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2022 - 2023 Regional Literacy Leader Network Virtual October 25, 2022 WELCOME. 1 10/25/22 RLLN

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2022 - 2023 Regional Literacy Leader Network Virtual January 24, 2023 WELCOME. Study guide for Shifting the Balance Focus this year is on moving your building from a balanced literacy approach to reading which serves some readers -- the lucky ones-- to a structured literacy approach which is desi...

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2022 - 2023 Regional Literacy Leader Network Virtual February 28, 2023 WELCOME. Study guide for Shifting the Balance Focus this year is on moving your building from a balanced literacy approach to reading which serves some readers -- the lucky ones-- to a structured literacy approach which is des...

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2022 - 2023 Regional Literacy Leader Network Virtual May 23, 2023 WELCOME. Study guide for Shifting the Balance Focus this year is on moving your building from a balanced literacy approach to reading which serves some readers -- the lucky ones-- to a structured literacy approach which is designed...

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2022 - 2023 Regional Literacy Leader Network Virtual November 22, 2022 WELCOME. Focus this year is on moving your building from a balanced literacy approach to reading which serves some readers -- the lucky ones-- to a structured literacy approach which is designed to teach readers in a manner th...

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https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/right-read/can-we-please-stop-talking-about-phonics

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From balanced to structured literacy: A conversation with Dr. Wendy Farone

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From balanced to structured literacy: A conversation with Dr. Wendy Farone

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I recently had the privilege of doing an interview with Dr. Wendy Farone. She has been in education for thirty years and is just a wealth of information about what it means to teach reading right. I found Wendy when I watched a webinar about dyslexia that she gave for Voyager Sopris and I was struck by how clear and concise she is, as well as her honesty about how she came to structured literacy from balanced literacy. I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of today's episode. We'll get started right after the intro.

Intro: Welcome to Triple R Teaching, where we encourage you to think differently about education by helping you reflect, refine, and recharge. This isn't just about trying something new as you educate those entrusted to your care. We'll equip you with simple strategies and practical tips that will fill your toolbox and reignite your passion for teaching. It's time to reflect, refine, and recharge with your host, Anna Geiger.

Anna Geiger: Hello, everyone. Today in our Balanced to Structured Literacy series, we're excited to welcome Dr. Wendy Farone. She has been in education for thirty years, including twelve years as a classroom teacher in various grades. She was a Title I reading specialist, an education consultant, and a national LETRS trainer, and she also has a PhD in reading. Welcome, Wendy!

Wendy Farone: Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited to talk about this topic.

Anna: Yes, I found Wendy because I was watching a webinar, I can't remember which one, but I think it may have been about dyslexia and I was just struck by how clear and helpful her instruction was, as well as her acknowledgment that it wasn't always how she approached reading.

Can you tell us a little bit about your history with balanced literacy?

Wendy: I sure can. I started in education as an adult learner, so I was about twenty-five, which back in the day was really kind of late to the party, right? When I got my first job, I taught first grade, and it was all literature-based. Students would come in in the morning and they would walk around that little kidney-shaped table and pick up packets of handouts. We would do what the curriculum, or the text in this case, taught us to do and that was read stories and point to things as we read them. There was really no structure. There were songs and such, but there was no direct instruction, there was really nothing explicit.

What I found was that the kids who got it, got it, and the kids who didn't, didn't. I didn't see that as a fault of mine or the curriculum, I saw it as something wrong with the child himself or herself. So that child, of course, was considered for maybe a special education referral because certainly, there could be nothing wrong in my teaching or something wrong in the curriculum that the district had chosen.

Well, reflecting back, I have quite a bit of regret about that because I know better now. Of course, as educators, we have to remember that we are not responsible for what we do not know, but we certainly are responsible once we DO know in implementing those those good things.

I taught that way for many years. Twelve years I was in the classroom, and I watched it go from configuration spelling, where you draw circles around (I still see it, it makes me crazy), rather than actually learning spelling patterns. Then it went into more balanced literacy.

What I find very interesting is the use of the term "balanced literacy," who doesn't want balance in their life, right? We don't want extremes one way or the other, the middle ground is just a perfect place to be. That was a great way to tag people into thinking that this is the right thing to do.

Well, in the year 2000, the National Reading Panel came out and they had checked out a ton of studies, and they weeded out those ones that were good studies and methodology. They found that there really wasn't all that much that was going into the field of education to teachers and into publications that go to teachers, that really taught what the research said about teaching reading.

Therefore, what happened then is that the teachers were taught by universities who didn't understand, and so balanced literacy was the path of least resistance. It was wonderful, it was fun, it was a hoot! We told stories, kids sang songs, and we loved it. It's just, unfortunately, those who couldn't read didn't learn to read, and so that turned into flooding the special education fields, and Title I, and everybody needs a reading specialist.

We kept pointing the finger at the child and that frustrated me like crazy and so I thought, "There HAS to be a better way to do this!" The National Reading Panel, like I said, came out in 2000, and I was intrigued. I kept thinking, "There is a better way," so I decided I had my bachelor's in elementary ed, my master's in reading, a reading specialist certification through the state, and a national certification, and I thought, "Well, maybe the answer lies in the doctoral level. Maybe that's where it is." I went all the way through, got a PhD in reading, and I realized that it's not there, either.

Well, a whole lot of money spent later, I was really no better off than I was in teaching a kid how to read. It was completely frustrating. Where do you go once you've got a doctorate? I mean, isn't that the top of the ladder?

Well, part of the work that I was doing was working for a Department of Ed in the Bureau of Special Education. I was a training in technical assistance consultant. As part of that work, my director brought in LETRS training, which is Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, which is ironically spelled L-E-T-R-S, right?

Now it is nationally and internationally known as the gold-star level learning experience for teachers in the science of reading. I was given the gift of becoming certified as a trainer of LETRS. It was life-changing, because now I know why kids struggle as a reader, and I have enough knowledge around spelling systems, writing systems, decoding, and all of those phonology systems that I can truly teach a child how to read on the back of a napkin.

Anna: Well, that's really cool.

Wendy: Mm-hmm.

Anna: So when you gained your understanding of the science of reading, was that when you were an educational consultant?

Wendy: That's correct.

Anna: Then you had to bring this information into schools where teachers weren't always on board. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Wendy: Oh, my, there are so many great stories around that. Most of it, reflecting back, I think is because nobody likes to be told that what they are doing is not the right way of doing it. There's a resistance there. As a consultant, you have to really be careful. When I would approach a resistant group who have the "yeah, but's" (that sounds good, Wendy. Yeah, but in my district...), what I would have to do in my trainings and my assistance work was to convince them that this isn't working for them, that what's happening now has a 50% proficiency rate.

It's not like they unloaded a bus in the front of the school and said, "All kids who can't read, get in there." Mom and Dad are sending the student with the understanding that these are professional educators and even though it's tough and even though things get in the way, the variables are crazy, we can do this, anyway. In spite of those, we can teach kids how to read, kids with learning disabilities and physical and cognitive disabilities. We can teach them to read anyway.

That's the beautiful thing. Once you empower a teacher to recognize that maybe there is a better way, they willing to investigate. Then they catch the bug and off it goes. I've had many, many, many teachers say to me, "Why didn't anybody teach me this before?"

Anna: Yes. Yeah, I hear that a lot.

Wendy: "How do we not know this?"

Anna: What do you feel has been the most impactful knowledge that you shared with these teachers that really set off the light bulb?

Wendy: Teaching them how the spelling system works, that there IS a reason why there's an E at the end of "cheese" or "house." It's not just there because they had a box of E's sitting around, it's there to keep it from looking plural, because any word in the English language that ends in a single S means more than one, or that it's happening right now, like "walks" means that we're walking right now.

So the E is there to signify that we don't mean more than one "chee," or more than one "hou," it's an indicator. Those types of nuances of the spelling system allow teachers to teach decoding better, and to teach writing better, and to recognize errors in student patterns in spelling and writing. This can indicate to me that they don't understand what a digraph is, or how to blend the "bl" sound together, that's what they're missing. It pinpoints us and engages us directly with what the issue is, instead of saying some broad term like, "He's below, so he gets Title." Why is he below? That's what I want to know.

When I was teaching in balanced literacy and those types of things, it was really kind of hope and, "Well, it sounds like he's reading kind of slow, and when I did a running record, this showed up. Are you sure? Are you positive? Would you stand in front of an attorney and fight that argument?" I've had to do that.

