it
sounds.
That is all very important, butthe executive skills and the
language skills are growing inparallel and you can't count on
it that teaching one will buildthe other.
So my big epiphany after writingthis book was that we have an
(15:11):
army sleeping in the heads ofour children, fast asleep.
And when you wake it up and putthem to work in the learning,
they're happy to be part of itall.
And suddenly the kids arelearning at 10 times the rate
they were before.
But we were just not.
The technical word isrecruiting.
(15:32):
And that means to pull them inand put them to work and get
them going as well.
So I also thought, well, we canscaffold, we can give an
organizer.
I didn't realize we couldactually teach and develop the
skill and the understanding oforganization with this kind of
teaching.
And if I can add something, Torelate to Judy.
Judy, I too was the kid whoalways forgot this stuff and so
(15:55):
did my buddies.
So we would have been greatbuddies.
We were always the last ones outof class trying to find our
stuff.
And I was tested for ADHD in mylate 20s and found to have it.
I went into an intense, this iswhat drove my career and why I
culminated in this book.
I went into a very intense, likeRussell Barkley, like chasing
(16:17):
them all down.
Like I was a groupie before anyof these names were known,
reading any book anywhere Icould get my hands on and
putting all kinds of structuresand things into place.
And I was tested 20 years laterand no longer made the cut.
So I don't want to put the wrongnotion out there that you can
(16:38):
fix this, but I do think 20years of intensive work can move
us.
SPEAKER_02 (16:45):
So what was pivotal in your decision?
SPEAKER_03 (16:47):
That's
SPEAKER_02 (16:48):
powerful.
First of all, I don't think Iwould have been friends with
either one of you because I wasneurotic.
We would have
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
driven you nuts.
SPEAKER_01 (16:59):
These types of things.
Wait, wait, wait.
Faith, I'm going to saysomething funny.
No wonder we have a hard timebooking flights and stuff like
that because Faith would book itlike 25 weeks in advance and I'd
probably book it the day before.
There you go.
Exactly.
And
SPEAKER_02 (17:17):
my trips are planned every minute.
Just going through
SPEAKER_01 (17:23):
the day, hoping for
SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
the best.
I should have figured it out.
I'm like, Judy, you know what?
It's a month away.
I'm
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
definitely not type A.
I'm not type A.
I'm probably type B.
But passionate.
and very, very whatever.
Faith, are you type A?
SPEAKER_02 (17:48):
I don't know.
All I know is I like- Let theviewers decide what they think
in the chat one day.
I like to be planned and I feeluncomfortable when things are up
in the air.
It makes me uncomfortable.
It really depends.
(18:08):
You know, I have a hairdresserwho works on three people at
once and she gets it all doneand she's extremely efficient.
I look at her, it gets me crazy.
It's like my heart ispalpitating, but she gets it
done.
So everybody has their own wayof doing things.
It would not be my way of doingthings.
(18:30):
I like focusing on one thing ata time, but...
You know, to each his own,right?
All right, so let's move on toJudy.
What are some of your questionsthat would be practical
questions for Leslie based onthe topic?
(18:50):
What are some of your burningquestions that maybe you would
want to bring to kids and theirfamilies and teachers?
What are some of your thoughtsthat you would want to ask
Leslie?
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, I have a million and one thoughts.
I know that teachers in thefield, myself being one of them,
are really struggling withwriting instruction in general
and how to get systems andstructures in place so that kids
can be successful.
You know, they're being givenquote unquote programs.
Schools are trying to make itinto a curriculum.
(19:25):
Schools can't figure it all out.
Principals are very frustratedwith what they're seeing.
They're seeing Some improvementsin reading instruction, although
there's still debate about that,and we know that there's still
teachers that want to be betterinformed, let I say the magic
word, strategies, in conjunctionwith knowledge building, because
(19:46):
I don't want the knowledgebuilding fans to go down my
throat.
But anyway, in terms of writinginstruction, teachers really
feel ill-prepared.
in terms of writing instruction.
Now, I myself work with kidsafter school, and I've been
using a lot of the methodologyin Think SRSD.
And I know that planning is sucha big piece of writing for kids.
(20:07):
And I know that the kids that Iwork with after work,
especially, planning is sosoothing to them because they
feel empowered.
What are some tips that you cangive so that we can, as
teachers, be empowered because Alot of teachers are struggling.
They're being given programsthat don't follow the gradual
(20:27):
release, that are all over theplace, that are focusing on
things that they don't feelimportant.
Today, you're doing anadjectical lesson.
Tomorrow, you're throwing inpronouns.
The next day, you're revising,then you're editing, then you're
doing adjectives again.
It's frustrating because a lotof teachers feel like the kids
aren't getting the basic skillsthat they need to write a piece
(20:49):
that is meaningful, And, youknow, has a topic sentence and
details and an ending.
And then, you know, there's justteachers that tell me, you know
what, we're not following what'sin the book.
We're just going to write apiece about dinosaurs.
And, you know, it's frustrating.
Give us some practical tips aspractitioners in the class.
(21:10):
What are we doing to help ourstudents?
Because I know that planning isa big piece for a lot of my
students.
SPEAKER_00 (21:16):
Yeah.
The astonishing piece of it isthat these practices are not
well known and very few teachersjust stumble upon them.
And instead, we just keepassigning writing or...
Modeling how to write a sentencenow that sentences are coming
(21:39):
into the sunshine, which is, youknow, a good thing, but we need
the holistic.
