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The outcomes of your Crucial Conversations are largely determined by what you do before you even open your mouth. To hold a successful Crucial Conversation, we need to Start with Heart. And by "heart" we mean intent or motive.

The first thing that degrades in a Crucial Conversation isn't our behavior but our motives. We can quickly go from wanting to learn and understand to wanting to win, be right, and defend ourselves-and usually we don't even notice it. Eventually, what we are thinking, feeling, and wanting will impact the conversation.

In other words, motives influence behavior. Get your motives right, better dialogue will follow.

How Do I Start with Heart?

To Start with Heart, you'll want to do three things:

1. Get clear on what your motives are.

2. Improve them if necessary.

3. Make sure others understand them.

As already mentioned, our motives deteriorate before our behavior does, and in crucial moments we often don't notice this.

The other challenge is that others can often misinterpret our motives when stakes are high and opinions vary. For example, they may wonder whether we cared more about looking good than finding solutions. Or it may appear as though we wanted to punish our team rather than help them. Once you've established good intent it's important to convey it.

Thus, Start with Heart means to address your motives first, and then make sure they're visible to others. Here's how.

Work on Me First, Us Second

The first step is to stop believing that others are the source of all our problems. It's our dogmatic conviction that "if we could just fix those losers, all would go better" that keeps us from taking action that could lead to dialogue and progress.

Those who are best at dialogue turn this logic around. They believe that the best way to work on "us" is to work on "me." They realize not only that they are likely to benefit by improving their own approach, but also that the only one they can influence anyway is themselves.

This insight brings with it true personal power. As much as others may need to change, or we may want them to change, the only person we can continually inspire, prod, and shape-with any degree of success-is the person in the mirror.

So, step one is to recognize that you are the solution to any conversational challenge you face.

Focus on What You Really Want

The next step is to become aware of the motive that's possessing you. This is harder than it might seem. When a conversation turns crucial, our mind and emotions can often get hijacked and we resort to silence or verbal violence. It's not easy to be self-aware in such moments. So, what can you do?

Look for clues. You can discern your motives from the outside in by asking yourself a few questions. Step away from the interaction and look at yourself as an observer would, then ask yourself "What does it look like I want?" Or "What am I acting like I want?"

As you try to discover your motive, you might conclude: "Let's see, I'm cutting people off, overstating my points, shaking my head at others' comments. Yep! I've gone from trying to launch this product to trying to win an argument."

Once you acknowledge the desires of your heart, you can begin to change them. And you can do that by asking yourself "What do I really want?"

What do I really want for myself?

What I really want for others?

What do I really want for the relationship?

These questions help you focus on long-term, healthy outcomes, rather than short-term, self-serving outcomes.

Once you're free of the short-term motive to win, be right, save face, punish others, build a reputation, or any of those other motives that can possess us in crucial moments, healthy answers will come to you. "What I really want is to develop a great product and a great team."

Finally, ask yourself this: "What should I do right now to move toward what I really want?" See the next steps.

Refuse the Fool's Choice

You'll know your heart is beginning to change and that you can begin to dialogue when you seek an inclusive solution rather than exclusive one.

When faced with Crucial Conversations, we tend to delve into either-or thinking. We believe we can either seek our interests or theirs, but not both. We assume we can either be honest and offend our friend, or keep our mouths shut and preserve a relationship.

So, we either fight for own viewpoint or interests, or we withdraw our voice and sacrifice our interests to "keep the peace."

The problem is these tactics don't preserve relationships or keep the peace, and they don't generate the best results.

They're all examples of the Fool's Choice-the thinking that there's one solution to a challenge.

Those who are best at dialogue refuse the Fool's Choice by setting up new choices. They present themselves with tougher questions that turn either-or thinking into a search for the all-important "and."

The questions outlined above will help you find inclusive solutions. Notice that they put you in a position to think about what you want for yourself and for others. "What do I want for myself and the relationship?"

When you face Crucial Conversations, think about the problem more fully by bringing and into the equation. "How can I help this project move forward quickly and get everyone's input?" "How can I convey to my partner that I don't want to spend Christmas with his family and I love him deeply?"

Once your heart is in a good place, it's time to share your good intent. Whether you're resuming a Crucial Conversation after correcting course or just entering one, sharing your good motives can put others at ease in a high-stakes situation.

But let's be clear: sharing good intent does not mean flattery. Don't sandwich an honest opinion between dishonest compliments. Instead, make it clear to the other person that you care about their interests.

