Narrator:
0:03

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy Talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights, and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and chief academic advisor for Reading Horizons, Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia, and special education, and Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author, and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst:
0:47

Welcome to this episode of Literacy Talks. I'm Stacy Hurst, and I'm joined by Lindsay Kemeny. Donell Pons is spending time with her family this week, so we will excuse her and let her listen to the recording when we're done, but we have two really special guests today. We're joined by Stephanie Stoller and Kelly Powell Smith. They are two of the authors of a new book called Routines for Reading Results: A Practical Approach for Accelerating Growth. It was written with Beth Madden and Sarah Brown as well. Welcome, Kelly. Welcome, Stephanie. We're happy to have you here.

Unknown:
1:25

Thanks for having

Stacy Hurst:
1:26

us. Of course, I've been looking forward to this conversation. But before we dive right in, could you briefly share what brought each of you to this work? And I will, I'll mention for those of you who are familiar with the book called Teaching Struggling and At Risk Readers by Cain. I'll just say at all because there are some tricky last names involved in the list of authors, and this is an update to that. So, could you also mention that in what brought you to this point with the book?

Unknown:
1:59

Yeah. So Kelly and I were both familiar with teaching struggling and at-risk readers. Had used it in our past work, and I was at the point where I was sharing it with a bunch of teachers that I interact with. If they were stuck with certain things in their reading instruction, I would zip off a copy from Amazon. And I went to do that one day, and the book was like $1,100 or something. It had been like $15 before that, and then that started to be a pattern. And so I reached out to the lead author Doug Carnine and asked, you know, do you know what's going on with this? And and he said that he he wasn't really sure, but it was almost 20 years old at that point, and so maybe the publisher was considering, you know, having it go out of print. And I said,"Well, I love this book. I can't. This book can't go away. This is such a useful book. And right now, in the time of the science of reading, teachers are really looking for the how to teach component." And he said,"Well, do you have any ideas about you know if there was going to be a second edition, what might be included?" So I wrote down some notes, chapter by chapter, and some some big ideas, and I sent it off to him. And long story short, he got back to me and said, "The publisher is not interested in doing a second edition. Why don't you

Stacy Hurst:
3:22

do it? Oh, cool!

Unknown:
3:23

And yeah, it. I still, I'm still a little stunned by it, quite honestly, because it it was well, it was a gift, but it was most certainly a overreach of my expertise and knowledge, and so it was one of those things that I felt like I'm not worthy. You know, like I'm not the one who should be doing this. But I also was so honored that he thought that I could do it that I had to just like pull up my big girl pants and give it a try, right? Like I thought, this is a valuable textbook, and there are some tweaks and changes that would make it even more useful, like in today's context. And so I asked some of my favorite colleagues, Kelly being one of them, to help me with it, so that I wouldn't be so overwhelmed. But it really was an enormous compliment and an enormous undertaking. And I still feel like I'm just a completely like inadequate ambassador of this great work, this original work. I'm doing what I can to get it out there in the world, so we appreciate this opportunity on this podcast. But that's how it happened, and we were coming up on the 20th anniversary of the original publication, and it was important important to us to get it out on that timeline. So we worked like fiends for about six months. And expanded the book in a variety of ways, and reorganized it a bit in terms of the the order of the content. And we're just really thrilled to have it out in the world.

Stacy Hurst:
5:15

Well, it is a fantastic book, and Stephanie, you were probably in the midst of writing one of your other books, I feel like you've had a few come out right in a row.

Unknown:
5:24

I have.

Stacy Hurst:
5:25

Lindsay knows how that is. And then Kelly, tell us about your background because I think you your background alone. I can see why Stephanie asked for your help on this.

Unknown:
5:39

Well, sure. Well, Stephanie and I also have known each other for quite a long time, but I think more than 30 years at this point. Is that accurate? I think it is. Yeah. So I met Stephanie when I was teaching at the University of South Florida. We were both there together teaching. But to go back in terms of my background, that sort of brings that I bring to this work is to go back even before that. I I went to the University of Oregon to get my doctorate degree in school psychology, and while I was there, I had this sort of very unique opportunity to learn about instruction and instructional design from some prominent direct instruction scholars, folks like Wes Becker and Doug Carnine and Ed Kemeyui, and I see that as a relatively unique thing for a school psychology program, and so that's part of what I brought was able to bring to this work. And then at the University of South Florida, I used this text in the original text, in some of my coursework, so I had that background and experience as well.