When the time came, I thought, "No, I cannot," but now, put me in front of an attorney and I'll eat his lunch because I know how to teach reading and I know the spelling system and my passion is that every single teacher should know as much as I know about teaching reading. They should have that opportunity to know that much and have that much confidence.

Anna: Well, am I correct that one of your passion projects is teaching about how to help kids with dyslexia?

Wendy: Well, that's true! A lot of times, though, dyslexia is this term that they just give to a child because they haven't been taught well. I caution folks about that. It's become a buzzword and that's a problem. If a child is not able to read, there's a reason why, and I don't care if they're dyslexic or not, we have to do our best to teach them how to read. The world works by being literate. That's your key to a good income, it's your key to a strong outlook on life, all of those things are based on your ability to communicate through print, right?

Anna: Mm-hmm.

Wendy: Very rarely do you have a child who is so severely dyslexic that they are not able to interact with print, very rarely, but sometimes people jump right to that conclusion, "Oh, he has dyslexia, so we are going to put him over there and give him audiobooks." No! Teach him how to read! Put his social studies book on audio UNTIL you teach him how to read. We want him to learn how to read. That's the goal!

Anna: For somebody who maybe can't be LETRS trained at this time, but really wants to learn the things that you're talking about, do you have some special recommendations for them?

Wendy: I do. There's all kinds of books out there now. The Reading League has a ton of resources. Tim Odegard, with Middle Tennessee State University, has a dyslexia center and has a ton of resources there for students with dyslexia. I would offer that you look at the dyslexia site. The International Reading Association is not the dyslexia site, by the way.

Anna: Right.

Wendy: We want to make that very clear because one is very embedded in science and one still has a foot on the dock of balanced literacy and the three-queuing system, and we don't want to go there because there's just a ton of research in opposition of that approach. So we want to make sure that the Dyslexia Association is where we're looking. A reminder for folks, though, is that just because it says the Dyslexia Association doesn't mean it's not good for everybody.

Anna: Right.

Wendy: Right, so there's a ton of resources there. The Reading League also has a strong collection of linked resources, they're now with chapters all across the nation, state chapters. They have just done an incredible job. Colleagues of mine are engaged in the founding of that. What that has allowed them to do is to get a foothold getting the research into classrooms and districts and state law, rather than just screaming parents or screaming teachers. It's about the research.

Anna: Yeah, and I can speak to all that. I have been a member of the International Reading Association for many years, mainly so I can get a hand on their journals, but it is hard. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone who's just trying to learn because you can have an article by someone like Nell Duke or Timothy Shanahan, but then you can also have some articles in the same issue that are very strongly balanced literacy.

But I also get The Reading League journal and I love it. I love that I get a print copy so I can write in it. I really trust that group, and also, if you ever watch a webinar with The Reading League, they have just such a gentle, kind way of communicating all of this, and yeah, they're amazing.

Wendy: They surely are. In my office where I used to work at at PaTTAN, Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network, we worked very, very closely, and two of my colleagues are part of The Reading League, that group that brought it to Pennsylvania. If you look at pattan.net, there is a ton of research as well, they've also got very strong Facebook presence, and, because it's a state initiative, it's free.

Anna: I've seen a lot of good stuff from them. I didn't know that was from Pennsylvania. That's cool.

Wendy: It is, yes.

Anna: Looking back at your experience as a balanced literacy teacher versus, I don't know if you call yourself this, but structured literacy teacher. From that shift, what would you say are some things that you would recommend letting go of and things that you would add in its place?

Wendy: Sure. The thing that is a concern for me is the pick-and-choose method that teachers use. If you walk into a situation where you think you have the background, very strongly and you've done it for years, and the curriculum is good, but you "know this kid better" (I'm doing air quotes), that you know this kid enough to make a decision. My question is, show me the evidence that that's true. Show me the evidence. I appreciate that you've been in this a long time, but just like me, I've been in education for a long time, and it never struck me until I had LETRS training that some of the things I was doing were less effective, or even misguided. All of that was balanced literacy, the literature approach, the pick-and-choose approach, "Oh, he has short vowel issues, so we're going to play three games in a small group on short vowels and differentiating."

What LETRS taught me is how the vowels are formed in the mouth, the feel of the sounds in the mouth, and that makes the difference. Why does a kid struggle with short vowels? Well, because they're so closely made in the mouth, it's hard to differentiate those sounds.

When you understand that, you approach things differently instructionally, and what may have taken six weeks to get a child to understand, now you can take care of in a week. We don't have time to waste six weeks determining, "Well, that didn't work. Now, what?"

Anna: Mm-hmm. Something, too, about when I was a balanced literacy teacher, I was very offended if someone told me that I wasn't teaching phonics, or that I didn't believe in phonics.

Wendy: Of course.

Anna: Because I did teach phonics, but like you said, it was pick and choose, hit or miss. I didn't follow a scope and sequence that made sure I taught everything explicitly and systematically. When you do that, you really save time because you don't have to figure out where the hole is, you're moving in a logical order.

Wendy: That's right. You have a series of protocols, we call them "if, then" charts. If a child is having trouble acquiring phonics skills, the advanced ones, not the basic ones, but the advanced ones, we need to stop and ask why? It's not that I need to say it louder to the child, I don't need to shame them into learning it, and I don't have to make the parents teach it to them. What I have to do is see what's in the way of them learning that specific skill.

I have a protocol that says, "If that's an issue, then go look here." Are the basic phonics in place? If they aren't, then you work on that. If they are okay, then you look at phonology, the sounds of the English language, what's going on there? So you see I have a way of working through that "if, then" idea to get right back to the root cause of the problem, and then I can work on it.

Through balanced literacy what I found was, and I taught it as well, as we've discussed, you just keep moving them forward, and the stories just get longer and more difficult, and the child melts down and you say, "Now, he's a behavior problem."

Is he really? Or is he struggling from what I call "dystaughtia"? You've also heard it as "dysteachia," I'm sure. "Dystaughtia," which means ain't been taught appropriately. It's not on the teacher per se, it's that the protocol is not in place to determine what skills are deficit, so we just keep shoving them further and shoving them further.

Now when I teach adults who have a literacy problem, I follow the exact same "if, then" chart, because it doesn't matter if you're in fifth grade or if you are in high school or if you're fifty, the skills to teach to learn to read are exactly the same. Nobody changes the alphabet when your body gets bigger, it's the same thing, the spelling system remains.

What I see in IEPs in upper-middle school and high school is that they create a goal for comprehension. They create a goal for homework completion. Well how in the world do you expect a person, no matter how big their body is, to understand the spelling system just because their body grew? That's not how that works. Comprehension errors, or an inability to comprehend, and a ton of behavior problems, are caused because someone doesn't feel competent. It doesn't help the louder we scream as educators and put grades on the heads of children and say, "You're not comprehending. You must have a disability," instead of using that "if, then" chart and finding out WHY they aren't comprehending.

I may do an oral reading fluency. I may have them paraphrase back to me what they've just read. "If, then," - if that is low, then I'm going to check on advanced phonics, if that is low, or there's a bunch of errors there, then I'm going to check basic phonics. If that has holes, you see I'm filling the holes all the way along, if that is low, then I'm going to check spelling, I'm going to do a writing sample, and I'm going to check phonology.

With all of that evidence and the knowledge that I have that I'm bringing to the table, that allows me to make a good decision about instruction for that student or that fifty year old person who I'm helping, who struggled all their life acquiring reading.

What's intriguing, though, is that when I have that student who is fifty years old who is struggling and embarrassed, that has lived a life with embarrassment, who looks at me and says, "Why didn't anybody ever teach me this? My whole life, I thought I was dumb." Now think about that, the impact that has on a person's life choices.

Then there is the student who is in second grade, and his mother calls me crying and says, "Wendy, they're going to put him in special ed. He's a smart kid. I don't understand. He can talk your leg off. We use big words in my house. He can put Legos together without a pattern. Why would he be in special ed?"

I said, "Well, reading is a special thing. It's not natural, it's an acquired skill. Let's test him."

I walked through exactly those things that said, "Can he spell? Can he write? Does he know advanced decoding? Does he know all those things that a child is supposed to know?" His phonology was fine, meaning he can recognize the sounds and the language, he can say the word "cat" and bring it out to the sounds, /k/ /ă/ /t/. With that ability, you can now say, "This sound represents what letter? C. Yes, in this word it does. /ă/, what letter represents that sound? A?" So we would do it that way.

