S5 E11 Research to the Classroom - Connecting Reading and Writing Part 3 (Teacher Talk)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello there, welcome to this episode of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
I'm Jocelyn and I'm so pleasedto be recording this episode
with Rachel here on the lands ofthe Palawa people of Tasmania.
Well, Rachel's not here, she'sat her house.
But we are chatting today allabout the practical aspects of
connecting reading and writing.

(00:22):
In the last two episodes, I'veshared a research summary about
connecting reading and writing.
In the last two episodes, I'veshared a research summary about
connecting reading and writingand instructions and some of the
practical elements of the work.
But we all know that we learnso much when we hear from real
people in the field, and that'swhy Rachel is joining me today.
Rachel, thank you so much forbeing here with us.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's an absolute pleasure.
I'm so excited.
I have been a long-time fan ofyours, Jocelyn, so super excited
to be able to talk to youone-to-one today and share a
little bit about what we've beenup to.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Fantastic.
Tell us a little bit about yourcontext and what's happening
for your school.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, I work in a pretty small public school in
South Australia.
We have around 170 studentsfrom preschool to school at my
site and it's a category fourschool, so we sort of sit in the
middle of the socioeconomicindex here in South Australia.
It's a wonderful school,fabulous staff, from support

(01:23):
staff all the way up toleadership.
Our teachers are fantastic.
They always want to do the bestfor our students and we also
have a wonderful schoolcommunity.
So I feel quite blessed to bewhere I am at the moment.
I've been there since 2023 andenjoying the journey of
supporting this school in theirimprovement journey.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Wonderful and you know, when I hear about schools
like yours, rachel, it justconsolidates for me that the
idea that all schools are brokenand every teacher doesn't like
their job.
It's just not true.
There are tricky things aboutour profession, for sure, but
there are so many leaders andteachers in schools who love
their work, who are gettinggreat outcomes for kids, and I

(02:05):
think we need to celebrate that.
So that's part of why we'rehere today to celebrate good
work and also share some of thereality of doing this work in
structured literacy in schools.
So we know that in the past weseparated reading and writing
quite a lot, both at word leveland then at text level.
Can you share a bit about yourschool's journey towards

(02:29):
integrating reading and writinginstruction and what prompted
you to move in this direction?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Absolutely so.
As I said, I started working atmy current school mid-2023 and
at that time work in thestructured literacy space was
already underway.
So we started by lookingclosely at what teachers were
doing in the area of phonicsspelling, reading and writing to
understand what was already inplace, and we talked to teachers

(02:56):
about what they felt wasworking and what needed to
change going forward.
A key part of our work was tobegin using a universal screener
to understand our readers andto ascertain which students were
intensive or strategic literacyrisk.
We already had some data whichpainted a pretty concerning
picture.

(03:17):
Our NAP plan and PAT data werenot great, and our year one
phonics screening check was alsonot where any of us would like
it to be.
So we wanted to dig deeper andunderstand where the specific
weaknesses were with our readersso that we could get a start on
this work.
We collected our first DIBELSdata at the start of 2024 and

(03:38):
the results were prettyconfronting, but they confirmed
what we were hearing from ourteachers and from what we were
seeing when we were observingstudents working in their
classrooms.
The literacy levels for manystudents were very low.
We saw reluctant readers,reluctant writers and students
who lacked confidence inthemselves in the classroom.

(03:59):
So as a leadership team we knewthat dramatic action was going
to need to be required to set uson that path to a whole school
approach to structured literacy.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
What I love about that, rachel, is that you did a
couple of things that I thinksometimes we miss.
The first one is you looked atwhat you were already doing,
because there's no pointreinventing wheels if we don't
have to.
It also adds significantly tocognitive load of the teachers
and the students if we're't haveto.
It also adds significantly tocognitive load of the teachers
and the students if we're makingunnecessary changes.
The second thing was you usedyour data as the prompt to make

(04:35):
a change in what was happening.
You didn't say such and such aschool uses this program on
social media, or someone came tothe school and said oh, you
should really try this out.
You went from what is the needof the students here to help you
build a sense of urgency andbuild that bigger why?
I'm going to guess as well thatdata has been an important part

(04:56):
of your evaluation processsince that time, and I could be
jumping ahead, so I'm reallysorry if I am.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
No, absolutely.
In term one last year, weactually ran a data storytelling
workshop with our teachers andI presented our foundation to
year six reading data fromDIBELS so that we could begin to
understand the scope of thework ahead.
I called it facing the data.
I was really honest about thatwith staff.

(05:25):
It was very red.
So when we looked at our wholeschool data, it was really
concerning and I think that weall needed to sort of be on
board with how challenging theroad ahead was going to be for
us.
So we began to have some honestand reflective conversations
together about what we allneeded to be doing if we were

(05:46):
going to make some changes.
So we all agreed that we neededan unapologetic focus on
foundational skills and Iactually quoted you in this
session, jocelyn, because Iheard you say that at a
conference I'd attended and Ireally do believe that as a site
, we needed to go back, to goforwards and we needed to give

(06:06):
ourselves the permission to goback and work on those
foundational reading andspelling skills before we could
move forward in other areas ofour improvement work 100%.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
If we don't make sure the foundational skills are
there, nothing else is going tohappen.
So well done to you and theteam for not being afraid to
step back, even in the upperprimary years, and say we need
to work on this, because justgiving students more
multi-paragraph level textlessons isn't going to get them
to the proficiency that we want.

(06:40):
So what were some of theinitial challenges you faced
when approaching this work ofintegrating reading and writing,
both from the phonics space butalso in the text space?