Stacy Hurst:
6:47

Awesome. Well, and you mentioned that you used it in your coursework, and of course, I'm going to look at every book I read from the eyes of a college professor who prepares pre-service teachers, because that's my current role, and I think this would be a fantastic textbook for my students. So all throughout all the courses, so that's what I'm probably most excited about. One thing that is timely is that I noticed Kurt Engelman wrote the foreword, and many of the routines come from reading mastery, which is a direct instruction program, and we are recording this not even one week after Emily Hanford has released her second season of Sold a Story, where direct instruction takes kind of center stage. But I would say before that, I feel like that was already getting a little more attention and some buzz. So why do you think that's the case? Why do you think direct instruction is getting that renewed attention? And what do people most often maybe misunderstand about

Unknown:
7:53

it? Well, I'll take an attempt at answering this one, and then Stephanie, you can chime in. Of course, I think people are searching for what works. It's that sort of continued attention to what the evidence says, which is of course a great thing. But I think that's also coupled with quite a bit of frustration over not seeing the needle move as much as we would like, where students are performing on the NAEP, as an example, and people are searching for answers, and as that continues, I think the evidence is emerging. The evidence has always been there, but I think we're talking about it more now, and it's great that that Emily Hanford's podcast is shining light on this. I'm excited about that. In terms of what's most misunderstood about DI, I think some of the things I think about is this notion that direct instruction is dry and it's boring and takes the fun out of learning, that it takes away teacher creativity, or that it's only for basic skills, and those are all myths. And I think we need to place ourselves in that position of the learner, and not let our sort of expert knowledge and beliefs about what's fun cloud our judgment about what's best instructional practice and what students respond well to.

Stacy Hurst:
9:14

Yeah, well said, Stephanie. How would you explain the difference between explicit instruction? We hear a lot of these terms, direct instruction, and I know I've heard you, Stephanie, also refer to as capital D, capital I, direct instruction, and then little direct instruction, or I don't even know what the term for that would be. But how does that differ, and what should we know as educators about those terms?

Unknown:
9:41

Yeah, I think people refer to capital D direct capital I instruction when they're referencing the programs that were authored by Zig Eggleman and colleagues. Those are not exclusively, but mostly published by McGraw Hill. So Reading Mastery. Language for learning, direct instruction, spoken English language for learning, on and on and on. Little di, I think, are some of the design and delivery practices and principles that can be extrapolated out of the published programs and used with any instructional materials, and so you'll often hear Anita Archer talking about her programs, phonics for reading, rewards, and even her professional development training as little di, so explicit and and direct instruction outside of one of the published programs. So we talked as authors when we were writing this book. Is this a DI book? Is this a capital DI book? It's it's not a program, but some of the routines are extracted from some of the published programs, and we're hoping that the routines can be applied no matter what program a teacher is using. That even if they don't have a program, as is still the case in some schools, and unfortunately with some special educators, this would give them a starting place.

Stacy Hurst:
11:16

Yeah, I did notice that about the book. I think it could be applied in many, many, many different instructional situations. So, yeah, and to your point, Stephanie, about recommending the old, the first version of this book. Just on Friday, I had a conversation with the district special ed director, and I said, "You know what? You need this book. I'm reading it. This will help you a ton. So this is a very shareable kind of a resource too. And

Unknown:
11:47

can I just add one of the things that distinguishes the capital DI programs that is not included in our book is the instructional design, the sequencing of the skills, the identification of the skills, the combining of tasks into lesson lessons, some of that brilliance that occurs in the DI programs can't be represented in just a collection of routines. So, we hope that people will will investigate and look into those DI programs. They have such a long history and track record of effectiveness. But if you want to kind of get your feet wet with some of the ideas in the delivery, then those components are going to show up in our book.