I did Elkonin Boxes because this child was in second grade and I told him how to separate those sounds, and to put a box for each of those sounds. Then I told him, "Now let's put the spelling pattern that goes in representing each of those sounds."

He looked at me like he was starstruck, and he said, "Are you kidding me? Dr. Farone, if somebody would've taught me this, I wouldn't cry every night."

It was life-changing for me, and it was life-changing for his family. Now he sent me a picture of his spelling tests all taped to the front door of his house because he wants everybody to know how you can be a good speller.

That happens to teachers ALL the time, those breakthrough moments. For teachers who are not working really, truly to the science of reading, you're missing that joy that comes when a kid says, "Are you kidding me? I get this now!" That's what teaching is about.

Anna: I could talk to you about this all day long. That is very exciting. I love those stories. I think maybe you shared that picture of his spelling list on the door in the workshop that I watched. That was very cool.

Wendy: I think I did. Yeah, very good.

Anna: Do you have online resources or anything that people can head to to learn more?

Wendy: There are many, many, many, many. Too many. What you really want to look for is not necessarily the resource, but the resource creator.

Anna: Yes.

Wendy: Okay, so the one thing that's important is that you learn the names of the people that are trustworthy in our field, right?

Anna: Mm-hmm.

Wendy: You have Nell Duke and you have David Kilpatrick and you have Mark Seidenberg. You have Louisa Moats, you have Carol Tolman. You look for those names because those folks are in alignment, highly in alignment, with the research. So as not to demean anyone, I won't give you the names of those who are on the other side of the fence, but I would offer that you educate yourself as a teacher in those resources.

Where in the world do you get them? Well, you find articles in The Reading League Journal and you look on the PaTTAN website where I worked for eighteen years, and I know there are a ton of resources there. That's the work of the Florida Reading Center. The Dyslexia Association also has many.

Look for common names of researchers, right? Virginia Berninger, Marcia Henry, look for those names, their work is what you want to follow, Tim Odegard is another one. Look for the name rather than the topic because there are a lot of people that will talk about the topic, but their background is really still in balanced literacy, or the three-queuing system, which is the methodology upon which they're writing.

Like you had mentioned, I thought I was doing phonics. I did! The thing is I really didn't understand the spelling system. I didn't understand decoding and encoding. I had all kinds of pedagogy. I knew how to have classroom management, I knew how to organize my materials, and my classroom was cute, I'm telling you, it was darling. "But cute," according to Anita Archer, another one you'll want to follow, "doesn't teach reading." So I would give up a little cute to offer a little more time for teaching reading.

Anna: Awesome.

Wendy: It all lands in the teacher. You've got to be really good at knowing what you know, and not only that, but why you know it and how you know it. Think of yourself standing in front of an attorney and the attorney is trying to pick you apart and you can say, "Bring it! Oh, I so got this! Let me teach you about phonology. Let me teach you why this spelling pattern is the way it is." That's teacher empowerment.

Anna: Awesome, awesome. Well, I'm going to do a hunt for any workshops that I can find that you've done that are available to anybody and I'll put those in the show notes so people can learn more.

Wendy: Good. Wonderful.

Anna: It was really a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Wendy: It is my gift. I really hope that teachers who are listening to this, and parents who are listening to this, realize that there is an awful lot to learn, to give a little grace to people, a little wiggle room, but when we're going in the wrong direction, we need to turn that around, and get in alignment with the science of reading. That's our goal as educators, and as parents, and people who love children.

Anna: Thank you.

Wendy: You're welcome.

Anna: Thank you so much for listening to this interview with Dr. Wendy Farone. You can find the show notes for this episode at themeasuredmom.com/episode89. Talk to you next week.

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From balanced to structured literacy: A conversation with Dr. Wendy Farone

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I recently had the privilege of doing an interview with Dr. Wendy Farone. She has been in education for thirty years and is just a wealth of information about what it means to teach reading right.

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In her 17 years as a middle school social studies teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, Su Williams regularly encountered students who still struggled to read at a basic level, and nothing she learned in her teacher training or in her nearly two decades in the classroom prepared her to help.

"I learned in the classroom that what I was trained to do-Whole Language and Balanced Literacy-doesn't work. That was an eye-opener," she said. Without the time to teach her fifth-grade students how to read proficiently-or a thorough understanding of the biomechanics of how children learn to read-Williams kept focusing on the subject matter she needed to cover for the school year, hoping their reading would eventually improve.

It was an exercise in wishful thinking. "It was a really tough situation. I made the call to go for the content-that they needed to know about the Aztecs and the Mayans, not that they needed to be able to read the words Aztec, Inca, and Maya. But I think I did them a disservice."

A turning point-and insight-came when Williams's son was diagnosed with dyslexia. Inspired by both her own and her son's experiences, she retired from classroom teaching to get trained in reading science and strategies to help dyslexic readers.

Williams's pursuit of new training is becoming more common among educators who have found that what they've learned about reading science is limited or downright incorrect-especially when it comes to dyslexia, a disorder that affects one in every five children. Though it is the most commonly reported learning disability, misinformation and myths run rampant among the general population and even bleed into schools. Most commonly, people believe that people with dyslexia transpose or invert letters when reading, when actually it's a sound-based processing disorder.

Teachers often work tirelessly to help these students, but families typically see little improvement unless they pay for costly tutoring services, which many can't afford. Other children with dyslexia are never identified: some mask their disability by acting out in class or memorizing words to skate by. Many silently struggle-and continue to struggle with reading for the rest of their lives.

Without targeted interventions, children with dyslexia are unlikely to ever become proficient readers, which has significant long-term implications. The data shows that kids who can't read proficiently by third grade are more likely to drop out of school-and chances are triple for students who come from a low-income household. Students with dyslexia in particular are more prone to depression, anxiety, and even suicide, which can be linked to the shame and stigma around not knowing how to read.

"It's not hopeless. If struggling readers are given what they need, they can make gains and become more efficient and more effective readers," said Williams. "It's often that the intervention is just not available."

The Science Behind Dyslexia

Unlike learning how to walk or talk, learning how to read is not an innate developmental stage of a child's life-it's a skill that must be acquired. When children learn how to read, several key regions of the brain connect together-regions involving recognizing letters, mapping letters to sounds, and comprehending words and meaning-to form a complex new circuit that's primed for reading.

In typically developing brains, the circuit develops relatively quickly with traditional phonics-based reading instruction, and the act of reading becomes so fast that it feels automatic. But in the brains of individuals with dyslexia, characteristics of the brain work a little differently in key regions needed to build the circuit, according to Dr. Nadine Gaab, a researcher and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School.

When individuals with dyslexia read, letters don't jump around or flip backward-a widely believed myth. Instead, dyslexic brains have a hard time associating the right sounds to printed letters, making reading laborious and resulting in spelling that often feels like guesswork. Even after words can be sounded out, reading fluency and comprehension can be very slow and challenging, notes Gaab.

The disorder can take different forms. Difficulty with phoneme awareness, which involves letters to sounds, is merely the most common, but dyslexia can also manifest as a problem with reading speed (reading fluency) or as an issue with linking words together too slowly to fully understand sentences (reading comprehension).

Early on, a child with dyslexia may struggle to recognize rhyming patterns, for example, or make mistakes in reading that show no correlation to the letters on the page, such as saying "kitten" when the child sees the word and picture of a cat, according to The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.

Because the reading circuit develops more slowly, children with dyslexia require much more methodical and repetitive instruction. Yet often, elementary school teachers skip or minimize the crucial first step in learning how to read-a thorough understanding of phonics-and emphasize other aspects of reading, like "learning to love reading" instead, assuming that, eventually, children will just pick up reading naturally.

That doesn't work: The wait-and-see approach is really a wait-to-fail model, according to Gaab, and typically sets children with dyslexia even further behind, with serious implications for the rest of their lives. A quarter of children with dyslexia suffer from depression and anxiety, and a third also have ADHD. Nearly half of all prison inmates have dyslexia, and adults with disabilities are 46 percent more likely to commit suicide than those without.

While dyslexia cannot be cured, there are early interventions that can help a child learn how to read-specifically, structured literacy, an umbrella term for multisensory, explicit instruction based on six specific language areas set forth by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA): phonology, sound-symbol association, syllable instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

When teachers use this approach for beginning readers who show signs of dyslexia, "studies have shown that 50-90 percent of those kids will reach the range of average reading ability," says Gaab.