And when you start with theexecutive functioning outlook
and you're thinking about thatwhile you're teaching, then at
every letter level from rightfrom letter formation, I was
working with first and secondgraders this year and their
(22:00):
handwriting was a struggle.
And I was reading, I happened tobe writing the chapter at that
point and reading about theimportance of
self-verbalizations.
So a colleague, MichelleMiglione, again, showed me
SPEAKER_01 (22:13):
this.
Explain for our viewers whatthat is for some of us.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
Self-verbalizations, yes.
So as the kids, as we werewriting in front of the class,
the collaborative writing,modeling writing, so incredibly
important to do.
Many kindergarten teachers dothat, but then we drop it in the
older grades.
We should keep doing it.
So we were writing about PaulBunyan.
So we wanted to write Paul Andfirst, we had to help them sound
(22:37):
it out.
What do you hear?
How many sounds?
What letters do you match?
And then when we got to formingthe letter, they found it very
soothing, the ones who wanted tostay with me, when I would give
the simplest verbalizations.
And Faith or Judy may know thename of these.
It's not Peterson, but it'ssomething similar.
But it was, we're going to writePaul.
(22:58):
First letter is P.
Top line, straight down.
Top line.
curve around.
And we would give theverbalizations while they were
writing.
And that was giving them thatextra cue that made all the
difference in the world on theirhandwriting being legible.
And then apparently they weregoing into school and doing the
(23:19):
verbalizations and their teacheremailed the mom, your
handwriting is neater.
That's the kind of executivefunctioning support that is just
add water and mix and can justtake off.
Now, if you've got You know, ifyou've got other issues going
on, this won't solve it.
But for the majority of kids whojust have executive functioning
(23:42):
challenges, those little kindsof tips can help them.
And then you talked aboutplanning.
So planning is like the easiestbreeze.
And I used to make organizersfor my kids because maybe I
needed the structure as well,but I can see that they needed
the structure.
But what I didn't realize.
(24:05):
was to quote Zaretta Hammond, Icould teach them to learn how to
learn.
And that was the big surprise tome that I discovered 15 years
into my career and never knewuntil then.
I was the executive functioningfor my children.
I was like a prosthetic on theirfrontal lobe.
I would run a very structuredclassroom.
(24:27):
I would guide everything andthey were successful.
But when they left me, they fellapart.
And I didn't realize that Icould be teaching them with the
vision of getting myself out ofthe picture and getting them in
charge of organizing and guidingthemselves.
So Tide is the perfect exampleof this simplest, like a cinch
(24:50):
thing you can teach kids.
Okay, you're going to draw aTide and you're going to fill it
in.
That is how
SPEAKER_02 (24:57):
people write.
SPEAKER_00 (24:58):
Yes.
Yes.
Thank you, Faith.
T is topic, goes at the top ofyour paper.
Then you put I.D.
I is your information orimportant evidence.
D is your details or detailedanalysis.
I.D.
I.D.
down the page as you plan outyour outline.
And then at the end, the E.
is end.
(25:19):
And you teach children to writethat and then to put down their
thoughts.
That in and of itself is nightand day.
It's so hard to get teachers tochange practice, take on
something new.
But the minute they teach that,they're all bought in because
they immediately see, oh, mykids can spell now.
Well, that's because you tookthe weight off the working
(25:41):
memory.
Faith, you're right.
The working memory is the MVPand the whole executive
functioning game around writing.
And so once they have their TIDEplanner created, now they can
spell, now they can handwritemore easily, now they can add
more details because you tookthat load off their mind.
Let me
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
ask you something.
So I use TIDE on my own and tomy school.
A lot of teachers that I see inthe field are still using race.
Have you seen that they need to,in your opinion, is it better to
transition to TIDE or Or do youalso work with people and say,
okay, this is what you're using.
(26:18):
Let me show you how to work withthat struck acronym.
to have effective planning.
A lot of race going on.
I
SPEAKER_00 (26:27):
know, I know.
And Oreo and CER, they're allgood.
They all serve the same purpose.
I'm highly in love with Tide.
I see it as being the mostflexible, the easiest to use.
I don't have a hard time sellingteachers on Tide.
If they're using race, they'llnormally switch.
(26:49):
Occasionally you get a few whoare really wedded, okay?
So then use that, but then teachthe kids how to draw it and use
it independently.
But the larger question, Judy,and I'm so glad you're bringing
this up is there's no winningmnemonic.
The point is to have astructure.
SPEAKER_01 (27:06):
Yeah.
Oh my God.
That's so powerful that Lesliesaid that.
There's no winning mnemonic.
SPEAKER_02 (27:14):
Yeah.
So it's all about structure.
So let's, focus now on structureand working memory.
Now, I know whenever I've workedwith kids individually in a
tutoring situation, or when Iwent into schools and was the
(27:36):
consultant, the kids generallywho had the lowest profiles
often I won't say always, butmost often had working memory
issues.
It's one of those red flags whenkids are tested, they often come
(27:58):
up with low working memory.
But those people out there, whoreally are unsure of what that
actually means.
Can you talk about why workingmemory is so important for
basically all academic work?
(28:18):
And why think SRSD really does alot to work with this to help
those kids with poor workingmemory?
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Yes.
And I think one reason why I wasmade to do this or why I just
love this work so much isbecause I was the kid who
struggled with the workingmemory.
And so I understood me.
And so I looked at all this andI was like, oh, this would have
helped me.