Speaker 2 (06:55):
So we were taking on a new approach at the time as a
school and that actually was anopportunity for us as leaders,
because we framed ourselves asleaders alongside our teachers
and we were actually learningthis new approach together.
So part of that work meant thatour principal and myself as
deputy at the time we actuallytaught the phonics, spelling and

(07:16):
morphology lessons regularlyand for me it was daily and we
were also observed as part ofthat practice as well.
So we were actually reallyvulnerable and allowed our
literacy coach at the time, butalso each other, to come and
observe our practice and providefeedback on what we were doing
well and what we needed toimprove on.
So I really felt like that wasan important part of our journey

(07:36):
.
We were really willing to learnand grow alongside of our
teachers, and so basically fromthere, it was about building
knowledge and understandingwithin our teachers, and so
basically from there, it wasabout building knowledge and
understanding within ourteachers.
So we worked with our literacycoach from the department and
actually developed aninstructional coaching plan for
every term of the year.
Our objectives stayed the samethe whole year, which was our

(07:59):
leaders, teachers and supportstaff will work collaboratively
towards a consistent, structuredliteracy block for all learners
in 2024.
And the success criteriachanged each term in response to
what we were actually observingin classrooms and what our
teachers were telling us aboutwhat was working and what wasn't
working well for their students.

(08:19):
So this helped us to find thenext steps that we could work
towards as a site.
So we did things like weimplemented decodable readers
across the site, we conductedongoing professional learning
with teachers and support staff,we used teaching sprints, we
conducted ongoing walkthroughsand observations with feedback
to staff, we refined ourintervention groups and our

(08:42):
approach in that space, and thenwe also started to work in the
fluency space.
So I actually used yourthree-part podcast series on
dyad reading with our three tosix staff and we designed
teaching sprints to begin toimplement fluency pairs in our
classrooms.
This was a sort of a challengeat the beginning because we were
moving teachers away from thepractices of independent silent

(09:05):
reading towards fluency pairsand this was a really big change
for our teachers.
But I was just so impressed byeveryone's willingness to try
something new and to learn fromeach other.
So, being such a small school,we were able to really kind of
collaborate closely in thatspace.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I'd like to dig into that a little bit.
Yeah, because we all know thatchange is difficult.
Yes, and that trying to adjustour conceptual understanding of
what teaching looks like ismassive, because we all bring
ourselves to our work and wetake our work personally,

(09:43):
because we want to make a bigimpact in the world.
So when someone comes along andsays, oh, by the way, we're
going to change that, that canthrow up all of the feelings and
it's understandable that itdoes so.
That challenging moment well,one of those challenging moments
, because, let's be honest, inany change journey there's lots

(10:04):
of them.
But, drilling down into thatwork on the fluency pairs, what
made it successful?
What did you as a leadershipteam do to help your teachers
hop on board the bus of fluency,paired reading, or just paired
reading as a protocol?
What got them there?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I think hearing from a teacher through the podcast
was a really big, importantpiece for us around.
You know, there are teacherstrying these new practices
across other sites and it isokay to give ourselves
permission to try something newand just to see how it goes and
using our DIBLS data to sort ofpair students up the way that

(10:47):
Kirby described in her podcastwith you.
I think that really resonatedwith a lot of teachers who were
thinking about how best toaccommodate learners across a
very broad spectrum of readingskills from in, their, say, 5th,
6th class or their year 3, 4thclass.
So that was really helpful.
I think it was about for us,you know, sourcing high quality

(11:08):
resources for teachers to useand investing in that.
So in terms of using, you know,high quality texts and passages
, we ended up, you know,purchasing a lot of that as a
leadership team so that ourteachers had high quality
resources and materials to use,and also that instructional
coaching piece as well.
Like, I'll come into your classand help you while you're

(11:30):
working with some of your kids,I can walk around and support
you with your behaviourmanagement or I can, you know,
give you some feedback aboutwhat you're doing.
I think that was a reallyimportant piece as well.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Rachel, I can almost hear people, leaders who work in
smaller schools, going wheredid you find the time for that?
How on earth did you fit thatin?
Because I'm struggling.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I feel like the best part of being a leader is being
out in classrooms working withkids.
So, like, even if I was havinglike a really boring admin day
where you know I had to dosomething really administrative,
I would force myself out intoclassrooms and actually do like,
be present and get out intoclassrooms and see what was
happening and make the timeintentionally, even if it was

(12:16):
blocking time out in my calendar.
But we were also reallycreative.
We have, you know, threeleaders at my site and our
wellbeing leader and myprincipal would literally do
some of my work to enable me todo the instructional coaching
work.
Like we worked reallycollaboratively as a team
because it was something thatwas really important to all of
us and so we were creative, wewere resourceful to make that

(12:39):
time and it is really easy justto get bogged down as a leader
in all of the administrativefunctions of your job, but the
best part is going out andworking with the kids.
So make the time, even if itmeans something else has to give
.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, great advice.
So change takes time.
So can you describe a momentfor us when you realised this is
working and when teachers weregiving you feedback that they
could see the benefits ofconnecting reading and writing,
either in that foundationalskills space or in the

(13:15):
text-based space?
We're going to talk about thatin quite a bit more detail, that
text-based learning space.
But where did the teachers go?
Hey, this was a good idea.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Our phonics spelling morphology work.
Last year we grouped andregrouped students for 50
minutes every day.
So we had students working ingroups and it wasn't necessarily
their role class teacher thatwas teaching them for this
lesson.
And we decided that we wouldhave some connection time first
thing in the morning where wedid the role and connected and

(13:48):
then we would all move off toour groups at 9 10 every morning
.
And teachers were reallyreluctant about that because
they wanted to spend more timewith their children first thing
in the morning or they wereworried about how students would
transition so quickly in themorning to an unfamiliar room or
teacher.
But that ended up being the bestpart of what we were doing was

(14:10):
that we ended up having reallysettled children who, at 9, 10,
moved off to their groups, goton with their learning and we
found we had the least amount ofbehaviour issues throughout the
day because they were highlyengaged in the lesson for that
first 50 minutes the day,because they were highly engaged
in the lesson for that first 50minutes and that was a really
pleasant surprise, I think, forour teachers that it was going
to work so well and also we weregoing to still be able to be