Sharing good intent might sound like this:

"I'm really struggling with how you discipline the children, but I also don't think we should raise them "my" way. We're in this together, and I want to find ways of rearing them together. Can we talk about it from that angle?

"I know we have different ideas of what will make this project successful, but I want you to know I respect your viewpoint and I want to better understand it. Maybe we can find a way to achieve what we both want. Can we back up a little bit and talk through our ideas again?"

"I don't share your opinion on the upcoming election, but I also don't want to argue about it. I wouldn't want to jeopardize our friendship. I think the topic is fascinating and it's clear that you do too, so if we talk about it, I'd want to focus on respecting each other and trying to better understand each other's viewpoint. What do you think?"

Start with Heart in Summary

Success in Crucial Conversations starts with YOU. And it starts with heart. Remember to first look inward to establish good intent, and then verbally share your good intent. Only then can you begin to dialogue and get better results in crucial moments.
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Crucial Conversations Skill Summary: Start with Heart | Crucial Learning

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The outcomes of your Crucial Conversations are largely determined by what you do before you open your mouth. The key is to Start with Heart.

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It's safe to say that 90% of your communication is awesome. In regular, routine, and casual conversation, most of us do great!

We give instructions. We ask for clarification. We paraphrase. We ask people to repeat the messages we misunderstand. We repeat messages so others understand. We're handling those types of conversations like the experts would recommend!

How do I know? Well, in 1990, VitalSmarts began researching effective communication. We'd go into businesses and organisations and ask people to identify the best communicators in their workplace. Then, we'd observe them to see how they communicate so effectively.

Over 12 years, we clocked more than 10,000 hours of observation watching master communicators at all levels of organisations - executive, middle-level management, first lane supervisory, and below.

We wanted to know (union leaders or not, profit or nonprofit, government or private sector), how do the very best communicators do what they do?

We identified 29 interpersonal skills, named eight primary strategies of communication, and gained many other helpful insights. But we also found that the way we handle crucial conversations makes all the difference in our results and relationships.

The 90/10 Breakdown

See, about 90% of our communication is routine, regular, and casual. And we do really well at it!

Keep doing what you're doing! That's why you're as successful as you are.

But what about the other 10%? These are the conversations that aren't regular, routine, or casual. These are what we call "crucial" conversations.

And this is where we see people melt-down. Reasonable, rational people do silly things, awful things they later regret in that 10% realm of communication. They give the silent treatment. They throw tantrums. They get violent. They bully and threaten. And later, they're usually very sorry for it.

So, what happened to our great communication skills? If we're so good at our regular conversations, why are these 10% conversations so hard?

At VitalSmarts, we decided to study those tough conversations to really understand their implications. We asked, "If tough conversations were handled differently, would it make a difference?" Here's what we found.

How 10% Conversations Made a 100% Impact

I was asked to work with an executive team that was "struggling." So, I started by interviewing the team members.

I sat down with the first person and asked, "So, what's the problem with the team?"
"The CEO is the problem with the team." "What's the problem with the CEO?" "He's authoritarian. He's a micromanager. He won't listen. He's abusive." "Give me an example. How is he abusive?" "In last week's team meeting, he called me an S.O.B. - only he didn't bother to abbreviate it." "That doesn't seem appropriate." "I thought not, but that's not all..."
Then, he gave me an entire list of crude phrases, threats, and ultimatums this CEO had used publicly. I took notes and thanked him for the interview.

I sat down with the next team member and asked, "What's the problem with the team?"
"The CEO is the problem with the team."
Then she gave me the same list of complaints.

By the time I interviewed each team member, they were in unanimous agreement about what (and who) was the problem. Finally, I had the chance to interview the CEO.

I asked, "What's the problem with the team?"

He said, "You know, I haven't quite been able to figure that out. I'm not sure what's wrong, but we're just not coming together."
"Interesting... How would you characterise your leadership style?" "Me? Oh, I'm patient. I like people. I'm a good listener. I give people high degrees of freedom so they can find their own best way to do their job. I guess you'd call me a participative leader."
"Oh, that's so interesting." Then, I flipped through my notes. "Have you ever called anyone an SOB?"

Then I went down the list.

He chuckled, "Whoa. Guilty as charged. But you've got to understand something - that only happens on the rare occasion I get really upset and then I quickly apologise."

Why were their descriptions so different? Were they even describing the same person? The team members were describing their CEO as he acted 10% of the time. The CEO described himself as he acted 90% of the time.

Later, through my observations, I even verified those numbers. Ninety per cent of the time, the CEO was patient and a good listener. But 10% of the time, he was different. And those were the conversations that had the most impact. The 10% conversations literally formed the relationships and became barriers to results.

