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Passcode: V^2e5*h0

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Self-Determination Theory

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is a theory of motivation that has been applied in many life domains such as health, sport, education and work. Health is an intrinsic goal for us all that is strongly influenced by our habits and lifestyle choices. Motivation-energy directed at a goal-plays a big role in our lifestyle choices and in our ability to make sustained changes as needed to maintain our health.

According to SDT, all of us have three key psychological needs as depicted graphically below. When our social environments, including the places where we receive health care, are more supportive of these psychological needs, the quality of our motivation is more autonomous. Alternatively, when our psychological needs are not well met or even thwarted through our social interactions, the quality of our motivation is more controlled. Researchers have found through many studies that when people are more autonomously motivated, they are more likely to achieve their health goals over time.
Read on to learn more about the science behind Self-Determination Theory.
Motivation

Early ideas of motivation simply suggested that you either have it (you are motivated) or you don't (you are not motivated, or unmotivated). However, more than 40 years of research has shown that motivation is much more complex than this. The quality of motivation (autonomous or controlled) is key to both satisfaction and sustained success in achieving one's goals.

Motivated behavior can be driven by rewards, punishments and internalized pressures from others. It can also be fueled by deeply held values or interest and enjoyment of the behavior itself. In simple terms, people can feel more pressured or controlled to behave in a certain way or they can feel they have a choice in how to behave. For example, people can be driven by:

Reward: People might try to lose weight because their employer will pay them to lose weight.

Punishment: People might try to lose weight because their insurance company will raise the cost of their health insurance if they don't lose weight.

Internal Pressure: People might try to lose weight because others have told them they should lose weight or they will be upset with them.

Value: People might try to lose weight because they want to be healthier and be a positive role model for their kids.

Interest/Enjoyment: People might try to lose weight because they really like exercising and eating in a healthy way.

When people are mainly motivated by rewards, punishments, and internal pressure, they have a harder time initiating and maintaining their behaviors over the long term. However, when people are more autonomous-that is, when people are motivated more by their value for the behavior, or by their interest and enjoyment of the behavior-they tend to be more persistent in their behavior, feel more satisfied, and have higher well-being overall.

Psychological Needs

Self-determination theory suggests that all humans have three basic psychological needs-autonomy, competence, and relatedness-that underlie growth and development.

Autonomy refers to feeling one has choice and is willingly endorsing one's behavior. The opposite experience is feeling compelled or controlled in one's behavior.

Competence refers to the experience of mastery and being effective in one's activity.

Finally, relatedness refers to the need to feel connected and a sense of belongingness with others.

The social environment (e.g., family, friends, co-workers, health care professionals, culture, etc.) can promote or get in the way of people's strivings by the extent to which they support a person's basic psychological needs.

Autonomy is supported by attempting to grasp and acknowledge the person's wishes, preferences and perspectives, conveying understanding of their point of view, providing a rationale for engaging in a behavior, and providing choice in how to behave. Supporting someone's autonomy also means refraining from trying to control or pressure them to act in a certain way.

Competence is supported by providing the person with optimal challenges and opportunities (specific goals that are challenging enough, but not overwhelming), encouraging their sense of initiation (try it out!), providing structure (for example, evidence-based health recommendations) to mobilize and organize behavior and providing relevant feedback.

Finally, relatedness is supported when others are involved and show interest in the person's activities, are empathic in responding to their feelings and convey that the person is significant, cared for, and loved.

When these needs are optimally supported, evidence suggests that people are more autonomous in their behaviors, are more likely to persist at their behaviors, and feel better overall.

Here at the Center for Community Health & Prevention, our approach is focused on providing you with evidence-based information and supporting your psychological needs so that we can help you discover what works for you on your journey to making healthy changes in your life.

This material is based on the following references:

LaGuardia, J. 2017. Self-determination theory in practice: how to create an optimally supportive health care environment. Middletown, DE. Independently published 2017.

Ntoumanis N, Ng JYY, Prestwich A, Quested E, Hancox JE, Thøgersen-Ntoumani C, Deci EL, Ryan RM, Lonsdale C, Williams GC. A meta-analysis of self-determination theory-informed intervention studies in the health domain: effects on motivation, health behavior, physical, and psychological health. Health Psychol Rev. 2021 Jun;15(2):214-244. doi: 10.1080/17437199.2020.1718529. Epub 2020 Feb 3. PMID: 31983293.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. Self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. 2017. NY: The Guilford Press.

Relevant Team Publications

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Self-Determination Theory of Motivation - Center for Community Health & Prevention - University of Rochester Medical Center

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The psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence, as well as one's social environment, can support or undermine motivation. Our approach is focused on helping you discover what works for you on your journey to making healthy choices in your life.

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When students keep metacognitive reading logs in a loose-leaf binder or electronically, the individual sheets or documents can easily be turned in for teacher assessment, as with this Metacognative Reading Log Graphic Organizer. The log entries allow the teacher to see what students are understanding, curious about, or confused by-and respond accordingly.

This document can be printed for students to use hard copies or can be used electronically via fillable text fields.

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When students keep metacognitive reading logs in a loose-leaf binder or electronically, the individual sheets or documents can easily be turned in for teacher assessment, as with this Metacognative Reading Log Graphic Organizer. The log entries allow the teacher to see what students are understanding, curious about, or confused by-and respond accordingly.

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Free Poster: Positive Self-Talk For Teens

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Credit to Reading Apprenticeship (WestEd).

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A clarification chart helps students focus on where they lose comprehension in a text and what they can do about it. This graphic organizer suggests that reading is not magical, but rather a process of solving problems. The reader is in charge-of identifying roadblocks or confusions, trying problem-solving strategies, and taking a best guess at what the difficult passage may mean. For the teacher, the chart reveals where students struggle and what strategies they have appropriated for taking control of their reading. As students gain control and become increasingly metacognitive, the use of the chart should fade.

This PDF consists of two pages, with two versions of the chart: one page that includes context for teachers, and one that is blank for student use.

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A clarification chart helps students focus on where they lose comprehension in a text and what they can do about it. This graphic organizer suggests that reading is not magical, but rather a process of solving problems. The reader is in charge-of identifying roadblocks or confusions, trying problem-solving strategies, and taking a best guess at what the difficult passage may mean.

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Flexible Grouping: Strategies and how it to use in your classroom | Kodable

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In this blog, we'll take a closer look at flexible grouping and its benefits for students. We'll also explore different types of flexible grouping, such as ability grouping, interest grouping, and mixed-ability grouping.

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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Introduction

Based on the framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), there are three types of reading that dictate student proficiency: narratives (for literary experiences), informational reading (for facts, data, and a knowledge base), and procedural reading (for following directions and understanding technical works).

Further suggested in this model are four levels of reading: initial understanding, interpretation, developing a personal response, and evaluating. To help students become efficient and flexible readers moving through the different levels of proficiency, the three strategies of read aloud, read along, and read appropriately play different roles.

Reading aloud gives students the opportunity to hear the sound and rhythm of the language. As the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she is reading, the students begin to understand the connections between the words on the page and what they mean. When students read orally, they, too, can hear the words as they process them.

In the read along strategy, teachers provide needed word prompts and cues, as well as fluency in the reading act. As students follow along, their pacing is propelled by the fluency of the reader. The read along activity is a reading exercise for the classroom and for the home. Parents/guardians and older siblings can read orally as the student reads along.

Surprisingly, the fluent reader can read along at quite a brisk pace,and the student somehow seems to keep up, carried along by the flow of the oral reading. (When read-alongs arc employed as a strategy for fluency, do not point to the words, but rather place a paper marker beneath the line being read).

The read appropriately strategy promotes the policy of reading material at an appropriate instructional level for greatest individual gains. The adage "different strokes for different folks" applies well here. Because readers respond differently to the reading and writing process, their skill level is critical to their developmental progress. Read aloud, read along, and read appropriately are a triad of strategies that effectively achieve the results teachers want.

Discuss the NAEP framework for types of reading and levels of comprehension to inform students of the various types of reading. In this way, teachers expose learners to the idea of flexible reading for different purposes. Included in the types of reading are narratives for literary experiences, informative texts for Information gathering, and procedural steps for following directions. Demonstrate each type. Then discuss or think about the levels of reading comprehension: initial understanding, interpretation, personal response, and evaluation. Develop a rubric with students that helps them begin to assess their own levels of understanding about their reading (see figure below). Discuss the differences and make them aware of the ultimate goal - achieving a deep understanding of the reading.

Read aloud, read along, and read appropriately strategies involve three phases of reading instruction.

Read Aloud

Story Time: Using juvenile literature books to highlight the idea of being literate is a powerful strategy for youngsters to use as they read to younger students. Several of the best books include Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus, Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco, and The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Readers' Theater: This read aloud approach calls on a group of students to take on roles to read, as they perform a dramatic reading. It creates a natural flow to reading aloud, set apart from the usual round robin reading. In this case, students read when their roles appear in the text. It seems to be highly motivating and engaging to students of various ages.

Read Along

Echo Reading: When students read side by side and echo read, they basically read in tandem. This affords students the advantage of seeing, saying, and hearing the words and the sound of the language as they read.

Partner Reading: By alternating paragraphs, sections. or pages, students have a companion reader to spark their read-alongs.

Read Appropriately

The Rule of Five: When students count (on their fingers) five unknown words from one page, the book is probably too difficult. It is called "the rule of five." but it is a simple, folksy assessment for finding an appropriate level book.

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Read Aloud, Read Along, Read Appropriately to Foster Flexible Readers

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The read aloud, read along, and read appropriately strategies involve three phases of reading instruction. As the teacher thinks aloud about what he or she is reading, students begin to understand the connections between the words on the page and what they mean; in the read along strategy, teachers provide needed word prompts and cues, as well as fluency in the reading act; and the read appropriately strategy promotes the policy of reading material at an appropriate instructional level for greatest individual gains.

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AdLit.org: Key Literacy Component: Fluency

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AdLit.org: Key Literacy Component: Fluency

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Allinder, R.M., et al., Improving fluency in at-risk readers and students with learning disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 2001. 22(1): p. 48-54.

Archer, A., M. Gleason, and V. Vachon, Decoding and fluency: Foundation skills for struggling older readers. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2003. 26: p. 89-101.

Calfee, R.C. and D.C. Piontkowski, The reading diary: Acquisition of decoding. Reading Research Quarterly, 1981. 16: p. 346-373.

Chall, J.S. and M.E. Curtis, What clinical diagnosis tells us about children's reading. Reading Teacher, 1987. 40: p. 784-788.

Chall, J.S., Stages of reading development. 1996, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cunningham, A.E. and K.E. Stanovich, What reading does for the mind. American Educator, 1998. 22: p. 8-15.

Curtis, M.E. and A.M. Longo, When adolescents can't read: Methods and materials that work. 1999, Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

Curtis, M.E., Adolescents who struggle with word identification: Research and practice, in Adolescent literacy research and practice, T.L. Jetton and J.A. Dole, Editors. 2004, The Guilford Press: New York. p. 119-134.

Fuchs, L.S., D. Fuchs, and L. Maxwell, The validity of informal reading comprehension measures. Remedial and Special Education, 1988. 9: p. 20-29.

Harris, R.E., N. Marchand-Martella, and R.C. Martella, Effects of a peer-delivered Corrective Reading program. Journal of Behavioral Education, 2000. 10: p. 21-36.

Hasbrouck, J.E., C. Ihnot, and G.H. Rogers, Read Naturally: A strategy to increase oral reading fluency. Reading Research and Instruction, 1999. 39: p. 27-37.

Kamil, M., Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21st century. 2003, Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Meyer, M.S. and R.H. Felton, Repeated reading to enhance fluency: Old approaches and new directions. Annals of Dyslexia, 1999. 49: p. 283-306.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. 2004, Government Printing Office: Washington, DC. http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org.

RAND, Reading for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension. 2002, RAND: Santa Monica, CA.

Snow, C.E., M.S. Burns, and P. Griffin, eds. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. 1998, National Academies Press: Washington, DC.