Teachers Pursue Solutions

Employing what are commonly known as the Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, and SPIRE methods, structured literacy takes a systematic approach that starts with teaching students easier concepts-like letter sounds and pronunciation (phonology)-before moving on to harder ones like syntax and semantics, or understanding how the order of words in a sentence makes meaning.

But many elementary school teachers, along with special education teachers, say they didn't learn much about the science of reading in their teacher training programs and have had to seek out this training on their own after they started teaching.

Lindsay Peaster, a speech-language pathologist and special education teacher in Madison, Georgia, first went back to earn a PhD in special education so that she could teach struggling readers, but it wasn't enough. It was not until Peaster signed up for the Complete Reading Series, a 65-hour course on the science of reading, that she really began seeing her students' reading improve, she said.

Former teacher and creator Brenda Fitzgerald designed the intense, in-person training based on the structured literacy approach and the 1999 National Reading Panel recommendations, which emphasized the importance of explicit, systematic instruction in phoneme awareness and phonics that many classrooms are missing.

The series' six modules teach educators how the brain learns to read, along with approaches that can help both normal readers and dyslexic readers become stronger readers, writers, and spellers. The course was just what she needed to connect the dots, says Peaster, and has made a significant difference for the students she works with.
©Kelly Fitzgerald
But the Complete Reading Series is just one teacher education program helping classroom teachers.

The Dyslexia Training Institute in San Diego, California, for example, now offers both in-person training and online training supported by human moderators. The 30-40-hour online courses, which include "What Is Dyslexia?" and "Overview of the Orton-Gillingham Approach," among others, earn educators credits through the University of San Diego.

The nonprofit learning organization the Stern Center developed and launched an online coaching site in 2018 to accompany courses for educators on dyslexia provided by MindPlay. The center's online coaching can take several forms, including a virtual meeting between a teacher and a coach to review student work, videos of classroom teaching, and online seminars where small groups of teachers collaborate.

The Road Ahead

Even though dyslexia training programs provide educators with the valuable information they need to help struggling students, experts agree that the key is getting educators the training earlier, while they're still in school.

To ensure that pre-service teachers receive information on dyslexia and the science of reading, the International Dyslexia Association relaunched an accreditation program for colleges of education in December 2018-28 colleges currently meet the requirements-that doubles down on IDA's 2010 knowledge and practice standards, such as understanding the structured literacy approach.

Inspired by their own experiences, educators and parents of children with dyslexia are also influencing change at both the state and local levels. Thirty-three states have now updated learning laws to include specific provisions for students with dyslexia. Under pressure from parent dyslexia advocacy groups, Arkansas has recently revamped its focus on reading instruction with new laws requiring dyslexia screening and better teacher training in the science of reading. And new legislation that just passed in Georgia will require every kindergartener to be screened for signs of dyslexia.

Since Lindsay Peaster took the Complete Reading Course in 2016 and began receiving mentoring from Fitzgerald, her students are now making impressive reading improvements, she says. All of her students in the 2018-2019 school year have increased their "fluency growth"-a measure of words read per minute.

Yet Peaster still thinks back to all the children she worked with over the years before her training, especially one student, who was undiagnosed with dyslexia. This past fall, while teaching at the nearby middle school, she ran into the student-and he was still struggling. Peaster is now giving him structured literacy several hours a week.

"I told him, 'I didn't know what I know now when I had you the first time. We're going to make some big strides,'" she said. "I get a second chance with him."

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Unraveling the Myths Around Reading and Dyslexia

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In her 17 years as a middle school social studies teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, Su Williams regularly encountered students who still struggled to read at a basic level, and nothing she learned in her teacher training or in her nearly two decades in the classroom prepared her to help.

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Way back in 2020, when I was first diving deep into the research surrounding how we teach reading. I learned that there was a new book coming called, "Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom," and you can bet that I pre-ordered that thing as quickly as I could. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. By the time it came out in 2021, I really had come to a good understanding of the science of reading and what it meant for how I promote the teaching of reading, but I love the book and I continue to recommend it to people who are getting started in their science of reading journey. Today, we are honored to speak with the authors of "Shifting the Balance," Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, and we'll get right into it after the intro.

Intro: Welcome to Triple R Teaching, where we encourage you to think differently about education by helping you reflect, refine, and recharge. This isn't just about trying something new as you educate those entrusted to your care. We'll equip you with simple strategies and practical tips that will fill your toolbox and reignite your passion for teaching. It's time to reflect, refine, and recharge with your host, Anna Geiger.

Anna: Hello everybody, and welcome! We're so excited to have Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, who are authors of "Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom." Jan and Kari have a huge amount of experience between them, from classroom teachers to reading interventionists and literacy coaches, as well as principal. It's exciting to hear from them to learn what led them to embrace the science of reading and to support teachers as they make shifts in their teaching. Welcome Jan and Kari!

Jan: Thank you so much, Anna.

Kari: Thank you. We're really excited to be here!

Anna: I'm really glad to have you. Can one of you maybe start speaking to what it was that got your attention when it comes to the current research and led you to reevaluate some things you had been promoting in education.

Kari: I can start. For me, when the Emily Hanford article first came out, I was in a district leadership position. I can actually remember when the first teacher forwarded that to my boss, who then forwarded it to me and said, "What do you make of this?" I think I wrote a multi-page, fairly irritated response to what I thought of it, but it got some things playing in the back of my mind, I think, and that article was followed by a whole myriad of others.

There was an EdWeek series that came out when I was working with a school in the south, I think maybe about a year later. I can remember that principal basically was really thinking about this EdWeek piece and said to me something like, "Kari, it's really tough out here. My superintendent is pushing me on the practices that we and the teachers are really promoting in our school, and what will people like you do to help educators in the field?" By "people like you," I think she meant people who are doing professional development and writing and blogging and so forth. That really felt like a real call to accountability, and to dig in more deeply.

I think I actually connected with Jan at a conference, not too long after that conversation.

Jan: Yes, I was having my own kind of journey. We were close friends and I had just been watching the tension, I guess tension is almost a euphemism, it's bigger than tension, in the field.

Kari: Polarization.

Jan: Polarization, just animosity even, anger, attacks, I guess. Like Kari, I originally dismissed some things, but I had been struggling with the use of predictable text and had issues with it. I can remember being in a workshop thinking, can we even do this? Is this working, really? That was simultaneous or almost around the same time, so I don't know if I was kind of ripe for opening up to that idea.

I think at that conference that Kari mentioned, there was a session on the science of reading and what it might mean. The audience at that conference was balanced literacy educators, and so we went to that session and were just really struck by the whole tone that was about how to rebut, how to shut down, what these criticisms were.

There was some point in that meeting where I just thought, wait a minute. I mean, maybe we should take a minute and just listen and look closely. Could this many people be absolutely wrong about something before we shut it all down? I don't know why, I don't know why there was that moment.

Anytime we think about something, since we have an audience, we're always thinking about supporting them and it didn't take long to feel like, "Wow, we've got to think this through for our readership. We have some responsibility here."

You don't have to follow that chain of reaction long to feel pretty sick to your stomach, actually sick to your stomach might be euphemism too. It's like, oh gosh, and so then we started talking about writing a book.

Kari: Well, I think the first thing that happened, Jan, is you invited me to dig into the research with you to sort of be a thought partner with you. If I'm honest, I have to really admit that when you did and when I said yes, I was probably equal parts interested in strengthening my own ability to rebut a lot of what was being said. I was interested in being able to forward a strong argument in ways that I didn't feel equipped to do.

But I think what happened along the way was, I mean, we joke about this, but I think what kept happening for us, we were sort of saying in a variety of ways, "Oh, wow. There's something here to think about that we've got to look at." There are some things that really affected practices that we both embraced, used ourselves, and promoted with other educators.

Anna: That is very interesting because I know exactly what you mean. When I read that article, I would go on my walks and I would start to like think, "What can I say? I'm going to write a blog post, and I'm going to refute this article." It just kept going over and over in my head and I never got there, because I really didn't have the answers.

So then I went to a Facebook group of other people like me that have blogs or are selling resources, and I asked, "I know a lot of you are on the same page, you do three-cueing with leveled books and everything. What do you think of this article?" I was only putting that there to get people to help me know how to respond to it, to refute it. I was just so surprised that a whole bunch of people wrote there that they used to teach that way, but now they use decodable books and everything else and it just opened my eyes. I had no idea it was that big right now. They put in a whole bunch of professional books, and I bought them all and started reading.

I joined that big science of reading Facebook group at the time, and I literally did feel sick. I could only be in for ten minutes a day, because I felt a visceral reaction to all this stuff.It was so hard because it felt like it was turning everything I believed upside down.