Would the same principle be true in say... Parenting? Marriage?

The way we handle those 10% conversations is critical to our relationships and results. Think of the relationships at work you wish would get better. Think of the results you wish your team could achieve. With the right tools to navigate the 10% conversations, improved relationships and results are possible.

After all, these aren't just difficult, tough, or fierce conversations - these are crucial conversations. Crucial to results and crucial to relationships.

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Can 10% Of Your Conversations Ruin Results and Relationships? Yes! Here's How: - Crucial Dimensions

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90% of our communication is routine, regular, and casual. And we do really well at it! But what about the other 10%? These are the conversations that aren't regular, routine, or casual. And this is where people melt-down.

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Can 10% Of Your Conversations Ruin Results and Relationships? Yes! Here’s How:

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At the conclusion of each of the last 17 years of my leadership career, I add one phrase that best sums up my experience. Number 17 is, by far, the most profound and significant up to this point.  🙏 🙌 💙

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We've recently had the pleasure of watching a few great videos shared with us by the team at Rivers Primary Academy in Walsall, England. The clips exemplify not just impressive implementation and adaptation of TLAC techniques but-pretty clearly, we think a culture that takes the support and development of teachers seriously. I'm going to share a few of their clips over the coming weeks, starting today with this lovely example of, among other things, Cold Call, Stretch It and Wait Time in Beth Peakman's classroom during a reading of "Wind in the Willows."

Here are some of the things we loved:

We love the way Beth previews that she his going to Cold Call and combines this with extensive (and transparent) Wait Time. There's such deep synergy in those two moves. Cold Call is better when students can see it coming and when students have time to prepare. The Wait Time lets everyone do that. Bonus points to Beth for her careful scan during the "thinking time": kind of fascinating to think about what she could be scanning for: who is engaged and who isn't? who looks like they have something interesting to say? who needs a tiny bit of eye contact as encouragement? And of course we love Beth's self-discipline. After she promises thinking time she delivers: about ten seconds of it! Just maybe part of the purpose of the scan is to slow herself down and make sure she doesn't rush her pupils.

"Let's go to.... Isla! Everybody track Isla." We love Beth's tone throughout... though you can really here it in the way she calls on Isla. She's intrigued and welcoming- like she can't wait to hear what Isla has to say. She walks toward her slightly and tilts her head as if t signal her fascination with what Isla might say. Not insignificantly, the message from the tracking of Isla's peers also suggests that they value what she's going to say as well.

Next there's a round of follow-up questioning. Isla has rightly pointed out that Mole was embarrassed but Beth would like a little more. She wants to Stretch It and raise the standard of what a full and complete answer entails. But of course as she does this Beth's tone is conversational, like they are chatting about the book, and her body language continues to encourage Isla and show her appreciation for what Isla's said. Just lovely stuff.

In order to help Isla improve her answer she sends her back to the text-"Can you remember what he said?" she asks-but adds a brilliant little move. "Have a look everybody," she says. This both causes everyone else to also look for the evidence...and make a habit of looking for evidence...but also subtly takes a bit of pressure off of Isla... it gives her a little time without everyone looking at her to step back and think. We LOVE tracking but we also love a teacher who recognizes a good moment to not use it.

Finally my personal very favorite moment in the clip. "So should we say it again but say it better?" Just a lovely way of pushing a student to refine her answer asking for a more complete answer. It feels like such a good thing-an opportunity-and she subtly gives Isla credit for her original thinking while also norming the idea of improvement.

And no surprise, Isla crushes it. At first her answer had been "I think he might have turned red because he was embarrassed." Now she's upgraded to: "I think Toad might have been feeling embarrassed because when he said, "My house is the finest house on the river, Rat nudged the Mole." She's added evidence, improved her syntax and embedded a quotation. And Beth has lovingly communicated the message that what we do with good answers is make them better.

No wonder there's celebration at the end!

Thank you to Beth, her students (Go, Isla!) and the team at Rivers Primary for sharing their lovely teaching with us. More coming soon!

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Beth Peakman Combines Cold Call, Wait Time and Stretch It While Reading Wind in the Willows - Teach Like a Champion

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We've recently had the pleasure of watching a few great videos shared with us by the team at Rivers Primary Academy in Walsall, England. The clips exemplify not just impressive implementation and adaptation of TLAC techniques but-pretty clearly, we think a culture that takes the support and development of teachers seriously.