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Fluent readers can read text accurately, smoothly, and with good comprehension. Students who get bogged down in the mechanics of reading have trouble with this skill. With proper instruction, struggling readers can improve their fluency.

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NCTE 1122  1230-145 - Restoring Humanity to Striving Adolescent Readers

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Building Learner Agency in the Secondary ELA Classroom

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Building Learner Agency in the Secondary ELA Classroom

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Strategy OverviewHow This Strategy Supports Language DevelopmentSentence frames and sentence starters are a helpful way to support students’ academic language development both in their writing and speaking by prompting students to discuss content with more complex structures and thinking. Using these structures allows students to focus on the content concepts or skill without providing the answers. They also indirectly teach how content-specific language appears in context.Sentence frames can be used for writing and in discussions.

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Supporting Adolescent Readers Guide from Utah

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Supporting Adolescent Readers Guide from Utah

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2023

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No two students in grades 4-8 are identical, and many struggle with literacy for different reasons. Using a teacher-friendly, hands-on approach, this eminently practical book walks educators through the nuts and bolts of literacy intervention in the middle grades. Highlights include "North Star" principles to orient instruction, an assessment flowchart, and extended case studies of three middle-grades learners. The book offers evidence-based intervention practices for targeting specific literacy components, including word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Teachers are guided to plan structured but flexible interventions that promote literacy growth and engagement. Sample lesson plans and clear, engaging figures illustrate how to make literacy intervention work for all students.

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Literacy Intervention in the Middle Grades: Word Learning, Comprehension, and Strategy Instruction, Grades 4-8

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No two students in grades 4-8 are identical, and many struggle with literacy for different reasons. Using a teacher-friendly, hands-on approach, this eminently practical book walks educators through the nuts and bolts of literacy intervention in the middle grades. Highlights include "North Star" principles to orient instruction, an assessment flowchart, and extended case studies of three middle-grades learners.

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Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9 (2022)

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Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9 (2022)

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Guide and Checklists for a School Leader's Walkthrough During Literacy Instruction in Grades 4-12 (2018)

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Guide and Checklists for a School Leader's Walkthrough During Literacy Instruction in Grades 4-12 (2018)

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Establishing Classroom Norms to Enhance Students’ Collective Efficacy

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Establishing Classroom Norms to Enhance Students’ Collective Efficacy

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Middle and high school students generally feel invested in norms since they work on creating and committing to them together.

Pick from numerous inspirational movies and what do you get? Often a group of people with difficult odds. The need to work together. A common vision. The belief that it can be done if they give it their all. A recipe that equals success over and over. This is collective efficacy. And student collective efficacy starts with students at the center of the equation, and norms can be the catalyst.

Norms vs. rules

Using norms as the method for managing behavioral expectations can be a powerful tool in building student collective efficacy. So, what is the difference between rules and norms? Rules are top-down expectations that are enforced through external threat of consequences for noncompliance. In contrast, norms are commitments developed by the participants for behaviors they all agree to for a shared outcome.

Norms affect the learning environment quite a bit differently than rules do in four key ways. First, students are invested in commitments they came up with and agreed to in a different way than when they're being told what they can and cannot do. It's a commitment to each other. To some extent, all students are learning to make commitments to each other, but the social pressures of adolescence are a strong factor in norms being especially powerful at both the middle and high school levels.

Second, norms are an opportunity for students to hold themselves and each other accountable and to define the standards by which it's acceptable to both behave and contribute. People generally meet expectations they value and understand.

Third, norms create the opportunity to contribute to their experience. Rules demand compliance that often germinates rebellious emotions. Rules also create an expectation of threat and failure. There's usually a tardiness rule, for example, because it's expected that students will be tardy, and so the punishment is established. The norms version is the commitment of being ready to start when the bell rings, to be considerate of other learners and hear the directions for the day's tasks. It's a language shift with the assumption of good intent-the notion that we want to be considerate of others and that we are invested in completing our tasks.

Finally, through norms, there's a belief that together we can achieve the goals or scope of work set before the group, a belief that all contributions are valuable and necessary. When students know they're not alone but instead have the learning community as resources and support, they also understand that they are a resource for others and therefore a valuable contributor to the group.

Creating Classroom norms With Students

The choice to use norms instead of rules is really centered on two things: that some input comes from the students and that the norms are used in an integral and consistent way. At the start of a semester, group work, or project, present the concept of norms as the expectations of working together and include key components.

Start with where the students are currently. As a class or group, students should generate three to four clear ideas of what a successful working environment looks like. From there, establish basic commitments, keeping it limited to two to four that the class or group agrees to. For each commitment, students should articulate what that commitment looks like or what actions it means for them. This creates a shared language and vision. The teacher or a scribe for a smaller group captures the commitments in simple words for quick referral (e.g., everyone contributes; be prepared).

Once created, the norms must become the foundation of the work. They should be posted, referred to, and reflected on with consistency and action steps identified to improve the class/group work. As formal and transparent use of norms may be unfamiliar to students, teachers need to exercise patience and consistency. The initial norms and adherence to them may not be as deep as the teacher would like, but this will improve quickly if the norms are the central pillar of the work.

Consider scaffolding and gradual release of responsibility as two wonderful tools to assist in building this skill in students. For scaffolding, the teacher can provide one to two norms, and the students provide one to two. This will provide modeling of the process while still offering direct contributions. We can offer ideas to select from (e.g. being prepared, listening to each other) or sentence stems to help generate priorities (e.g., When I work in a group, I would like my partners to...).

We can start by offering norms for the first group project, then offering the opportunity to adjust norms for the second, then have students add their own norms for the third. Finally, students can begin creating their own norms independently. It's important that the teacher contribute only as much as is needed to diminish teacher investment in the norms in favor of student priorities. This will vary by age, experience, and maturity among other factors.

Strategies for expansion

Once the foundation of using norms is laid, meaning that students know what they are and how to use them, can generate them with support and reflect on them, there's plenty of room for expansion.

One route to expand is to make setting the norms the first task for any project, group work, or class. This acknowledges that you need different norms for different tasks and people. It also enables students to begin to deepen the norms they use for much richer interactions.

Another route to expand is to use self, group, and whole class reflection on the norms frequently and consistently in order to take action. Reflection needs action to follow it. Awareness should be raised; something should change or improve. View norms as a journey, not a destination, by reviewing and updating norms at least quarterly for a whole class and weekly or daily for projects.

When a deeper scaffold is needed, consider having "looks like," "sounds like," and, when necessary, "feels like" descriptors to help students correlate their behaviors and choices with the outcome desired. For example, in a group project, a norm like "everyone contributes" may look like each member of the group giving an idea for the project and completing their assigned part. That may sound like each person speaking up to share or writing their idea down for someone to share for them. That may feel like each person knowing they did their job and feeling confident that others did their part.

Generally speaking, students know what a healthy learning environment looks like. They may not know how to get there or what the components are, but they can visualize it. We see examples all around us of norms of behavior. Many students could use support in meeting these expectations by having a concrete process that helps them get successfully to the norms.

Instead of the "do this or else" approach, we can offer students an opportunity to meet success and grow in it. We can offer them the chance to build collective efficacy and belief that they have the skills needed to be successful through supporting their journey.

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Establishing Classroom Norms to Enhance Students' Collective Efficacy

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Middle and high school students generally feel invested in norms since they work on creating and committing to them together.

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How This Superintendent Overhauled Literacy Instruction (2023)

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How This Superintendent Overhauled Literacy Instruction (2023)

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Education Week

39.2K subscribers

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How This Superintendent Overhauled Literacy Instruction

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Literacy Daily is a space to connect educators, students, and leaders with the latest news, ideas, tools, strategies, and research in literacy instruction.

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It happened during her second month as a teacher. She was 23 and frustrated. She'd expected to end up in a city, but Teach For America had sent her here, to this little town built around a dead railroad station: Rexford, West Virginia. Another teacher had told her the unofficial town motto was "Hills, Whores, and Liquor Stores." She hadn't seen any whores, as far as she knew, but there were definitely hills and liquor stores.

"Okay, guys," Julia told her fourth graders. "Settle down and start writing your stories."

She was lucky, she knew. She'd been born with a teacher's voice. Confident but kind, pleasing to the ear but full of authority. They listened when she spoke. If you couldn't get them to listen, you were dead.

You needed other things too. Patience. A good memory of who you had been at that age. But most of all, you had to love the kids-suffer when they struggled or when something bad was going on at home-be happy for them when they succeeded or when they laughed wildly at a dumb joke. And she did. She loved her kids.

She just wasn't sure she loved being a teacher. Especially not here, in this town.

She herself had had a few teachers, particularly one in high school, who told her she could be something. What she wanted now was to be that kind of teacher: one who made a difference for her students, or at least for a few of them. But most of the Rexford kids didn't seem to want anything different. They already looked forward to dropping out of high school at sixteen.

"Your story can be a fable, a tall tale, or a fairy tale," she told the class. "But remember, what do all stories have?"

"Miss Grey! I know!" said Travis, his arm shooting up. "A beginning, a middle, and an end."

Travis was loud and bossy, the kind of kid they always joked would become a teacher. He lived in Ballard Creek, a new-ish suburb outside of Rexford, filled with D.C. commuters who lived out here because taxes were lower. Julia had gone there last month to drive a kid home after he'd missed the bus. The lawns were neat. She'd talked briefly to the kid's mom, who was a little drunk. The mom had pointed up the street at all the saplings in their swollen beds of dirt.

"Tiny trees," she'd said. "All planted at the same time. That's why they're all the same size. There's nothing I hate more than tiny trees."

Julia had nodded politely. Your poor husband...

You could tell the Ballard Creek kids from the Rexford kids right away. They had cleaner clothes. They weren't smarter, but they had parents who actually made them do homework.

"That's right," she told Travis. "A beginning, a middle, and an end."

Miss Grey. It felt like a glove that didn't fit.

When the recess bell rang, they leapt from their seats to line up at the door.

Except Lucas Weaver. He stayed at his desk, feverishly writing.

All the Rexford kids were poor. But Lucas seemed really poor. He had dark hair and scabby hands. The pair of Wrangler jeans he wore every single day had been patched up so sloppily she wondered if he'd done it himself.

"Okay, guys," she said to the line of rowdy nine- and ten-year-olds, "quiet down. I said a line, not a circus."

They got quiet, and she let them go. Other teachers were already outside to watch them on the playground.

She and Lucas were alone. Her desk was covered with unfinished lesson plans and papers she needed to grade, and part of her wanted to tell him to go outside so she could get her work done. But she sat beside him.

"Lucas, you don't want to go to recess?"

He didn't look up. "I'm writing my fairy tale."

"Okay," Julia said. She saw that he wasn't just writing, he was illustrating. The illustrations were detailed and swift. She didn't want to interrupt- he was so engrossed! -so she watched. His shoulders were frail, his bones birdlike and distinct. Did he have enough to eat? Did he get breakfast in the morning?

She had asked around about him. He lived down in the Mudders, which was what they called a row of homes out past the train tracks. The real name was Perlmutter Road. It was the poorest part of town.

In her two months' experience, Lucas had been the hardest to make a connection with. He had no friends. If you got close to him, he seemed to subtly withdraw, like he was scared he smelled bad. He actually did have a faint odor, but it wasn't anything revolting, exactly. He smelled like damp leaves, like the outdoors, and like...pets. Damp animal fur.

"Do you have a dog or a cat at home?" she said.

Lucas stopped writing. The question seemed to trouble him. "No."

"Oh," she said. "Did you ever ask your mom and dad if you could have one?"

He still didn't look at her. "I just live with my dad. And my little brother."

"I didn't know you had a brother," she said. "What's his name?"

"Todd."

"How old is he? Does he go here?"

"He's homeschooled," Lucas said.

She saw that he'd almost finished another illustration. It was a large animal, burly and dark. Suddenly he stood, as if embarrassed, and crumpled up the pages.

"What are you doing?" she said.

He ran to the trash can, tearing the pages up, and threw the scraps away. He looked at her with a shy, ashamed expression that made her heart go out to him. But then he fled outside. She observed through the window as he crouched at the edge of the playground, arms around knees, watching the other kids.

