May 10, 2025 • 40 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Jocelyn (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn, and boy doI have a treat for you.
Today I am joined by thewonderful Stephanie Stollar and
I have to tell you everyone,when I received Stephanie's
email talking about her new book, I was very excited.
So hello, Stephanie, welcome.
Stephanie (00:22):
Thank you so much, Jocelyn.
It's so nice to join you today.
Jocelyn (00:26):
Stephanie, for those of us here in Australia who may
not be familiar with your work,can you tell us a little bit
about what you do and what's ledyou to this new book that you
have coming out?
Stephanie (00:37):
Yes, so I live in Cincinnati, Ohio in the US, and
I am an educational consultant.
I support schools and districtsto improve reading outcomes by
addressing the instructionalstructures that support students
, and I have done that in avariety of capacities over the
years.
I have worked at universities,I've been a consultant at a
(01:03):
regional resource centre.
I worked as a schoolpsychologist, that's how I
started my career, and it was inthat job, as a school
psychologist, that I gotinterested in and passionate
about reading, because all ofthe referrals that came to me,
whether it was an eighth graderstruggling with math or it was a
fifth grader having somebehavioural issues, reading was
(01:25):
always at the heart of it.
And in my system you had to be acertain amount behind before
you got any help.
And yet I could see at thebeginning of kindergarten, when
students entered, that therewere students who needed
intensive support in languageand literacy from the beginning,
and it was so frustrating towatch those students languish
(01:49):
and get frustrated and sufferbecause we weren't ready as a
system to support them rightaway.
And that's what drew me tofocusing on reading, on
prevention, on readingintervention and what we now
call MTSS or multi-tieredsystems of support.
So the book MTSS for ReadingImprovement, my co-author, Sarah
(02:12):
Brown, and I have written it tocapture the work that we've
done for more than 30 years tosupport districts to get those
structures in place to improveresults for absolutely every
student.
So thank you for theopportunity to talk about topics
that I'm so passionate about.
Jocelyn (02:30):
It's a delight to have you here.
Now, Stephanie, one of thethings that people can be a
little muddled on, and I'd loveit if you could provide some
clarification for the audience,is what's the difference between
MTSS, or multi-tiered systemsof support, and RTI, or response
to intervention?
Stephanie (02:48):
I think the biggest point of clarification is in the
way that RTI is commonlyimplemented, which is a way of
providing interventions tostudents.
The common framework of tiers,shaped like a triangle, moving
students through tiers is whatRTI has become in many school
(03:12):
implementations.
So, many people think about RTIas just a set of paperwork, a
set of meetings where you aremoving students from Tier 1 to
Tier 2 to Tier 3.
And in some cases that is onlyseen as an alternate route to
special education, perhaps forstudents with learning
disabilities, an alternative toa discrepancy formula, a
(03:37):
difference between IQ test scoreand achievement test score, and
all of those are aspects ofwhat we now call multi-tiered
systems of support, but MTSS isa lot more than that.
It is about engineering asystem of evidence-based
instructional supports for allstudents and making those
(04:00):
available from the verybeginning of kindergarten, as I
mentioned my frustration around.
It's about the adults in thesystem taking ownership for
student learning, recognisingthat the most important
interaction in schools isbetween that classroom teacher
and his or her students andeverybody else in the system,
(04:22):
all they're there for is tosupport that interaction between
the classroom teacher and theirstudents.
But every system is different,every school building or
district or system has adifferent set of resources and a
different set of challenges.
So to me, MTSS is the processof using assessment data about
(04:49):
your students and about theadults and structures in the
system to surface what thebarriers are so that you can
create actions, action plans,that will allow you to use your
existing resources to eliminatethose barriers to reading
outcomes.
So I think about MTSS assystems change, it is a school
change framework.
Obviously it's not specificonly to reading, all academic
(05:11):
subjects as well as the social,emotional and behavioural
support that we provide inschools, but I just happen to
focus on reading, so I don'tknow if that provides enough
clarification between the two.
Jocelyn (05:26):
I think it does, and I think there's- when we think
about intervention, RTI, MTSSit's a little bit like the word
differentiation.
Our understandings can be sodifferent from person to person
and school to school.
So having the principles andstructures and frameworks that
sit within it and anunderstanding of that is really
(05:48):
important.
What I'm hearing in what youdescribed, Stephanie, is the
need for consistency, and I lovewhat you were saying about that
interaction between the teacherand the student, because so
often what used to happen, andunfortunately still does happen,
is a siloing of interventionfrom the classroom.
So the student would have beenidentified, often just through
(06:12):
teacher judgement, without aconsistent basis for making that
judgement, as needing extrasupport, and a couple of times a
week they go off with somebodyand they do something and the
teacher's not really sure whatthey're doing or what the focus
is, and that can look like thepeople working in intervention
have brought in a whole 'notherprogram that's completely
(06:33):
different from what's happeningin the classroom, without
anybody even knowing, and sothere's this disconnect between
what happens in that supportspace and what happens in the
classroom.
So what are some of thechallenges that you see schools
facing in bringing MTSS to lifein their school, and how can we
(06:57):
provide people with simplesuggestions and solutions for
taking those first importantsteps into beginning to develop
these structures?
Stephanie (07:08):
Yeah, you really put your finger on one of the
biggest misconceptions that whatMTSS is about is screening,
finding students who are low andputting them in intervention,
and everything you said aboutthe intervention being separate
from, disconnected from, theclassroom instruction, I
(07:30):
experienced that quite commonly.
So what we've been missing ifthat's been the approach or our
understanding of what this modelis about is the fact that there
are so many students who arescoring low.
I mean, in the US we have anational assessment and,
depending on which group ofstudents you're looking at, it
(07:52):
could be 25% to 40% of thestudents are successful on that
national reading assessment infourth grade.
So by and large, across theboard, we are doing not a great
job teaching reading.
So the concept that this is aproblem for a small number of
students that we can solvethrough intervention that is
(08:16):
something outside of theclassroom, different from,
delivered by someone differentthan the classroom teacher, is
just a fantasy.
It's just not connected withthe reality in schools that I
work in.
So I think thatmisunderstanding that it's about
intervention, it's about somesmall number of students, it's
(08:37):
about something outside of theclassroom, is a really important
misunderstanding to confronthead on.
So the alternative is throughthis innovation, this fantastic
innovation of universalscreening, we no longer have to
wait for that teacher, as yousaid, to recognise, or miss,
perhaps, that there is an issuewith an individual student.
(08:58):
We can screen all students verybriefly, in maybe 10 to 15
minutes for each student, maybean hour for the whole classroom
to be screened.
We can screen every student onkey indicators of predicting
reading performance orindicating current reading
(09:19):
comprehension, and not only usethat information to identify the
students who are at risk oralready struggling readers, but
more importantly, to look at theeffectiveness and health of the
classroom reading instruction.
So MTSS is a regular educationcurriculum and instruction
(09:42):
enterprise.
It is about evaluating how goodis the first way we teach
reading?
And by good I mean, how wellmatched is it to the students
who are in front of us?
So yes, we want to lean intothe research space and we can
glean a lot from how to teach.
But we have to bring thattogether with the little people
(10:03):
who are actually in front of theteachers in the classroom and
make sure that the instructionthat we're providing the first
time around is lined up withwhat they need.