And I was able to understand it,see its importance and teach it
(28:51):
to my kids as an insider, youknow, like friend to friend.
Like, I know this is hard foryou.
It was hard for me, too.
And this will definitely helpyou.
The working memory load, workingmemory being the ability to
juggle multiple pieces ofinformation at once without
losing them.
(29:11):
I like to think of it as kitchencounter space.
My brilliant editor said that'snot quite the right analogy
because it's not really space.
It's not really like a physicalthing, but it helps me to think
of it as kitchen counter space.
which I think I got from MelLevine decades back, and that we
can only hold on to so muchinformation and juggle it, and
(29:36):
it evaporates.
Like a bird, it's flown away.
And if you can't hold on to theinformation, you can't do the
critical thinking, you can't dothe arranging, you can't do all
of the pieces that the kids whodo have effective working memory
can do effortlessly.
But when you learn thatbeautiful, notion of
(29:56):
compensation, you can catchright up.
And by making a tied planner, itwas a whole new world for a kid
like me to be able to now holdon to the multiple pieces of
information and then look atthem and think critically about
them and think about how shouldI organize these, to be able to
(30:16):
externalize it all and put it onpaper so that I wasn't depending
on my weakness.
Just moves mountains.
SPEAKER_01 (30:25):
Leslie, can you tell us a little bit about what a
complete tied planner would looklike and how a student would
take what's on their planner andthen
SPEAKER_03 (30:34):
transfer it?
SPEAKER_00 (30:36):
And turn it into sentences.
So there's the really hard work.
Okay.
This is my soapbox.
You ready?
Okay.
UNKNOWN (30:44):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (30:44):
We cannot teach these skills in isolation.
We can't.
There is not time.
And what are we going to say bylike November 15th?
We're going to move fromsentences now to paragraphs.
It just the brain does not learnthat way.
It does not work that way.
I remember hearing that it wasrubbing me the wrong way.
(31:05):
And then I kept seeing studyafter study.
Well, when I wrote this book, Ipulled it all together.
I have 30 pages of references,almost 400 studies cited in this
book.
And I've synthesized them alltogether.
And one area where they convergeis that you have to teach the
multiple levels of language andthe writing process together,
(31:25):
because here's the thing, wehave to orchestrate using them
together.
So when we go from the tideplanner to the piece of writing
and we're turning our ideas intosentences, think of all the
levels of language kicking in.
We have to form our letters.
We have to know how to spell.
We have to have our grammar,innate grammar device, our
(31:47):
language acquisition device thathas to be kicking in.
We have to be holding on to thegestalt of the project.
All of those things need to behappening together.
And they must be taught togetherand practiced together from the
start so kids can do them alltogether.
SPEAKER_02 (32:01):
So what if someone says to you, Leslie, they can't
write a sentence and you wantthem writing a whole essay?
And...
But I'm sure you've heard this,and I'm sure people are out
there saying the same thing,that when I see kids write, it's
(32:27):
just a complete mess.
It's a bunch of fragments.
It's no capitalization, nopunctuation.
It's just a mess.
And they're overwhelmed whenthey think of writing books.
an essay when they cannot evenwrite a sentence and isn't a
(32:48):
sentence like a minicomposition.
So I want you to address some ofthis because I think that people
need to hear this.
Since there are so manydifferent angles that we're
talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the research is, has, itconverges so beautifully.
The most recent study from KarenHarris, she called it right out,
her and Young-Soo Kim.
She taught letter formation,spelling, sentence and
composition to first graders.
UNKNOWN (33:24):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
And they all managed it.
And the pandemic was in themiddle of the study and they all
managed it.
And they came out with thesewhopping effect sizes in all
areas.
So the kids can absolutely, andyou will stunt them if you try
to break down language and teachone area at a time.
I'll try to explain it from theperspective of Linnea Arie.
(33:47):
A sentence is not a minicomposition.
A sentence is an isolated fact.
A mini composition could be ashort write.
Even three sentences, I'm okay.
But it needs to be an idea, notan isolated factual sentence.
And I heard Linnea Arie explainthis so beautifully when she
(34:10):
keynoted in New Jersey earlierthis year.
She talked about a new studythat she's...
Must be in her 80s because she'sbeen around for so many decades
and she's still doing newstudies.
She did a study with one of hergrad students who's now a
professor where they looked atchildren's learning of
vocabulary and various otheroutcomes, learning from lists of
(34:33):
sentences versus a paragraph.
And she explained it with thesediagrams so beautifully where
she showed that the pronounsfaith, the synonyms, and she had
arrows how they were all comingtogether to repeat the key
concept within a paragraph.
And when the kids were tested onthe facts presented in the list
(34:53):
versus the paragraph, theirreading comprehension was
significantly higher.
when they had been working atthe paragraph level rather than
trying to learn from a list offacts.
Facts are just disjointed.
You don't have the repetition.
You don't have the connections.
You don't have the causalrelationships.
Same thing with writing rightfrom day one.
(35:13):
When the kids are producing alittle tiny paragraph, three to
four sentences, they're makingconnections.
They're using pronoun reference.
They're using synonyms.
They've got all of this othercohesion and variation and
deeper learning and thinking andrealizations.
It's so much more joyful.
Who wants to produce 10sentences?
(35:35):
Who wants to practice putting apositives into 10 sentences?
Weave it in when I'm writingabout why Malala is so important
because she advocates for theeducation of girls.
Now I care.
Now I'm invested.
Three to four sentences.