She was in the teacher's lounge when a third grade teacher named Bret Goucher approached her.

"What's that?"

"A story one of my kids drew," Julia said. She was taping Lucas's story back together like a jigsaw puzzle. She thought Bret would go away after a moment-he was like an older version of the guys in college who seemed to think that if they just hovered long enough, you might spontaneously become their girlfriend-but instead, he sat down.

"What kid?"

"Lucas Weaver."

Bret made a soft, sympathetic chuckle.

"Kind of a lost cause, isn't he? Never had him in class, but I think he's a little out there."

"He's smart," Julia said. "I wonder if the dad has any idea."

Bret said, "I was at the cleaners a few months ago-the laundromat, by Paul's Pizza? And the kid, Lucas, comes in with an armful of sheets, and he goes to a machine, puts the sheets in, puts a quarter in...and then he strips down to his underpants and puts all his clothes in, too! So he's sitting there, buck naked except his Batman underpants, just watching the clothes go round and around, like a dog." He gave another chuckle.

"He doesn't have any other clothes to wear," Julia said quietly.

"You know," Bret said, "I did Teach For America too when I was your age. They had me in Baltimore. It was like The Wire. Those people name their kids the craziest shit. I had this pair of twins in my class. The one was named Yahighness and the other one was Yamajesty-"

"I gotta go," Julia said, getting up. She had finished taping the story together.

Julia read Lucas's story at home. She was renting a little cottage just outside of town. Her cottage nestled behind a larger house-one of the nicest, most well-kept houses around Rexford-where the landlady, a sixty-something divorced woman named Elaine Fielding, lived. The cottage was quiet and cozy.

Lucas's story was called "The Three Wolfs."

Sometimes kids just rewrote stories they knew. They'd write about Iron Man or Jack Sparrow. She thought at first that Lucas had just retold Goldilocks, with wolfs.

But there was no Goldilocks in his story. There were only the Wolfs, who lived together in a cave above a town. Big Wolf, Middle Wolf, and Little Wolf. Big Wolf was a brute. Little Wolf was timid. Middle Wolf was the peacemaker.

"Every day Middle Wolf went out and got fish for them all. But one day he came back and Big Wolf and Little Wolf had rabeez. And all they wanted to do was go to town and eat people. "

So Middle Wolf blocked up the entrance to the cave with rocks and trapped the other two inside, where they growled all day and night. And every day, he caught fish for them, which he slipped between the rocks to sate their hunger. And every night, he slept by the entrance to make sure they never got out.

Lucas had drawn each of them. His illustrations were quick but thoughtlessly confident, like a painter's sketches. The most extraordinary thing was how realistic they were, except that Middle Wolf had an oddly human face and Big Wolf had strange eyes. Little Wolf was just a pup.

It was a strange story for a kid to write. He'd said he lived with his dad and little brother, Todd. So Big Wolf was the father, Little Wolf was Todd, and Middle Wolf-the one who took care of everything, who kept the peace-was Lucas.

She guessed Lucas's father was probably an alcoholic, maybe a bad one. And Lucas was probably one of those kids who have to parent the parent-clean up, put his brother to bed on nights when Dad stumbled in late or passed out early. And that thing about Little Wolf getting rabeez ...Was Lucas afraid because his brother, probably younger and more impressionable, looked up to Dad? Might one day become him? Was she reading too much into it? She went to bed with the story kicking around her mind. Shapes of wolves slouched through her dreams, surly, with black, matted fur.

Julia went by Rite Aid on her way to school and bought sweatshirts and socks.

Before class, she looked at Lucas's front office records. His home address was listed as 18 Perlmutter Road. The only parent listed was his father, Frank. Frank. She pictured a big man, rough, with a nimbus of liquor breath.

"What're you interested in the Weaver kid for?" the secretary, Carole, asked.

Julia closed the file. "Mrs. Parsons mentioned a Board of Ed thing once, an art program for gifted students? County Arts Program, or-"

"Jefferson County Arts Mentorship Program," Carole recited. "It's Fed money. They pay special teachers, bring 'em in a couple times a week after school. One-on-one work."

Julia thought, That would be perfect for Lucas.

At lunch, Julia kept Lucas behind and gave him the clothes. Two cheap grey sweatshirts and six pairs of white socks with red stripes. He seemed not to believe it at first. He didn't want to let go of them.

"These will fit me," he said, tentative.

"Good," Julia said. Then she said, "You like drawing, don't you? You like art?"

"I like drawing stuff."

"I found out about a special program for kids like you," she said. "You'd get to stay after school and work with a special art teacher for drawing. I talked to a man at the Board of Ed about it. Is that something you want to do?"

She saw something in his eyes then. Enthusiasm or hope, one of those quiet, thrilling things.

"Yeah," he said.

"Great!" Julia said. "I just need to get your dad to sign a permission slip. I'd like to talk to him about it, too, and-"

Lucas's face changed. A light went out.

"Actually, I don't want to," he said. He got up, hurried toward the door.

"Wait," Julia said. "Lucas, you would get to-"

"I changed my mind," he said, fleeing. She heard the sharp, echoing smacks of his sneakers in the hallway.

She thought about it that night, making dinner in the cottage. She could hear Elaine's dogs-a mastiff and a Dalmatian-barking from the main house. Must be a rabbit in the yard. She thought about how Lucas had reacted so viscerally to the idea that she might talk to his father. Was he embarrassed by the idea of her meeting... Frank?

No, not embarrassed. There had been fear. He thought Frank would punish him for being singled out as gifted.

The next day at lunch, she tried to talk to Lucas again, but he resisted, saying only, "I changed my mind! I don't want to do it!"

Later, she called his home phone number-the one listed in his file-but got " This number is not in service... "

It bothered her. She asked Mrs. Simms, the teacher who'd had Lucas last year, if she'd ever met Frank. Mrs. Simms didn't think so, and she was surprised that Julia thought Lucas was gifted. Mrs. Simms had thought he was "challenged."

None of the other teachers had ever seen Lucas's father.

Well, this is what I'm here to do, isn't it? Julia thought. If nobody else at this school has gone out of their way to help this kid, or reached out to Frank Weaver, it might as well be me.

She didn't tell Lucas. Perlmutter Road was the last stop on his bus route, so he would get dropped off around 4. If she left school right away, she could get to his house by 3:40, which would give her twenty minutes to talk to Frank Weaver.

It was Friday. She left right after the last bell. She drove through town, past forlorn houses and big dogs chained to posts, past Judy's Laundromat and Paul's Pizza. Then down a pockmarked road to the dead train station. She crossed the tracks and drove down a short road, flanked by woods, that became another road. The sagging homes that lined it made her think of toothless faces.

This was Perlmutter Road. The Mudders. Lucas's house, number 18, was a two-story grey trap. The porch was sunken. The driveway was so overgrown that there was no driveway.

Julia parked on the street. The house was even worse up close. The neighboring ones, at least, showed signs of life. Toys on porches, curtains in windows. But Lucas's front yard hadn't been mowed in years. And the windows were actually boarded up.

Had she made a mistake?

She looked around. It was quiet. She could hear insects. Birds in the woods. Dogs. There were no dogs. Every other yard in Rexford, it seemed, had a dog. But not here. Not in the Mudders. She remembered how Lucas smelled. Like pets. But he'd told her he didn't have any.

Someone was looking at her.

She didn't know how long he'd been there. A young man-a kid -on the next porch over. He had the hollow eyes of an oxycontin addict. High school age.

"What are you doing over there?" he said.

"I need to talk to Mr. Weaver," Julia said. Her voice sounded too high. Weak. She tried again. "Frank Weaver. Do you know if he's here?"

He just kept staring. Maybe he wasn't such a kid. Maybe he was in his mid-twenties, or older. "You better get away from there," he said.

"I'm from the school," she said. "I'm Lucas's teacher."

"Well, I told you," he said. He went into his house. She thought about knocking on his door, asking if he knew them. But she was scared of him. She was scared of Frank Weaver, too. She was scared that at any moment she'd lose her nerve.

She walked up on Lucas's porch and rang the doorbell.

No sound from inside. She beat on the door with her open hand, hesitantly at first, then harder.

"Hello? Mr. Weaver?"

Nothing. And yet she had a discomfiting sense of someone just on the other side of the door, and aware of her presence. She pounded on the door again.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

Still no sound. She stepped back. She noticed something-the windows were boarded up from the outside. She approached the nearest one. The boarding-up had been done haphazardly, with the boards misaligned and the nails driven in at crazy angles.

It was, she thought, like a child had done it.

There were gaps between the boards. She leaned in, staring into the interior darkness, letting her eyes adjust to the shadows inside.

One shadow was shaped like a man.

Her scalp went cold. He was standing fifteen feet away, looking in her direction. Or maybe it's just a coat hung on a door. Maybe it's just... No. The figure in the darkness shifted slightly. It didn't come closer. It just shifted its weight. It was simply standing there-and hating her. Radiating malevolence.

Then the paralysis was gone and she jolted back as if burned. She stood at the edge of the porch, shaken. The sunlight on the back of her neck made her feel like a little girl, a fearful and wildly imaginative child.
You're just scared. You didn't see...that.
The neighborhood was empty and silent. She edged back to the window and peered between the boards. The... figure ...was gone. There were still shadows in the same place, but they were indistinguishable from other shadows.

Get your shit together.

She'd come here to do something-to help a kid who needed help. Jumping at shadows was no way to go about it.

Something was wrong here, though. That living room hadn't looked inhabited.

Julia went down the porch steps and looked up at the house again. And now she noticed something-the upstairs windows were not boarded. There was only dark glass.

Walking cautiously around the house- should I be doing this? -she peered into the backyard. The grass was high. There was a slash of blue material in it, shiny like a windbreaker: A tent. A sagging blue tent, as if for a camping trip.

The front flap was open. She approached it and knelt to look in. She saw candy wrappers, empty peanut butter containers. Bed sheets with some comic book hero on them. Thor. It was Thor. A child's sheets. And she saw pens and pencils and 9-by-12 paper, the kind they used in the school printers. And library books-school library books. Sounder and Bridge to Terabithia.

And in the corner, a small pile of familiar white socks with red stripes.

Lucas was living in the tent.

The poor kid. Where was Frank Weaver? Had Lucas's father abandoned him here? Gone out drinking one night and never come home?

She went back around the house, intending to leave-and then she heard the school bus. Instinctively she stopped, half-hidden.

Lucas and two older boys got off. The older boys were roughhousing as they went off down the street.

She watched Lucas walk toward the house alone. He went around the other side, into the back yard. She crept back around to see him enter his tent. After a moment, he came out with the Thor sheets bundled in his arms. He carried the bundle back around the other side of the house. She watched him go up the street, his small figure getting smaller. Off to the laundromat.

He was on his own. She would have to talk to child services, get the county involved. Once he was gone, she walked toward her car. But a prickly feeling on the back of her neck-like a silk scarf brushing against it-made her turn and look back at the house. It was a shell, a sarcophagus.

A shape moved in the upstairs window.

A child's silhouette-smaller than Lucas. Maybe five years old. Then it was gone. It had been sucking on its fingers.

Todd. The little brother.

She walked back to the porch. She rang the bell and called, "Todd?"

No answer. But she'd seen him. He was in there.

She pounded on the door. Silence. She peered through the boarded-up windows again. Darkness. Then, soft as a cat, a little figure dashed past.

"Todd!" she shouted. "I'm Lucas's teacher, from school. Can you let me in?"

No reply. She tried the front door. Locked.

"Todd? I need to talk to you."

She heard something, like a kitten mewling, from inside. Plaintive. As it got louder, it sounded less like a kitten, more like a child. It grew into a sob. A sound of desolation and fear.
I have to get in there. I have to help that child.
She banged on the door. "Can you hear me? Open the door!"

The crying seem to be from deep in the house, maybe from the basement. It had a faraway, panicky, almost hysterical quality.

Julia threw herself against the door. Something terrible was happening inside that house. Something had happened to that child. A kind of madness was coming over her.

"I'm coming!"