So sometimes people think MTSSis this rigid process that, like
thou shalt do X, Y and Z, andpeople get very hung up on is
(10:24):
this a tier two or a tier three?
Is this student in tier two ortier three?
Is this program tier two ortier three?
All these very rigid thoughts,and it's not helpful at all.
What we should be doing is,first and foremost, using that
screening data to understandwhat does this grade level of
students need, and thenconstructing the systems
(10:48):
classroom instruction in tierone, intervention supports in
tier two and three.
Constructing those systems thatmatch what the students need,
instead of what happens often isconstructing a system and
trying to shove the studentsinto it and sort of making them
fit into it, and that's notserving students very well.
Jocelyn (11:11):
You can't see me everybody, but I'm nodding
emphatically at what Stephanie'ssaying there.
And actually one of thechapters in the book is all
about aligning to local context,and one of the challenges that
here in Australia we areexperiencing, and attention that
we're experiencing, is wantingto ensure that we are working
(11:33):
with fidelity with the programsthat we have, but then also
recognising that there arecontextual needs.
And for me, fidelity, I had awhole podcast episode,
everybody, called My Most andLeast Favourite F- words, and
fidelity was one of my least atthe moment, only because of the
(11:53):
rigidness in which we are tryingto apply these programs.
So don't change anything that'son the page, don't change the
pacing, don't change the scope,don't change anything because
you have to do it the way it'ssaid.
But that creates this mismatch,as you said, Stephanie, about
trying to squish the childreninto meet the needs of their
(12:16):
pre-conceived ideas.
So how do we reconcile thattension between keeping the
support for students in theclassroom but then the reality
of a teacher you know could havein Australia anywhere between
25 and 30 students in aclassroom and recognising the
(12:36):
quite widespread of need acrossthe class, how do we- how do we
manage the tension betweenproviding targeted instruction
but then not having silos?
Stephanie (12:49):
Yeah, great topics there.
I want to listen to yourpodcast.
I'm going to pile on to thatfidelity issue a little bit
first.
Many of the published programsthat are available right now
have absolutely zero research ontheir effectiveness.
So to say that you shouldimplement one of those with
fidelity is not good advice,because where that idea of
(13:15):
implementation or treatmentintegrity, as it was originally
called, where that comes from isfrom intervention programs that
actually have evidence ofworking.
So once there's been researchon an instructional package, and
again this is mostly from theintervention context.
Once there's research on thatworking, then you should
replicate those conditions whenyour school uses it.
(13:38):
You should use it as designed,because that design, that
package, that sequence, thatteacher language, all of the
bits of that actually haveproven to work better than other
things.
We don't have that with corereading programs right now.
So this idea that you're goingto adopt this big box program
and use it off the shelf withfidelity is just, it's misguided
(14:02):
.
It's much more nuanced thanthat.
So, again, relying on theuniversal screening data as the
first indication of what is therange of needs.
If we're talking about incomingkindergarteners or a group of
first grade students, we can seefrom screening data, and then
second grade and above,following up with some
diagnostic, instructionallyrelevant diagnostic data to
really pinpoint and target,especially if we're talking
(14:30):
about the word recognitionskills, where are students on,
let's say, a phonics scope andsequence.
And then across the whole gradelevel, grouping students in
skill-alike groups so thatinstruction can be targeted at
the next thing they need tolearn.
So this is not what I seehappening in most places and I
(14:56):
think it's what you'reexperiencing as well.
Instruction works best whenit's targeted right at that
sweet spot of not somethingthat's too easy, that the kids
already know, not somethingthat's too hard, that's going to
overwhelm their working memory,but that sweet spot right there
in what they need to learn next.
And the range of students inyour grade level or in your
(15:21):
classroom will tell you, shouldI be teaching phonics and
spelling whole group or should Ibe differentiating that in
skill-based small groups whereevery student is with an adult?
So screening data, diagnosticdata, tell us what our students
need and I really recommend thatpeople invest the time in
(15:44):
collecting that assessment datafirst before purchasing programs
.
I've worked with systems thathave a very narrow range of
skills.
All the students maybe 75%, 80%sort of are in the same place
on the phonics scope andsequence and it's a small number
who aren't.
Whole group instruction canwork well if that 20% is getting
(16:08):
some pre-teaching before thewhole group lesson so that they
can access and participate inthat.
But once you get beyond about20% it just becomes not a
productive use of time to do thewhole group phonics lesson.
In place of that we should bedoing that skill-based targeted
grouping, some small, somelarger groups for the more
(16:30):
on-track students from theget-go.
Many people think about what Ijust said as that targeted
skill-based grouping, as what wedo only for intervention and
that might get you a little bumpin student outcomes if you only
have a few students who arestruggling.
But again, the places I workwith they have lots of students
(16:52):
who are struggling and we knowvery clearly from the research
that even students who start acouple of grade levels behind
can catch up to grade levelexpectations, but not with the
same number of minutes ofinstruction on those phonics and
spelling skills.
They're going to need more timeevery day.
So that's what that tieredmodel, that triangle shape, is
(17:15):
all about.
It's layering instructionaldoses on top of each other, not
across time but in a singleschool day, and those doses of
instruction are most effectivewhen they are lined up.
So students are notexperiencing different programs
across the day.
Because if you stop and thinkabout that, you know the
(17:37):
students are already confused,they're struggling, they're
having a hard time, you know,breaking the code.
And now you are teaching vowelteams in one time of the day and
you're teaching basic lettersound for reading CVC patterns
in another time of their day.
You're calling it a magic E inone time of their day and a
silent E in another time oftheir day and you're using
(18:00):
different routines where oneplace they're supposed to raise
their hand and another placethey're supposed to, you know,
snap or something.
It's so confusing for the mostconfused students and when you
stop and think about that it'slike, well, duh, why are we
doing that?
What I've seen to be extremelyhelpful is when the same
(18:22):
instruction, perhaps with thesame program, is used in
different times of the student'sday.
This is what I mean by layeringon aligned instructional
programs.
And coming back to what I saidoriginally, if you screen your
students and you have a largeproportion in the grade level
who are struggling or at risk,your Tier 1 may look a lot more
(18:44):
like how intervention looks insome other school.
Your Tier 1 may need to haveall of the components of reading
intervention.
So the program that you choosefor word recognition in Tier 1
regular classroom readinginstruction might be an
intervention program, justbecause an intervention program
(19:05):
is designed differently thantypical Tier 1 instructional
programs.
So this process of collectingthe data, knowing what your
students actually need,literally laying out the
continuum of skill needs acrossthe grade level and then
selecting the programs thatmatch what the students need,
(19:26):
that's what I've seen to workbest.
Jocelyn (19:29):
And it's a difficult space for school leaders to sit
in to make the selection of theprograms, because often the
programs chosen are the oneschosen because other people are
using them and say they are good.
So I feel for our principalsand our deputy principals who
have been in leadership duringthe last five years and not in
(19:51):
the classroom, because they havenot had the benefit of learning
on the job, as it were, withchildren in real time.
They are often feeling a littleon the back foot in terms of
not really knowing who to listento, what's what, and as
professionals we learn throughexperience as well as through
(20:16):
academic study.
So to have not had that, andthe schools where I see this
working the best are actuallywhere the principals and the
deputies and the other seniorexecutive leadership maintain at
least a very small working load.