(14:34):
connected to children whoweren't in our Phonic Spelling
Morphology group, because wewould meet and collaborate and
share what was going on inclassrooms.
So it felt like there was alevel of trust there that the
children you were sending off tothat group were able to get
what they needed.
And that was what it was allabout.
Was every student getting whatthey need at the point in time

(14:56):
that they need it?
So you know, if we havestudents in year two who need to
go back and work on basic code,well that's what they need to
do, because they can't possiblygo forward without that piece
Music to my ears, and it's notto say that every school would
have to do it the way you did it.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
But at the end of the day, if we're not providing
instruction that meets the needsof the students, what business
are we in?
We're just going through themotions.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, like I think that is the key buy-in point for
our staff was seeing how wellthat worked and how quickly it
worked as well.
It wasn't like we needed a fewweeks to sort of settle into our
new routines.
I mean, it was instant andchildren were coming back to
class at 10 o'clock ready fortheir fruit and their teacher's
story and it was sort of like aseamless process in the mornings

(15:46):
and I think that gave teachersa lot of confidence.
And as we started to see theimprovements in students
throughout the year and we wereobviously tracking and
monitoring that very carefullythat also buoyed us.
It gave us so much moreconfidence that what we were
doing was working and that wecould continue in this space.
We knew what we were doing washaving an impact on our children

(16:06):
.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Great and then so that's in that foundational
skills and the work that you'reusing to resource.
That comes from your state'sdepartment and includes both
reading and spelling in thelesson.
So that's there.
Talk to me about the text-basedspace, because it's one thing
to teach a phonics spellingmorphology lesson with students

(16:29):
who are all at the same point,and it's another thing to have
your class back with that rangeof students that you've
described, where you've got somechildren who can do pretty much
everything and some childrenwho can't do much at all, even
in upper primary space.
So where did the?
There's a couple of things tounpack here.

(16:50):
There's adjustment how wesupport those students.
But how did you help theteachers?
Let's talk about that first.
How did you help the teacherstransition to whole class
teaching with integrated readingand writing, as opposed to
having separate reading writingtime?

Speaker 2 (17:09):
For many teachers who pick up a text-based unit for
the first time and this is notjust teachers at my site.
This is something I've heardfrom colleagues at other schools
or people that have connectedwith me through social media
there's a bit of a misconceptionthat a text-based unit focuses
mostly on reading and readingcomprehension and it doesn't
have that heavy focus ondeveloping writing skills as

(17:31):
well.
So we needed to have that shiftaway from thinking that
standalone writing lessons andgenre-based writing lessons were
going to be the key.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Because what.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I would hear from teachers was but what about
writing?
And I would also hear but whenam I going to fit all of this in
?
Like there's too many thingsthat I'm going to need to do for
literacy, I'm not going to beable to get all of that done and
teach writing as well.
So that was a common sort ofmisconception that I think we
faced in the early stages.
So we had to have that shift inthinking away from standalone

(18:03):
writing and that is a big changeof mindset for many teachers.
So teachers have found thatthey needed to go deeper with
certain elements of writing.
When they started using thetext-based units there were, you
know there are lessons in thereabout writing sentences and you
know, moving from simple tocompound and compound to complex
and verbs and all the parts ofspeech.

(18:25):
And I can think of one teacher,for example, who actually ended
up using additional resourceroom lessons from the sentence
structure part of the resourceroom because he identified there
were some real gaps in studentknowledge and understanding of
verbs at year four or five.
So it is really helpful to havelike a bank of lessons that we
can go into and if we'reresponsive in our teaching, we

(18:47):
can use those text-based unitsas a vehicle, but we might need
to change course and go back andbuild some of those earlier
foundational sentence writingskills in order to be able to
move forward and attack thoseunits with the rigour that's
needed.
So yeah that was an interestinglearning for us.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
And what I'm hearing is that the units and, to be
clear, we're talking about unitsfrom the resource room,
although your school does drawon a range of different things,
but when we're talking about theunits from the resource room,
what your teachers haverecognised is that responding to
student need isn't necessarilyabout deconstructing the whole

(19:28):
thing and picking out the bitsthat they think will be the
easiest.
They've looked at what are theprerequisite skills, and that's
the land, for me, of highexpectations.
So we have a grade appropriateunit that is going to have a
grade appropriate summative taskand instead of dumbing down the
task and that's different fromadjustment, which we'll get to
instead of dumbing down the task, they're saying how can we

(19:50):
build the skills and knowledgeto enable the students to get
there, which I think is a reallylovely way to to approach it.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
I mean, we've already had some experience in South
Australia using units of workthrough our department and I
think, as lots of states aremoving in this direction, it's
really important to rememberthat these are not a grab and go
resource.
You need to adapt a text-basedunit to suit the needs of your
students, and that doesn't meandumbing it down.

(20:17):
I always believe in teaching upwhere you can, and I think that
it involves actually spendingsome time going through and
unpacking a unit before you goaway and start delivering it,
because there are going to bethings in there that you might
need to learn yourself, but alsoyou might need to adjust the
delivery or the output for yourlearners, and you need to be

(20:40):
okay with doing that so they'renot a one-size-fits-all approach
.
You need to be able to giveyourself permission to spend
some time unpacking them, and wedid that through our
professional learning.
When we looked at thetext-based units initially, we
looked at well, what is actuallyin there from a vocab
perspective?
What is in there from asentence writing perspective?