Then you just have to work through it for a while, and then you start to realize that not everything you did was wrong, but like you said, there are some shifts you have to make.

Do you remember some of the books or resources that you were studying that really helped you see things a little differently?

Jan: Yeah, I'm sure they're the ones you studied too. Marilyn Adams book was a favorite, I think it's "Beginning to Read: Learning and Thinking About Print."

Anna: Which is not a new book, interestingly.

Jan: No, it's not a new book, and I had read it before! I read it in my doctoral program, and at the time I zoomed in around different parts of it, but for some reason, it just did not resonate with me the way it did this time around.

Kari: We did a really deep dive into books and articles, and it's interesting, because I was thinking about this idea of favorite resources, and a resource that we learned about only later, we didn't know it at the time we were writing the book, but boy, this is a beauty and it's "Making Speech Visible: Constructing Words Can Help Children Organize," by Jeannine Herron.

Jan: It's a beautiful book.

Kari: Beauty that I wish we'd have had! That's the kind of a book we found ourselves longing for in all of the reading we were doing. We kept asking ourselves, how do you bridge the research and the practice in really practical ways for teachers? I love that book.

The David Kilpatrick, "Equipped for Reading Success," which it's this spiral-bound book that has a lot of exercises for building phonemic proficiency, but boy, the front matter of that text I found to be so helpful. We're always looking for resources that are sort of helpful in synthesizing the bits and pieces. That was one that really stood out to me too.

Jan: "Know Better, Do Better" by David and Meredith Liben, and they were actually very kind to us in the writing of our book. They were very gracious and supportive in sending us resources. We really tried to find meta-analysis and work from meta-analysis as much as possible. I don't know, we were bordering on manic, I think, with just kind of immersing ourselves for fifteen hours a day for a year.

Kari: Yeah. The other experience that was happening for me kind of at the beginning of this was, I was participating in LETRS training in my home district. We wouldn't want to leave out Louisa Moats and her influence in a variety of ways.

Jan: Her book is "Speech to Print."

Kari: Quite frankly, first run through that LETRS text is also... There's a few pages that are just... I kind of almost giggle now, when I look at my angry scribblings all over them, because I was a little triggered on day one especially, as I remember.

Jan: I can remember she called me and she was like, "Oh my gosh, you won't believe what they're saying!"

Anna: This is so funny, because I actually, when I bought all those books that they recommended in that Facebook group, the first time through, I had a lot of comments on the side like, "Well, so HE says, or blah, blah, blah." Because I didn't... And I would always look and see, what do they say about three-cueing, because I was still holding onto that.

But now I read them differently and I understand, but it just takes a lot of reading the same thing over and over for it to all start to come together and start to make sense.

Kari: It's so true. There's this Willingham article that is about comprehension, and we read that article early on, but we've come back to it recently, because it has become a favorite resource to share with other educators and is such a great example for me of background knowledge and how background knowledge really affects what you take out of a text.

Jan: One of the things we were thinking about, in addition to the fact that some of the texts are pretty dense, or maybe inaccessible if you're just getting into this, was that in many, there's a lot of language that we had to really read past that was really triggering. There's some references to things that just really could make someone really, really triggered.

It began to confirm for us one of the reasons, perhaps, that balanced literacy educators were more hesitant about this, is because if they went and picked up one of these books, they might feel attacked. So it was just confirmation that there might be something we could do that would be of service to balanced literacy educators.

Kari: We've tried to approach this under the umbrella idea that, yes, this is "head" work, but this is also "heart" work. We're really calling on people to, in some cases, make smaller shifts to their practice, but in some cases make some really substantial shifts that require letting go. I mean, it's no small thing to think about what's being said about three-cueing systems, so "head" work and "heart" work.

Initially when Jan said we should write about this, it is not a lie when I say my answer was,"Absolutely not! You think I'm going to just throw myself headlong into THIS? No, not going to do that," but she's persistent in ways that if you don't know Jan, you maybe don't yet know the definition of the word persistent.

I mean, I think for me, what became appealing, what really drew me into this, was wanting to find a way to share information in such a way that supports the "heart" work side of this.

Honestly, we've been called out on this idea that we sort of mollycoddle teachers, or we act like teachers can't handle the truth. Of course, that's NOT what we think. We know teachers can handle the truth, but I think we want to do it with respect.

We challenged ourselves to really think about not just the science of learning to read, but also what's the science of human and organizational change, and what do we need to do in order to support this really important change work within organizations, because the change can only happen through adults. If adults are feeling attacked, or threatened, or defensive, they're never going to be their best with children.

We just, I think, came to believe that maybe that was a place where we could situate some work. Not that we're the experts on the science of reading, we try to be super clear that what we've written is just an entry point, maybe it starts to help you build some background knowledge that is supportive to you as you decide what else you're going to read or do to grow yourself.

Anna: Yeah, I think that's great. When I look at your book, I think of it as a bridge, as a starters guide, a beginner's guide. And I know I've read that criticism too, that this idea... I can think of someone who said, "Teachers are fine. They're not that sensitive. You can just say it like it is."

Well, if that's really what's been done for the last forty years, it hasn't worked. Teachers love what they do and they're passionate about what they do, but they're also passionate about how they do it. For someone to come in and accuse them by saying, "What you're doing is damaging kids," that's harsh language.

I tried this in that Facebook group. I said, "Can we have a gentle discussion about the difference between balanced and structured literacy?" We had a really good discussion going, because I know a lot of people leave that group when they first join, because they ask a question and someone jumps on them and it was going really well. But then someone jumped in with all caps, "I'M SO SICK OF THIS GENTLE STUFF, IT'S TIME TO..." And then she just started "yelling" at people. "Yelling," I say in quotes, but that's what it feels like when you're using all caps. And I just shut the post down, because it was not helpful, just yelling at people to change doesn't work.

Kari: Yeah, and we understand the argument that children can't wait and they've got a limited window and there is real urgency, and making one tiny little shift won't do it. But also we're real believers in the domino effect, and if you can get some momentum going, then big things can potentially follow, but taking care of ourselves and each other is an important part of the work as well.

Anna: I think some people in the balanced literacy community are very concerned about switching to, "the science of reading." I know you don't really switch to the science of reading, but what that's been called, because it's sounds very clinical, very boring, and that's not why they became teachers. They became teachers because they love literacy and reading and they want to communicate that, and they're afraid that by making this shift, that's not going to happen.

What would you say to teachers who are hesitant, because you do speak a lot to balanced literacy teachers? I guess a better question is, what have you found has been a big point of resistance for them?

Kari: I'm a believer that resistance is how fear presents itself. Information is helpful. One of the ways we decided to write the book that I think really works is to select misunderstandings and to sort of untangle misunderstandings, and I think that has worked.

I just want to say that I think at the heart of the matter is, every educator knows and thinks about students they haven't been able to help to learn to read and write in the ways that they wanted to. That's what we lean on when we need courage for this work. We all know what we've done in the past hasn't worked for ALL children, and so the good news is that there is evidence, and there are other ways of doing this that will be more effective for many of the children who have not succeeded in our current systems.

Jan: When you asked what are the points that get kind of pushback, I don't feel like we get a ton of pushback from balanced literacy educators. It's interesting, but I hadn't thought about it until you just said it. I think the way that we wrote the book was that it starts with comprehension, which is a point of agreement, and then the science builds gradually, so that by the time you get to chapter five, which is the biggest moment where you're rethinking MSV, and then chapter six decodable text, by then you understand a bit of the why. So something about building that case logically and gradually.

The other thing I think too, if we meet with hesitation or resistance, I don't know if it's from raising teenagers, or what it is, but we've learned a little bit about not just pushing back harder and taking a deep breath. Being dogmatic and categorical and absolute is the last thing that is persuasive to people. We've done some reading about how resistance manifests and in embracing curiosity and vulnerability and finding entry points as ways to go about this work.

Kari: We were really listening also for the grain of truth, because usually with resistance, there's some truth to whatever the pushback is and people need to feel heard. They need to feel honored in their concerns.

Jan: The reason we did the online class was because the book could only do so much, and the online class, it follows the same structure, but it just goes a lot deeper. It's a lot more methodical of that building, there is a landscape of those chapters, like you don't just dip into chapter three or chapter four or chapter five, the book is meant to be building and cumulative.