And I know principals who go inand they take a phonics group
once a week or twice a week orwhen they can, and they keep
(20:37):
that connection there with theclassroom because then they're
able to reflect in and onpractice in a way that you just
can't when you're in the officetrying to get the best advice
from a range of people who oftenshare conflicting advice and
then we're not sure what to do.
So the program selection ischallenging and I think that,
(21:03):
even if so, you mentioned aboutTier 1 your core reading
programs not being as rigorouslystudied, or studied at all.
That's, as we know, a very long, expensive process and all of
the things.
So that means that we have toknow what elements of
instruction we're looking forand be able to think critically.
(21:23):
The other thing that I oftenargue as well, and I'm
interested in your perspectiveon this, is that even if the
program at the core level hadbeen rigorously studied and
shown to be effective, theprogram developer doesn't know
the students in any singleclassroom.
They are indicating the numberof repetitions and the pacing of
(21:45):
introducing new learning basedon an average, which is usually
somewhat imagined in a way, andthen the teacher and the person
using that tool has to make thedetermination in the moment
around ok, are the studentsready to move on yet?
So that means that teachercapacity building has to be a
(22:07):
huge part of this picture, thatwe can't just rely on programs.
What are you seeing in yourspace in the US and in the
reading space that aligns or notwith what I'm sharing about the
Australian context?
Stephanie (22:22):
Yeah, well, I completely agree with you.
The leaders who keep their footin instruction or develop that
skill set, maybe they weresecondary teachers and now
they're leading a primaryschool, they have my greatest
respect.
And I understand that we lookto our peers.
(22:42):
I understand asking thedistrict down the road what
they're using, but the bottomline is student outcomes.
So if that's going to be yourapproach, I think you have to
ask the districts around you,show me your data, and the
important data point is thepercentage of students who are
on track on screening.
(23:04):
So a direct screening measure,something like Acadience Reading
or DIBELS eighth edition, thatyou can aggregate across the
grade level and see thepercentage of students who have
met the minimum expectations.
And so I'd be asking around andI'd be specifically looking for
the district that tells me that30% of their students were on
(23:26):
track at the beginning of firstgrade and 90% were on track at
the end of first grade.
That's what I'd be looking for.
And then I'd want to know notjust what program are you using,
that would be a starting placebut, as you suggested, I'd be
asking them well, how did yougroup students?
What kind of professionaldevelopment and coaching did you
(23:46):
provide to teachers to deliverthat program?
What kinds of support staff didyou have in place to support
that?
What was the schedule like?
How did you select students forintervention?
What kinds of observation didyou do to support teachers to
deliver that program?
So all of those additionalsupports around the program also
(24:10):
have to be in place.
So you know, school leaders arein a tough place.
That's who Sarah and I wrotethe book for, trying to help
them understand the science ofreading.
Really cutting to the chase, inthe first part of that book
we're really trying to get tothe meat of what we think school
leaders need to know aboutreading and reading instruction
(24:32):
is sort of a crash course, butthey really do have to have
trusted advisors.
They need to, you know, vet thepeople that they're listening
to.
They need to listen to theirstaff.
They need to not disregardtheir staff because, as you said
, their staff may be four orfive years ahead of them on
their structured literacyjourney and they actually might
(24:52):
know better than the schoolleader does.
So they should definitelylisten to them.
And then the bottom line isalways the student data.
So if you come into a schoolsystem and you know you think
you have the way forward, that'sterrific, that can be very
helpful, but it might not workwith this group of students, it
(25:12):
might not work with this staff,it might not work in this school
community.
So you've got to let the dataguide you in making those
decisions.
And that's what MTSS is allabout, getting those
collaborative teams in placewith the right kinds of data and
having the thinking structure,what are the questions we should
be asking with our data?
What kinds of decisions shouldwe be making?
(25:35):
What should be guiding us inthose decisions?
That's what MTSS is all about.
Jocelyn (25:41):
Wonderful and it's the contextualisation, I think that
is the key.
The other thing that'sincredibly important you
mentioned coaching.
So we know that often when aprogram or an approach is
studied, there are expertcoaches on hand to support
teachers, and then people tryand take that approach or the
(26:02):
program and implement it withoutthat expert level of coaching
in the mix and then they don'tnecessarily see the same
results, and that just comesback to, the best dollar we
invest is the dollar we investin people.
At the end of the day, thetools are necessary and they
must be robust and they must beat least evidence- informed, if
(26:23):
not evidence- based, and we haveto have a clear line of sight.
But it's the investment inpeople and helping them not just
understand the reading space,but also about the learning
sciences and the lessons we have, about cognitive load and
information processing andworking memory and all of those
sorts of things as well.
So, leaders, if you have theopportunity to have a great
(26:45):
coach in your school, pleasehave them.
And different states havedifferent systems here in
Australia, so there's differentapproaches to that, but one of
the things that we do haveconsistently across all of our
states and territories inAustralia is schools that range
significantly in their size.
So the smallest school I evertaught in had eight children,
(27:07):
and three of them were my own.
I was pretty good for theschool numbers there, but we
have a lot of schools who aresometimes I've got 20, 30, 40
students in the entire primaryschool.
We know that when you work in aschool of that size, which I
have, you wear many hats.
So if I was a leader or ateacher in a small school, even
(27:29):
up to 150 students, it's stillnot big enough to have this big
group of adults around who cando all of this work.
What are the absolute must-dosthat are needed to build those
multi-tiered system of supportstructures that you're talking
about so that you can meet theneeds of the students?
(27:50):
What's the absolute meat andpotatoes that they have to have
for it to work?
Stephanie (27:58):
Well, you might not believe this, but I think MTSS
can sometimes work better insmall schools like that, because
in large systems they sometimeshave more money and they use
the money to hire people andthen they get very entrenched in
roles and titles and jobdescriptions and they're
completely unflexible.
(28:19):
So having the assumption thatyou're going to wear many hats
as an adult in the system isactually good.
That's one of the tenets ofMTSS, flexible service delivery.
So that can work in your favour.
I think the really big idea inMTSS is what I've already
mentioned and that is targetinginstruction to the students'
(28:41):
needs.
The first instruction and thenintensifying that support as the
data suggests that you need it.
And you cannot get off step onewith MTSS without data.
So screening, diagnostic andprogress monitoring data and
somebody to talk about thosedata with.
(29:02):
It might be two of you in thesystem right, it might be you
and a community member, it mightbe you and a parent, but two
people at least talking aboutwhat you see in the data and
what the implications of thatare for your system.
So, nuts and bolts wise, youmay, in a small system, do a lot
(29:24):
of cross-grade grouping.
Again, the important piece isskill-based targeted instruction
and, as much as possible,having that instruction
delivered by an adult.
So sometimes when people hear mesay skill-based instruction in
as small a group as you can getit, they think that means the
(29:46):
teacher is with a small groupand everybody else is doing
their own thing, and that's notat all what I mean.
So in a small system you mayhave to beg, borrow and steal
for other adults to deploy thisapproach, or you may have to be
very intentional and carefulabout what the other students
are doing while the teacher iswith a group of students and you
(30:11):
might have to be planful aboutwhich group of students you're
with most frequently.
So again, the concept is thestudents who are behind or at
risk need more and betterinstruction.