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Carl Cole was alarmed by the growing number of students sent to him for special education in the late 1990s. He was director of special education for the Bethel School District near Eugene, and he doubted that so many kids had learning disabilities.

One of the district's elementary schools was referring nearly one in five students to special education, and most of them were struggling readers. When he went to visit their classrooms, he realized why.

"Many kids were what we later coined 'instructionally disabled,' not special education," Cole said in a recent interview. In other words, they weren't being taught to read in ways that many experts, especially those in the field of special education, knew all kids needed to be taught.

The Capital Chronicle determined that Oregon has spent more than $250 million in the past 25 years on reading. But that money has failed to help more than a generation of students. Over the last 25 years, nearly two in five fourth graders and one in five eighth graders have scored "below basic" on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the nation's report card. That means they struggle to read and understand simple words. Today, few Oregon fourth and eighth graders are proficient readers, according to the report card.

To address this, Gov. Tina Kotek is backing the state's single largest reading investment in two decades, the Early Literacy Success Initiative, a $140 million grant program to get "evidence-based literacy instruction" methods into classrooms in districts that apply for the funding. Kotek and the bill's supporters have said it will finally get the "science of reading" into Oregon classrooms, though it's yet to pass the Legislature that's been stalled by a Republican-led walkout.

Since the 1960s, hundreds of studies have been conducted to find the most effective ways to teach kids to read. There is today a large body of cognitive and neuroscience research, and evidence - often referred to as "the science of reading" - that has shown that the human brain does not learn to read or write naturally, but relies on explicit instruction in a specific set of skills. Everyone needs these skills to read, but they learn them at different speeds.

Among the first and most fundamental skills kids must develop is learning to decode written words by mapping sounds to letters and letter combinations, known as phonics. It's a skill around 60% of kids will struggle with unless they are given frequent and explicit instruction in the earliest grades. And among the most studied instructional methods for developing those phonics skills - proven to help all kids learn to read, especially those struggling most - was one developed by education psychologists and special education experts at the University of Oregon in Eugene 60 years ago.
An ABC News anchor interviews Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann on the program "20/20" in 2007. Engelmann developed Direct Instruction for teaching reading, which had great results: Students taught with the program in a national study showed the highest gains in reading proficiency among all students, across reading skills.
Yet in many classrooms in Oregon and across the country, kids have been taught in ways that do not reflect all of that research. Instead, in many districts, curricula and instruction are based on theories popularized in the last few decades that rely less on robust phonics instruction, and instead favor teaching kids to read whole words on sight through memorization, and to use context clues and pictures to make guesses about words.

Proponents of these methods, which assume that kids will grow into reading if they're exposed to good books, were pitted against proponents of robust phonics instruction in the mid-1990s in what's known as "the reading wars," which took over schools and state legislatures.

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Decades of Investments

That reading would come naturally to kids was the assumption among teachers in Bethel back in 1999 and it was having detrimental effects, Cole said.

He tapped special education and education psychology experts at the University of Oregon to help him create, over three years, a sea change in reading instruction in the district's six elementary schools. Cole and those experts went on to play roles in the largest federal investment in elementary reading instruction in U.S. history.

At the turn of the millennium, Oregon and the University of Oregon were poised to become models for the nation of how an entire state could change reading instruction to align with the decades of reading science.

Since the late 1990s, more than $250 million in state and federal tax dollars have been invested in programs to boost reading ability among Oregon students, according to an analysis of financial reports, reports from the Legislative Policy and Research Office and public records requests by the Capital Chronicle. More than a dozen committees, boards and councils were created by four governors, tasked with improving reading among Oregon students.

But those governors, legislators and education agency leaders failed to implement and sustain wide scale-teaching and curricular change that would improve outcomes for the kids struggling the most.

The failure to learn to read is the most serious problem facing education in the U.S. today.
- Former state Sen. Charles Starr, R-Hillsboro, at a May 1999 meeting of Oregon's Senate Education Committee
The Oregon Legislature has never put the state Department of Education in charge of wide scale reform or given it the authority to hold schools accountable when students fail to show improvement year after year, despite the Legislature being in charge of two-thirds of state school funding. Instead, it's used the education department to distribute state and federal reading investments to districts, along with recommendations for spending the money. Both the Legislature and education department continue to leave decisions about reading instruction, reading curriculum and teacher training to individual teachers, school district administrators and school boards.

At no point in the last 25 years have state leaders moved to override local control - a foundational principle of Oregon education for decades - from the state's 197 districts to uniformly improve reading instruction for all students.