Stacy Hurst:
12:43

Yeah, one thing I loved about the book too is that even though you couldn't bake those in without having it be an actual program, you very much draw the reader's attention to those things. So I'm, I know, and again, I'm looking at it through the lens of how would my students, what would they gain from this book, and I think that would make it a lot easier for them to recognize those components. Lindsay and I went to college about the same time to get our teaching degrees, and I don't think I heard anything about direct instruction in my undergrad. I wouldn't have even known what to look for. How about you, Lindsay? What was your yeah?

Lindsay Kemeny:
13:21

No, it was. Yeah, no. It was all kind of whole language based. And what are your own theories about reading? And yeah, having kids read and and creating these, you know, the environment rather than how do I actually teach it. But you know, another thing I was thinking it would be helpful for this book if curriculum writers, you know, program writers even reviewed it as they're writing, you know, doing their programs to, like, I just I love the simplicity of the language, very straightforward. There's a lot of back and forth between the teacher and the student. Teacher models, then she has the student do it, and it's just, you know, sometimes you get these programs that are just like they're so wordy, and the teacher is talking forever, and there's not a lot of responses, and this really kind of cuts through that confusion. And just here is, you know, here are the essential parts. I love

Unknown:
14:12

that you elevated that because I think one of the greatest things about DI is it is cut cutting the that instructional exchange to the bare minimum because they field tested it. These are the words that cause no or very little confusion. These are the words that get students to understand and learn what you're aiming at. This is the sequencing. This is the error correction, like it's very intentional, very precise, and it's all been tested to work. So I'm really happy that you pointed that out. That's great.

Stacy Hurst:
14:53

Yeah, and as I think about even the title of the the book that this one is based on, it was teaching struggling and at risk. Readers, but everything that I've read so far in this book would apply in tier one instruction, tier two, tier three, and oftentimes there is that gap, and I I think this book helps to close those gaps. But there are the gaps between what we think that instruction should look like and what our students actually experience, I feel like we see this the most in special education. So, Kelly, I'm going to ask you the

question:
15:29

Where is that gap between what evidence says and what students actually get? Where is it the widest in special education?

Unknown:
15:38

Oh, why? Wow! Yeah, I know

Stacy Hurst:
15:41

that's a big question.

Unknown:
15:42

This is a hard question to answer, I think. But I'm going to start from the place that I believe the job of special education is to accelerate progress and to close the achievement gap as much as possible. Whether you're talking about an academic skill or a behavioral issue, the goal is

still the same:
16:00

to try to close that gap, and then also to prevent further challenges. Right. So, the essence is providing specially designed instruction designed to meet the students' need, and to do so, educators need training with that in mind and powerful materials, powerful instruction materials placed in their hands that are designed to accelerate progress. Unfortunately, these things may or may not have been a part of a special educator's experience, but that's exactly what these design principles that are that are explicated in direct instruction are intended to do powerful instructional materials with minimized language to get to students' understanding of the concept you're trying to teach, and to sort of cut the fluff out and very explicit, you know, correction procedures, which are really important for students who are struggling to understand concepts, so that's sort of the perspective I come from. So I think sometimes that gap is wide because we're it's it's training and then the materials.

Stacy Hurst:
17:13

Yeah, I appreciate that answer. And what I loved about this book too was that I don't want to even just say mention the framework of the instructional hierarchy and how important that is. I know it's something that I've been trying to teach my students about a little bit, kind of separately, but I like the way this book does it all together. Kind of points that out about how that hierarchy helps students actually get what we're trying to teach them in their long-term memory. Do you think you guys could take us through one reading skill and just give an example of those steps in the hierarchy, like through acquisition, automaticity, generalization, and adaptation, and how instruction changes at each of those phases?