But this idea of teaching andpracticing sentences alone in
isolation, there's just so muchresearch against doing that.
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
Bingo.
And I think that's importantthat Leslie just said that,
Faith, right?
Because very often you'll see onsocial media, people get
comfortable with what they'rethink is cool or in style rather
than what is the researchsaying, right?
I agree.
And I was one of those teachers,Leslie, myself.
I was doing the whole positivething for a while and in
(36:22):
isolation and thinking that wasthe biggest bang for my buck.
But once the research said thatthat wasn't the best approach, I
shifted.
SPEAKER_00 (36:30):
And we don't have any studies that show that
working like that.
And then people propose it andsay, well, there's no studies
yet, but it hasn't been studied.
Actually, it has.
We have 50 years of isolatedgrammar instruction.
And even if you link it to thecontent they're learning, that's
no different in the researchstudies.
We've got all kinds of studiesthat are looking at history
(36:51):
teachers, teaching historycontent with sentence
diagramming.
No gains.
So-
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
So this to me sounds like what we had discussed with
Trina and Doug.
So obviously their focus was onlanguage, but writing is
language.
So it seems to me that listeningto you, Leslie, and having had
(37:22):
Trina and Doug on talking abouthow you can't just you know,
pull out certain pieces that he,I forget the exact term, but he
said, if you focus on a strand,one strand, that's not it, you
know?
I
SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
think it's, if you focus on one strand, somebody's
trying to sell you something.
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Yeah, something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the point, what I'm tryingto say is that there's this
holistic approach to languageand writing that And yet we know
that balanced literacy doesn'twork.
So now how do we separate thisout?
(38:08):
Because I'm sure there arelisteners saying, this certainly
sounds like balanced literacy tome.
Can you please explain Leslie,what is the difference between
holistic and a balancedapproach?
Because I think that could bevery confusing
SPEAKER_01 (38:27):
I think you hit on something very important, Faith,
because even as you weretalking, Faith, I was like
challenging myself because, youknow, what about drill and kill
or whatever, like practice,practice, practice, even things
in isolation.
Is there research behind that?
Yes, there is.
But you
SPEAKER_00 (38:49):
don't practice, practice, practice phonemic
awareness for a month.
without read-alouds, withoutapplication, without all the
other.
It's an explicit lesson, hasmultiple components to it.
I remember learningOrton-Gillingham 35 years ago,
and my lesson plan had sixchunks.
And I was teaching each part oflanguage.
(39:09):
Now, you do want to be...
I'm not saying immerse kids inreading and they're going to
magically write.
We are very explicit at everylevel, giving them the
verbalizations for the letters,modeling the letters, showing
them how to do it.
Spelling instruction needs to beexplicit, systematic with your
morphology and all your...
daily practice, but your lessonis going to have multiple
(39:31):
components.
Now, K-1-2, they really arerocket scientists because they
have to do the double work ofbuilding comprehension and all
that foundation entry work.
In a K-1-2 lesson, you've gotyour 90 or 100 minutes with an
explicit introduction of askill, modeling the skill,
practicing the skill, but thenyou bring it all together when
(39:54):
you have the kids read thedecodable and then read an
early, you know, book that theycan access, but you're bringing
it all together.
You're not spending a month onone little piece of
foundational.
We are so explicit.
At the beginning of our lesson,you would have had your 30, 60
minutes of foundationalinstruction with letter
(40:14):
formation, with spelling, allfollowing a systematic explicit,
but then you would move into,okay, now we're going to write
about chrysanthemum.
All the way to Peter's chair.
It's easier to sound those wordsout.
But we're going to write aboutwhat lesson Peter learned.
Like, it's okay to grow up.
And then the kids are engaged inthe story.
(40:37):
You've got their mind, heart,and soul because they care.
They want to talk about Peter.
But then you're showing them,here's how you do a P.
Here's how you sound out P.
Peters, you're modeling all ofthat.
And then we do something withthe gist, which I learned from
Dr.
Charles Haynes.
I uniquely merged it with thework of Sharon Vaughn, pulled in
(41:01):
K.
Wood Jemma Kumar so that westart every single day with
sentences, 180 days a year.
Who put baby in the corner?
Like, why did we ignoresentences?
It's so sad.
But it doesn't mean that now weclear the decks and that's all
we do.
We do spend five minutesexplicit, but then we get into
writing about Peter's chair.
(41:22):
And now we're bringing in secondgrade.
We were working on irregularpast tense.
So we're going to use.
SPEAKER_02 (41:28):
Can I say something?
SPEAKER_00 (41:30):
Please.
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
So many moons ago, when I taught first grade, going
back quite a long time now, wedid DOL, daily oral language.
And we would put up a sentenceon the board.
and correct it together everysingle day.
And then we would get on withour other work.
(41:55):
And so it's so interesting to mehow these types of things come
back.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
That's funny.
If I had a matchbox, I'd likefired all those DOL books.
I don't agree.
SPEAKER_02 (42:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
No, no DOL.
The gist is tied to what you'relearning and the gist has a
double purpose.
You're going to write a sentencethat summarizes Peter's chair,
and then you're going to bringin all the vocabulary you
learned from and that you usedin your gist.
And now you're going to use itwhen you go to write and you're
going to pick up your gistsentences and use them in your
paragraph later.
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
And is the main reason that you're doing the
gist is so that kids understandwhat they just read?
SPEAKER_00 (42:34):
It's two things, Judy.