The state's latest attempt to get the science of reading into Oregon classrooms is not the first proposal of its kind. There was the Oregon Early Reading Initiative a decade ago, and the Early Success Reading Initiative a decade before that. There was the 2002 plan sent from the state education department to the federal education department for millions in funding titled: " Oregon Plan to Connect the Science of Reading to Schools and Classrooms ."

In an interview with the Capital Chronicle, Kotek said she wasn't aware of that 21-year-old plan. Her two education policy advisors, Pooja Bhatt and Melissa Goff, declined interview requests from the Capital Chronicle.

'The reading wars' in Oregon

Oregon was not immune to the reading wars of the 1990s, which had become not just educational, but political. Phonics instruction was a favorite topic of former state Sen. Charles Starr, a conservative Republican from Hillsboro known for controversial proposals such as allowing schools to post signs of the Ten Commandments. But Starr was onto something with reading instruction. He tried at least three times between 1998 and 2003 to propose legislation that would mandate Oregon school districts provide explicit phonics instruction in the earliest grades and ensure schools had access to curricula that included phonics instruction. According to meeting minutes from a hearing on one of Starr's bills, in May 1999, just 15 of the state's 197 districts had K-5 literacy instruction that included direct phonics instruction.

"The failure to learn to read is the most serious problem facing education in the U.S. today," he told his peers in the Legislature 24 years ago.

Passage of Starr's phonics proposals through the Republican controlled House and Senate were largely divided along party lines, and Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber vetoed two of Starr's three proposals that made it to his desk. Mandating phonics nationwide had come to be seen as Republican dogma, an attempt to standardize and regulate teachers and teaching. An article in the Willamette Week from 2001 quoted one lobbyist saying Starr had become obsessed with phonics.

" Nearly every bill that came up in committee he attached a phonics amendment to. There was the phonics game, a phonics pilot program, it was silly," the lobbyist said.

It's unclear if Kitzhaber had any strong political feelings about Starr's bills. The then-governor was arguably more preoccupied at the time with keeping schools financially solvent than he was with reading curriculum. There wasn't any money for massive educational reform. Voters had passed Measure 5 in 1991 and Measure 50 in 1997, both of which capped the state's ability to tax property to help pay for schools. School funding from those taxes had dropped by two-thirds. The state education department didn't even have a reading specialist at the time to oversee a curricular shift or any major investment in phonics. Kitzhaber had cut the position to save money.

Bethel Reading Project

To transform reading instruction in Bethel in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cole tapped three heavy hitters from the University of Oregon. Edward Kame'enui, Deborah Simmons and Beth Harn were all experts in reading and specifically, special education reading instruction.

Cole and the experts discovered there was no continuity in how reading was taught across classrooms, grades and schools in Bethel, because of local control. Many students were not being taught according to the science. Students might get some phonics instruction, but not enough to fully develop those decoding skills. Some students were taught to read and memorize whole words before they had learned to decode them, akin to learning how to multiply before learning to add.

The philosophy was, according to Cole: "Kids will read when they're ready."

With a $700,000 federal grant, they launched the Bethel Reading Project. They began retraining teachers and educational assistants in reading science, providing frequent assessments and extra instruction for students struggling most. Teachers agreed to switch to curricula focused on explicit phonics instruction. Within three years, Bethel went from about 15% of students leaving first grade unable to read, to less than 2%. By 2003, the proportion of third graders meeting state standards in reading rose from 79% to 92%. School employee associations and leaders in other districts asked Cole's staff and the UO researchers to give presentations about what they'd done in Bethel, but there wasn't any major effort from Oregon education leaders to fund or scale the experiment elsewhere, he said.

"I actually got tired of doing Oregon presentations because we did so many of them," Cole said. "There wasn't any strong support from the Oregon Department of Education."

Reading First

While the Bethel Reading Project was wrapping up, the federal government was rolling out its single largest investment - $6 billion over six years - in improving reading proficiency called "Reading First." It was part of the No Child Left Behind Act that Congress passed in 2001, which required states to get all students to "proficient" levels on state tests by the 2013-14 school year. If schools wanted a piece of the $6 billion, they needed to get reading instruction in their classrooms aligned with the reading science.

Kame'enui and Simmons would become major architects of Reading First and of the program's rollout in Oregon. Leaders at the state department of education submitted a 220-page application for Reading First money, including the seven-point plan titled " Oregon Plan to Connect the Science of Reading to Schools and Classrooms ."
Edward Kame'enui gives a presentation in 2002 on the importance of preparing teachers to teach reading according to the reading science during the White House Conference on Teacher Training and Recruitment.
In 2002, UO became one of three universities in the nation that was designated a " Reading First Center " to retrain teachers, train reading coaches for schools and facilitate research to instruct teachers across the U.S. on the most effective instructional methods rooted in scientific research.