Unknown:
18:03

Yeah, I'm going to back up a step and kind of piggyback on your last question just for a second. That I think one of the gaps that I see is that we know a lot about how to prevent reading difficulties, and we're not implementing what's known about prevention. We're still waiting until students are having difficulty. There are known roadblocks for beginning readers, and we we sort of just rediscover them every year with a new crop of students. So in the book, we're trying to get ahead of that with pointing out here's some stumbling blocks, and here's a way to teach that will avoid maybe not every student but most of your students from stumbling there, and so we can set up instruction in a way that is as errorless as as possible, and so one of those ways that we do that is is teaching to mastery, and that involves the instructional hierarchy. Not leaving students at the accuracy building or acquisition phase, but once they're there through practice, moving them in the fluency building and automaticity building phase, so that their responses become not just correct but effortless and automatic, and then because no conscious thought has to be devoted to producing that correct answer, we can apply that skill or knowledge to something else, other settings, other environments, other text, other contexts. So, just to use one example, if I'm teaching letter sound correspondences, let's just say even like at the beginning level in kindergarten, I'm going to teach students by modeling the correct sound of the letter, perhaps leading them to produce it. Maybe I. Have to have them pay attention to what my mouth and lips and tongue are doing while I'm producing that sound. Maybe I have to guide them in producing that sound. But once they're accurate with that sort of supported practice, then I'm going to release some of that support and have them practice all the way to the point where they're automatic with that individual letter sound, and once they can match the sound to the printed symbol, I'm going to ask them to apply that knowledge of letter sound correspondence in reading words and in spelling words. But I'm not going to ask them to read or spell words that they haven't demonstrated automaticity with the component of the letter sound correspondence first. So they're gonna they're gonna become automatic at the individual letter sound correspondence. Then they're gonna apply that in the context of a word to be able to read it and then eventually to spell that word, and then it just builds from there. And once you establish some of those very basic level skills and behaviors, then you can add the complexity. Then you can add in letter combinations. You can add words with with digraphs and other more complex patterns to the same kind of sequence of accuracy, then automaticity at the the letter combination and sound level, then at the word level, then at the text level. So that's just a little snippet example of how you might move through that learning hierarchy,

Stacy Hurst:
21:43

which I really appreciated that you included so much throughout the book because I think we kind of get stuck in one phase or the other sometimes. We can just be focusing on accuracy with no thought of automaticity. I've seen that many times, or we move right to automaticity before they're accurate, and that's to say nothing of that transfer and generalization.

Unknown:
22:09

I think, in my experience, we we generally move on too soon. We move on before students have had enough practice to automate a response. We move on to a more complex skill before they've really established the, you know, easier if you will skill. Instead of taking the learners learning as the indication of the pace and the moving forward, we're using things like a pacing guide or the scope and sequence of the the program. So that's I think where we sometimes, in an effort to cover everything, we sometimes leave some students behind. Where if we were a little bit more dynamic and responsive in the moment during the instruction, we could be moving forward still at a fast pace with all students and and not leaving some behind.

Stacy Hurst:
23:03

Yeah, that's great. And Kelly, you mentioned the importance of even how you the correction procedure that's mentioned in the book. So in that being responsive to students in the moment, how do we? What is the routine for a correction when you notice that a student needs some guidance in that area.

Unknown:
23:23

Yeah, that's a great question, and it really does depend in part on the routine itself. But I'll I'll use an example from a routine where we're trying to get students to read words automatically without sounding them out first, and so and this is done with word lists. And so, the students would be first, you know, introduced to the task. There would be teacher modeling what the expectation is. The students would be asked to produce, you know, the the response correctly independently. So you're you're hearing that model lead test. The minute you hear a student make an error, you respond to that error, and in this instance, there's kind of two kinds of errors a student might, you know, make at that point. One is they might not subvocalize, which is what they're being asked to do at the start of this routine, instead of sounding out out loud. So students might not do that. They might go ahead and sound out out loud, and so you're going to stop and correct, provide the correction to them. So that's one of the predictable things we might see a student do. And the the second one is they might read the word incorrectly. Of course, that's the second kind of error. And so as soon as you hear either one of those errors, you're going to stop the student. And if they make that first kind of error where they don't subvocalize, you're going to point to the word where the error was made, and you're going to you're going to model the expected behavior again for the student. You say my turn, watch my mouth. I'll say the sounds to myself, and then I'll say the word. So again, that teacher is my. What the expectation is. Once they do that, then you're going to give the student another opportunity to produce the correct behavior. The subvocalizing and then saying the whole word, and then you're going to return back to the first word in the list and repeat all the words in the list until the students can subvocalize and say the word without an error. So that's an

important point:
25:23

is that we come back and give them a lot more practice after an error is made.