So that means teacher-led smallgroup instruction every day for
that group of students and ifyou're going to target where
their current skill level is,and that's below grade level,
(30:34):
they need extra doses of that,more time each day.
So maybe two small grouplessons with an adult.
You may have to get verycreative about who are those
adults and making sure that youare training those other adults.
They could be communityvolunteers, parent volunteers I
would use very sparingly.
(30:56):
There are confidentialityissues there, but in certain
circumstances it can work.
But I have literally seen everyavailable pair of hands in
school systems used as readinginstructors, from cafeteria
workers to librarians, to busdrivers, to custodians,
(31:17):
secretaries, every single adultin school systems trained, just
like the teachers have beentrained, to deliver that
intervention program and thatcan work very well.
But it takes thinking out ofthe box.
It takes, you know, thinkingdifferently and flexibly, and I
think that's really at the heartof MTSS.
(31:37):
Again designing the system thatyour students need, whatever
your local context might be.
Jocelyn (31:45):
I've never worked with a school who's gone to flexible
grouping across classroomsrather than streaming, because
streaming implies that we'veidentified the students who we
think are smarter or, you know,dumber than the others, and then
they're stuck in a track, andthat's not what we're talking
about.
We're talking about adjustingthose groups every time we do a
(32:05):
data collection so that they'regetting exactly what they need.
And I've never had a school godown that road who's ever
elected to go back, because theresults speak for themselves.
Stephanie (32:20):
That's right, but it is not tracking.
It's not- you're in this lowestquote unquote group across all
subjects all day or you're goingto be there forever.
I think this is a reallyimportant point to clarify that
the grade level standards.
Do you have standards at eachgrade level in Australia, like
(32:40):
we do in the US?
Yeah, so those are the outcomesthat we're working towards at
the end of the grade level.
They are always the outcomes aswe get into second grade and
above focus mostly on readingcomprehension.
That's where we're going forevery student.
But every student doesn't startthere and just teaching those
grade level standards does notmake it miraculously happen for
(33:04):
students.
We have to start them wherethey are with the objective of
getting them to those outcomesas fast as we can, and we move
them faster towards thoseoutcomes by double dosing that
tiered model.
It is meant to be temporary.
It is not streaming, as yousaid, or tracking as we call it
in the US.
It is a temporary solution andthe sooner we do it, if we start
(33:29):
that in kindergarten, if westart it in first grade, we can
actually have every first graderreading for meaning at the end
of the first grade school yearand not have to worry about all
this difficult grouping acrossthe grade level, flexible
grouping in second grade andabove.
So it's really worth taking thelead of what's in the research
(33:50):
and focusing on prevention andfocusing on targeting those
skill deficits.
That's not a dirty word, it'snot deficit thinking.
It's actually the way that wemove students forward by doing
that double dosing that'sdepicted in the MTSS tiered
model.
Jocelyn (34:09):
Wonderful.
I think, Stephanie, we've givenour listeners a lot to think
about and potentially they mayhave more questions than they
began the episode with.
That's sometimes how it works.
So, everybody, you can reachout on the Structured Literacy
Bus Facebook group with anyfollow-up questions that you may
have from this episode.
(34:30):
But what are the final thoughtsyou'd like to leave listeners
with as they're grappling withthis quite difficult but highly
achievable task of meeting theneeds of all of the students in
front of us?
Stephanie (34:45):
Well, I imagine, if they are listening to your
podcast, in your Facebook groupand reading your blogs and
following you, Jocelyn, they arewell informed, and so I would
applaud them first and foremost.
I've just been so impressed byteachers that I've encountered,
especially in the last fiveyears, taking it upon themselves
(35:05):
to educate themselves.
They understand how importantliteracy is, and they are not
just sitting back and taking iteasy.
They are figuring out how to bemore effective with their
students.
So, first and foremost, Iapplaud all of those hardworking
teachers.
Don't be quiet, you know youdon't have to be rude, you don't
(35:27):
have to shout, but don't bequiet about what you need to
serve your students and what'sworking for your students.
Engage your school leaders.
Make sure that they know whatyou're curious about, what's
working, what's not working.
Band together with anotherteacher in your system to have
those conversations with yourschool leader.
(35:48):
If the leadership is moving ina direction that you don't think
has any evidence or isn'tmatched to what your students
need, I just want you to feelempowered.
Don't just sit back and take it.
You may actually know betterthan they do.
And again, you don't have to bebossy or loud about it, but
speak up on behalf of yourstudents.
(36:08):
This may be, well, it is yourstudents' only chance in this
grade level, and the way thatthey are taught reading and
writing is life-alteringpotentially.
So now I'm scaring peoplebecause I'm really laying it on
thick, but there are resourcesout there for you and there are
(36:28):
groups that you can join to getsupport.
So that's what I encourage youto do is reach out if you need
that, support, band togetherwith other people in your system
and don't be afraid to speak upto your leadership.
Jocelyn (36:42):
And I think when it's, sometimes these discussions can
become a little emotive and alittle heated in some
circumstances.
At the end of the day, if yourdata is showing that there are
students not being served by thecurrent approach, something has
(37:02):
to change.
It doesn't mean you have to tipeverything upside down and
start again, but we need to beasking that question, who is not
being served by what justhappened?
And using our data to figurethat out.
And, Stephanie, you mentionedAcadiance and DIBELS and we have
those here in Australia andthey are being adopted and
embraced for their purpose,which is as a universal screener
(37:27):
, to help point us in thedirection of what to do.
But it's also an evaluation ofthe effectiveness of instruction
and it's not about taking itpersonally, it's not about
saying "but I like it's.
What do the students in frontof us today need?
Recognising that as your teamgrows capacity, as the
structures grow and strengthen,what it looks like this year may
(37:49):
be very different from what itlooks like in three years,
because we got better at it aswe went along, so we were able
to be more effective.
Have every moment have bang forthe buck and really do the
things that we knew were goingto make the biggest difference.
Stephanie, it has been anabsolute pleasure.
Can you let people know wherethey can find the book and how
(38:12):
they can hear more from you?
Stephanie (38:14):
Thank you.
Yes, so people can find me onFacebook, Stephanie Stollar
Consulting and my website, whereI have all my other social
media connections.
My blog, access to my ReadingScience Academy and my MTSS
course is www.
readingscienceacademy.
com.
The book MTSS for ReadingImprovement is available from
(38:38):
Solution Tree and they will shipto Australia.
The first shipping date, Ithink, is May 9th, so pre-orders
are available now.
Sarah and I are happy torespond to any questions that
people have.
You know, making these changesin systems is challenging, as
(38:58):
you said, Jocelyn, but itabsolutely can and must be done.
So it's been a real pleasuretalking with you.
We've known each othervirtually for quite some time
and it's great to be connectedto you in this way, so thanks
for the opportunity.
Jocelyn (39:13):
My pleasure.
Thank you so much for bravingthe time zone difference.
Everybody, have a fantasticTerm 2 if you're listening at
the time that this is beingreleased.
If not, well, just enjoywhatever term you're in.
You know that you can make adifference.
Every change you make in thedirection of providing targeted
(39:33):
instruction is a gift to yourstudents.
You're not going to do it allovernight or by next week, but
have a timeline, have sensiblesteps, look after yourselves and
you really can make this happen.
Until I see you next, everyone,happy teaching, bye.
Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
My name is Jocelyn, and boy doI have a treat for you.
Today I am joined by thewonderful Stephanie Stollar and
I have to tell you everyone,when I received Stephanie's
email talking about her new book, I was very excited.
So hello, Stephanie, welcome.
Stephanie (00:22):
Thank you so much, Jocelyn.
It's so nice to join you today.
Jocelyn (00:26):
Stephanie, for those of us here in Australia who may
not be familiar with your work,can you tell us a little bit
about what you do and what's ledyou to this new book that you
have coming out?
Stephanie (00:37):
Yes, so I live in Cincinnati, Ohio in the US, and
I am an educational consultant.
I support schools and districtsto improve reading outcomes by
addressing the instructionalstructures that support students
, and I have done that in avariety of capacities over the
years.
I have worked at universities,I've been a consultant at a
(01:03):
regional resource centre.
I worked as a schoolpsychologist, that's how I
started my career, and it was inthat job, as a school
psychologist, that I gotinterested in and passionate
about reading, because all ofthe referrals that came to me,
whether it was an eighth graderstruggling with math or it was a
fifth grader having somebehavioural issues, reading was
(01:25):
always at the heart of it.
And in my system you had to be acertain amount behind before
you got any help.
And yet I could see at thebeginning of kindergarten, when
students entered, that therewere students who needed
intensive support in languageand literacy from the beginning,
and it was so frustrating towatch those students languish
(01:49):
and get frustrated and sufferbecause we weren't ready as a
system to support them rightaway.
And that's what drew me tofocusing on reading, on
prevention, on readingintervention and what we now
call MTSS or multi-tieredsystems of support.
So the book MTSS for ReadingImprovement, my co-author, Sarah
(02:12):
Brown, and I have written it tocapture the work that we've
done for more than 30 years tosupport districts to get those
structures in place to improveresults for absolutely every
student.
So thank you for theopportunity to talk about topics
that I'm so passionate about.
Jocelyn (02:30):
It's a delight to have you here.
Now, Stephanie, one of thethings that people can be a
little muddled on, and I'd loveit if you could provide some
clarification for the audience,is what's the difference between
MTSS, or multi-tiered systemsof support, and RTI, or response
to intervention?
Stephanie (02:48):
I think the biggest point of clarification is in the
way that RTI is commonlyimplemented, which is a way of
providing interventions tostudents.
The common framework of tiers,shaped like a triangle, moving
students through tiers is whatRTI has become in many school
(03:12):
implementations.
So, many people think about RTIas just a set of paperwork, a
set of meetings where you aremoving students from Tier 1 to
Tier 2 to Tier 3.
And in some cases that is onlyseen as an alternate route to
special education, perhaps forstudents with learning
disabilities, an alternative toa discrepancy formula, a
(03:37):
difference between IQ test scoreand achievement test score, and
all of those are aspects ofwhat we now call multi-tiered
systems of support, but MTSS isa lot more than that.
It is about engineering asystem of evidence-based
instructional supports for allstudents and making those
(04:00):
available from the verybeginning of kindergarten, as I
mentioned my frustration around.
It's about the adults in thesystem taking ownership for
student learning, recognisingthat the most important
interaction in schools isbetween that classroom teacher
and his or her students andeverybody else in the system,
(04:22):
all they're there for is tosupport that interaction between
the classroom teacher and theirstudents.
But every system is different,every school building or
district or system has adifferent set of resources and a
different set of challenges.
So to me, MTSS is the processof using assessment data about
(04:49):
your students and about theadults and structures in the
system to surface what thebarriers are so that you can
create actions, action plans,that will allow you to use your
existing resources to eliminatethose barriers to reading
outcomes.
So I think about MTSS assystems change, it is a school
change framework.
Obviously it's not specificonly to reading, all academic
(05:11):
subjects as well as the social,emotional and behavioural
support that we provide inschools, but I just happen to
focus on reading, so I don'tknow if that provides enough
clarification between the two.
Jocelyn (05:26):
I think it does, and I think there's- when we think
about intervention, RTI, MTSSit's a little bit like the word
differentiation.
Our understandings can be sodifferent from person to person
and school to school.
So having the principles andstructures and frameworks that
sit within it and anunderstanding of that is really
(05:48):
important.
What I'm hearing in what youdescribed, Stephanie, is the
need for consistency, and I lovewhat you were saying about that
interaction between the teacherand the student, because so
often what used to happen, andunfortunately still does happen,
is a siloing of interventionfrom the classroom.
So the student would have beenidentified, often just through
(06:12):
teacher judgement, without aconsistent basis for making that
judgement, as needing extrasupport, and a couple of times a
week they go off with somebodyand they do something and the
teacher's not really sure whatthey're doing or what the focus
is, and that can look like thepeople working in intervention
have brought in a whole 'notherprogram that's completely
(06:33):
different from what's happeningin the classroom, without
anybody even knowing, and sothere's this disconnect between
what happens in that supportspace and what happens in the
classroom.
So what are some of thechallenges that you see schools
facing in bringing MTSS to lifein their school, and how can we
(06:57):
provide people with simplesuggestions and solutions for
taking those first importantsteps into beginning to develop
these structures?
Stephanie (07:08):
Yeah, you really put your finger on one of the
biggest misconceptions that whatMTSS is about is screening,
finding students who are low andputting them in intervention,
and everything you said aboutthe intervention being separate
from, disconnected from, theclassroom instruction, I
(07:30):
experienced that quite commonly.
So what we've been missing ifthat's been the approach or our
understanding of what this modelis about is the fact that there
are so many students who arescoring low.
I mean, in the US we have anational assessment and,
depending on which group ofstudents you're looking at, it
(07:52):
could be 25% to 40% of thestudents are successful on that
national reading assessment infourth grade.
So by and large, across theboard, we are doing not a great
job teaching reading.
So the concept that this is aproblem for a small number of
students that we can solvethrough intervention that is
(08:16):
something outside of theclassroom, different from,
delivered by someone differentthan the classroom teacher, is
just a fantasy.
It's just not connected withthe reality in schools that I
work in.
So I think thatmisunderstanding that it's about
intervention, it's about somesmall number of students, it's
(08:37):
about something outside of theclassroom, is a really important
misunderstanding to confronthead on.
So the alternative is throughthis innovation, this fantastic
innovation of universalscreening, we no longer have to
wait for that teacher, as yousaid, to recognise, or miss,
perhaps, that there is an issuewith an individual student.
(08:58):
We can screen all students verybriefly, in maybe 10 to 15
minutes for each student, maybean hour for the whole classroom
to be screened.
We can screen every student onkey indicators of predicting
reading performance orindicating current reading
(09:19):
comprehension, and not only usethat information to identify the
students who are at risk oralready struggling readers, but
more importantly, to look at theeffectiveness and health of the
classroom reading instruction.
So MTSS is a regular educationcurriculum and instruction
(09:42):
enterprise.
It is about evaluating how goodis the first way we teach
reading?
And by good I mean, how wellmatched is it to the students
who are in front of us?
So yes, we want to lean intothe research space and we can
glean a lot from how to teach.
But we have to bring thattogether with the little people
(10:03):
who are actually in front of theteachers in the classroom and
make sure that the instructionthat we're providing the first
time around is lined up withwhat they need.