(21:01):
What are all the elements thatit's trying to bring together
here and how well are yourstudents, at this point in time,
going to be able to attend tothat learning, and if they can't
, you're going to need to adjust, and that's where your
differentiation comes in.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, and I will share a photo in the podcast
show notes on our website ofthat you had shared on social
media, rachel, so people can seeyou know what that might look
like from a documentationperspective.
The heart of what you'retalking about is supporting
students' working memory andsupporting students' cognitive

(21:36):
load.
So in asking, do my studentsand I know them do they have the
prerequisite, knowledge andskills to participate in this
lesson as written?
If the answer is no and we justbarrel ahead, we are pretty
much guaranteeing that we'regoing to overload working memory
, overload their cognitive load,and then we're going to see

(21:58):
things like behaviorscomplaining, running off to the
toilet for 45 minutes and thencoming back at the end of the
lesson All of those things thatwe know can happen when we feel
overwhelmed.
So, fundamentally, what you'veenabled your teachers to do is
support the working memory andcognitive load of the students
in the class and then thoughtcarefully about if we're pretty

(22:22):
much in the ballpark, what arethe individual differences
between students that I need tocater for, because many leaders
comment to me that they feel attimes that their teachers pick
up the units and then they don'tlook at it, and then lesson one
with the children is sometimesthe same time that the teacher
is seeing the presentation orthe teacher guide notes and, as

(22:45):
you said, it's not take andteach.
So how did you shift yourteacher's focus from?
Okay, I'm just going to dowhat's on the page two.
I'm going to walk that fineline between being responsive to
the needs of the students andtaking this unit too far away
from its intent.
How did you get the balancethere?

Speaker 2 (23:08):
I don't think we have yet.
I think that's our work for thisyear.
I think our first step isreally around just playing in
the space of the tech space unithaving a go in term one, and
that's what we're workingtowards is just trying them give
it a go.
The next step for us is reallyto come back together and
reflect on the effectiveness ofour delivery and how well the

(23:32):
tech space units suited theneeds of our children and what
we need to do differently, andI'm hoping that then, through
those conversations, we canstart to talk about adjustments,
adaptations of the units,differentiation, all of those
really important parts thatteachers often are too time poor
to consider and sometimesteachers don't know how to do

(23:55):
those things.
They don't know how to adjust.
It might be a backgroundknowledge text it might be too
difficult for your students toattend to.
How can we find ways to use thesame text so that everyone can
understand or hear it, but itmight be delivered in a
different way.
So, for example, you might needto record yourself reading part

(24:16):
of the text.
You might need to adapt thetext to be shorter for some
students or to reduce thecomplexity of the vocab in there
, and it's okay to do thosethings if your children really
need that.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Focus through some of the adjustments that you have
used in your own classroom andhow you've harnessed assistive
technology to support their fullengagement in this
age-appropriate learning.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Jocelyn, if there is one thing that drives me as a
teacher, it's this.
This is the exact point for mewhere the rubber hits the road
with a lot of teachers.
So I've worked mostly at leafygreen schools in high
socioeconomic areas and for mostof my career and every single
year I would have a handful ofchildren in my class in upper

(25:04):
primary who were struggling, andthey were struggling with their
spelling, they were strugglingwith their reading, they were
struggling with their writing.
So as an upper primary teacher,I often felt really lost,
helpless and I didn't understandenough about how children learn
to read and write to be able tohelp them.
And it was a really yucky spaceto be in as a teacher.

(25:24):
I didn't know about phonics andstructured literacy and
learning difficulties, but I wasreally desperate to help my
students before they moved offto high school and I'm really
passionate about supportingchildren with learning
difficulties and also to supportteachers to develop their
skills and strategies as well inthis space.

(25:44):
If I knew what I know now, youknow.
As they say, when we know better, we do better.
And so the explicit andstructured nature of my current
approaches as a teacher in myclassroom, trying to be really
responsive to the needs of ourmost vulnerable learners, but
also making sure that the needsof our learners who are at the
other end of the spectrum arealso getting that extension and

(26:06):
challenge.
So for me, it's about repetitionand consistency and
predictability, which is what Ilove about the tech space units.
It's about being reallyrelentless.
Every single time I have like afew minutes where the class is
settled, I'm reading with adecodable reader with a child,
or I'm using my grapheneflashcards.
We are making every minutecount to make sure that students

(26:28):
who are at the most vulnerableend of the spectrum are getting
what they need.
For me, it's about scaffoldingand like if you need to work on
the carpet with a small groupwhile those who are
independently working on aconsolidation task are doing
that, then that's what you needto do, and also using sentence

(26:48):
stems and closed passages andassistive technology to be able
to let all of your learnersaccess the learning is so
crucial.
So for me, I've been usingSeesaw.
I've been a long-time Seesawuser and I love using the
talk-to-text and the voicerecording tool on Seesaw for
this very reason.
In the Fox text-based unit thatI recently finished with my 3.4

(27:10):
students, we used Seesaw.
For this very reason.
In the Fox text-based unit thatI recently finished with my 3-4
students, we used Seesaw acrossthe class and those students
who are unable to type or unableto construct words and
sentences and I have some ofthose students they were able to
respond to the comprehensionquestions orally using a voice

(27:30):
recording tool and we also usethe talk to text, which is like
literally unlocking the mostamazing light bulb in their
heads.
I absolutely love using itbecause finally they can share
their thinking appropriately.
They don't have to be worrying.
I mean, they can't even reallydiscern the capital letters on a
keyboard to be able to type.