Kari: And every shift, whether in the book or in the online class, starts with the why. We start with clearing up those misunderstandings and then we move to really practical shifts for the classroom. We want for every educator to read our book and come away thinking, "Wow, some of my current practices were really affirmed, I can do even more of certain things. I'm really on track with what's going to make learning to read easier. And there are also certain practices that maybe I have that I need to strengthen or that I used to use that I should bring back."

We hear from people all the time, "I used to do that, but I quit doing it. I'm going to bring that back."

And then of course, some practices that we need to say, we thought it was right at the time, but now we know better. We're going to let go of that one and move on or do it differently.

Anna: So you have your book, "Shifting the Balance," which of course we'll link to that in the show notes, as well as your online course. How often does the course open?

Jan: We run it six times a year.

Anna: Okay, so it's very accessible. You have a website I know with resources for the book. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Kari: Yeah, we have lots of free downloads on the site. If you have the book, you know that the book is laced with references to more resources to support that, but those resources are free and downloadable to anybody, whether you're reading the book or not. There's something there to support the shift in every chapter, and we do add to those downloadables all the time.

When our book came out, we had the chance to learn from many other people who read our book and who had ideas for us. It gives us a chance to, again, practice that managing of our defenses and really trying to listen for the truth in what's being said to us, even though some days, it's not that fun to open your email or look at your Facebook and see what someone has to offer you.

But we really took to heart some of the feedback we got about shifts five and six, because some of the feedback was that maybe we didn't go far enough and maybe we left it murky or unclear to teachers, in terms of what was intended there. We have a part of our website that's dedicated to really answering some questions about that for people who might have questions about it. In our online class, we took extra care to really be explicit and clear about our intentions with five and six, and we've been really careful to have that work vetted by some people who are deeply embedded in the science of reading communities.

Jan: Chapter four, which is about sight words, seems to be one of the most accessible entry points, because balanced literacy educators don't feel like they're nailing sight word instruction, for the most part. They don't love flashcards, but that's what a lot of folks are doing. So we have some resources, a mini course and some classroom materials, coming out to support high frequency word instruction.

Anna: Great. All right, well thank you so much! And thank you for all that you guys are doing to bridge the gap, because that's just so important and hard to find people who understand both sides and are open and honest about what they're learning. It was a treat to have you here and I'll definitely link to all those things in the show notes.

Jan: Yeah, we appreciate you.

Kari: We so appreciate you, and we really are appreciative of this opportunity.

Jan: We do appreciate you as a bridge builder and it seems like your work is particularly addressing the ongoing question of, among other things, what are the children doing while teachers are working with small groups? We've been impressed by the materials that you put out there! We first heard of you when we were with Marnie Ginsberg, and she was referring to bridge builders, I think she mentioned you and Margaret Goldberg. We're grateful for being able to connect with you.

Anna: Well, thank you very much. I'm always excited when someone has heard of me, and to be in the same sentence as Margaret Goldberg is a big compliment. I really have a lot of respect for her. Thank you so much.

Kari: Thank you.

Jan: Take care, Anna.

Anna: Thank you so much for listening today, and you can check out the show notes for this episode at themeasuredmom.com/episode88.

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From balanced to structured literacy: A conversation with Jan Burkins and Kari Yates

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Way back in 2020, when I was first diving deep into the research surrounding how we teach reading. I learned that there was a new book coming called, "Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom," and you can bet that I pre-ordered that thing as quickly as I could.

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61 minutes well spent.

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Advancing Science of Reading in the Early Years - K–5 Literacy Program & Curriculum | Amplify CKLA

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Leveling students: Why we do it, why we shouldn't, and what we should do instead- Dr. Matt Burns

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Welcome to the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI, pronounced "you fly"). UFLI is an ongoing effort by UF faculty, students, and staff to improve literacy outcomes for children learning to read.

The work of UFLI focuses on two main areas: teacher development and reader development. The place where those two overlap ... that is where the work of UFLI lives. Our programs and resources are designed to help teachers become more confident and more successful in their capacity to help kids learn to read. We do this through:

Academic programs for both pre-service and practicing educators to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to be effective reading teachers

Professional learning opportunities to help classroom reading teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders expand their knowledge, enhance their teaching practices, and build capacity in their schools

Resources for teachers, parents, and teacher educators to use in their reading instruction

Much, much more!

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UF Literacy Institute | Where teacher development and reader development overlap

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Welcome to the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI, pronounced "you fly"). UFLI is an ongoing effort by UF faculty, students, and staff to improve literacy outcomes for children learning to read. The work of UFLI focuses on two main areas: teacher development and reader development. The place where those two overlap ...

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools

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Phonemic Awareness Skills Development Tools.pdf

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Welcome back to our Balanced to Structured Literacy series!

Today we're tackling a topic that many people think isn't even part of the science of reading: comprehension.

It feels like phonics get talked about the most - which is probably true. After all, kids must have strong phonics (and phonemic awareness) skills to lay the foundation for reading.

After they get more automatic with those skills, they start to become fluent ... which paves the way for comprehension.

But we don't have to wait until our students are fluent to work on comprehension.

In fact, we build comprehension even before they can read ... through whole-class read-alouds.

As a classroom teacher, I had many days where I just grabbed a book and started reading.

(Okay, I admit it, that was most of the time.)

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with grabbing a book to fill a few minutes.

But the interactive whole-class read-aloud is different. It's planned and purposeful.

And it should be a consistent part of your reading block. It's the ideal time to build vocabulary and comprehension!

Let's take a look at some sample schedules and see how that whole class read-aloud fits in.

Remember ... the "Whole Class Read Aloud" is when your main focus is vocabulary and comprehension.

As you think about what book to read aloud, consider ...

What content do you want your students to learn?

Instead of choosing a book based on what reading comprehension strategy you want your students to learn, choose a book based on the content you want your students to understand. You can then choose a reading comprehension strategy in service of the content.

(Not gonna lie ... I had this backward for a while. I started with a list of all the reading comprehension strategies - predicting, visualizing, you name it - and I tried to find a book that would help me teach a particular strategy. I had it backward!)

Spend time with the book beforehand, making note of anything that applies:

What themes or concepts are most important for your students to learn?

What vocabulary words will you teach in-depth?

What vocabulary words will you teach as they come up in the text?

How will you build background knowledge before reading the book aloud?

Where will you stop to analyze text structure, address difficult sentences, prompt students to make inferences, or ask questions?

What guided or independent work might students do after the reading?

Before you read, don't forget to ...

Introduce the book by reading the title and illustrator.

Build background as appropriate.

Pre-teach any Tier-2 vocabulary words that students need to know to comprehend the text.

As you read ...

Stop to briefly address vocabulary words.

Ask questions and occasionally pause for students to "turn and talk" to a partner.

Think aloud as you apply reading comprehension strategies.

After reading ..

Discuss the story through both low and high level questions.

Include a follow-up drawing and/or writing activity. Research tells us that writing about reading helps us comprehend the text better!

Most of all, just get started! You will get better and better at interactive read-alouds the more you do them.

Don't forget to check out the rest of our Balanced to Structured Literacy series!

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How to teach reading comprehension in K-2

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This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Welcome back to our Balanced to Structured Literacy series! Today we're tackling a topic that many people think isn't even part of the science of reading: comprehension. It feels like phonics get talked about the most - which is probably true.

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THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
Why So Many Kids Struggle to Learn, Winter 2022 Teachers continue to be trained in ways that ignore the findings of cognitive science.
MINDING THE GAP (republished from Forbes, no paywall or ads)

What If School Integration Isn't the Key to Education Equity?, January 12, 2022
It's a worthy goal, but evidence indicates it's neither necessary nor sufficient to boost outcomes for vulnerable students. 7 Ways Our Intuition Can Mislead Us About Learning, January 3, 2022 Our perceptions about what's working in the learning process often conflict with scientific findings. That can make it harder for teachers and students to be successful. ... Harvard Has Dropped Its SAT Requirement, But Don't Expect More Diversity, December 27, 2021 Harvard has made SAT and ACT scores optional for applicants for the next four years, joining a growing trend. But if colleges expect that policy to result in greater student diversity, studies show they're likely to be disappointed. ...
Click here to see all of Natalie's posts that are now available (for free) at Minding the Gap.
THE ATLANTIC
Deloris Fowler had seen educational reforms come and go. Then one of them surprised her. ...
In the early grades, U.S. schools value reading-comprehension skills over knowledge. The results are devastating, especially for poor kids. ...
Every two years, education-policy wonks gear up for what has become a time-honored ritual: the release of the Nation's Report Card. Officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, the data reflect the results of reading and math tests administered to a sample of students across the country. Experts generally consider the tests rigorous and highly reliable-and the scores basically stagnant. ... EDUCATION NEXT In a recent book, Morgan Polikoff pins his hopes on high-quality curricula selected by the states. ...
PERSUASION
T esting may have exacerbated the focus on skills over content. But the roots of the obsession with skills go deeper. They rest on suspicion of the very idea that knowledge should be transmitted. ...