The door didn't give. She looked around wildly and saw something sharp in the grass: a long piece of metal, rusted, something from a car. She brought it to the door, stabbed one end between the door and the jamb, and pulled. With a retching crackle, the door swung inward, the old lock ripping out of the dry, almost-rotted wood.

Immediately the crying stopped.

She looked into the foul, stale darkness and listened. Her heart was pounding; she felt it in her throat and ears and under her left breast.

The fever that had come over her-the frantic desire to get inside the house, help the child-subsided a little. Did I really hear it?

Yes. She had heard it. And she'd seen the silhouette. There was a child in this house and he'd been terrified, maybe in pain.

So why now the silence?

She stepped inside. The air was... heavy. She held the neck of her shirt over her mouth. Things had rotted in here. There were animals in the walls, or something, and one had expired.

"Todd?"

Her voice died in the air. She was in a cramped front hallway. To the left was the kitchen...ancient dishes in the sink...everything coated in a grime-skin. To the right, though, was the living room. The room she'd seen the little figure dash through.

She entered it. The rug was grey-brown. Liquor bottles in the corner. Rat droppings all over the floor. A Redskins calendar sideways on the wall, yellow. On a coffee table sat a bowl of black moss that had been soup.

Beside the bowl sat three small figurines of red clay. The figurines had disproportionately large heads. Animals of some kind, maybe goats.

"Todd?" she called again.

A symbol had been smeared on the table, long ago, in some dark substance. A five pointed star. The star had other markings, drawings that looked like eyes with rectangular black pupils, like goats' eyes. One at each point of the star.

A feeling of dread was coming over her. Like she'd miscalculated in some disastrous way.
I shouldn't have come here.
Then her skin tightened into bumps. She felt it again, the sense of someone close by. That presence she'd imagined- no, I didn't imagine it -beyond the boarded-up window. Its malevolence, its pure and shining hatred.

That presence was standing behind her. Giving off an overpowering desire to perform acts of cruelty. To mutilate, to desecrate, to inhale the agony of others.

She looked behind her. Nothing. Nothing. She wanted to flee the house. But another, darker room-the room into which the small figure had dashed-waited beyond the living room. She took a step toward that doorway. It led into a dining room, where the light didn't reach. She didn't enter, just looked in.

Two corpses.

A man and a small child, curled on the floor.

They'd been dead a long time. They were dry as leaves, almost mummified, and there was something wrong with their faces-

The sense of a presence behind her grew suddenly intolerable, as if it were just now leaning over her shoulder, its big chin almost resting on her collarbone, its breath on her neck.

A whisper-she jolted so hard it was more like a convulsion. In a mindless panic, she ran from the house. On the lawn, she fumbled for her phone, gasping. No service.

The house is doing it, she thought hysterically. Whatever's in the house. It's that strong, it's jamming the signal.

She was halfway up the street before she got any bars.

The sheriff's name was Drew Eastin. He was a skinny, thoughtful-looking forty-ish man with deep crow's feet and a calm half-smile. On another day, she might have found him attractive.

"Stay here," Eastin told her. Two more squad cars were pulling up. That was probably half of Rexford's police force. "We'll go in and see what's what."

She waited, numb, by the police cars. She kept hearing that voice in her ear, the raspy whisper. A man's voice, rough and insistent. The sheriff went into the house with a few deputies. One came back out. His face was ashen and gleaming and he kept rubbing his mouth.

When Sheriff Eastin emerged, he wasn't smiling anymore. He looked older.

"Like you said," he told her. "Two bodies. State crime lab'll tell us for sure, but I think it's Frank Weaver and his son Todd."

"I don't understand it. Why didn't Lucas tell anyone?" Julia said.

"Probably scared the county would take him away. Probably seen it happen to other kids down here." He looked around. Some residents were outside, watching the police cars. "I'll get Kenny to go by the Laundromat, pick up the kid."

"Okay," Julia said. "I'd like to stay here until they find him, if that's all right. Do you have any idea what happened? How they died?"

Eastin sighed. "If I had to guess, I'd say Frank killed his boy, maybe fed him rat poison-there's a big box in there-and then killed himself. What happened after that, I don't know. It looks like nobody's been in there for a year. Jesus."

"What about the crying I heard? And the person I thought I saw moving around?"

You didn't think. You saw it.

Eastin gave her a strange look. "There's nobody else in there. We looked all over. Only place we haven't been yet is the basement."

"Why not?" she said, uneasy.

"It's locked. Heavy door. We're looking for a key. We'll get a locksmith to come if we can't find one."

"Could someone be down there?"

"If so, they're keeping quiet."

He shook his head again, slowly exhaled. "What?" Julia asked.

"I've been a cop for 25 years. I've seen a few people who died younger than they should. But in there... something's not right."

She nodded. She knew.
ONE MORE STEP
Eastin went reluctantly back to the house. A coroner's van arrived. Two men in white uniforms carried out the body bags.

They were loading the second body bag-the little one-when footsteps came up quickly behind her, soft and crackling. She cried out as she turned-

It was Lucas. He had come out of the woods up the street; he must have taken a shortcut, and the police had missed him. Clutching his bed sheets, he stared with horror as the bodies were taken away.

"What are they doing?" he asked in a high, shaken voice.

"We found your father and Todd," she said gently. "We know you've been on your own. It's going to be okay. We're going to-"

"What are they doing?"

"Lucas, how long have you been living like this, by yourself?" she said. "Can you tell me that? When did it happen?"

He didn't seem to hear. He took a few tentative steps, staring with what seemed like disbelief at the small black body bag being loaded into the van.

"They took them out?" he said. "They're taking them away?"

"Lucas," she said, "they're not going to take you away. Someone's going to-"

"They can't do that!"

The look on his face was heartbreaking. A look of despair. Of someone who has no choices left.
No kid should have to feel that way.
She stood in front of him to block his view. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"It's going to be okay," she told him. "I know this must have been hard-I can't imagine how hard-but I'm here for you. That's a promise. Do you understand?"

His state of shock seemed to subside, and a flicker of comprehension came into his eyes. He nodded.

"That's a promise," Julia said again.

Very quietly, he said, "I'm scared."

She hugged him. She couldn't help it.

Julia spoke quietly with Eastin, out of Lucas's hearing. The sheriff had tried asking the kid a few gentle questions, but barely got a response.

"What's going to happen to him?" Julia asked.

"First thing, we need to figure out the relative situation. Maybe he goes to live with an aunt or grandma."

"What if he doesn't have one?"

"Well," Eastin said uncomfortably, "then we see what the other options are. There are good foster families out there."

"What about this weekend?" Julia asked. "Where's he going to sleep?"

It was clearly a question the sheriff had not considered yet. "Well," he finally said, "I don't know that even if we drove him to Morgantown they'd have a place all set up for him tonight. I'll...I'll see if I know someone who can-"

"I can," Julia said. "He can stay with me. I rent the cottage behind Elaine Fielding's house. There's room."

"Well, good," Eastin said. "I mean, you're his teacher."

She drove Lucas to her cottage. The whole ride, he stared out the window, scanning the trees like he was looking for something. Very faintly, in the distance, there were sirens. Rexford was in a valley, and sound carried.

"Do you want to listen to the radio?" Julia asked, because she didn't know what else to say. What could you say to a kid who'd been through what he had? All you could do was try to make him feel safe for the moment.
No matter what I do, he's gonna need a lot of therapy.
Lucas didn't seem to hear her. He just kept looking out the window. Now and then he twisted in the seat to look over his shoulder, as if something might be following them down the road.

Elaine, her landlord, was retrieving the plastic refuse bins from the end of the driveway when they got home. Elaine was tall, with short grey hair, a husky laugh, and a serene, absent-minded smile. She was smiling now, wiping one hand on a faded t-shirt that said Vandals, which Julia was pretty sure was an old band. She was also pretty sure Elaine smoked a lot of weed. Elaine leaned down to the window to say hi.

"Hey, who's this?" she said. "One of your students?"

"This is Lucas," Julia said. "He's hanging out this weekend. Right, Lucas?"

Lucas studied Elaine. "Yeah," he said.

"Lucas, Elaine lives in the other house, that one." Julia pointed it out.

Elaine looked a little puzzled but waved. "Okay then. Lucas, I want you to do one thing for me, okay?"

"What?" he said even more quietly.

"Keep it real. Can you do that?"

"Yeah."

"Good," Elaine said. "Then you don't have to worry about anything."

Julia drove up past the main house and parked by the cottage. It was getting dark. Once inside, Lucas shut the front door and locked it. Then he went around and locked all the windows.

"You want to get pizza for dinner?" she asked. She was trying to keep him occupied, if not entertained. She had just started playing Despicable Me on her laptop-she didn't have a TV-and they were on her couch watching it. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees.

"I don't want to go out," he said. "Do you have anything to eat here?"

"We don't have to go out. We can order," Julia said, searching for her phone. "What do you like? Cheese? Sausage?"

She ordered two large pizzas from Paul's, the local place, thinking she could put leftovers in the fridge. What kid doesn't like pizza for breakfast? When she sat back down with him, she noticed again his frailness, his birdlike shoulders. Her desire to help him, to protect him, swelled up stronger than ever. Now that she knew how he had been living, she wondered if he was suffering from serious malnutrition.
He should be checked out by a doctor. He should've been taken straight to a hospital.
She wasn't going to make Lucas's night even worse by rushing him off to War Memorial Hospital right now-an hour away-just when the movie was getting good and they had pizza coming. But she could make sure something was arranged for tomorrow. She went into the kitchen with her phone. Sheriff Eastin had given her his number.

His phone rang many times before he answered.

"Yeah, who's this?" He sounded almost out of breath and there was a siren, loud, in the background. She had the impression that he was driving.

"It's Julia Grey. I wanted to ask you-I think Lucas should see a doctor, get checked out. I think he's malnourished and, given how he's been living-"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I'll take care of it tomorrow."

"Is everything all right?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"I'm headed over to Ballard Creek. It sounds like some people got hurt over there tonight-maybe bad." His voice sounded raw. Not the confident man who'd showed up in the Mudders a few hours earlier. "Miss Grey, I have to go, but there's something else I ought to tell you.... We got into the basement. I'm gonna ask you to keep this to yourself. What we found down there was, uh, a lot of animals. Dead ones."

"What kind of animals?" she said quietly, so Lucas wouldn't hear.

"Dogs mostly, dogs and cats. Some of them had collars and tags. They were, ah-I've never seen anything quite like it. They were kind of...twisted around. Like with their necks and their...bodies broken."

"Broken?" she said.

"Like somebody wrung them like towels and broke everything inside them," Eastin said. "And...some of them hadn't been down there that long. Some of them had only been there...maybe a week. Or less."

Julia looked back into the living room. Lucas was watching the movie.

"How big were they?" she said faintly. She heard what sounded like a police radio crackling.

"Small. Cats and small dogs." He knew what she was thinking. He said, "Miss Grey, I don't know what happened to those animals in that basement. But if you don't want that kid in your house tonight, I get it-you bring him over to the station. You understand?"

"I'll call you back," she said quietly.

She hung up. She looked back into the living room. Lucas was not watching the movie anymore. He was looking at her.

She remembered the way he always recoiled at school if anyone got near him, like he was scared he smelled bad. But he didn't smell bad ...

He smelled like pets.
tried to wring them like towels broke everything inside them
Julia looked at his skinny arms, his small white hands.
He couldn't do that. Could he?
She walked slowly over to him. He kept watching her. She sat next to him. She looked him in the eye.

"Lucas," she said, "How long ago did your father and your little brother die?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbled.

"You need to," Julia said. " How did they die?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he repeated almost inaudibly.

"Did you see it?"

He didn't speak. She looked at him. That quality he had, which she had interpreted as vulnerable shyness...could it be something else? Something colder, more reptilian? She remembered that movie, The Bad Seed. Or was it The Good Son? Someone-one of her relatives-had made a joke about it when she became a teacher.

"Lucas," Julia said, her voice catching in her throat, "they found some animals in your basement. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

No answer.

"Do you know how they got there?"

No answer.

"Did you...put them there?"

He shook his head slowly. She took his arm. It was as thin as a bone.

"Lucas... if you don't answer me, I can't help you. Please, tell me the truth: Who killed the animals in the basement?"