So sometimes people think MTSSis this rigid process that, like
thou shalt do X, Y and Z, andpeople get very hung up on is
(10:24):
this a tier two or a tier three?
Is this student in tier two ortier three?
Is this program tier two ortier three?
All these very rigid thoughts,and it's not helpful at all.
What we should be doing is,first and foremost, using that
screening data to understandwhat does this grade level of
students need, and thenconstructing the systems
(10:48):
classroom instruction in tierone, intervention supports in
tier two and three.
Constructing those systems thatmatch what the students need,
instead of what happens often isconstructing a system and
trying to shove the studentsinto it and sort of making them
fit into it, and that's notserving students very well.
Jocelyn (11:11):
You can't see me everybody, but I'm nodding
emphatically at what Stephanie'ssaying there.
And actually one of thechapters in the book is all
about aligning to local context,and one of the challenges that
here in Australia we areexperiencing, and attention that
we're experiencing, is wantingto ensure that we are working
(11:33):
with fidelity with the programsthat we have, but then also
recognising that there arecontextual needs.
And for me, fidelity, I had awhole podcast episode,
everybody, called My Most andLeast Favourite F- words, and
fidelity was one of my least atthe moment, only because of the
(11:53):
rigidness in which we are tryingto apply these programs.
So don't change anything that'son the page, don't change the
pacing, don't change the scope,don't change anything because
you have to do it the way it'ssaid.
But that creates this mismatch,as you said, Stephanie, about
trying to squish the childreninto meet the needs of their
(12:16):
pre-conceived ideas.
So how do we reconcile thattension between keeping the
support for students in theclassroom but then the reality
of a teacher you know could havein Australia anywhere between
25 and 30 students in aclassroom and recognising the
(12:36):
quite widespread of need acrossthe class, how do we- how do we
manage the tension betweenproviding targeted instruction
but then not having silos?
Stephanie (12:49):
Yeah, great topics there.
I want to listen to yourpodcast.
I'm going to pile on to thatfidelity issue a little bit
first.
Many of the published programsthat are available right now
have absolutely zero research ontheir effectiveness.
So to say that you shouldimplement one of those with
fidelity is not good advice,because where that idea of
(13:15):
implementation or treatmentintegrity, as it was originally
called, where that comes from isfrom intervention programs that
actually have evidence ofworking.
So once there's been researchon an instructional package, and
again this is mostly from theintervention context.
Once there's research on thatworking, then you should
replicate those conditions whenyour school uses it.
(13:38):
You should use it as designed,because that design, that
package, that sequence, thatteacher language, all of the
bits of that actually haveproven to work better than other
things.
We don't have that with corereading programs right now.
So this idea that you're goingto adopt this big box program
and use it off the shelf withfidelity is just, it's misguided
(14:02):
.
It's much more nuanced thanthat.
So, again, relying on theuniversal screening data as the
first indication of what is therange of needs.
If we're talking about incomingkindergarteners or a group of
first grade students, we can seefrom screening data, and then
second grade and above,following up with some
diagnostic, instructionallyrelevant diagnostic data to
really pinpoint and target,especially if we're talking
(14:30):
about the word recognitionskills, where are students on,
let's say, a phonics scope andsequence.
And then across the whole gradelevel, grouping students in
skill-alike groups so thatinstruction can be targeted at
the next thing they need tolearn.
So this is not what I seehappening in most places and I
(14:56):
think it's what you'reexperiencing as well.
Instruction works best whenit's targeted right at that
sweet spot of not somethingthat's too easy, that the kids
already know, not somethingthat's too hard, that's going to
overwhelm their working memory,but that sweet spot right there
in what they need to learn next.
And the range of students inyour grade level or in your
(15:21):
classroom will tell you, shouldI be teaching phonics and
spelling whole group or should Ibe differentiating that in
skill-based small groups whereevery student is with an adult?
So screening data, diagnosticdata, tell us what our students
need and I really recommend thatpeople invest the time in
(15:44):
collecting that assessment datafirst before purchasing programs
.
I've worked with systems thathave a very narrow range of
skills.
All the students maybe 75%, 80%sort of are in the same place
on the phonics scope andsequence and it's a small number
who aren't.
Whole group instruction canwork well if that 20% is getting
(16:08):
some pre-teaching before thewhole group lesson so that they
can access and participate inthat.
But once you get beyond about20% it just becomes not a
productive use of time to do thewhole group phonics lesson.
In place of that we should bedoing that skill-based targeted
grouping, some small, somelarger groups for the more
(16:30):
on-track students from theget-go.
Many people think about what Ijust said as that targeted
skill-based grouping, as what wedo only for intervention and
that might get you a little bumpin student outcomes if you only
have a few students who arestruggling.
But again, the places I workwith they have lots of students
(16:52):
who are struggling and we knowvery clearly from the research
that even students who start acouple of grade levels behind
can catch up to grade levelexpectations, but not with the
same number of minutes ofinstruction on those phonics and
spelling skills.
They're going to need more timeevery day.
So that's what that tieredmodel, that triangle shape, is
(17:15):
all about.
It's layering instructionaldoses on top of each other, not
across time but in a singleschool day, and those doses of
instruction are most effectivewhen they are lined up.
So students are notexperiencing different programs
across the day.
Because if you stop and thinkabout that, you know the
(17:37):
students are already confused,they're struggling, they're
having a hard time, you know,breaking the code.
And now you are teaching vowelteams in one time of the day and
you're teaching basic lettersound for reading CVC patterns
in another time of their day.
You're calling it a magic E inone time of their day and a
silent E in another time oftheir day and you're using
(18:00):
different routines where oneplace they're supposed to raise
their hand and another placethey're supposed to, you know,
snap or something.
It's so confusing for the mostconfused students and when you
stop and think about that it'slike, well, duh, why are we
doing that?
What I've seen to be extremelyhelpful is when the same
(18:22):
instruction, perhaps with thesame program, is used in
different times of the student'sday.
This is what I mean by layeringon aligned instructional
programs.
And coming back to what I saidoriginally, if you screen your
students and you have a largeproportion in the grade level
who are struggling or at risk,your Tier 1 may look a lot more
(18:44):
like how intervention looks insome other school.
Your Tier 1 may need to haveall of the components of reading
intervention.
So the program that you choosefor word recognition in Tier 1
regular classroom readinginstruction might be an
intervention program, justbecause an intervention program
(19:05):
is designed differently thantypical Tier 1 instructional
programs.
So this process of collectingthe data, knowing what your
students actually need,literally laying out the
continuum of skill needs acrossthe grade level and then
selecting the programs thatmatch what the students need,
(19:26):
that's what I've seen to workbest.
Jocelyn (19:29):
And it's a difficult space for school leaders to sit
in to make the selection of theprograms, because often the
programs chosen are the oneschosen because other people are
using them and say they are good.
So I feel for our principalsand our deputy principals who
have been in leadership duringthe last five years and not in
(19:51):
the classroom, because they havenot had the benefit of learning
on the job, as it were, withchildren in real time.
They are often feeling a littleon the back foot in terms of
not really knowing who to listento, what's what, and as
professionals we learn throughexperience as well as through
(20:16):
academic study.
So to have not had that, andthe schools where I see this
working the best are actuallywhere the principals and the
deputies and the other seniorexecutive leadership maintain at
least a very small working load.