It's so that you build a mentalmodel, not only check for
understanding, but buildunderstanding, build a mental
model of what they've just read,but then also give them practice
in capitals, periods,grammatically complete
sentences.
And it's quick.
It's five minutes, but it'sproduction.
It's not evaluation of somebodyelse's.
(42:57):
You're producing it.
SPEAKER_02 (42:58):
Okay, but...
How many kids can do this in adirect lesson, as you said
before, Leslie?
And then it comes to the pointwhere they have to write an
essay on their own.
It all goes out the window.
The capitalization, thepunctuation, things that they
were able to spell, all of asudden, they can't do it anymore
(43:23):
because of the working memory.
It's kind of like they just...
They were able to do it whenit's short and finite and they
could show you they know what todo.
But then once they have to thinkof their ideas and then they
have to plan and get it down, bythe time they actually sit to
(43:45):
write it, so much of that goesout the window.
SPEAKER_00 (43:50):
Unless if.
Unless if.
Go ahead, say it.
You're working off of a tideplanner.
And they've had extensivemodeling in, as I keep coming
back, to teach theorchestration.
Teach it from the first day ofschool.
Teach it when you go to write infront of your class.
When I write in front of myfirst graders and we write Paul,
(44:13):
we do...
We're doing phonemic awareness.
SPEAKER_02 (44:16):
We
SPEAKER_00 (44:16):
straight down, around.
What's that all?
A-U, right.
Okay.
Around, down.
And we're bringing it all overin as we're modeling and we're
teaching them to do theself-talk and the verbalizations
so that when they go to write ontheir own, you're literally
hearing...
I don't know if you can hear it,but I heard my little John
tapping under the table.
(44:37):
I said, what are you doing?
He goes, oh, I learned this inWilson.
I should tap out my words.
But he was creating a paragraphabout Neanderthal man.
So he was orchestrating.
He was pulling it all together.
He had a planner, whichalleviated the working memory.
And then he had the tools and Ihad modeled and shown him how to
bring up and use it all.
(44:58):
That's why we can't lose a dayon isolated.
Only one thing has to be all.
SPEAKER_02 (45:05):
Oh, I just wanted to ask you, Judy, what I'm hearing
is a problem of being pulled outfor intervention.
So what I'm hearing Leslie say,at least from my point of view
is, You could be sending thesekids to intervention and they're
(45:26):
working in isolation.
Then when they get back to theirclassroom, it's like a different
language again.
I have
SPEAKER_01 (45:35):
to be honest.
I'm seeing a lot less of that.
I'm seeing a lot of interventiontime is taking place that
everybody's working onintervention during intervention
time.
So kids are missing.
I see a lot less kids in thefield missing core instruction.
So that's a really positivething.
So that's good, right?
But the other thing I wasthinking about also is, this is
(45:59):
really important to me.
So a lot of administrators,they're like, oh, you know,
we're teaching them thesescaffolds and these planners and
on the state test, they don'thave these planners.
And when I walked around duringthe state exam, because I was a
proctor, you know, you're notsupposed to look at the test,
but you know, you see what kidsare doing.
(46:21):
And I don't see a lot of kidsplanning on these stay tests.
So is the goal to be that thekids are creating their own
little planner on a sheet ofpaper and then going at it?
Is that the goal?
Because I honestly still don'tsee enough kids doing it.
And I can't imagine, I couldonly imagine how much better
their writing would be if theyplanned.
(46:41):
And I don't know if everybodyis, in education understands how
important planning is and howcritical and how much better
writing could be.
And I think a lot of peoplestill see it as a waste of time
or that it's not authentic orthey'll think about themselves
and maybe they don't know how toplan.
So they're like, oh, I don'tplan when I write.
(47:02):
I just plan.
You're
SPEAKER_00 (47:03):
in New York City.
That's where they think thatway.
But yeah, I know.
And I was in that that town aswell, that that beautiful city
as well, where I would get allthat insane pushback.
But Judy, next year, it's goingto look different.
I Every March, I get theseexcited emails, texts.
(47:25):
And then in September, I getsobbing calls from special
educators who tell me everysingle child built a tie.
SPEAKER_01 (47:32):
What do you do with a principal or principals in
general?
They're like, okay, noteverybody needs a graphic
organizer.
Why are we giving you a graphicorganizer?
Or what happens?
SPEAKER_00 (47:43):
I take out my BS button.
SPEAKER_01 (47:46):
But what happens during the state exam?
They have to make it.
They have to draw it.
Do you know that they barelygive kids space on state exams
to plan?
Scrap paper.
So right from day one, we offerthem scrap paper.
Oh, wait.
Now I'm going to get crazy onthe literacy view.
I'm about to go wild.
(48:07):
This year, the state exam was ona computer for fourth grade and
fifth grade.
So let me tell you, There wasn'ta lot of planning going on
because kids barely know how tokeyboard when they're so young.
So there was the planning stage.
And even if kids do plan, let metell you, they don't even give a
(48:30):
lot of space on these damn stateexams for planning.
So guess who doesn't prioritizeplanning?
SPEAKER_00 (48:38):
Cooper.
Even with the computer, our kidsall grab the scrap paper and
make a tide.
We've drilled it into them andmade them self-regulating right
from the beginning.
So wouldn't that be great if thewhole
SPEAKER_01 (48:51):
universe was equitable in who's getting scrap
paper, who's not getting scrappaper, and who's given these
strategies?
UNKNOWN (49:02):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (49:03):
Thank you so much.