WALL STREET JOURNAL Digital devices have the potential to yield benefits in the classroom, but the way they're commonly used only exacerbates existing inequalities. A different approach would change that, but there's no saying when that might happen, and meanwhile the education of many students is suffering. ...
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW In a first grade classroom I visited a few years ago, most of the six-year-olds were using iPads or computers. They were working independently on math problems supposedly geared to their ability, while the teacher worked separately with a small group. I watched as one boy, whom I'll call Kevin, stared at an iPad screen that directed him to "combine 8 and 3." A struggling reader (like almost all his classmates), he pressed the "Listen" button. But he still didn't try to provide an answer. ...

PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND LITERACY (INTERNATIONAL DYSLEXIA ASSOCIATION) (Co-editor of Fall 2019 issue on "The Importance of Knowledge)

Monica was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child ... "I didn't think I was going to go to college because I was special ed," she told an interviewer, "and special ed kids don't go to college." ... Just three years later, however, Monica had passed her New York Regents exams in English and American history-scoring an impressive 91 on the latter. Eventually, she not only attended college but graduated with a degree in sociology. ...
CHALKBEAT
How do students best learn to read? Equally important, how do students learn to love reading? The Common Core emphasizes reading comprehension skills, like identifying the main idea of a text. Yet in her new book, "The Knowledge Gap," Natalie Wexler argues that teaching those skills in a vacuum, rather than centering instruction around interesting and rigorous content knowledge, hurts both student achievement and engagement. ...
MINDSHIFT/KQED In 1987, two researchers in Wisconsin, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie, constructed a miniature baseball field and installed it in an empty classroom in a junior high school. They peopled it with four-inch wooden baseball players arranged to simulate the beginning of a game. Then they brought in sixty-four seventh- and eighth-grade students who had been tested both for their general reading ability and their knowledge of baseball. ... RESEARCH ED MAGAZINE Cognitive load theory has been described as one of the most important discussions in modern psychology that educators need to be familiar with. Natalie Wexler looks at what the implications of this theory are for the way we teach writing, and what it means in the classroom. ...
THE GRADE (PHI DELTA KAPPAN) Six years ago, I thought I knew a lot about education. I'd been writing about the topic for several years. And yet I knew nothing about a fundamental and pervasive problem that was undermining the decades-long effort to improve educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students: the widespread assumption that teaching kids reading comprehension "skills and strategies" is more important than building their knowledge in subjects like history and science.... THE NEW YORK TIMES Standardized tests are commonly blamed for narrowing the school curriculum to reading and math. That's one reason Congress is considering changes in the law that could lead states to put less emphasis on test scores. But even if we abolished standardized tests tomorrow, a majority of elementary schools would continue to pay scant attention to subjects like history and science. ... THE WASHINGTON POST The resignation of D.C. Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson in the wake of two embarrassing scandals at the high school level could provide D.C. schools with an opportunity to change course and regain its reputation as a national model of education reform. But that can only happen if officials recognize the true source of both scandals: elementary school, long considered the bright spot in the system. ... It's no secret that many Americans are lousy writers. Just ask any college professor or employer, including those at prestigious institutions. With the advent of e-mail, writing ability has become more important than ever, and writing deficiencies have become increasingly apparent. ... AMERICAN EDUCATOR

Despite billions of dollars and massive efforts on the part of thousands of highly dedicated and intelligent people over the past 25 years, the size of the test-score gap between the wealthiest and the poorest students hasn't changed.¹ Our mediocre standing on international literacy rankings is largely a reflection of how low our lowest scores are.² Teachers in high-poverty schools in Washington, D.C., have told me they've had students at all levels of ability, including the highest, but some of their stories were deeply disturbing. ...
When Monica entered high school, her writing skills were minimal. After repeating first grade and getting more than 100 hours of tutoring in elementary school, she'd managed to learn to read well enough to get by, and she was comfortable with math. But writing seemed beyond her reach. ...

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THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR Why So Many Kids Struggle to Learn, Winter 2022 Teachers continue to be trained in ways that ignore the findings of cognitive science. MINDING THE GAP (republished from Forbes, no paywall or ads) What If School Integration Isn't the Key to Education Equity ?, January 12, 2022 It's a worthy goal, but evidence indicates it's neither necessary nor sufficient to boost outcomes for vulnerable students.

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NEW PODCAST

There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation - even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this new podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences - children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

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In 2017, Emily Hanford began investigating how children are taught to read. In a series of ongoing reports, collected here, she helped teachers, parents and policymakers recognize widespread flaws in instruction and helped spark a movement to bring the science of reading to schools.

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Shifting the Balance Podcast Series

In this podcast series we share a bit about the journey that led us to write Shifting the Balance, address misconceptions that have discouraged educators from incorporating the science of reading into the balanced literacy classroom, and encourage courageous actions toward brighter outcomes for students, beginning wherever you are.

You can listen here or find this series on Spotify, Apple, or Audible.

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In this podcast series we share a bit about the journey that led us to write Shifting the Balance, address misconceptions that have discouraged educators from incorporating the science of reading into the balanced literacy classroom, and encourage courageous actions toward brighter outcomes for students, beginning wherever you are.

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In the debate over Emily Hanford's podcast " Sold a Story," two groups have been vocal: those who agree that teachers have been conned into believing most children learn to read without systematic phonics instruction; and those who, like the 58 educators who signed a letter to the editor of the Hechinger Report, respond that Hanford has "reduce[d] the teaching of reading to phonics."

But there's a third perspective that needs to be heard if all children are to become fully literate.
Related: Reading Matters: Read Hechinger's reporting on literacy
I disagree with the contention that Hanford has reduced reading instruction to phonics. She's acknowledged that comprehension is important. And she deserves enormous credit for revealing that standard instructional methods have left many children unable to decode words.

But I agree with the letter writers that there's more to the story than Hanford's podcasts cover. I just don't think we agree on what that is.

Those who signed the letter ask for "stories of school districts and educators who have seen incredible success using comprehensive approaches to reading instruction." Given that Lucy Calkins is one of the letter's signatories, I suspect they mean approaches that include methods of teaching reading comprehension and writing that Calkins herself has long promoted. (Disclosure: The Hechinger Report is an independent unit of Teachers College, Columbia University, where Calkins and several other signatories to the letter serve as professors.)

My view is that those approaches have failed, leaving untold numbers of children not only unable to decode but also unable to understand complex text or express themselves coherently in writing. I believe we need to hear more about that part of the story, which is inextricably connected to schools' failure to teach decoding.
Related: Inside the podcast that reignited the reading wars
For students to become fully literate, we need to be informed about all the fundamental flaws in a tightly woven system of literacy instruction. If schools get the idea that all they need to do is switch to a new phonics program, they're going to be in for a shock when it becomes apparent that students at higher grade levels still can't understand what they're expected to read or write well about it.

Given that Hanford has now devoted about eight hours of audio to reading - counting her four previous hour-long documentaries, including one ostensibly on comprehension - it's surprising she hasn't at least mentioned problems with comprehension instruction that have long been identified by reading experts.

The standard approach, which Calkins' materials support, is to have students spend hours every day practicing reading comprehension "skills and strategies," like "making inferences" or "visualizing," using books on random topics that are easy enough for them to read independently. The theory is that if children master comprehension skills, they can eventually use them to glean knowledge from any text they encounter.

But, as scientists have long known, the key factor in comprehension is knowledge, either of the topic or of general academic vocabulary. The best way to build that knowledge, beginning in the early elementary grades, is to immerse children in social studies, science, and the arts - the very subjects that have been marginalized to make more time for comprehension skill practice.

As for writing, the usual approach - which Calkins pioneered - is to have children write freely at length beginning in kindergarten, either about their personal experience or topics in a separate writing curriculum. But if students aren't writing about the content of the core curriculum, they're missing an opportunity to cement new knowledge - the kind of knowledge that fuels reading comprehension. Research has shown that writing about content in any subject boosts learning.