He just stared at her.

Thoughtlessly, as if in a dream, she stood up and started backing away. Dimly she was aware of the dogs barking over at Elaine's house, but then they both went silent. The movie, still playing on her laptop, chirped mockingly. Lucas watched her back into the kitchen. Then he turned to look out the window, where darkness had fallen.

She called Sheriff Eastin back. She had to call three times before he answered, and when he did, she could hear screaming in the background-the gender of the person was impossible to know, but they were screams of fresh, shattering grief.

"Who is that? What's happening?" Julia said unsteadily, a panic rising.

"Miss Grey, I gotta call you back," the Sheriff said hoarsely. "Some people got... killed over here in Ballard tonight." The way he hesitated before he said killed made it sound like they hadn't just been killed. Like something more awful, more...specific had happened to them. "I think maybe...some kind of animal's gotten loose. And we don't know where it is now."

She had a flash image of a human body torn apart, broken- tried to wring them out like towels -lying like a huge, shredded red rag on one of those neat green Ballard Creek lawns.

"Sheriff, I want to talk to you about Lucas-"

"Not now," he said distractedly. "Just lock your doors."

She said, "They already are," and then Eastin hung up on her.
and all they wanted to do was go to town and eat people
Except maybe he hadn't hung up on her, because when she looked at the phone, she had no service anymore. Just like earlier, at Lucas's house. And just like earlier, she felt a chill of dread, the fine hairs all over her body standing on end.

She looked at Lucas again. He was still looking out at the window into the night, but now he was gripping the edge of the couch with white-knuckled hands. If he were a dog, the hair on his back would've been standing straight up.

"Lucas," she whispered, "what are you looking at?"

Then the screams started from outside.

They were coming from Elaine's house. The sound was so raw, so unfamiliar, that at first Julia didn't realize it was Elaine. She started for the door but Lucas cried in a high voice, "No-don't go out there!"

It was a good thing she hesitated, because then, in the window, she saw movement. Something in the yard. Lucas saw it too and backed away from the window.

There was a child out there. Just a small dark shape, moving strangely on the grass. She knew right away that it was the same silhouette she'd seen in the window at Lucas's house, in the shape of a small boy. But now she could see that something was growing out of its skull, something like gnarled tree branches. Horns, or antlers. The boy-thing had its fingers in its mouth. It was hopping, like a frog, in the dark grass. It was playing. Not the least bit bothered by the long, ragged screams of agony coming from the other house.

"Lucas," Julia whispered, paralyzed, "who is that?"

"It's Todd."

She said, "Your brother Todd is dead."

"I know."

Elaine's screams stopped. They had seemed to go on forever, but it was probably only fifteen or twenty seconds.

The little boy-thing in the yard stopped hopping. It stood and turned toward the big house, and when it did, she got a glimpse of its face in the moonlight-wax-white and strangely bulbous, with large, crazily staring eyes, and a wet mouth that was sucking on itself as if in constant search of a food source. Then shadows covered it again. The glimpse was so shocking, so bizarre, that she wanted to believe she'd imagined it-that her mind had drawn it up from some horror movie she'd seen as a girl.

The lights in Elaine's house were dark. They'd been on earlier. Now the little boy- Todd -was staring at Elaine's house as the back door swung open and something-a man-shaped darkness, but larger than a man-emerged.

Julia recognized it, too. It was the thing she'd seen the first time she looked in the boarded-up window of Lucas's house. The figure that had radiated such malevolence. The one that had whispered to her.
ONE MORE STEP
Now she could see that it, too, had great, gnarled, oak-like antlers. It walked to the little boy (if walked was the right word, because its feet didn't quite seem to touch the ground) and held out its hand, and the little boy shape seemed to eat, or lap, something out of its hand.

She didn't have to ask Lucas who it was. She knew.

It was Frank Weaver.

Frank and Todd turned to look at the cottage. Their faces, indistinct in the darkness, were grotesquely, almost clownishly evil.

"Lucas," she whispered, "what do they want?"

He was so quiet she could barely hear him.

"They're hungry. They're always hungry."
and all they wanted to do was go to town and eat people
They were still just standing out there in the yard, like hateful statues. She understood that they didn't eat in the normal sense. They didn't feed on flesh, that wasn't what he meant. They fed on pain.

"What are they?" she whispered. "How did they get like this?"

" He did it," Lucas said. "He made it so if they died, they would be like this..." His voice choked off. "He didn't know that if their bodies stayed in the house, they couldn't get out."

"You were feeding them, weren't you?" she said. "You were keeping them trapped in the house and feeding them."

"I had to," Lucas whispered.

"And I let them out," Julia said.

Lucas didn't answer. She wanted to ask him why he hadn't warned her, told her they would be coming. But she knew the answer-it wouldn't have made any difference. She never would've believed him.

She said, "Is there anything we can do?"

He stared out the window, his chin crumpling. "They don't like the light," he said. "But the lights are going to go out soon."

The two figures in the yard were no longer standing still.

The little boy started toward the cottage, still being playful. He took giant, exaggerated tiptoe steps, like a cartoon character sneaking up on someone.

And the huge man strode- floated -after him.

A full-body panic seized her. Once, as a child, she had been dragged and rolled by a wave at the beach. It seemed to go on forever, and as her brain screamed for oxygen and black dots swelled in her vision, she'd felt the same panic: I'm going to die TOO SOON. As in, NOW.

They came toward the cottage with nightmarish slowness-grinning, enjoying themselves, like an obscene parody of a father and son out for a walk-and she knew that when they reached it, her life would end.

"I'll go with them," Lucas said faintly. "They came for me. If I go out there, they might not-"

"Shut up," she hissed. She was trying to think. The lights are going to go out. She knelt and fumbled under the table by the front door-she kept a flashlight there.

A tiny voice in her head screamed at her. Send him out! For fuck's sake, if he's the one they want, send him out there-and RUN.

Ignoring it, she turned the flashlight on-a heavy, powerful Maglite with a black metal handle longer than her forearm-barely a second before the lights went out. Darkness surged in on them. The Maglite's beam swung wildly, bleaching the walls and ceiling. She saw their leering, impossible faces, suddenly right outside the window, pressed up against the glass, looking in. Their eyes had rectangular black pupils, like goats'. The boy gibbered soundlessly, lips moving and puckering.

They'd be on her already, she knew, if not for the Maglite-which had already begun to flicker-

" GIVE HIM TO ME. "

A whisper...but it felt like burning smoke against her eardrum, like steam enveloping her brain. She cried out and recoiled-and then they weren't at the window anymore but inside, the man-shape in one corner of the room and the boy-shape in another, moving in, and the flashlight died and Lucas was shrieking-

-and Julia was about to scream in someone else's voice, Take him! Leave me alone!-

Headlights flashed across the front windows. A car was pulling up outside. Frank and Todd weren't there anymore. A car door slammed. Footsteps came toward the front door.

Julia tried to warn the pizza delivery boy, but he barely had time to ring the doorbell. Then two shapes lunged past the front windows and he started screaming, too.

For a moment she was frozen. Some part of her- was it, though? really?-had been about to do it...about to give Lucas up. A hot wave of shame washed over her.

She heard bones breaking outside-all at once, like a sheet of bubble wrap being twisted-and her paralysis broke. They only had a moment or two.

She pulled Lucas into the kitchen and grabbed a glass salad bowl, a steel pot, and the iron skillet she used for cooking eggs. She arranged them on the linoleum floor in a triangle with herself and Lucas at the center. She started tearing up newspaper and filling them with it. Then she grabbed some matches and lit the newspaper on fire.

"Keep putting paper in," she told Lucas. "Don't let the fires die." They had only three newspapers-today's, yesterday's, and the one from the day before. How long would that last?

The delivery boy's screams tapered off. The small fires began to rise, with Julia and Lucas huddled in their flickering light, feeding them. She saw Todd's dark shape capering in the living room, like a dog.

Frank appeared in the kitchen doorway. Lucas gripped her arm. For a moment, Frank just looked at her, the fire dancing between them. The light played on his swollen face.

" GIVE HIM TO ME," Frank whispered.

A strange calm settled over her. Her brain seemed to enter that cloud again, that steam. She had to be realistic. They had gotten Elaine and the delivery boy, and some people over in Ballard Creek too. They had fed. Maybe they would let her go if she gave up the boy. She could quit teaching, go back to school, do something else, live another life. Yes. First she just had to live through the night...and that meant giving up the boy.

" PUSH HIM OUT OF THE LIGHT. "

She didn't move, but she looked down at Lucas. It wouldn't be hard, and then they would be gone. Frank's obscene face seemed to swell and distort in the firelight.

" GIVE HIM TO ME. HE'S MY SON. "

She placed a hand on Lucas's shoulder-felt the frailness of his bones, the heat of his flesh. Lucas looked up at her. He was waiting for her to push him away.

She looked up at Frank. She dug her fingers into Lucas's shoulder.

She shook her head.

Nobody noticed at first when she didn't show up for school. The town of Rexford was in shock. Six people killed during the night, including the two over in Ballard Creek, and others missing.

But when her coworker, Bret Goucher, who taught third grade, eventually dropped by her cottage to check on her, he didn't even go inside. The kid from Paul's Pizza was lying on the porch. Paul himself was there too, having come over to see what had happened to his missing delivery boy. After what had been done to them, they looked more like disgracefully made pizzas than people. Mr. Goucher got back in his car and fled.

It was Sheriff Eastin who finally found Julia. She was all over the kitchen floor. She was alone.

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But there was no Goldilocks in his story. There were only the Wolfs, who lived together in a cave above a town. Big Wolf, Middle Wolf, and Little Wolf. Big Wolf was a brute. Little Wolf was timid. Middle Wolf was the peacemaker.

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How We Read: A Graphic Guide to Literacy (2021)

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How We Read: A Graphic Guide to Literacy (2021)

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A student-friendly comic that explains the reading brain

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What happens in our brains when we read? It turns out, a lot. Reading is a complex process that involves multiple parts of the brain working together. Not everyone learns to read at the same pace, but all students can learn to read with instruction that is grounded in the science of reading.

This graphic booklet, designed for student and adult use, explains how we learn to read. It invites students to be partners in their learning--explaining how certain instructional methods can help them learn to read, and why becoming a strong reader is worth the work!

Written and illustrated by Daryl Seitchik, this graphic booklet was created in partnership with the Center for Cartoon Studies, Meredith Liben, and David Liben.

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How We Read: A Graphic Guide to Literacy

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What happens in our brains when we read? It turns out, a lot. Reading is a complex process that involves multiple parts of the brain working together. Not everyone learns to read at the same pace, but all students can learn to read with instruction that is grounded in the science of reading.

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Adolescent Litearcy Walk-Through for Principals: A Guide for Instructional Leaders (2009)

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Adolescent Litearcy Walk-Through for Principals: A Guide for Instructional Leaders (2009)

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Five Action Steps for School and District Leaders Implementing the Science of Reading (2022)

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Five Action Steps for School and District Leaders Implementing the Science of Reading (2022)

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We've been telling students that doing well in school creates opportunities-that showing up, doing the work, and meeting teachers' expectations will prepare them for their futures. Unfortunately, that's a myth.

Far too many students graduate from high school still unprepared for the lives they want to lead. They enroll in college and land in remedial courses, or start jobs and discover they're missing skills they need. We wanted to understand why.

To do this, we followed nearly 4,000 students in five diverse school systems to learn more about their experiences. What we found was unnerving: classroom after classroom filled with A and B students whose big goals for their lives are slipping further away each day, unbeknownst to them and their families-not because they can't master challenging material, but because they're rarely given a real chance to try.

In fact, most students-and especially students of color, those from low-income families, those with mild to moderate disabilities, and English language learners-spent the vast majority of their school days missing out on four crucial resources: grade-appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations. Students 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. And middle and high school students reported that their school experiences were engaging less than half the time. In classrooms with more access to these resources, students did better-particularly if they started the school year behind their peers.

This lack of access isn't random. It's the result of choices adults make at every level of our educational system. We're asking all adults whose choices affect students' experiences to commit to unraveling the opportunity myth.