"We would develop all these materials and hold these institutes for three, four, maybe five days - all day long - training teachers on the big ideas of beginning reading," Kame'enui said.

For many districts, Reading First was the first time there was money to hire reading specialists and reading coaches for schools. It was also, for many, the first time students got explicit and direct phonics instruction, especially kids who struggled the most.

The rollout wasn't perfect across the country, and some studies would later find that gains didn't materialize or were not sustained in schools where implementation was poorly done. But in many places where Reading First was implemented well, it seemed to be working.

Before Reading First, only 18% of students at Humboldt Elementary School in Portland were at grade level for reading. After four years of Reading First, nearly 75% were.
Students from the University of Oregon made the documentary Hope For Humboldt in 2008, showing the progress students at the Portland elementary school had made under Reading First.
Kame'enui and Simmons went on to consult with the U.S. Department of Education. Cole, the special education director at Bethel, went to work for the Western Regional Reading First Center to help spread Reading First across the West and to support schools with its implementation.

But by 2008, Reading First had imploded. Academics whose curriculum did not meet program standards accused Kame'enui, Simmons and other prominent Reading First figures of using their positions to promote their own textbooks and materials for financial gain. The two professors resigned from advisory positions in the program, and from work they were doing with the U.S. Department of Education. Kame'enui returned to the University of Oregon. He maintains that he and Simmons did not try to promote their work to districts to earn more money.

"It was very painful, but it was political," Kame'enui said.

By the end of 2008, the reading first money had dried up and a financial crisis and recession hit.

Jamila Williams was principal at Humboldt Elementary during Reading First. The school closed in 2013, and Williams lives in Arizona now, but she remembers the fallout vividly.

"We ended up having to really cut things that were important for the kids," she said, "but we didn't have the money for it."

Well-intentioned failures

Despite efforts to sustain gains from Reading First, then superintendent of instruction, Susan Castillo, and then-Gov. Ted Kulongoski remained resistant to instructional mandates, and sustaining funding for schools continued to be the central educational challenge for the Legislature.

Castillo resigned in 2012, and Kitzhaber, who had been elected governor after a seven-year hiatus, appointed former Tigard-Tualatin Superintendent Rob Saxton to the position. Saxton had overseen a successful reading intervention program based on direct instruction and scientifically proven reading methods that targeted students struggling most in his district. It had been so successful that reading experts from his district went on to offer voluntary training to school staff in 90 other Oregon districts.

Eight years have gone by. Fifty thousand students per class go through Oregon schools. That means 400,000 students have not had the kind of exposure to literacy instruction that they should have had in the intervening time.
- Rob Saxton, former deputy superintendent of instruction, Oregon Department of Education
Saxton began developing a proposal for the single largest state investment in state history in reading instruction: $180 million for the " Kindergarten Through Grade Three Reading Initiative " to get kids reading by third grade. It would have provided schools, much like Reading First did, with grants to pay for reading coaches, teacher training and curriculum rooted in the reading science.

"Governor Kitzhaber promised me that he would not sign the budget bill into law until this literacy initiative was funded," Saxton told the Capital Chronicle.

But in February 2015, Kitzhaber abruptly resigned following ethics violations and the attempt died. Saxton resigned several months later to take a job leading the Northwest Regional Education Service District.

"Eight years have gone by," Saxton said. "Fifty thousand students per class go through Oregon schools. That means 400,000 students have not had the kind of exposure to literacy instruction that they should have had in the intervening time."

In those eight years that followed, the Legislature focused on initiatives that would balance the state school fund after decades of disinvestment. Then-Secretary of State Kate Brown became Oregon's governor, and was focused on raising the state's graduation rate, which was among the lowest in the nation. She tapped a former Bethel Schools superintendent, Colt Gill, to become her education innovation officer and eventually to lead the education department.

Graduation rates in Oregon rose under Gill's leadership, but according to state assessments, it's not because students improved in their reading abilities. Gill, whose tenure ends this month, continued to consult with Kame'enui and other experts at the University of Oregon while at Bethel and at the department of education, he said. But any attempt at instructional reform in reading took a backseat to his priorities as director of the department when, a year into the job, COVID hit.