And I know principals who go inand they take a phonics group
once a week or twice a week orwhen they can, and they keep
(20:37):
that connection there with theclassroom because then they're
able to reflect in and onpractice in a way that you just
can't when you're in the officetrying to get the best advice
from a range of people who oftenshare conflicting advice and
then we're not sure what to do.
So the program selection ischallenging and I think that,
(21:03):
even if so, you mentioned aboutTier 1 your core reading
programs not being as rigorouslystudied, or studied at all.
That's, as we know, a very long, expensive process and all of
the things.
So that means that we have toknow what elements of
instruction we're looking forand be able to think critically.
(21:23):
The other thing that I oftenargue as well, and I'm
interested in your perspectiveon this, is that even if the
program at the core level hadbeen rigorously studied and
shown to be effective, theprogram developer doesn't know
the students in any singleclassroom.
They are indicating the numberof repetitions and the pacing of
(21:45):
introducing new learning basedon an average, which is usually
somewhat imagined in a way, andthen the teacher and the person
using that tool has to make thedetermination in the moment
around ok, are the studentsready to move on yet?
So that means that teachercapacity building has to be a
(22:07):
huge part of this picture, thatwe can't just rely on programs.
What are you seeing in yourspace in the US and in the
reading space that aligns or notwith what I'm sharing about the
Australian context?
Stephanie (22:22):
Yeah, well, I completely agree with you.
The leaders who keep their footin instruction or develop that
skill set, maybe they weresecondary teachers and now
they're leading a primaryschool, they have my greatest
respect.
And I understand that we lookto our peers.
(22:42):
I understand asking thedistrict down the road what
they're using, but the bottomline is student outcomes.
So if that's going to be yourapproach, I think you have to
ask the districts around you,show me your data, and the
important data point is thepercentage of students who are
on track on screening.
(23:04):
So a direct screening measure,something like Acadience Reading
or DIBELS eighth edition, thatyou can aggregate across the
grade level and see thepercentage of students who have
met the minimum expectations.
And so I'd be asking around andI'd be specifically looking for
the district that tells me that30% of their students were on
(23:26):
track at the beginning of firstgrade and 90% were on track at
the end of first grade.
That's what I'd be looking for.
And then I'd want to know notjust what program are you using,
that would be a starting placebut, as you suggested, I'd be
asking them well, how did yougroup students?
What kind of professionaldevelopment and coaching did you
(23:46):
provide to teachers to deliverthat program?
What kinds of support staff didyou have in place to support
that?
What was the schedule like?
How did you select students forintervention?
What kinds of observation didyou do to support teachers to
deliver that program?
So all of those additionalsupports around the program also
(24:10):
have to be in place.
So you know, school leaders arein a tough place.
That's who Sarah and I wrotethe book for, trying to help
them understand the science ofreading.
Really cutting to the chase, inthe first part of that book
we're really trying to get tothe meat of what we think school
leaders need to know aboutreading and reading instruction
(24:32):
is sort of a crash course, butthey really do have to have
trusted advisors.
They need to, you know, vet thepeople that they're listening
to.
They need to listen to theirstaff.
They need to not disregardtheir staff because, as you said
, their staff may be four orfive years ahead of them on
their structured literacyjourney and they actually might
(24:52):
know better than the schoolleader does.
So they should definitelylisten to them.
And then the bottom line isalways the student data.
So if you come into a schoolsystem and you know you think
you have the way forward, that'sterrific, that can be very
helpful, but it might not workwith this group of students, it
(25:12):
might not work with this staff,it might not work in this school
community.
So you've got to let the dataguide you in making those
decisions.
And that's what MTSS is allabout, getting those
collaborative teams in placewith the right kinds of data and
having the thinking structure,what are the questions we should
be asking with our data?
What kinds of decisions shouldwe be making?
(25:35):
What should be guiding us inthose decisions?
That's what MTSS is all about.
Jocelyn (25:41):
Wonderful and it's the contextualisation, I think that
is the key.
The other thing that'sincredibly important you
mentioned coaching.
So we know that often when aprogram or an approach is
studied, there are expertcoaches on hand to support
teachers, and then people tryand take that approach or the
(26:02):
program and implement it withoutthat expert level of coaching
in the mix and then they don'tnecessarily see the same
results, and that just comesback to, the best dollar we
invest is the dollar we investin people.
At the end of the day, thetools are necessary and they
must be robust and they must beat least evidence- informed, if
(26:23):
not evidence- based, and we haveto have a clear line of sight.
But it's the investment inpeople and helping them not just
understand the reading space,but also about the learning
sciences and the lessons we have, about cognitive load and
information processing andworking memory and all of those
sorts of things as well.
So, leaders, if you have theopportunity to have a great
(26:45):
coach in your school, pleasehave them.
And different states havedifferent systems here in
Australia, so there's differentapproaches to that, but one of
the things that we do haveconsistently across all of our
states and territories inAustralia is schools that range
significantly in their size.
So the smallest school I evertaught in had eight children,
(27:07):
and three of them were my own.
I was pretty good for theschool numbers there, but we
have a lot of schools who aresometimes I've got 20, 30, 40
students in the entire primaryschool.
We know that when you work in aschool of that size, which I
have, you wear many hats.
So if I was a leader or ateacher in a small school, even
(27:29):
up to 150 students, it's stillnot big enough to have this big
group of adults around who cando all of this work.
What are the absolute must-dosthat are needed to build those
multi-tiered system of supportstructures that you're talking
about so that you can meet theneeds of the students?
(27:50):
What's the absolute meat andpotatoes that they have to have
for it to work?
Stephanie (27:58):
Well, you might not believe this, but I think MTSS
can sometimes work better insmall schools like that, because
in large systems they sometimeshave more money and they use
the money to hire people andthen they get very entrenched in
roles and titles and jobdescriptions and they're
completely unflexible.
(28:19):
So having the assumption thatyou're going to wear many hats
as an adult in the system isactually good.
That's one of the tenets ofMTSS, flexible service delivery.
So that can work in your favour.
I think the really big idea inMTSS is what I've already
mentioned and that is targetinginstruction to the students'
(28:41):
needs.
The first instruction and thenintensifying that support as the
data suggests that you need it.
And you cannot get off step onewith MTSS without data.
So screening, diagnostic andprogress monitoring data and
somebody to talk about thosedata with.
(29:02):
It might be two of you in thesystem right, it might be you
and a community member, it mightbe you and a parent, but two
people at least talking aboutwhat you see in the data and
what the implications of thatare for your system.
So, nuts and bolts wise, youmay, in a small system, do a lot
(29:24):
of cross-grade grouping.
Again, the important piece isskill-based targeted instruction
and, as much as possible,having that instruction
delivered by an adult.
So sometimes when people hear mesay skill-based instruction in
as small a group as you can getit, they think that means the
(29:46):
teacher is with a small groupand everybody else is doing
their own thing, and that's notat all what I mean.
So in a small system you mayhave to beg, borrow and steal
for other adults to deploy thisapproach, or you may have to be
very intentional and carefulabout what the other students
are doing while the teacher iswith a group of students and you
(30:11):
might have to be planful aboutwhich group of students you're
with most frequently.
So again, the concept is thestudents who are behind or at
risk need more and betterinstruction.