Stacy Hurst:
25:29

Yeah, and you've already set them up for success with that by the scaffolding that you provided in that routine to correct the error.

Unknown:
25:37

I'll just add that one of the things that's important in that procedure Kelly is describing is that that error correction is directed to the whole group, either the whole class or your whole small group, without any attention or naming who is the student who made the error. If there's any error, you're going to correct the whole group, and the whole group is going to respond on your second query, and then the whole group is going to drop back a couple of items into things that nobody was incorrect on, and come back to the one that somebody was incorrect on. Did I say nobody was correct on? Go back to the beginning of the list or the beginning of the sentence where there were no errors.

Stacy Hurst:
26:19

Yeah,

Unknown:
26:20

come come at it again to the to the one that somebody was incorrect on, to see if with a little bit of delay can they still be correct. So in the moment you were correcting it, everybody responded correctly. But now with a little bit of of lag time, are they still correct? And then you might even follow that with giving some individual turns, particularly to the student or students who originally made the error, to just confirm before you move on to something else that they are now accurate in responding. Yeah, thanks for noting that, Stephanie. And I think one of the really nice things about this whole process is that it really bumps up the opportunities to respond for everyone,

Stacy Hurst:
27:03

yeah, it does, and I can see how how you could, in theory, move forward faster than if you were following a pacing guide because you're ensuring that mastery with your routines as you're moving on.

Unknown:
27:18

That's exactly right.

Stacy Hurst:
27:19

Yeah, one thing I love, love, loved about the book. There were some details in there that all of us wonder about, but you put right in there, like you do when we do say we're teaching to mastery. But then also, it was recommended about was it three days of practice before introducing the next skill, like one skill at a time, which I think is also important. That's an important point, and then allowing three days of practice. But you could get to two or three skills in a week with that kind of. Is that right? Did I read that correctly?

Unknown:
27:57

In the in the DI programs, there are multiple skills that you're working on within a lesson, it's really hard to represent that in this book because it's not a program or curriculum. Gotcha. But there would be several tasks within the lesson at various stages of mastery, right? So you might be introducing something new. There's very little in the lesson that's new, maybe 10 or 15%. The rest of the lesson is is practice and and cumulative review. But yes, the the idea is teaching to mastery the first time. Not, I think this is maybe going to work, or it's kind of worked in the past. So I'm going to throw it out there and try it. And if it works for some, great. And if it doesn't work for others, well, then I'll deal with that later. This approach to instruction is setting it up from the get-go that your most vulnerable, most challenged student is going to learn it the first way you teach it. That's the goal. That's the the design behind this. So it can seem like you're moving slower, but you're moving at the pace of of student mastery. You're not just teaching it, covering it, and some didn't learn it. You're they're learning it as you're teaching it. They're mastering it as you're teaching

Narrator:
29:18

it. Teaching literacy shouldn't mean juggling multiple programs. Ascend Mastery by Reading Horizons brings it all together. A core comprehensive pre-K through five literacy curriculum that connects word recognition, language comprehension, oral language, and writing, built on decades of proven foundational expertise. Ascend Mastery simplifies instruction and helps every student build lasting literacy gains. Ascend Mastery will be available for district and school implementation beginning with the 2026 school year. Visit readinghorizons.com/ascend to learn more and sign up for updates.

Lindsay Kemeny:
30:00

I just wanted to point out, Kelly. I like the routine you chose. This routine for you know sounding it out in your head. Basically, that's how I word it with my students, and then reading the word. Because for some, for some students, they just automatically start doing that, and they just start reading the whole word. But for other students, it's almost like it becomes this habit for them to sound it out after every time, and it's just something you have to explicitly tell them. Oh, you can just sound that out in your head, and then just say the whole word. And so that I mean, I think that's what's great about this book because there's so many different routines. So some of the routines in there, teachers might not think like they might see it and be like, "Oh my gosh, I never thought to to do that," you know. But oh, I've got to model that and tell my students,"Oh, you can just say the word," you know. So yeah, just just an interesting thing to think about, I think, as you're as you're reading through.