He said he hopes to see the Early Literacy Success Initiative signed into law. It is, in many ways, a carbon copy of what his predecessor, Rob Saxton, had proposed eight years ago, with about $40 million less than what Saxton had wanted at the time. Gill, like his predecessors, trusts districts to be in charge of improving reading instruction without the state education department taking the lead.

"We're going to have to continue to work on it over the next several biennia to be able to get the outcomes we're looking for," he said. "We didn't get here overnight."
Next: Part 2: Failure to teach kids to read starts at Oregon teacher colleges This project was funded by the Urang Schuberth family in the Portland area. The Capital Chronicle was rigorous in maintaining a firewall between the project and the funders. States Newsroom, the nonprofit 501c(3) organization based in North Carolina that created and funds the Capital Chronicle, oversaw the project funding.
Major reading investments in Oregon

Over the past 25 years, Oregon has spent millions of dollars on improving reading in schools. And yet, many students still struggle.

Here's a look at the investments:

1998: Oregon gets $8 million between 1999 and 2002 under the federal Reading Excellence Act of 1998 to launch Oregon READS. It aimed to get kids ready to learn to read once they entered kindergarten and first grade, and to teach every child to read by the end of third grade. It paid for teacher professional development, family literacy programs and literacy interventions to reduce the number of children being inappropriately referred to special education.

1999: Funded by state and federal and private grants, the Oregon Reading Initiative distributed money to districts for evidence-based teacher training in literacy and promoted reading programs.

2001: The Legislature passed the Early Success Reading Initiative . It authorized the Department of Education to award grants to 30 specified school districts for pilot projects to establish early success reading sites in individual schools.

2001: Under the federal Reading First program, Oregon got $48.3 million over six years. Of the state's 660 primary schools, 50 were chosen throughout that time to become Reading First Schools.

2001: The state Legislature allocated $140 million to the Department of Education for schools to improve reading.

2001-2002: Oregon received $2.5 million from the federal government under the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Project to pay for research-based reading programs in 19 elementary schools and six secondary schools.

2005: The Oregon Department of Education received funding to expand a reading intervention program "Response to Intervention" in schools. More than 100 districts benefitted over the following 17 years.

2010: Oregon received up to $15 million under the federal Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program to advance literacy skills for students from birth through 12th grade. Under the federal program, states must provide clear standards and "evidence-based reading and writing curricula," as well as "evidence-based teacher preparation and professional development aligned with standards."

2013: The state Legislature passed the Oregon Early Reading Initiative, which allocated $8 million for improving early literacy, with a goal of getting all students at grade level for reading by the end of third grade.

2019: The state Legislature passes the Student Success Act, directing more than $2 billion every two years to improving outcomes for historically underserved students, including targeted investments in early literacy.

2023: Gov. Tina Kotek backs the state's single largest reading investment in two decades, the Early Literacy Success Initiative, a $140 million grant program to get "evidence-based literacy instruction" methods into classrooms in districts that apply for the funding. The initiative is yet to pass the Legislature due to a Republican-led walkout.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

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SPECIAL REPORT: Oregon fails to turn page on reading: $250 million spent in 25 years - Oregon Capital Chronicle

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After 25 years and more than $250 million, many Oregon kids still struggle to read because they are taught using ineffective methods.

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Simple Tools Ben Katcher Uses To Keep The Big Group on Task (So He Can Work With a Small Group) - Teach Like a Champion

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Watered down instruction is a problem in American classrooms. TNTP's 2018 white paper, The average student "spent more than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren't appropriate for their grade and with instruction that didn't ask enough of them-the equivalent of six months of wasted class time in each core subject." TLAC team-member The Opportunity Myth describes the scope of this problem. Jack Vuylsteke shared some observations about a lesson that provides some pieces of the solution.

In the post-pandemic era, when more students are farther behind, are more and more often asked to answer the

How can I make sure everyone succeeds by giving them extra support rather than simplifying the tasks we ask of them? How can I do this in a classroom full of students of a variety of levels of preparedness

Answering this question and one solution is to work with smaller "pull-out" groups. But of course doing that poses a risk. What if the rest of the class loses its focus?

in his AP US History class at Ben Katcher demonstrates a few keys to solving this challenge Valor Academy in Los Angeles. We see that Ben has his students divided into small groups ; one group has been strategically placed in the front of the classroom because Ben knows these students will need a bit more of his support.

After giving these directions , Ben immediately takes a seat with his target group -the students who need a bit more support . Notice that he has purposefully chosen to position his chair to face outward towards the class- he can see every student in the room from that seat. His group is in the middle of the room where he can see the rest of the class clearly. His chair is placed there in advance in exactly the right spot. He doesn't need to drag a chair over and squeeze in. The transition is seamless. He sits down in perfect position right away.