And if students aren't explicitly taught how to construct complex sentences, the syntax of written language can also be a serious barrier to comprehension. Once they learn to use a word like "despite" or a construction like a subordinating conjunction in their own writing, they're far more likely to understand it when they encounter it in text.

One reason for our flawed system of literacy instruction is that we've used "reading" to cover two very different things: decoding and comprehension. Professor Alan Kamhi has proposed redefining the word to simply mean decoding. That, he argues, would "focus attention on the true crisis in American education: knowledge deficits."

If standardized reading tests were limited to measuring decoding ability, schools might abandon the futile attempt to teach reading comprehension as an abstract skill and spend more time on subjects like history and science-and help students understand the texts they read in those classes.

Alternatively, we could start talking about the "science of literacy" instead of the science of reading, signaling a broader focus. Before students are fluent readers, the most efficient way for them to acquire the knowledge that fuels reading comprehension is through listening and speaking.

It's been found that, on average, students' listening comprehension exceeds their reading comprehension through about age 13. If teachers read aloud from a series of texts on the same topic, ideally as part of a content-rich curriculum designed to build knowledge, students will hear the same concepts and vocabulary repeatedly, enabling them to retain the information.
Natalie Wexler is the author of "The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System" and co-author of "The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades."
Studies indicate that they'll then be able to read about that topic at a higher level - and presumably write better about it too.

Educators have indeed been "sold a story," but not just a story about how children learn to read words. There's less research on comprehension and writing instruction than on phonics, but if we cast the net beyond "reading" research, it's clear that what schools are doing in those other areas also conflicts with science - and leaves many high school graduates functionally illiterate.

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OPINION: Why problems with literacy instruction go beyond phonics

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In the debate over Emily Hanford's podcast " Sold a Story," two groups have been vocal: those who agree that teachers have been conned into believing most children learn to read without systematic phonics instruction; and those who, like the 58 educators who signed a letter to the editor of the Hechinger Report, respond that Hanford has "reduce[d] the teaching of reading to phonics."

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Structured Literacy and Literacy Practices 

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Structured Literacy and Literacy Practices 

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Word chaining and the building of words should be a part of every literacy lesson for beginning readers. When students build words based on the sound symbols explicitly taught, they engage in the orthographic mapping process, which is essential for reading and writing. This linking of speech-to-print is critical for learning to read, and it's fun! Students can participate in hands-on manipulation of letters to create, read, and manipulate new words.

Why is it essential to link sound to letters?

This mapping of speech to print can immediately unlock reading for children. How wonderful is that?!

Dr. Martin Kozloff (2002) stated, "If a child memorized ten words, the child can only read ten words, but if a child learns the sounds of ten letters, the child will be able to read 350 three-sound words, 4,320 four-sound words, and 21,650 five-sound words."

There is no guessing when one can map the speech sounds to the representation within our orthographic system. Instead, students use their knowledge of the connection of individual speech sounds to the letter representations.

How To Begin This Process

🟡 Explicitly teach phoneme-grapheme correspondences.

Connect sounds to letters from the start. This instruction helps students link the sound that they hear with the letter representation for that sound. Over time, more and more phoneme-grapheme correspondences are taught moving from the most common letter representation to the least common.

🧠 For some students, this connection may happen with 1-4 exposures. Still, for many children, especially those with dyslexia, the number of repetitions needed to map the speech sounds to print is numerous. Word building provides ample opportunity to manipulate and work with the sound-letter representations to build these connections. Once this occurs, this instant recognition lets us apply these known spelling patterns to new unknown words. But how do we get to this point?

We want to understand that for our instructional practices, having a scope and sequence that introduces students to sounds first and then links or connects the spelling is key for the orthographic mapping process. When we explicitly teach the sound connected to the most common letter representation and provide opportunities for children to work with these connections, we are beginning the mapping process.

The letters are a common introduction sequence to the sound-letter connections. Why?

This order of introduction is beneficial in several ways:

When using the sequence of , it begins with the continuous sounds of /s/. This sound production can be held or continued until one's breath extinguishes. This sequence also allows for the strategy of continuous blending to be used when /s/ is in the initial position of words.

The vowels /a/ and /i/ are produced far enough away from one another on the vowel valley, limiting vowel confusions. The short vowel /a/ is made with slightly less of a smile than /i/.

Once students understand the sound representation of these letters, they can begin to build words, even with just 2-4 known letters! Creating those linkages between the sounds we hear and the letter/s we see is the key to unlocking the reading code.

You don't have to wait until all the letters are introduced to start blending words! If your students know /s/, /a/, and /t/, they can combine the sounds with reading the words and

Providing students with hands-on letters to manipulate and build words makes learning multisensory. Manipulating the letters to build words is the most effective way to develop the sound-symbol correspondences. I use plastic letters, letter tiles, and paper letters in all of my lessons so that my students can manipulate and move the sound-symbol linkages as they develop their reading and writing skills.

What is the difference between word building and word chains/ladders?

Word building is the ability to use the known sound-symbol linkages to read and write words. Students may be provided with a word orally or as a picture, and then they build the word with letters. You can have students segment the individual phonemes (sounds) as they build the word. Then have the students read the word, and for a vocabulary extension, have them use the word in a sentence.

A word chain also called a word ladder, is designed to build phonemic awareness, decoding (reading), and encoding (spelling). Word chains move in a progression where you only change one sound at a time. For example: sat-s it- pit-p a t.

Building new words based on previously taught phoneme-grapheme correspondences is crucial. Phoneme manipulation requires students to utilize their understanding of segmentation, blending, the position of sound within the word, and the ability to isolate and change the sound to create a new word. A lot is going on with this task.

👆 Above is a quick video of word chaining in action with the letters: SATPIN 👆

Phoneme manipulation tasks within word chains need to be prepared ahead of time. You want to ensure that students are using previously taught phoneme-grapheme representations and that the shift in words occurs one sound at a time.

You can see in the video ⬆️ that only the previously taught graphemes are available to the student. This scaffold helps limit letter choices and focuses the student. As students learn more phoneme-grapheme correspondences, their letter choices can grow.

Creating a consistent procedure for word chains helps students know what to do and moves your lesson along. For example:

The teacher would say the word.

The students echo the word and segment the phonemes as they pull each letter representation.

Then the student will read the word.

The teacher says a new word that differs in only one sound.

Students segment the sounds in the word and determine where the sound changes. For this chain, the student would say spell - segment /s/-/p/-/e/-/l/, pull the letters, read the word spell, and then echo "spill" - repeating through the word chain.

Research indicates that we can begin this work with students as soon as they have the sound-to-letter linkages (phoneme-grapheme knowledge).

If you learned that phonemic awareness could be done in the dark, and once letters are added, it becomes phonics, this is true. However, research shows that when we link sound to letters and manipulate these, it helps to solidify the speech-to-print connections, which is part of orthographic mapping. By linking the sounds to the letters, we solidify the speech-to-print connections as we map the sounds to print. Therefore, we can begin phoneme manipulation tasks even with our early learners.

Note: I will scaffold in phonemic awareness work with and without letter linkages for many of my students. Students with dyslexia often have a core deficit in phonological awareness and need targeted instruction to develop this sound awareness and letter linkages. Color tiles work well for this scaffold!

See the chart below for ideas on how to scaffold instruction in the area of word chains and grab the full resource HERE.

Is word chaining a part of your literacy lessons? Remember, when students engage in orthographic mapping, they build the necessary skills essential for reading and writing. Find more information HERE where I share strategies throughout the week.

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Why Word Chaining Should Be A Part Of Every Literacy Lesson

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Word chaining and the building of words should be a part of every literacy lesson for beginning readers. When students build words based on the sound symbols explicitly taught, they engage in the orthographic mapping process, which is essential for reading and writing. This linking of speech-to-print is critical for learning to read, and it's fun!

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Many children with literacy difficulties find it hard to blend phonemes together. Word Chains games allow a child to focus on sounds without the distraction of graphemes, as each sound is represented by a counter. A single phoneme is changed and the child 're-blends' to make a new word. The Word Chain lists progress from simple CVC words, like 'dog' and 'cat', to more complex words with initial and final blends, like 'stand' and 'crisp'. This allows targeted practice of a very specific skill in just a few minutes.

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Blending Phonemes - Word Chains - Dyslexic Logic

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Resources and word-chains (also called word ladders or word chains) to support teaching blending skills for children with poor phonological awareness, from basic CVC blends to CCVCC words with long and short medial vowels.

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Using Our Flexible Phonics Lesson Template (Part 6): Reading Text - The Six Shifts