Citation: TNTP. (2018). The Opportunity Myth: What Students Can Show Us About How School Is Letting Them Down-and How to Fix It. {filedir_4}TNTP_The-Opportunity-Myth_Web.pdf

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Explore our publications shaping America's PK-12 education conversations. We couple decades of experience with deep research-driven insights. Download now.

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How School Leaders Can Improve Reading Instruction (2023)

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How School Leaders Can Improve Reading Instruction (2023)

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Administration & Leadership

There's no one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction, but this award-winning principal shares what's working at her school.

Nicole Ey, principal of Ellenville Elementary School in New York State

Teachers and administrators know that reading scores are in the news across the United States, with 2022 NAEP results showing significant declines in student proficiency since 2019. Many variables contribute to this crisis: the disruptions of pandemic learning, inequitable educational systems that leave certain students behind, and a heated debate-dubbed " the reading wars "-regarding the best pedagogical approach, the most efficacious quantity of phonics instruction.

Amid all of this, it can be hard for school leaders to know how best to proceed. Faced with classrooms comprising readers at myriad levels-often several grades apart in the same room-how can principals best support teachers in differentiating? How can they orchestrate school-wide interventions that support students' growth and success as readers and communicators, and build the skills that are foundational for success in career and life?

To better understand the nuances of this leadership challenge, I spoke with Nicole Ey, principal of Ellenville Elementary School in New York State and a 2022 NAESP National Distinguished Principal, about her school's approach to closing gaps in reading scores across elementary grade levels.

BRITTANY COLLINS: Literacy instruction is one of your passions. How was that impacted by the pandemic?

NICOLE EY: When we got back from the Covid lockdown, we knew our students were behind in literacy and math, but they needed an SEL focus even more, so we shifted gears for a year to focus on their social and emotional needs. This has been the first year since the start of Covid that we are able to fully focus on academics. We still continue our biweekly SEL push-in lesson. We are moving in a direction of getting our kids on grade level for reading, but it's a hurdle. And this year, we started a full-day pre-K with 36 students-that's huge for us, because that's 36 out of about 85 kids who will be kindergartners next year. We already have them, and they'll have an understanding of the routine of school.

So now I'm a pre-K to 6 building with just over 700 kids-the only elementary building in the district-and many kids coming in aren't being exposed to literacy and books in the home. Our teachers are working-I wouldn't say harder than ever, because they work hard every year-but in the last couple of years, they're working different. They're seeing more kids not on grade level, so small-group differentiation really has to happen. They might have a kid in a fifth-grade classroom, for example, at a first-grade reading level, and another at a third-grade reading level.
Courtesy of Nicole Ey
The teachers have never seen the span being so wide. Even in upper grades, they have to go back to teaching phonics, fluency, "long O" and "short O"-not just comprehension. But they still have to teach the curriculum, the grade-level standards. It's a mindset change: How do we find the time to prep for all of that?

COLLINS: How do you?

EY: Specialists are here three days a week and push into the classrooms. Teachers can sign up to have the specialists.

We also did training on the science of reading, and we have installed a brand-new reading program in the last couple of years, to raise the bar. Classes are whole-group for about 15 minutes, and then it's all differentiation: Some students are in groups doing book studies, some are doing an extension of the lesson, and others are pulled to work in small groups on target instruction.

We built in an academic intervention and enrichment block during the day, so for 40 minutes every day, the kids are getting extra instruction from their classroom teacher.

COLLINS: What has been your role in that work?

EY: My role lies in supporting my teams of administrators, teachers, and counselors in carrying out their work on the ground-logistical support like providing space, time, and resources for professional development and collaborative planning. I also advocate for funding of curricular resources and training, and facilitate team discussions and collaboration across groups of stakeholders. Basically, I keep the ship afloat and make sure we're all rowing in the same direction.

COLLINS: There's been a lot of controversy around the best approach to teaching reading. How do you navigate that and support differentiation?

EY: I don't think you can pick the best program, because I will tell you right now: There's no one-size-fits-all program. I could have picked the "best" program that everybody thinks is going to get students to read, and I would still have a hundred students that would not be successful because that's not the right prescription for them. Some might be heavy in the phonics, some might not have any phonics, etc.

The nice thing about the program we chose is the digital platform. You have access to every material in every grade level. If you teach fifth grade, you have access to the fifth-grade curriculum and the first-grade curriculum if you need that for differentiation. We continue to give the Fountas and Pinnell benchmarking three times a year. This data helps us figure out what phonics, fluency, and comprehension skills students need, and then teachers are able to target those areas during small-group instruction.

COLLINS: What advice do you have for leaders also focusing on literacy improvement?

EY: Make sure that whatever you're going to roll out, whatever you're going to do, see it through. Give it a couple of years. This will be our third year with our new reading program and initiatives, and we have seen increases. I build on those small increments. I don't care if it's a 1 percent increase that I see on a state test next year-that is an increase. Something's happening, and it's positive.

There is no-one-size-fits-all for every building, child, or teacher. You have to give your staff multiple toolboxes, filled to the brim. And give yourself grace. This takes time-we're not getting out of this hole tomorrow. I keep telling my superintendent this is a three- to five-year fix, and we're on year three. A program is not going to fix your problem; you have to have multiple things, and stay current and read-be on the forefront. Most of all, know your students.

COLLINS: How are you supporting teacher morale while working to improve student performance?

EY: I'm as real as possible with them. I tell them I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. Their scores are tied to state scores. My scores are tied to state scores. I don't really care about that-I want our students to be able to read.

The reality is, we might not like all the initiatives that are coming out, but we have to do them-they're mandatory. And the teachers understand that. But it is a lot on our teachers today. I'm all day with the staff, and I'm feeling their burnout and pressure. I'm trying to relieve it, to keep school culture up.

Celebrating the staff is really the biggest thing. Those small things in the staff room that you leave, that say, "I see you, I hear you." The sticky notes on the desks when you walk around the school. The games that build staff morale. They sure do like a friendly competition, especially when prizes are involved.

You can do one of those things each week with your staff, or at faculty meetings. We have one grade level meeting a month, and we have every grade level or department sign up to bring food.

I do monthly coffee and conversation for the staff. We don't really talk about school-we talk about everything else that they want to talk about, vacations and shopping and concerts. Nothing is mandatory.

It's these little things that go a long way.

COLLINS: How are you taking care of yourself in this work?
This interview has been edited for brevity, clarity, and flow.
EY: I always want to help everybody else, but at the end of last year, my burnout was real. I took a step back, and the biggest thing for me this year was that I took my email off of my phone. I had become obsessed with it-I could check it 24/7, in the bathtub, at a red light. I was always working.

So I took it off, and that was huge for me. If it's important, someone will text or call me-if it's an email, it can wait. When you get 100-plus emails a day, it's hard to keep up. Taking care of yourself is about balance and finding the little things that make you happy.

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An Administrator's Approach to Supporting Reading Instruction

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There's no one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction, but this award-winning principal shares what's working at her school.

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Podcast: Interventions for Secondary Students (2023)

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Podcast: Interventions for Secondary Students (2023)

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You can find every episode of Melissa & Lori Love Literacy right here on this page starting with the most recent episodes. You can even search below for any guests or topics you are interested in to find all the episodes you want to listen to!

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Melissa and Lori Love Literacy is a podcast for educators interested in learning more about the science of reading, knowledge building, and high-quality curriculum! Join Melissa and Lori as they tackle new ways of thinking about how to teach reading and writing. Guests include literacy researchers and experts, teachers and leaders, parents and advocates.

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Adolescent Literacy: Addressing the Needs of Students in Grades 4-12 (Sedita, 2011)

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Adolescent Literacy: Addressing the Needs of Students in Grades 4-12 (Sedita, 2011)

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Science of Reading Podcast w/ Guest Sharon Vaughn: Comprehension is an Outcome (2024)

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Science of Reading Podcast w/ Guest Sharon Vaughn: Comprehension is an Outcome (2024)

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Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Transcripts and additional resources

"Comprehension is an outcome, and it's based on being able to read words accurately, know what they mean, have adequate background knowledge, and also [be] able to make inferences." -Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D.

"I've seen things go awry. Good things get interpreted incorrectly. The Science of Reading has that potential...where people could take that and sort of start creating their own meaning about what it means and start downloading that in districts and schools in ways that are counterproductive." -Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D.

"If you look at the early studies from the late '80s and early '90s, they really were the building blocks for phonemic awareness and phonics and the way in which we have identified the foundation skills as being essential. We act like the Science of Reading is something new, and we've been building this for decades." -Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D.

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Episode 10: Comprehension is an outcome, with Sharon Vaughn

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Listen as Sharon Vaughn discusses reading comprehension strategies and how comprehension can be a learning outcome rather than a literacy skill.

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Administrators' Role in Developing an Evidence-Aligned Assessment Plan (2024)

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Administrators' Role in Developing an Evidence-Aligned Assessment Plan (2024)

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Administrators Role in Developing an Evidence-Aligned Assessment Plan

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A resource to help administrators better understand the most critical considerations for reading assessments that are efficient, valid, and appropriate for all learners.

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Being centered and ready to approach each day with positivity takes a good deal of focus.

Those of us in the education profession, understand that since we are working with people, there are many things that just can't be planned or predicted.

As educators, we must strive to move beyond pure empathy, simply putting ourselves in the shoes of others, taking on their concerns to understand, toward compassion where we can understand, regardless of our relationship with the person, and seek to help them in the ways they need.

In this second year of my leadership role, I've made it a point to wake up a little earlier to make sure I take care of myself by exercising and trying to center myself before the day begins. While I ride the bike trainer, I often listen to podcasts and/or NPR to help the time pass.

One of my favorite podcasts is called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text which essentially is a reading of one chapter in the book they are up to through a particular lens. This week's podcast was reading an early chapter of the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) through the lens of compassion and as I listened to them parse out what it means to be compassionate and the benefits of it, I couldn't help to connect it to my work as an educator.

The simple fact is, we aren't going to like everyone we work with, but that doesn't matter. While we teach students and collaborate with colleagues, we are always trying to model how best to communicate and understand each other. Being able to empathize in certain situations is important, but empathy falls a little short when the person we are working with may actually need help.

Being a compassionate educator means that we make an effort to understand those we work with and help them get what they need in a kind and caring way. That, of course, will look different for many people, but the better relationships we build, the better we can open our hearts and minds with compassion and then the real learning can be done.

When we approach a new colleague or a new student that may challenge us, rather than assume the worst, we must assume the positive and approach the situation with curiosity. This curiosity will lend itself to compassion. The best way to work together and be the best version of our learning selves is to see the world through empathetic eyes and follow our desire to help those who need it most.
Compassionate educators:

Notice shifts in behaviors and attitudes of those around them, but seek to understand why and then try to be a part of the solution.

Ask questions instead of assuming the worst

Recognize cries for help as just that and create an atmosphere that helps those around them express their needs and seek solutions.

Believe the best in people and help hold up the mirror to those that need to see that version of themselves at the right time.

Can be a sounding board for those who need to talk, and rather than provide answers, can listen with an open heart so those seeking comfort can discover their own solutions.

Don't project their own challenges onto others or make the challenges that others face about themselves

Can connect with people in a way that deepens the connections they share in the learning relationships which enriches the possibility for success

Develop an environment the invites collaboration and risk-taking, allowing participants to go at their own paces and contribute in a way that makes sense to each person

As we build more authentic learning environments, we must all seek to be compassionate toward those we work with. A warm smile and a positive attitude go a long way and it is our duty during the school day to ensure that all people feel safe and have what they need to be successful.

How do you show compassion for your students, colleagues, and community? Please share

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Go Beyond Empathy by Being Compassionate (Opinion)

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As we build more authentic learning environments, we must all seek to be compassionate toward those we work with. A warm smile and a positive attitude go a long way and it is our duty during the school day to ensure that all people feel safe and have what they need to be successful.

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Video: How Shame Exacerbates Reading Difficulties

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Video: How Shame Exacerbates Reading Difficulties

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An Interview...