So that means teacher-led smallgroup instruction every day for
that group of students and ifyou're going to target where
their current skill level is,and that's below grade level,
(30:34):
they need extra doses of that,more time each day.
So maybe two small grouplessons with an adult.
You may have to get verycreative about who are those
adults and making sure that youare training those other adults.
They could be communityvolunteers, parent volunteers I
would use very sparingly.
(30:56):
There are confidentialityissues there, but in certain
circumstances it can work.
But I have literally seen everyavailable pair of hands in
school systems used as readinginstructors, from cafeteria
workers to librarians, to busdrivers, to custodians,
(31:17):
secretaries, every single adultin school systems trained, just
like the teachers have beentrained, to deliver that
intervention program and thatcan work very well.
But it takes thinking out ofthe box.
It takes, you know, thinkingdifferently and flexibly, and I
think that's really at the heartof MTSS.
(31:37):
Again designing the system thatyour students need, whatever
your local context might be.
Jocelyn (31:45):
I've never worked with a school who's gone to flexible
grouping across classroomsrather than streaming, because
streaming implies that we'veidentified the students who we
think are smarter or, you know,dumber than the others, and then
they're stuck in a track, andthat's not what we're talking
about.
We're talking about adjustingthose groups every time we do a
(32:05):
data collection so that they'regetting exactly what they need.
And I've never had a school godown that road who's ever
elected to go back, because theresults speak for themselves.
Stephanie (32:20):
That's right, but it is not tracking.
It's not- you're in this lowestquote unquote group across all
subjects all day or you're goingto be there forever.
I think this is a reallyimportant point to clarify that
the grade level standards.
Do you have standards at eachgrade level in Australia, like
(32:40):
we do in the US?
Yeah, so those are the outcomesthat we're working towards at
the end of the grade level.
They are always the outcomes aswe get into second grade and
above focus mostly on readingcomprehension.
That's where we're going forevery student.
But every student doesn't startthere and just teaching those
grade level standards does notmake it miraculously happen for
(33:04):
students.
We have to start them wherethey are with the objective of
getting them to those outcomesas fast as we can, and we move
them faster towards thoseoutcomes by double dosing that
tiered model.
It is meant to be temporary.
It is not streaming, as yousaid, or tracking as we call it
in the US.
It is a temporary solution andthe sooner we do it, if we start
(33:29):
that in kindergarten, if westart it in first grade, we can
actually have every first graderreading for meaning at the end
of the first grade school yearand not have to worry about all
this difficult grouping acrossthe grade level, flexible
grouping in second grade andabove.
So it's really worth taking thelead of what's in the research
(33:50):
and focusing on prevention andfocusing on targeting those
skill deficits.
That's not a dirty word, it'snot deficit thinking.
It's actually the way that wemove students forward by doing
that double dosing that'sdepicted in the MTSS tiered
model.
Jocelyn (34:09):
Wonderful.
I think, Stephanie, we've givenour listeners a lot to think
about and potentially they mayhave more questions than they
began the episode with.
That's sometimes how it works.
So, everybody, you can reachout on the Structured Literacy
Bus Facebook group with anyfollow-up questions that you may
have from this episode.
(34:30):
But what are the final thoughtsyou'd like to leave listeners
with as they're grappling withthis quite difficult but highly
achievable task of meeting theneeds of all of the students in
front of us?
Stephanie (34:45):
Well, I imagine, if they are listening to your
podcast, in your Facebook groupand reading your blogs and
following you, Jocelyn, they arewell informed, and so I would
applaud them first and foremost.
I've just been so impressed byteachers that I've encountered,
especially in the last fiveyears, taking it upon themselves
(35:05):
to educate themselves.
They understand how importantliteracy is, and they are not
just sitting back and taking iteasy.
They are figuring out how to bemore effective with their
students.
So, first and foremost, Iapplaud all of those hardworking
teachers.
Don't be quiet, you know youdon't have to be rude, you don't
(35:27):
have to shout, but don't bequiet about what you need to
serve your students and what'sworking for your students.
Engage your school leaders.
Make sure that they know whatyou're curious about, what's
working, what's not working.
Band together with anotherteacher in your system to have
those conversations with yourschool leader.
(35:48):
If the leadership is moving ina direction that you don't think
has any evidence or isn'tmatched to what your students
need, I just want you to feelempowered.
Don't just sit back and take it.
You may actually know betterthan they do.
And again, you don't have to bebossy or loud about it, but
speak up on behalf of yourstudents.
(36:08):
This may be, well, it is yourstudents' only chance in this
grade level, and the way thatthey are taught reading and
writing is life-alteringpotentially.
So now I'm scaring peoplebecause I'm really laying it on
thick, but there are resourcesout there for you and there are
(36:28):
groups that you can join to getsupport.
So that's what I encourage youto do is reach out if you need
that, support, band togetherwith other people in your system
and don't be afraid to speak upto your leadership.
Jocelyn (36:42):
And I think when it's, sometimes these discussions can
become a little emotive and alittle heated in some
circumstances.
At the end of the day, if yourdata is showing that there are
students not being served by thecurrent approach, something has
(37:02):
to change.
It doesn't mean you have to tipeverything upside down and
start again, but we need to beasking that question, who is not
being served by what justhappened?
And using our data to figurethat out.
And, Stephanie, you mentionedAcadiance and DIBELS and we have
those here in Australia andthey are being adopted and
embraced for their purpose,which is as a universal screener
(37:27):
, to help point us in thedirection of what to do.
But it's also an evaluation ofthe effectiveness of instruction
and it's not about taking itpersonally, it's not about
saying "but I like it's.
What do the students in frontof us today need?
Recognising that as your teamgrows capacity, as the
structures grow and strengthen,what it looks like this year may
(37:49):
be very different from what itlooks like in three years,
because we got better at it aswe went along, so we were able
to be more effective.
Have every moment have bang forthe buck and really do the
things that we knew were goingto make the biggest difference.
Stephanie, it has been anabsolute pleasure.
Can you let people know wherethey can find the book and how
(38:12):
they can hear more from you?
Stephanie (38:14):
Thank you.
Yes, so people can find me onFacebook, Stephanie Stollar
Consulting and my website, whereI have all my other social
media connections.
My blog, access to my ReadingScience Academy and my MTSS
course is www.
readingscienceacademy.
com.
The book MTSS for ReadingImprovement is available from
(38:38):
Solution Tree and they will shipto Australia.
The first shipping date, Ithink, is May 9th, so pre-orders
are available now.
Sarah and I are happy torespond to any questions that
people have.
You know, making these changesin systems is challenging, as
(38:58):
you said, Jocelyn, but itabsolutely can and must be done.
So it's been a real pleasuretalking with you.
We've known each othervirtually for quite some time
and it's great to be connectedto you in this way, so thanks
for the opportunity.
Jocelyn (39:13):
My pleasure.
Thank you so much for bravingthe time zone difference.
Everybody, have a fantasticTerm 2 if you're listening at
the time that this is beingreleased.
If not, well, just enjoywhatever term you're in.
You know that you can make adifference.
Every change you make in thedirection of providing targeted
(39:33):
instruction is a gift to yourstudents.
You're not going to do it allovernight or by next week, but
have a timeline, have sensiblesteps, look after yourselves and
you really can make this happen.
Until I see you next, everyone,happy teaching, bye.
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