(27:51):
They're not there with theircode switching yet.
So it's so important to be ableto give students an opportunity
to respond in their own way,and for me it's about building
confidence in those children.
They already have such a lowself-concept of themselves.
So supporting children tounderstand that they can still

(28:12):
share their connections with arich text and they can
demonstrate their understandingorally is just a game changer
for us, so some of my mostvulnerable learners are the ones
that are actually the mostengaged with my teacher
read-alouds.
They love hearing the storiesand sharing their ideas about a
text, and it's often just theoutput of their ideas that we

(28:34):
might need to reconsider asteachers so that all students
can demonstrate success in aclassroom.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think the engaging with the
text in terms of reading it orhearing it is probably one of
the easier things to solve.
Even with one of our shortstory units, you can adjust
whether it's you reading italoud, whether people are
reading with partners.
When I've gone into work withschools on their strategy, one

(29:00):
of the things I've had them dois pair a stronger and a weaker
reader where there's a goodsocial fit.
So while everyone else isreading with a partner and
they're taking turns for thatparticular pair, the weaker
reader is doing all the pointingone text between two and the
stronger reader is doing all thereading and nobody would know
the difference becauseeverybody's verbalizing in the

(29:24):
classroom and reading and itprotects the dignity of those
students.
And if we want students to feelsafe, secure and that they
belong, we need to support theirwellbeing, and not in a pat
them on the head kind of way,but in a real way that says we
see you and we value what youhave to offer and what you can
learn and at the same time we'regoing to help you boost those

(29:47):
skills that you don't have.
So we're not assuming that theycan't learn the code now,
because they absolutely can, butwe also can't wait until
they've done so before we engagethem in rich text work.
What about those learners atthe other end?
The ones who you mentionedmight be needing more stretch.
How have you responded to themthis term?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
For fluency pairs, I've sort of mulled over
different ways of grouping andin term one you're still getting
to know your dynamics, of yourchildren in your classroom.
So I've chosen to pair myhigher readers with themselves.
So rather than putting myhigher um sort of my better
decoders with my lower decoders,I've actually given them sort

(30:34):
of a completely separate textwith a lot more stretch and
challenge in it, and I'm givingthem some scope to work more at
their level.
At this point I hate using theword level.
I know it's not the right word.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
We all know what we mean and I think what I really
like about what I'm hearingthere is that we're recognising
that different sorts of readinghave different purposes.
So if the purpose was to haveeveryone in the class engage
with the same text, then pairinga stronger and a weaker reader
is a strategy to provide support.
But when it comes to fluencythe stronger readers they need a

(31:10):
text that sits at the level ofcomplexity that will provide
them with stretch, and we'realso, with those students, not
going to be focused so much onrepeated reading, but wide
reading.
So, just by necessity, the textthat those students read will
be different from the text thatthe other students are reading.
So what you're saying respondsvery nicely with what we hear in

(31:33):
the research and what theclever people who help us figure
out what to do here are sayingin terms of practice.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
And it's giving again goes back to giving students
what it is that they need, and Idon't like using the stronger
readers to support the weakerreaders all the time.
I don't think it's fair on ourlearners.
So I actually have fivedifferent groups for my fluency
pairs.
I've got, you know, somechildren working back at basic

(32:01):
code and I've got children thatare working with authentic,
non-decodable texts at the otherend and then some other pieces
in the middle and I think thereally important thing as a
teacher is to sort of be able toset up the right processes to
be able to enable that to happenreally smoothly.
Because initially I was thinking, oh, how am I going to manage

(32:21):
this?
You know all these differenttypes of texts and different.
So I've set up tabs and I'veset up group names and we're
sort of building those routinesinto our fluency pairs so that
it's seamless, so we don't wastetime getting the right book for
the right group and gettingyour pointer and sitting in your
spot and all of those sorts ofthings.
Developing those routines andprocedures I guess in the

(32:43):
classroom has been reallyhelpful, and then I can go.
Okay, well, who do I need?
to support in these pairs,whether it's from a behaviour
perspective, or I need to listento certain children read, so
then I kind of monitor and movearound the groups in that way.
So there's lots to considerwhen it comes to fluency pairs,
and I think it's been reallygreat for me to step from a
leadership role into theteaching space and to sort of be

(33:07):
in that space myself of how itall could work.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, and because you can appreciate the challenges
that teachers are talking about.
So when they say, hey, this isreally difficult, because I've
got all these kids at differentpoints of their reading
development, you know exactlywhat that feels like and have
things to share.
What about in the text-basedspace in terms of stretching
students in the writing?

Speaker 2 (33:30):
So we're moving into writing goals now.
So you know, taking things fromthe units where there might be
an opportunity to add certaintime connectives, for example,
or conjunctions and supportingindividual, like even little
groups of students who are atthat higher level, you know,
giving them a reading goalthat's appropriate to their

(33:50):
point in time.
So we've got students who havewriting goals right back around
full stops and punctuation andcapital letters and things like
that.
We've got students working onhaving a who and a do in a
sentence, but we've also gotstudents working on using
subordinating conjunctions intheir sentences.
So everyone's sort of gettingwhat they need through their

(34:10):
goal setting and I think that'sreally important.
And what that comes down to isreally looking at your students
as writers, looking at theirwriting samples.
What are some common thingsyou're seeing in what they're
doing?
And then finding ways to movegroups of students forward, even
if the rest of the class isn'tready for it.
You can do a little mini lessonor you can work with a group of

(34:31):
children who need a bit ofstretch and some extension and
give them what they need so thatthey can progress and move to
the next level in their writingas well.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Yeah, absolutely, and there are different ways to
build complexity for thosestudents.
Some of it is that you expectmore of those conventions, as
you said, in their summativetask.
So, knowing that previouslyyou've taught about a particular
subordinated conjunction orparticular text feature, the
rest of the class you might notbe expecting them to

(35:03):
independently use that yet.
But your expectations or yoursuccess criteria for the
summative task can be adjustedbecause you're saying well, I
know I've already taught youthis, so I can expect you to use
it, but your expectations oryour success criteria for the
summative task can be adjustedbecause you're saying well, I
know I've already taught youthis, so I can expect you to use
it.
Another point is around givingthem more choice.
So to support working memoryand cognitive load, for the rest
of the class you might have areasonably narrow focus for the

(35:27):
summative task, but for yourhigh-flying learners, in terms
of your fast lane learners, theymight want to step outside the
bounds of the standardstructured task that exists.
So there's lots of differentways and sometimes as a teacher
that's the hardest thing,because you go, there's lots of
different ways but I don'treally know which one to choose.
And then that comes back to theissue of coaching that you

(35:52):
mentioned before and howcritical that is.
Talk to me about what you'veseen in and I know it's early
days in the tech space 2025 andterm one is when you've really
gotten into it but what are youseeing in the classroom from
this integrated approach andwhat are the other teachers

(36:13):
saying to you that they arebeginning to recognise as
benefit?