(49:33):
them out in their classrooms forfree just from watching the
people who are posting, which isthe most exciting thing.
But yeah, it needs to scale.
SPEAKER_02 (49:43):
So here's something that I'm thinking about, what
Judy said about equitablepractices.
And she's just talking about thestate exam now.
But that's something that goesthroughout the whole year, that
we have...
you know, these differentprograms, I'll call it what it
(50:06):
is, different programs wherethey throw in a million
different types of things andlet teachers choose their own
adventure.
And the children are the oneswho have to figure it all out.
And yet then there are someschools where they really make
it a priority to make this adaily habit that when we write,
(50:28):
this is the way we roll.
This is what we do.
So how do we really compareschools at this point?
You know, are we looking at theteaching?
Are we looking at the teachers?
Are we looking at thecurriculum?
Are we looking at the programsthat are being chosen?
SPEAKER_01 (50:50):
What's the con or what tool or what tool are kids
being given?
Is this kid given the chance toactually write with a pencil or
are they being forced when theydon't know how to keyboard to
keyboard?
Or maybe some kids likekeyboarding.
SPEAKER_00 (51:02):
The keyboarding thing is a real problem and the
kids do need the before andafter school.
Adria Truckin Miller is doingincredible research.
If you don't know her research,you need to look her up.
And she's lifted up the hood tosee what are the most powerful
levers for writing instruction.
And typing fluency is one of thebig ones.
(51:25):
The other two biggies are Tide,including all the parts of Tide
and having a language box.
But back to a minute ago, again,it's kerosene.
It's pouring kerosene on ADHDwhen we do not give these
scaffolds.
And when we do give them, I callit magic pixie dust.
(51:46):
That's what I call it in thebook.
And I never had a word for it,but it comes back to Zaretta
Hammond again, this paradigmaticshift that changed my whole
world of it's not me structuringthem.
It's me teaching them how tostructure themselves.
And we call it magic pixie dustbecause every March, the
(52:07):
teachers call me and say, everysingle kid made a planner.
And like, how did that happen?
And every time I run theseclasses, I think, is it going to
happen?
But I was...
teaching first and second gradethis year.
And my little second graders byabout the fourth or fifth class,
I was teaching and they weresitting there and they were
(52:27):
doing something on paper.
And I realized and I said, whatare you doing there?
And she said, I'm working on myessay.
I don't want to.
And she was trying to be polite,but she had realized how she
could make it better.
She had made a little plannerand she was fixing her work and
I had not asked her to.
And this is that thing thatkicks in.
And it's like a scary thingbecause it's like, will it kick
(52:49):
in?
And the teachers in ourworkshops will constantly say, I
think I'm going to be the firstone to break it.
And I'll say, I don't think itcan be broken.
If you teach in this way, youwill set them on their path and
they will take off and you willwatch them go like Khalil
Gilbert.
And, you know, I'm the archer.
I let you go.
It's not me guiding it.
(53:10):
And it's magic pixie dust to seeit happen.
And it's not me in control.
It's Karen Harris used to say tome, it's not regulation, Leslie,
it's self-regulation.
And that is incredibly powerful,that distinction.
SPEAKER_02 (53:25):
So, Leslie, name three BS practices ever.
I thought you were going to sayfive.
Well, I could do ten.
You could do ten.
Fabulous.
Name at least...
Wait,
SPEAKER_01 (53:41):
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_02 (53:43):
Get your BS button.
I don't have it.
I'm moving.
I don't even know where anythingis.
It's already downstairs and I'min a different computer.
So what I usually have isorganized.
I'm sitting now in my husband'soffice because all my stuff has
(54:04):
been packed up.
But so I'm going to ask you,please, if you could name at
least three three BS practicesin writing and at least three
practices that you would give abig cheers to.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (54:21):
Number one is this thing that's taken the nation by
storm of we have to putsentences first.
We have to work on onlysentences.
We have to spend a month or twomonths on only this skill.
It will not transfer.
You're not going to seemeaningful gains in quality.
You may see longer sentences,but according to Adria
(54:42):
Trockenmiller, that's not even apredictor of writing quality.
Sentence correctness is.
You do want to have a goodcapital period, things like But
longer sentences do not equateto better, richer, deeper
quality.
So I would banish that one.
I would say spend your fiveminutes a day on sentences, but
then get into composing, goingthrough the writing process,
(55:05):
creating a little outline,creating your piece and being
sure to model.
how to compose and bring infaith, all of those intervention
pieces, model using them in anintegrated way.
Another BS is to do writing oncea week.
Well, that will never workbecause the kids need to see how
(55:28):
to integrate and orchestrateevery single day.
It's as important as reading.
A second one, exemplars arestultifying.
That's a New York thing, Judy, Iknow.
I used to hear it in the NewYork City schools.
I think it I don't know where,but no, kids, it's like a human
right.
(55:48):
They need to see what it iswe're asking them to do.
But the goal is to go beyond theexemplar.
And if you only show oneexemplar, sure, you might get
formulaic writing.
You have to show multiple andshow them various ways that they
can get there.
That planning is not necessaryand planning can be stultifying.
Planning is absolutelyessential.
(56:09):
There is no way around it.
There are many ways you canplan.
You can plan in fluid ways, butyou absolutely have to plan.
Okay.
The idea of, well, I don't knowif this is such a BS, but like,
okay, I'm done and I turn it inand now the teacher scores it
all.
No, no, no.
And teachers are going to likethis one.
You have to do the work.