Donald L. Nathanson, M.D., is the author of Shame and Pride and Knowing Feeling and is an international leader in the study of human emotion. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College, and founding Executive Director of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute. Additional bio info

The following interview with Dr. Nathanson was conducted in Washington D.C. on September 8, 2003. We found Dr. Nathanson to be a person who cares deeply for the emotional well being of children and who is dedicated to advancing our understanding of the emotional-science issues affecting their lives.

Remember to click on Note: any word on this page to experience the next evolutionary step in technology supported reading.
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(see ' Interview Notes' for more details). Bold is used to emphasize our [Children of the Code] sense of the importance of what is being said and does not necessarily reflect gestures or tones of emphasis that occurred during the interview.

The Compass of Shame:

Dr. Donald Nathanson: You see, if shame is a spotlight just like all the other affects, if shame is a spotlight that pulls the neocortical cognitive apparatus to focus our attention in a shame based manner, then every shame experience focuses us on incapacity, deficit, failure; all kinds of things about our worst possible self. The spotlight does that. It's not a spotlight anybody particularly likes. So what we do from earliest childhood is we find a number of ways to get away from what the spotlight has evolved to show us.
Rather than maintain our attention on what feels awful about us, on our worst possible self, we learn from earliest childhood a pattern of four styles of behavior, each of which reduces the likelihood that we're going to focus on what's wrong with us. I call this pattern of responses the Compass of Shame. We go into the Compass when we don't look at what the spotlight is showing us.
David Boulton: Would you say that you could also describe the compass as an escape from the feeling?

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Yes.

David Boulton: Okay. I think that's short and powerful. I don't want to feel that feeling, I want to escape from that feeling and we have four different escape routes.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: As I've been saying, shame is one of the spotlights that makes us feel terribly uncomfortable. It's not the worst, it's not the only one, but it does make us terribly uncomfortable and it makes us focus on things we really would rather not know about ourselves. There is an escape route. It's not a great route, but everybody uses it.

When we don't want to focus, when we want to get away from what the spotlight of shame is trying to show us, we move over to what I call the Compass of Shame. It's an escape route, it's a safety route. It's a place where we can feel better than we're going to feel if we look at what shame has evolved to show us. For the moment, working, living in the Compass of Shame feels better. It's not terribly good for our future and it's not terribly good for the development of an authentic sense of self, but it sure feels better.

What are these four poles of the Compass? The first we call Withdrawal, and in that mode we withdraw from the eyes before which we've been shamed. You see it a little bit in the physiology of shame because we slump like so. Well, at the Withdrawal pole we slump and move away from the eyes of others even more. If shame affect, if the physiology of shame, decreases or cuts our connection with others, the Withdrawal pole...

David Boulton: The withdrawal, in a way, is this shrinking back within, a contraction away from the feeling.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Yes, it's a withdrawal into the self. It's a complete loss of connection. Let me go over that. Let's look for a moment as we shift from whatever the spotlight of shame was trying to show us to the Compass of Shame at the withdrawal pole. If the physiology of shame is that we turn away like this, the most natural first defense against shame is to pull away even more. We can pull into the self so we appear completely unconnected with anybody. We can really withdraw as the little kid does behind the hidden face or behind mommy's leg or by running into another room, or an adolescent goes into her room so as not talk to anybody. That's all the Withdrawal pole of the Compass of Shame.
The good part about withdrawal is that it does decrease the amount of shame we are feeling in that moment. The bad part is we've lost connection with others, and that's pretty serious. It seems like it's a win and it is a win for that particular moment of shame. But unless we learn what to do with shame and learn not to simply use withdrawal, we haven't profited at all from what the spotlight has evolved to show us.
One of the problems with the Withdrawal pole of the Compass of Shame is that as we move toward withdrawal and away from others, losing connection with them so we're not seen by them in our moment of shame. Many people have real problems with what we call abandonment, isolation, being shorn from the herd. One of the things that shame does is to shear us away from others.

Well, some people just don't want to have that feeling of abandonment, all of us sometimes and some people a lot of the time. So they reduce themselves so that another powerful person will take pity on them and make them feel less alone. They maintain themselves as a lesser being and they get the power of another person and we call that the Attack Self (diminish self) pole of the Compass.

The healthiest expression of this is when we might say yes officer, five miles over the speed limit, thank you very much sir. That's healthy deference. What's that line, where does an elephant sit? Anywhere it wants. That's healthy, reasonable deference to power, but at the pathological end when we say to someone beat me, kick me, spit on me, treat me with contempt, just don't leave me alone, that use of the Attack Self pole of the Compass of Shame is what we call masochism. It's a terrible place to be in its most exaggerated form. In a classroom situation we're supposed to say yes teacher, thank you very much. We defer to the teacher's authority even though we're feeling shame.

Well, there are a lot of people who don't like withdrawing, and they sure don't like being falsely deferential, and they don't know any way to make the feeling of shame go away. So what they concentrate on is some piece of behavior or acquisition of a skill that makes them feel good about themselves. We can learn some sport and we can make our prowess at that sport the center of our identity for others, so that even if I'm not very good at reading, I can be great at volleyball or basketball or something else. I don't need to read while I'm on the basketball court, but I can feel really good if I can sink that ball. I can box, I can learn martial arts. There are a lot of things I can do, not just for my own pleasure, but because they give me a place of safety away from what the spotlight of shame was going to show me.

It's great to look beautiful. It's great to enjoy sexuality. It's great to do a lot of things that feel good. But when you use them to shift attention away from what might bring you shame toward a competent, glorious self, that's what we call the Avoidance pole of the Compass of Shame. Most behavior at the Avoidance pole is relatively normal. We all like to look our best, we buy neat clothes, we might buy a great car, we like jewelry; there's lots of stuff our culture trains us to do, buy, and act at the Avoidance pole. But the important thing is that, to the extent we do this in order to avoid shame, we're not learning what shame wants to show us.

There are other things we can do at the Avoidance pole. It just so happens that alcohol makes the feeling of shame go away. In fact I've said often that shame is soluble in alcohol and boiled away by cocaine and the amphetamines. These drugs, which we sometimes call courage in a bottle, prevent the feeling of shame from taking hold. A good stiff drink will ward off the horrible feeling of shame. So this Avoidance pole is a pretty big part of our culture.

Now, there are times for all of us, and a lifestyle for many of us, when there's nothing we can do that makes us feel good about making shame go away. So what we learn to do is to diminish somebody else by the put down. Diminishing somebody else, putting someone else down, is what we call The Attack Other pole of the Compass, and that's what abuse is, laughing at someone, derision. All these ways that we can reduce somebody else when we feel diminished by what the shame spotlight is showing us, all of that is what we call the Attack Other pole of the Compass of Shame.

The four poles of the Compass of Shame: Withdrawal (hiding), Attack Self (deference), Avoidance (look where I want you to look) and Attack Other (put down). Pretty soon the child learns at every age all four poles. The role of reading in this is pretty important. Because if this is the major experience children are having as they enter the education process and they can't read because there's something wrong with the code itself, then we're exposing children to an unnecessary amount of shame experience that they must defend against when they are least skilled at handling shame. And if we can do anything to reduce the humiliation kids feel in school, we're going to have a generation of kids who can learn far better than they ever have.

What Happens When Children Become Ashamed of their Minds?:

David Boulton: As we spoke over breakfast this morning in our conversation about children, like with Sara, or other kids we've talked to, children who experience prolonged shame during the process of learning to read are in serious danger of learning to cope with the shame by convincing themselves: 'I'm not very smart'. What happens to a child who feels ashamed of their smartness? What is that going to do, the general effect of that, the general effect of being ashamed of your mind? My sense is that we're teaching most of our children, unintentionally, to feel ashamed of their minds. And when we talk about avoiding things, what happens when we want to avoid the source of shame if we feel the functioning of our minds is the source?

Dr. Donald Nathanson: I'm going to show you a place you don't want to go.

David Boulton: Okay. I'm always interested in that.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: We've taken for granted that an increasing fraction of our child population moves away from the education path to the entertainment path hoping to become professional athletes, chefs, actors, and other kinds of entertainers. And you can see in each of these paths the wish of a child to become proficient in something that will bring them pride. I understand that many of the young people who go into the entertainment world, and who go into sports and a number of other paths of our culture that can bring them great remuneration, are avoiding education. But I wonder if the brain drain, if the loss of young people moving into higher educational process, if the move of boys away from higher education toward jobs that pay them money now, I wonder how much of that can be traced to problems in reading.

Let's say that there's been a stable percentage of the population who can't disambiguate the code. But there has been, in the last twenty to thirty years, increasing celebration of what I call the Avoidance pole of the Compass of Shame, such as showing off your body, getting money from anything that lets you feel more successful than the other guy. I would guess that the children who find that it is very difficult, and in terms of affect, painful,to remain on the track toward whatever benefits education can produce; more and more of these children are moving toward a lifestyle that gives them instant rewards. I call this ' living at the Avoidance pole of the Compass of Shame.' The changes in culture that have favored the Avoidance and Attack Other poles of the Compass of Shame and all of these forces mitigate against continuing education.
There may never have been a time in American history when it was more important to disambiguate the code. There may never have been a time in American history that it was more important to show children early how to read in an entirely new way because we're losing large chunks of the population to the Avoidance and Attack Other world because they have so much shame early in reading. If that hypothesis is correct then we have a brain drain that could be avoided if we learned to read differently.

The Four Poles of the Compass of Shame: (Somewhat redundant second pass):

Dr. Donald Nathanson: So uncomfortable is the feeling of shame when that affect spotlight hits us, that we learn very quickly ways of disavowing, getting away from the bad feeling. We call the way that is done The Compass of Shame. We can withdraw so that we're not seen by the eyes of others. We can withdraw so that whatever has been revealed about us will no longer be seen by others. We can curry favor with others so that we don't feel alone even though we feel defective. We can do something to turn off the feeling of shame by using drugs or calling attention to what we're good at. Or we can diminish the self esteem of others and feel better than we did before shame hit. Those four forms of behavior: Withdrawal, Attack Self, Avoidance and Attack Other, that's the Compass of Shame and that's what we do to get away from the bad feeling of physiological shame.

You know, when people say, " I'm having a bad hair day," that's just a shame thing. Nothing I do makes me feel good about myself.

David Boulton: "I'm having a bad hair day" is on the spectrum with, " I'm not that smart, I'm not a good reader, reading is not that important". These are various ways of creating some kind of a definition that takes me out of the experience of the shame, some model that keeps me away from that feeling.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Remember how popular Jimmy Stewart was when we were kids? He represented forthright definite statements of what he could do and no exaggerations about any aspect of his personality. He did that in every character that he played. Today a hero, a movie star, is one who calls attention to his attributes, who brags, who shows off something about himself, not someone who's low- key, comfortable with himself and able to take anything that happens. The hero today in the American movie; he or she is someone who takes a possible insult or assault, and fights back. That's the key to the personality of today: avoiding shame and attacking others.

Let's look at the way people manage shame in our culture. The first thing we can do, of course, is look where the spotlight of shame might point us; to evaluate, see what's wrong with us and make changes. We don't do that very often because it hurts. So what do we do? We've got this Compass of Shame. At the top there's the Withdrawal pole of the compass. That's everything we do to keep away from the eyes that have seen what's wrong with us. That's why we say in shame we are shorn from the herd. We lose our connection to others, we pull away from everybody, so that nobody really focuses or maintains attention on what we are afraid they'll see.

The Attack Self pole is simple. When we pull away from the herd of course we're alone. Well, we vary, you, me, and everybody, in how comfortable we are being entirely alone. Some people who are very much afraid of abandonment can't stand the idea of being entirely alone so they'll curry favor with someone powerful and they'll diminish themselves and say; 'I'm not worthy and you're so wonderful', in hope that someone will fold them in and take care of them, even though they'll be degraded to an even lesser standing. We call that the Attack Self posture.
There are other people who don't like any aspect of the feeling of shame, and they want to make the feeling itself go away. They'll focus your attention on some aspect of themselves that's wonderful, like how they climb the tennis ladder in a club, golf, baseball, football; becoming really great at something, not for the sake of really enjoying your own skills, but for making sure other people notice who you are; notice your competence, your beauty, your sexiness.
Another way we can avoid the feeling of shame is simple. We can drink. Alcohol wipes away the feeling of shame better than any drug that's ever been found. Cocaine and amphetamines raise the level of excitement so you don't even notice what might have caused shame before. That's the Avoidance pole of the compass.