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So I think that one of the big successes I'm hearing
from teachers is that there iswriting.
So that relief that, oh,actually we are doing writing,
we're not just spending 100minutes a day on a literacy
block and the students aren'twriting anything.
So I think the pleasantsurprise about how the explicit

(36:39):
and structured nature of thosewriting lessons have been
developed, and also thatbuilding of skills throughout
one unit and the revision andthe reviewing of certain
concepts all of that reallylends itself to high quality
instructional design and ourteachers are really enjoying
that and playing in that space.
So for my context in particular, the predictability and the

(37:02):
consistency of thoseinstructional routines have been
really impactful.
Behaviour is better in theselessons because students know
what to expect and the contentand the approach is consistent.
As long as the delivery isconsistent, then that really
supports what we know aboutstudents' cognitive load and
being able to attend to thatinstruction.

(37:22):
For me, I think the big wins arethat students love using their
mini boards to respond in thelessons so that I do, we do, you
do that's all embedded into thetext-based units allows for
students to be doing more of theresponding and we know that
that helps our students to bemore engaged.
They love seeing the visuals,like the photos that match the

(37:46):
vocabulary words and things likethat, and having some great
discussions around that, becauseI find our students can
sometimes not have a great dealof life experience around
certain topics.
So building that backgroundknowledge and having some
discussions about that has beenreally valuable.
In the Fox unit we loved doingthe background knowledge text

(38:08):
around bushfires, introducedspecies and also the Australian
bush they.
Actually we spent a little bitlonger on each of those lessons
than is intended in the planbecause they were really engaged
in it and we watched videos, wewatched BTN, we listened to the
sound of a bushfire and welooked at different introduced
species to Australia and so wereally got a lot out of the

(38:30):
background knowledge part of thetext, sort of that incidental
teaching, which was really great.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Rachel, I would actually say it's not incidental
, because you thought long andhard about how you were going to
engage the students and whatI'm hearing from you is that the
unit itself and thepresentations is.
The presentation particularlyis the stimulus for the
presentation particularly is thestimulus for the teaching.
It's not the entirety of theteaching, and I think we're in a

(38:58):
bit of a danger zone in wherewe're sitting in education
explicit teaching at the moment,because when we say explicit
teaching, people are developingthis impression of highly
scripted, don't say anythingthat's not on the page.
Teaching which is not what weknow leads to the best outcomes.

(39:18):
It's doing what you've done andhaving a think about.
Am I going to go deeper in thisbit, or do I think that my
students have this and we canjust continue on?
So making those instructionaldecisions based on what you see
in the students, withoutdeviating and distracting the
students from the learning athand, is the key.
So you've gone deeper.

(39:38):
You've gone a little broader,but not so broad that we're now
not even focused on the thingthat we need to be learning.
So everybody, listen up to whatRachel's doing.
Everybody listen up to whatRachel's doing.
She's using the units asthey're intended, but adjusting
and enriching and enabling asneeded by her students.
That's what we want to see.

(39:59):
We're not cherry picking stepsbecause we don't really
understand them and we don'tknow what's going to happen.
So we'll just skip those bits,trust the process and then
you'll be able to see wherethose adjustments can be made.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Absolutely.
We don't want to go off on abig tangent about bushfires
because that's not what we'relearning about, but from having
done the background knowledgepart of the tech space unit
really well, when it came tolooking at the illustrations in
the book box and askingquestions around, well, how do
you know there's been a bushfire, what can you see?
And they could make thoseconnections more closely.

(40:32):
And our students haven't livedthrough a bushfire they might
not have even been into theAustralian bush so we need to
spend that time building thatbackground knowledge and that's
been probably one of the biggestwins for us and that engagement
was really high as well.
So, yeah, in seven weeks I'vealready seen a lot of
improvements in their sentencelevel writing and, as I said,

(40:53):
I'm introducing some writinggoals, which has been something
that's worked really well for mein the past.
But I'm really looking forwardto seeing how they progress
through the year, and I guessthat's one of the best things
about teaching, isn't it?
It's about sort of seeing yourlearners at the beginning of the
year and then building andbuilding and building upon all
of those wonderful elements ofliteracy and seeing how they end

(41:14):
up at the end of the year.
It's pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Absolutely, and because if we're not seeing that
growth, if we're not seeing thedevelopment, if we're not able
to measure progress, then how dowe know we've been successful?
We simply don't.
And writing and spelling aretwo areas where we all want more
clarity around assessment, andwe don't have beautiful tools to

(41:40):
rely on, like universalscreeners that are normed on
thousands of children that havebeen rigorously studied in the
spelling and the writing space,and there's a number of
different ideas out there.
So what does it look like foryou and your team to be
monitoring student growth andprogress in?

(42:02):
When we're looking at whathappens when we connect reading
and writing, the research tellsus that it should be more
effective, but how do we knowthat it is?
What are and I'm not expectingyou to have a definitive answer
here, because I actually don'tthink there is one solid answer
but what are your leadership,spidey senses and your

(42:23):
experience telling you you'relooking out for let's start with
those writing goals and wherethey come from.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
So I think I have used writing assessment
platforms in the past and wedon't have one in place at my
current site, but I think we dohave a lot of work to do at my
particular site aroundunderstanding student writing a
little bit more closely.
So I think they're going to bea big part of our work in the
future at this particular school.