(56:31):
Who's the one doing the workhere?
You have to self-score it.
Your peer has to give youfeedback.
You have to color code it.
And then this is whereinhibition kicks in.
Working memory is a piece ofcake.
I will take a working memory kidany day of the week because they
build a planner and now you'rehalfway there.
It's inhibition that's reallyhard.
(56:54):
Once the kids have finished, I'mdone.
And that's where you have tohave like speed bumps.
And the speed bumps are, no,first color code it, make all
your strong words blue,self-score it, peer score it.
Think, look at your past goals,go back and revise for your past
goals.
This is all drawing oninhibition and inhibition is a
(57:15):
much harder executive skill todevelop and support, but we can,
and we can have this impact.
And when you develop it, that'swhen you get the kids on the
state assessments, because thinkabout it to independently create
an organizer is not just workingmemory at scaffolds, but it
(57:36):
requires inhibition.
to stop before you jump in andstart drafting to remind myself
to take that pause.
Adele Diamond, she's a big guruin the executive functioning
world.
She says, time is the antidoteto inhibition.
So as long as they get like aminute to just breathe or pause,
(57:59):
and if they've written powerevery single day on the top of
their paper all year long, andit just happens, like it's just
motor memory, writing power atthe top of their page and then
crossing- Can you remind themwhat power is?
Oh, power is plan, organize,write, edit, revise.
I remember seeing it posted in aclassroom when I was a sub when
I was 22.
I was like, oh, look, that's thewriting process.
(58:20):
I had no idea it would becomesomething that would be part of
my every single day life when Itaught because it is the anchor
that allows kids to guidethemselves and it facilitates
the inhibition, which is so muchharder.
SPEAKER_02 (58:34):
So what do you want to give big cheers to?
SPEAKER_00 (58:40):
To Faith, I keep saying this in podcasts, but I,
like you, lived through readingfirst and lived through striving
readers and just watched themfail again and, you know,
watched everything get blamedfor why it went wrong.
And, you know, we do need tolook in the mirror.
(59:00):
But I think this time isdifferent.
And I do think there's a realwave.
And I think we're going to lookback in a decade and say that
was when it happened.
And I think a big difference isthe translators.
And that is you, Faith.
And that is you, Judy.
That Faith is reading thesearticles and Judy is in a
(59:21):
classroom and the two of you arecoming together to try to bring
what's in the research world toteachers.
We didn't used to do that.
We would just, we had thissecret body of knowledge.
We would say, well, the researchsays, and if we took out an
article, it was this scary blackon white paper thing and nobody
understood the Greek letters andit was two worlds.
(59:42):
This time we have somethingdifferent.
This time we have translators.
and more and more of them.
And the two of you do it sobeautifully that I think cheers
because science of writing istaking off everywhere.
Our little Facebook group is at15,000 now.
And it's starting to likemushroom where again, as I said,
(01:00:04):
people are telling me thatthey're spending an hour looking
through a podcast or a video andthen getting it up and running
in their school.
And I think the schools arehungry.
And somehow through the magic ofsocial media, Facebook, I don't
know, we're just reaching moreand more corners.
And I'm excited at where this isall going and how kids are going
(01:00:28):
to have an easier time learningto write.
And they're going to writebetter and as a result, think
better.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:34):
Well, Leslie, your book is amazing.
And I really recommend thateveryone in education gets their
hands on your book because it isgroundbreaking.
Everybody is trying to do thiswithout understanding what the
(01:00:54):
foundation really is and lookingat these kids and understanding
what's holding them back.
Judy, first thing on my mindthat Leslie said is never
assumed.
And that reminds me of the oddcouple.
And you know what I'm talkingabout.
Never assume unless you make anass out of you and me.
(01:01:17):
And I just always see thoseletters from the odd couple.
And I do see a lot of peopleassuming that these kids are
able to do way more because it'sassumed that they have oh, they
could write, they have thehandwriting, but how quickly can
they get it down?
And how can they coordinate whatthey're thinking with what their
(01:01:41):
hand is doing?
What are some of your takeaways,Judy, from our conversation with
Leslie?
SPEAKER_01 (01:01:47):
That we still have a lot of work to do in terms of
writing instruction and gettingit right.
That we need to pay moreattention to planning.
And it's been neglected for waytoo long.
And I want every administratorthat's listening to this podcast
and every teacher to realizeit's a non-negotiable.
It has to happen.
(01:02:09):
If we want kids to generategreater ideas and write a way
stronger piece of writing, giveplanning the respect that it
deserves, Also, another bigtakeaway for me is let's bring
back exemplars, whether they'reexemplars that I use this year
myself from Think SRSD that wereready-made.
Thank you, Leslie.
(01:02:29):
Thank you.
Free to the public.
Amazing.
My teachers loved it.
We got a lot of informationabout kids and their writing
based off of those exemplars.
We were doing baseline writingfrom your Think SRSD, but
exemplars and also generatingour own exemplars and also
creating Guys, there's no excuseanymore.
(01:02:51):
You have AI to help you creategreat exemplars too.
You have Leslie's, you have yourown brain, but kids need to see
examples.
But another great thing that I'mtaking away, and I wanna hear
Faith's takeaways from the bookbecause I haven't read it yet.
I haven't seen a copy yet, butcolor coding and the power of
(01:03:12):
color coding.
Color coding when you model foryour students, but also...
As an accountability check.
Okay, you said you finished?
Show me.
Color code those bold words.
Color code your topic sentence.