The last pole involves a library full of ways we behave when we don't know anything we can do that can make the feeling of shame decrease, so we diminish somebody else. At least we're going to feel better than somebody else for a while. That means hitting them, putting them down, mocking, doing things that are going to make another person feel awful. Bullying is nothing more than the Attack Other pole of the Compass of Shame. Just like abusive children, spouse, inferiors, underlings, that's all the Attack Other pole of the Compass. Wouldn't need to do that, you know, if you focused on yourself and just maximized your own abilities.

David Boulton: I always think of this last point like people are pushing down on other people to push themselves up. There's this movement to push down on others which propels yourself up in relation as an avoidance. All of these Compass points share in common that they're all an escape.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Yes.

Contextualizing Challenges to Minimize Shame:

David Boulton: That's one way to deal with the threshold, and another way that would also be helpful, I think, is to contextualize the challenges in such a way that takes the child out of being able to quickly go to self blame / self faulting for the difficulty they experience.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Let me do a vault-in here, okay. Look everybody, Billy just found a word that didn't make any sense. Now we have two choices: we can say Billy is stupid or we can say there's something about the word that doesn't make sense. Look at the word, it doesn't make sense because we just had a word in which these letters were pronounced this way and now they're pronounced a completely different way. That's not Billy's fault, that's what's wrong with our language and we've go to learn that but he's right to stumble on that word. Thank you Billy.

David Boulton: In my interactions with kids I call it the silly machine. Both about different thought processes and the external loop.

Dr. Donald Nathanson: Yeah, but what I just gave you, in addition to silly machine, was a teacher who understands shame and who understands the code, can take Billy's stumble and say, " You were right to stumble and this is why we stumble", and then use your idea about collapsing the field of possible meanings. So you've got it here and it's now a matter of what do we tell the teachers and the parents about the difficulty the kid is having reading. Of course this is difficult because there's something wrong with the code.
I like your expression it's a silly system or a silly machine but to be able to say in class, "Billy's right to have trouble with this word, look what's wrong with it. But we just have to learn and you learn this series of letters is pronounced this way in this situation and we'll be able to do it. Thank you Billy". And the kids sits there and he's not been humiliated and it turns out he's a hero because he made a mistake.

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Dr. Donald L. Nathanson: The Role of Emotion in Learning to Read - How Shame Exacerbates Reading Difficulties

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Donald L. Nathanson, M.D., is the author of Shame and Pride and Knowing Feeling and is an international leader in the study of human emotion.

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When Even Text Messaging is a Struggle: Vignettes of Teens

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When Even Text Messaging is a Struggle: Vignettes of Teens

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When even text messaging is a struggle: The pain of being a teenager who can’t read well - The Boston Globe

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It’s the experience of likely thousands of teenagers across Massachusetts each year, students who not only are failed by schools in early elementary years, but who are allowed to slide to the end of their public school experience without becoming competent readers.

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For some kids, reading isn't easy. They might have dyslexia, a learning disability, or just learn differently. Because it helps to know you're not alone, we've gathered together a list of recommended children's books for kids that feature characters of different strengths and abilities who've found they don't read like everyone else.

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Stories of People Who Struggle with Reading & Writing

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Stories of People Who Struggle with Reading & Writing

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The shame felt by people who struggle to read and write

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Readers share their experiences of what it is like to be an adult with literacy problems.

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What Teachers Can Do to Help Struggling Readers Who Feel Ashamed

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What Teachers Can Do to Help Struggling Readers Who Feel Ashamed

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For the millions of students who struggle to read at grade level, every school day can bring feelings of anxiety, frustration, and shame.

That's why it's critical to support students' social-emotional needs alongside their reading instruction, experts say, especially in later years. After 3rd grade, students are expected to switch from learning to read to reading to learn. But if students haven't mastered the foundational reading skills at that point, they may never become strong readers. They may disengage from school as the years go on, and many-especially students from low-income families-will not graduate.

"By the time kids hit 3rd or 4th grade, if they're still having a tough time [with reading], they view it as a failing on their part," said Elizabeth Jaeger, an associate professor in the University of Arizona College of Education. "Reading is such a core part of being successful in school, and they see themselves as not being able to do that. ... 'All these other kids just like me are doing just fine, and I can't seem to get it together.' That's just a really heavy burden, I think, for a lot of kids and that's the heart of their vulnerability."

They've really internalized these messages that school isn't a place for them, that they're not smart, and that reading isn't an enjoyable activity.

School can be a minefield for those students, particularly as they reach middle and high school. Reading is woven throughout every subject area, meaning that children who don't receive appropriate support can fall behind in multiple classes, even though they are capable of intellectually understanding the material. Teachers may call on students to read aloud in front of the entire class, opening them up to potential judgment or snickers from their peers. And sometimes, students who lack decoding skills are given early-reader texts to practice, which feel babyish and boring.

Often, students who are not progressing at the same rate as their peers are ashamed and try to hide their lagging reading skills, said Ann Monroe, the assistant dean of the University of Mississippi School of Education who studies shame in the classroom. That desire to hide can manifest itself in four ways, as defined in psychiatrist Donald Nathanson's model of the Compass of Shame:

Attack self. This can range from verbal self-put-downs ("I'm so stupid") to self-harm.

Attack others. A student may lash out at a teacher or classmate who exposes their weakness in reading.

Withdrawal. A student who is ashamed of their reading abilities may avoid participating in class or stop showing up altogether.

Avoidance. A student may try to deflect attention by exhibiting disruptive behaviors, such as being the class clown or acting out.

"It's a rare occasion for a kid ... who knows they're struggling to be willing to be brave enough to ask for help," said Jeanne Schopf, a middle school reading specialist, interventionist, and coach in Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

Many students don't master foundational skills in early grades

Research shows that systematic, explicit phonics instruction is the most reliable way to make sure that children learn how to read words. Yet many elementary teachers aren't trained in this type of instruction, so students are often taught to identify a word by guessing with the help of context clues. They might learn some letter-sound patterns but not others. They can't reliably decode words but may be able to mask their reading difficulties if they understand the meaning of the story and can predict words that make sense and look right on the page.

The opposite is also true: Some students may be able to decode, but they don't have a deep enough understanding of oral language to make meaning of the words they are saying.

Often, children who can't reliably decode words continue to advance through school at a substandard level without receiving any evidence-based instruction, said Sarah Part, a policy analyst at the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New York, which offers legal and advocacy support for students from low-income backgrounds in New York City who are struggling in school.

"The problem just gets worse and worse and worse over the years, and the student gets increasingly frustrated and falls further and further behind," she said. "They're students who could have learned to read, no question, had they gotten the type of instruction they needed."

Small deficits students may have in reading compound over time-a phenomenon known as the Matthew Effect in Reading, after the Bible verse in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. A student who struggles with decoding can't access the information in grade-level texts, unless teachers provide other avenues. If they can't access the information, they can't use it to make sense of future texts, and their comprehension and background knowledge suffers.

By the time students who struggle to read get to middle or high school, many of them have been in ineffective reading-intervention programs for years, experts say. They may develop low self-esteem or anxiety, and many are angry, both at themselves and at educators who have not been able to teach them to read.

"They've really internalized these messages that school isn't a place for them, that they're not smart, and that reading isn't an enjoyable activity," Part said.

Sometimes, these students disengage or act out so frequently that teachers assume they're not applying themselves or don't care about school. But in reality, Part said, "it's all stemming from the fact that it's really frustrating and humiliating to be older and not be able to read."

Teachers can help mitigate feelings of shame

Teachers can support students' social-emotional needs by maximizing their positive feelings, minimizing negative ones, and creating a culture where students feel comfortable talking about their emotions surrounding reading, Monroe said.

To start, teachers must create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable asking for help and making mistakes in public without fear of mockery. Meg Tegerdine, a 5th and 6th grade special education teacher in Florissant, Mo., said her students often feel like educators in their past have given up on them. It takes time for them to get to a place where they feel comfortable being vulnerable and taking risks in reading, she said.

"Nothing works if you don't have relationships" with students, she said. "I try really hard every year to let them know ... they're worth fighting for and I'm going to be the one fighting for them."

But pedagogical strategies like "popcorn reading," in which students are randomly called on to read aloud for a short period of time, can cause anxiety for students who are below grade level in reading, educators say. "That is a really easy way for a kid to feel discouraged or put on the spot," Tegerdine said.

Instead, teachers could use strategies like "choral reading," in which the entire class reads aloud in unison, or private read-alouds, in which a student reads directly to the teacher, to build fluency and oral-language skills, Monroe said.

Teachers should also carefully consider how often they're grouping students of similar reading skills together, because that can stigmatize struggling readers, Monroe said. While ability-based reading groups are meant to target instruction to students' learning needs, research shows that students in lower-level reading groups are slow to progress academically and less likely to move up to higher-level reading groups in later grades.

"A lot of times, students get stuck in groups," Monroe said. "They notice it, and this can create a feeling of shame."

She recommends teachers use flexible grouping, a strategy that puts students in different reading groups depending on the day and the lesson. Sometimes, the groups may be homogeneous in terms of reading skills, while other groups might consist of students of varied abilities.

Also, it's important to capitalize on the strengths students already have. For example, Monroe said she worked with a high school teacher who had many students reading below grade level. However, the students were artistic and enjoyed illustrating comic books-so the teacher encouraged them to add more text into their comic books and then swap their books with peers to read.

"When you're doing something you're good at, you're much more motivated," Monroe said. And "when kids are motivated, they tend to do better."

Teachers should meet students where they are

Experts say older students who are reading below grade level should have access to age-appropriate texts that are engaging while still being accessible. High/low books-short for high interest, low reading level-can help build fluency and vocabulary skills while also maintaining interest in reading.

Nonfiction texts often strike a good balance between having sophisticated content and relatively simple sentences, the University of Arizona's Jaeger said. And Tegerdine said she uses a lot of comic books and graphic novels with her students, since the subject areas are usually more mature, but there's less text.

Schopf, the middle school reading interventionist in Wisconsin, said she gives students who are reading below grade level the same books as their classmates as long as there is additional support. For example, students can listen to an audiobook, which will help them develop more vocabulary and meet certain grade-level standards, such as identifying the theme or the main character. (Students will also meet with Schopf for explicit phonics instruction.)

But often, middle and high schools don't provide students who are below grade level in reading with the assistive technology they need, said Part of the Advocates for Children of New York.

"Not being able to read at grade level should not be a barrier to getting other grade-level academic content," she said. "That's what's going to help students engage in school."

After all, by middle school, students who struggle with reading have often experienced what could be considered trauma, educators said.

"It's very important-in addition to getting students evidence-based instruction-to validate their past experiences," Part said. "They've been struggling for a long time, and no one has helped them. It's not their fault: The school system failed them."

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What Teachers Can Do to Help Struggling Readers Who Feel Ashamed

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For the millions of students who struggle to read at grade level, every school day can bring feelings of anxiety, frustration, and shame. That's why it's critical to support students' social-emotional needs alongside their reading instruction, experts say, especially in later years. After 3rd grade, students are expected to switch from learning to read to reading to learn.

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Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, & Unpopular (2012)

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Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, & Unpopular (2012)

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national center for biotechnology information

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Do Poor Readers Feel Angry, Sad, and Unpopular? - PubMed

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We investigated whether being poorly skilled in reading contributes to children's self-reported feelings of anger, distractibility, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and social isolation. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal sub-sample of children ( N= 2,751) participating in the Early Childhood ...

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Jason Stephenson, Oklahoma

jason.stephenson@ sde.ok.gov

Naomi Watkins, Ph.D., Utah

naomi.watkins@ schools.utah.gov

Lauren Spenceley, Arizona

lauren.spenceley@ azed.gov

Kristen Tinch, Kentucky

Kristen.tinch@ education.ky.gov