(42:51):
So for me, assessment and usingthe assessment ideas in the
text-based units teacher guide Ithink the real work we have
ahead of us is about makingmeaning with those and thinking
about taking some of those ideasand doing some deep thinking
and planning around developingan assessment, you know, task

(43:15):
that students will be reallyengaged with, but it'll also
give us that information againstthe achievement standards of
the of the curriculum in termsof what it is our students can
and can't do.
I think that there's amisconception with some of our
teachers around what ourstudents can and can't do and we
need to understand and linkthat more closely to the

(43:37):
curriculum.
So we need to sort of bringeverything all together now and
that's our work going forward.
So, once we've spent some timereflecting on our first
text-based units in term one of2025, our next step is well,
where are our points forimprovement?
Did you get to the assessmenttask?
A lot of teachers spend, youknow, a little bit too much time

(44:00):
and their units aren't pacedout in a way that they actually
even get to that assessmentpiece, and that can be a concern
, and I've seen that happen atlots of different schools in my
work as a curriculum lead.
You know, there's all the goodintentions, but we run out of
time because we spent too muchtime on one thing and so we miss
that summative assessment taskand we miss that really crucial

(44:22):
part where we actually arechecking for understanding and
that's a real, you know, roomfor improvement pace going
forward.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, and you said some really important things.
The first one is that we needto link back to the curriculum,
because we don't write reportsbased on a platform's
determination of our students'skill.
We don't write reports based ona scope and sequence that comes
from another place or that'sincluded in a particular book.

(44:52):
We write reports based on whatis in the achievement standard
for our state or territory.
Most states and territoriesacross Australia use the
Australian Curriculum, so ourunits are all written to reflect
that.
So we reflect the AustralianCurriculum.
However, to reflect that, so wereflect the Australian

(45:13):
curriculum.
However, it's not the end ofthe story, because we have to
understand all those other goalsthat come with it.
So if students don't haveautomatic handwriting and
automatic spelling and fluentsentence level writing, you're
never going to get to that highlevel multi-paragraph text piece
that reflects the conventionsof particular genres in a way

(45:34):
that truly demonstrates whatthey can do.
So there's so much to unpack inthis assessment piece and I
really like that.
You just named up one of thecommon challenges in that we
don't get to the assessment taskor we get there, but we get
there by rushing the last fewsteps, which means we miss the

(45:55):
scaffolded, gradual release intothe assessment task and we
basically went the I do, we dotogether, now do it on your own,
and we miss the you do withsupport, with repetition, to
build confidence so that whenthey complete their summative
task, they can actually besuccessful.

(46:17):
So how do we this is arhetorical question how on earth
do we measure the effectivenessof instruction if we never get
to the summative task and pacingis important get to the
summative task and pacing isimportant.
So part of the work that you'vebeen doing with your school is
unpacking the units.
Has that included looking athow long you think each part

(46:41):
will take for your students, oris that one of the next steps?
Now that they've got one undertheir belt, they can come back
and have a bit more of an ideaof what's realistic.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
So I have worked with individual teachers around
pacing out tech space units latelast year for some teachers
that were in that space In termsof you know there's a lot in
here.
How are we going to plan and mapthis out so we spend enough
time on the really importantparts?
We don't miss the assessmentpart at the end, but we also

(47:14):
don't rush.
We get everything that we needto get done in a timely way, and
sometimes that means we have tocut out parts of our practice
during the day that aren'tserving our students.
And it even goes back tolooking at a timetable and
saying where can we cut the fathere?
Because if you're telling meyou don't have enough time, I
want to know why there's, youknow, a double lesson of art

(47:35):
every week and you know whateverit is.
I'm not saying art's notimportant, obviously, but you
know we need to be thinkingabout where can we cut the fat
in our timetable?
Where are we wastinginstructional minutes when we
could be doing some work in thisspace, and that's what our kids
need.
So that's what we need toprioritise.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
That's that unapologetic pursuit of learning
.
And again, I'm like you.
I'm not saying please don'twrite us emails saying why do
you hate art?
We don't hate art at all, butwe need to maximise every minute
.
And one of the techniques thatcan be really helpful is
teaching to the clock andliterally setting a timer.

(48:16):
Okay, everyone, we've got nineminutes for this particular
thing, let's go.
And that helps keep us on track.
It stops us going off on thosetangents and those journeys of
discovery because we encounteredan interesting word and then we
tell a story about last yearwhen I went to the museum and
then I you know if I think we'rehonest, we all have moments

(48:37):
where we just rabbit on too much.
But it also builds a sense ofurgency in the students and
helps to focus them by workingto the clock.
But there's lots of differentways, but what I'm hearing from
you is we take that availabletime how many lessons we have,
look at the steps and thinkabout where might we need to
spend more time and where willthis one be a quick one, and

(49:00):
then get an approximation of thetime rather than start.
It's like starting a holiday andsaying oh well, we know, we've
got three weeks for our holiday.
We didn't really plan the dateson any of our itinerary
elements.
We've just listed them and thenwe'll just get as far as we get
and that'll be okay.
We wouldn't do that.
We know where we want to be oncertain dates and so having that

(49:23):
same approach with ourinstruction can be helpful, and
allowing ourselves the grace toget it wrong and learn from that
experience and come back.
If you could give yourself andyour team any advice when you
were right at the beginning ofyour structured literacy journey
in general, but particularlywhen we're talking in this

(49:45):
connection of reading andwriting, what would you say to
yourself and your team and whatdo you wish, looking back, you'd
done differently your team andwhat do you wish?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
looking back, you'd done differently.
I would remind myself thatchange can be really hard and it
won't always be easy.
There's going to be times whenyou need to take your foot off
the accelerator and there aretimes when you need to actually
put the brakes on and have astop and a pause.
So for us, that looked like.
You know, sometimes wecancelled teacher meeting
because our staff were not inthe right space to be able to
take on new professionallearning.
If people are struggling, youneed to read the room and you