Color code your conclusion.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:29):
Where are your
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:29):
details?
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:30):
That's all the inhibition, the self-monitoring,
self-evaluation.
SPEAKER_01 (01:03:36):
Exactly.
And also the other great thing,and, you know, I'm definitely
not an expert in Think SRSD, butI've been playing with it.
I've seen the modules.
I've...
you know, explored the book.
I've joined the Facebook groupto push myself.
Those little report cards thatyou make after a piece, those
checklists, kids love them.
(01:03:58):
I've worked with private clientsin my house where a kid would
score themselves.
And then the parent is sittingat the desk, you know, because
they sometimes stay for mysessions.
And then a parent is scoringtheir kid's writing.
And it's such a powerful thing.
collaboration and the kid islooking at the father and the
father gave only a half a pointto something.
And then there's a discussion onhow you could improve.
(01:04:20):
And that's such a powerful thingto be able to, A, receive
feedback as a child, but also tobe able to have that
communication on how we couldget better as writers.
Because you know what?
You know what was happening inthe balanced literacy days?
A lot of kids were told, gowrite.
Go write some more.
Go write five pages.
(01:04:41):
And then that was your writinglesson.
And maybe the teacher showed youa little bit.
But do you know how many kidswere sitting and writing and
never got feedback and wasted somuch precious time?
And kids don't have time towaste.
And the other big thing that isimportant for me, principals,
districts, don't just squeeze inwriting.
Give writing the attention itdeserves.
(01:05:02):
Don't put it at the end of theday just to get it over and done
with.
It really is important.
But I have one more question forLeslie.
One more before we go.
So a lot of programs that I'mseeing did not connect the
reading and writing.
Reading about one genre andwriting about a completely
different genre.
Burn them.
Okay, but what do we do?
(01:05:23):
We don't have a choice.
We want to...
We want to make a bonfire, butwe can't.
We've been told this is mandatedresearch evidence, blah, blah,
blah.
Now it's on a list.
What do we do?
In my perspective, it makes itdamn harder for teachers because
it's like when they're startingtheir lesson, it's like starting
from scratch rather than itbeing seamless.
(01:05:46):
And in balanced literacy,sometimes we have thematic units
and we were writing about thesame thing in reading and
writing.
So what's your take on that onebefore we go?
We
SPEAKER_00 (01:05:56):
need the BS button.
Reading and writing should notbe disconnected.
(01:06:27):
Yeah.
task or whatever you read, themain selection, and blow that up
(01:06:51):
and spend the whole weekpreparing for that.
And then at the end of the week,evaluate that as a class, peer,
self-score, class score, butblow up your writing that's in
response to the reading you didthat week.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:05):
So to wrap up, Judy wanted to know what I found to
be a takeaway from the book.
And What's apparent is Leslielives this.
And there are some authors thatwrite about things, but there's
(01:07:25):
no evidence that they do it.
You cannot say that afterreading this book.
You just can't.
I mean, she...
lives this, and her examples arefrom her lived experiences.
So I always appreciate from apractitioner's point of view,
(01:07:47):
and Leslie's both.
She's a researcher and apractitioner.
So I have the utmost respect forher work.
I thank you, Leslie, for beinghere.
This was a delight.
Can't wait to see you inMontana.
And this is a really excitingopportunity for us to be able to
(01:08:11):
be the podcasters for aconference.
We are honored to have beenasked.
Thank you, Danielle.
And we are just so delightedthat you thought of us and that
you think highly of our work.
And we hope we're going to makeyou very proud.
(01:08:32):
So
SPEAKER_01 (01:08:33):
Faith, I think we're making history.
I think we're the first officialpodcasters at the conference.
This is so exciting becausethink about how much, A, we're
going to be getting so muchprofessional development
ourselves.
B, we're going to be sharing somuch of what's happening with
the whole world.
We're going to speak to all thepeople that are presenting and
(01:08:53):
guess who asks really goodquestions?
Faith is going to ask somereally good questions.
I just cannot wait to see it inaction.
And I want to thank Leslie forone more thing.
You introduced us to thegreatest people.
I mean, Trina and Doug.
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:09):
Oh, Trina.
Doug is great, and Trina isjust, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09:14):
They're
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:15):
going to be at Big Sky, too.
I know, yay.
We love them, and I can't waitto meet them in person.
SPEAKER_01 (01:09:22):
Yes.
Literacy View is going furtherthan just talking about one
pillar of instruction.
We really believe that readingand writing is so many factors
are so critical.
And we're giving them theattention that they deserve.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:42):
this conference is called Language is Everything.
That's the headline, Language isEverything.
And I think language is reallygetting the spotlight this year
in 2025, along with writing.
So I'm excited about that.
And this is just going to be afabulous opportunity.
And we are going to bring it allto you.
(01:10:05):
And I hope you're going tofollow along with us.
Can I just
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:10):
add that I want to thank you both for the public
service that you do, yourgenuineness and your dedication
to children.
I am always so proud toassociate with the two of you
because you are doing the realwork.
Judy, you're going into a publicschool every day.
Faith, you're going in andhelping the public school
teachers every single day andgetting real impact.
(01:10:32):
And that is, you're a service toour nation So thank
SPEAKER_02 (01:10:37):
you.
Thank you.
Well, you know, you're our No BSBestie.
You are in the club.
So, and that's a very eliteselect group.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10:50):
I think she's a No BS Bestie MVP.
100%.
All right, everyone.
So long.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.