His tone towards his AP students is quiet and reserved, definitely not over-the-top and OMG so excited. It's just enough to appreciate and demonstrate that he's looking. " ," he says, and then describing the level of effort in the room: " It's a beautiful thing."

Be Seen Looking, Ben Katcher, Jack Vuylsteke, Narrate the Positive, What to Do

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Simple Tools Ben Katcher Uses To Keep The Big Group on Task (So He Can Work With a Small Group) - Teach Like a Champion

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Watered down instruction is a problem in American classrooms. TNTP's 2018 white paper, The Opportunity Myth describes the scope of this problem. The average student "spent more than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren't appropriate for their grade and with instruction that didn't ask enough of them-the equivalent of six months of wasted class time...

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The FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL EMOTIONAL WELLBEING

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Two of the most important culture building techniques in Teach Like a Champion are Habits of Attention and Habits of Discussion.

Habits of Attention is about teachers shaping the non-verbal signals students send to one another when they are talking. When the people in the room are looking at you-and looking a bit interested-you are inclined to share you true thoughts. You're inclined to take some risks. If someone asks you to share your thinking in a room full of people who look like they could not care less what you say and if you speak at all, you say little-just enough to get off the mic-and seek to not speak again. And this obviously diminishes both your learning and your sense that you belong in the classroom. Among teams that care about one another and among high performing teams, people generally are not talking to the backs of other people's heads.

Habits of Discussion is about the idea that whether people talk each other or each other is a key determinant of their sense of belonging and a key driver of their learning. When speakers refer back to what previous speakers said to build off their ideas, rephrase them or connect what they are saying to earlier comments, they show that those comments mattered to them. They make other participants feel validated and important AND ALSO help participants listen better to one another... and thus learn more.

But these techniques are challenging to build into a classroom. They require student buy-in. They require us to build norms and take risks.

Often that means doing a "roll out" where you explain to students the what why and how... and then get them to start building their habits.

That's why we love-LOVE-this video of Steve Kuninsky's class. Steve teaches AP Bio at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology outside Atlanta and here you can see him rolling out these two techniques to his class using an acronym called STAR.

The S is for "Sit up" which as Steve explains is a broader reminder to attend to one's body language and look interested in what classmates are saying

The T is for "Track the speaker. As he puts it in ideal classrooms people aren't talking to the back of each other's heads.

The A is for "Appreciate." Steve reminds his students how important it is to show one another that we appreciate their ideas. He gives them a variety of ways to do that.

The R is for "Rephrase"- the idea that one speaker should build off of the previous.

A couple of things we loved about Steve's rollout:

The way he credits students for already using and thinking about these habits. You guys are already mostly pretty good at the S, he tells them. And many of you do the T. I'd just like us to be more attentive and intentional about it.

The way he combines expectation-we're going to be tracking; we're going t be attentive to body language; I'm going to remind you-with optionality-there are different ways you might choose to show appreciation; we'll be experimenting with it a bit.

The way he includes students in the process of building culture: I'm trying to weight what's going to work for our classroom. We'll figure out what works best for us.

The way he gives students concrete examples of what they could and should do to exemplify the ideas he's talking about.

The way he uses a warm supportive considered tone.

The way he then reinforces right away as they start teaching.

If you're rolling out these techniques and aren't quite sure how to do it, this is a pretty good road map.

Thanks to Steve and his students!

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Steve Kuninsky's Amazing Habits of Attention Roll Out (Video) - Teach Like a Champion

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Two of the most important culture building techniques in Teach Like a Champion are Habits of Attention and Habits of Discussion. Habits of Attention is about teachers shaping the non-verbal signals students send to one another when they are talking. When the people in the room are looking at you-and looking a bit interested-you are...

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Teach Like a Champion - Reading Reconsidered Curriculum

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Thank you, Mr. Timmons!!!!

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Feedback is an essential component of instructional design, as it helps learners assess their progress, correct their errors, and improve their performance. However, not all feedback is equally effective or appropriate for different learning situations. In this article, we will explore some examples of feedback types and how they affect learning outcomes.

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What are some examples of feedback types and how do they affect learning outcomes?

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Feedback is an essential component of instructional design, as it helps learners assess their progress, correct their errors, and improve their performance. However, not all feedback is equally effective or appropriate for different learning situations. In this article, we will explore some examples of feedback types and how they affect learning outcomes.