(50:23):
need to stop and pull back andbe respectful of how complex a
teacher's role is in a classroom.
You know, sometimes that allowsyou to develop that, really
that piece of goodwill with yourstaff, because they you're
acknowledging how difficult itis to be a teacher in a
classroom in 2025.
So don't be afraid to cancelthe professional learning in the

(50:45):
meeting.
Do it another time.
Just, you know, read the room.
Another thing I think it'sreally important to
differentiate your support ofyour staff.
Not everyone is at the sameplace, and that's okay.
You want to make site-widechanges, which is all well and
good, but sometimes people needdifferent things at different

(51:06):
times, and if you want thatcollective change to happen, you
sometimes need to adjust yourapproach.
You need to adjust yourtimeframe or your level of
support for individuals at yourschool, and that's what they
need.
So you just need to be reallyresponsive to that, like we
would with our students in theclassroom.
We need to differentiate oursupport for our teachers and our

(51:27):
support staff, and I think alsodon't assume that everyone has
the same knowledge andunderstanding of structured
literacy as you do.
So I've spent a lot of timeworking on my own professional
learning in this space.
I listen to your podcast everyweek, I do the readings, I go to
the webinars and theconferences, but not everyone is

(51:48):
as passionate or as engaged inthis space as you are, and
that's okay.
I think you want to spend timewith your staff to build that
deep understanding of structuredliteracy and you do that
through your professionallearning.
And it's not about just puttingup another, yet another visual
of scarborough's reading ropeand you know everyone.

(52:10):
This is the reading rope.
Move on.
You actually need to unpack thecomponents of the reading rope,
for example, or engage in aprofessional reading or listen
to a podcast together, so thateveryone can have a chance to
develop their own understanding.
And if you don't feel 100%confident in your knowledge and
understanding, if you can't bethe expert in the room, that's

(52:31):
okay, own it.
Learn alongside your colleagues.
You can use podcasts like thisone to develop your collective
understanding as a staff.
If you can't afford theconsultants or the coaches or
the professionals or the expertsto come in and lead your staff
in this work, you could becomethe expert yourself, and you

(52:52):
just need to be really creativeand resourceful.
There's so many free resourcesthat exist in this space, so you
know there's things out therethat you can use to support your
own understanding and and theunderstanding of your staff.
So acknowledge that it's okayto not know everything about
everything.
Frame yourself as a learner andit's okay we're learning

(53:14):
together and and the other thingI'd add to that.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
And yet this is a yes , and so yes to everything you
just said, rachel, and whileyou're feeling uncertain, don't
jump in and spend all your moneyand put all your eggs in one
basket with programs, because ifwe're choosing programs,
because other people are usingthem and it seems like the
popular choice, that may workout or it may not.

(53:40):
And if it doesn't, if itdoesn't actually suit your
school, if it doesn't suit yourcontext and where your team is
up to, or you think no, that'snot actually where our
instructional model that we'veunpacked in our school sits then
you've spent all of your moneyand your choices are really
limited afterwards.
So take things gently,introduce very small things, not

(54:01):
everything at once, and justrecognise that you will be
serving your school communitybetter by going slower and
taking very small steps.
And, as Rachel said, she hearda podcast series from me around
dyad reading, which was aboutpaired reading, and then just
used what was available to herto implement that, and so it's

(54:24):
not about going in and spendinga bucket of money.
It's okay to take things slowly,because where we're sitting at
the moment is we've got peoplelike you, rachel, who have been
on this journey for a while andover the last few years, really
built your knowledge up, andthen we've got a whole bunch of
people who are new into thespace and we have to be
supportive and respectful ofeverybody and help everybody

(54:44):
come onto the bus.
So I want to thank you for yourtime today, rachel, to discuss
this, and I think ourconversation today will share
some reassurance with people whoare on the journey as well that
you don't have to be an expert,you don't have to be perfect in
everything, but you do need tobe unapologetic about student

(55:05):
outcomes and relentless in thepursuit of them, but not in a
way that alienates everyonearound you, in a way that's
collegial and supportive,creative and has an eye on the
data and you don't need a heapof it, but the quality data
that's going to really help usmeasure our impact.

(55:26):
Rachel, do you have any partingwords for anyone who is
starting on this journey withtheir staff to move from that
hour of reading, hour of writing, quite decontextualised space
into something that's morecohesive?

Speaker 2 (55:41):
You won't break the children If you just give it a
go and get in the sandpit andhave a try of some of these
resources.
I mean for us.
This term we are all doing techspace units from lots of
different places.
We're going to come backtogether and talk about what
went well and what didn't.
I think don't expect everyoneto know all the answers and you

(56:01):
don't have to have them eitherand reach out to the experts.
Reach out to you, jocelyn, ifyou've got questions, or other
colleagues at other sites thatare doing similar things to you,
and build a network aroundyourself of like-minded people
that can support you in yourjourney, because, at the end of
the day, doing what's best foryour children you know your

(56:22):
children in your classroombetter than anybody and even by
listening to this today, you aresomebody who wants to do what's
best for the children in yourclass, and that is huge.
So keep doing what you're doingto improve outcomes for your
learners.
They will be all the better forit.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Fantastic, and if you're an experienced teacher
but new to structured literacy,please know that not everything
you've done in the past is nowout of fashion.
There's a lot of quality skillsand knowledge that you've
developed and now you're goingto use them in a slightly
different way.
Rachel, thank you again foryour time.
I can't wait to hear about whathappens in your school in this

(57:04):
space of connected reading andwriting over the next three
terms.
Term one is nearly done Overthe next three terms and we'll
look forward to having you backon the podcast another time.
Until our next episode.
Everyone happy teaching.