Unknown:
30:56

Yeah, again, that idea of like known roadblocks, right? Like in your experience in your classroom, you've seen these as sticking points. Not for everybody, but for certain kids. And if you if you prevent that from happening, you're going to be able to move faster through the entire scope and sequence.

Lindsay Kemeny:
31:12

Yeah, and you know what I used to do is I kind of waited on on some of my students. I waited before telling them that until like I teach first grade, so the middle the middle of first grade, and I found now not to do that because some of them it just becomes such a habit; it's hard to break. So I realize not no once they have those sounds and are blending, you know, and they're accurate, I can move them to doing this quicker in the year before it's it's this habit.

Stacy Hurst:
31:43

Yeah, that's a really good example, and I love that too. That modeling is the first step in that routine when you're correcting, right? That you're making sure that students can see the the way that you expect them to, because otherwise, and this is reiterated in the book multiple times, they'll just keep doing it. They'll record it in their brain in the incorrect way, just like you just said, Lindsay.

Unknown:
32:04

And there's not a lot of teacher language around the error, right? You're not saying you said mmm, but this is mmm, and and remember last week when we learned this, and like there's not all of that. It's just you see or hear an error. This word is mud. What word, everyone? They repeat it, right? Like what you just name the correct response. That's

Stacy Hurst:
32:34

it. That does make it. That does make it a lot more efficient. Yeah, for sure. When we were talking about applying these these routines to any curriculum that a teacher is already using, how can they do that if they're not using a capital D capital I program? What are some ways?

Unknown:
33:00

Well, first of all, I think it's important to examine how things are already working in your context. So, whatever data you have to to guide you, I would definitely advise taking a look at that. So, let's say you're working in a whole classroom and you're thinking about tier one instruction. Do you have a large number of students that aren't mastering things quickly during a lesson, this is a place where you could then look into these routines and think about how you might alter what you're doing to be more aligned with the routines that are this direct instruction approach that's represented in these routines in the book. And if you're working with small groups, consider which students need to make like additional growth in order to close that achievement gap, and so those who aren't making enough progress. And those are the places where I really probably prioritize doing something differently. If you need to alter what you're doing in response, obviously selecting a well-constructed, explicit routine coupled with thinking about how to employ them within your curriculum is is really helpful. Another thing I often think about is some curricula don't have enough content in some areas of literacy, so maybe nothing about teaching writing or nothing about teaching syntax, and others have almost too much content in some areas, like too many different vocabulary words, to and so the impact is too diluted and overwhelming. And so I think some of the materials in the book kind of kind of help the educator think through what kinds of words to select and how to approach teaching them. There are different approaches for for teaching vocabulary that are described, and having that guidance, I think, could be very supportive for teachers. It doesn't need mean you need to buy a new curriculum.

Stacy Hurst:
34:54

Yeah, I thought these these routines very practical too could answer a lot of those questions. In the

Unknown:
35:02

at the end of each chapter in the last two parts of the book, we give some like processing guides for what Kelly was just saying, where people can reflect on their own instructional materials and look for places where they could be strengthened. So I know a couple of places that people have given us feedback that are are like easy to implement right away. Having students hold each sound briefly as they segment when they're learning to segment and and blend phonemes. So rather than it to segment it as it. then transfer that skill. Do it the same way. Sing each sound, so to speak, as you are decoding words when you're looking at the letters, so that cuts down on students reading the sounds and then saying the wrong word. Right. So that's a practical way that that teachers can overlay information from the routines into their existing materials. Another is is more general, and that's just looking for opportunities for choral responses throughout the day, so that you can gage and monitor. Well, choral responding is going to increase engagement. Period, and so that's valuable. It's one of the best things we can do in classrooms to increase academic outcomes. But it also helps you to be able to monitor. And so, if you if you have students chorally responding, you'll know when there's an error, and that's the opportunity for that immediate error correction. So you won't be moving on with without everybody.

Stacy Hurst:
36:45

Yeah, to increase those response opportunities, Lindsay and I have both attended Anita Archer's Explicit Instruction Academy, and I love the the just the convergence of all of this. It nothing is in competition with that that line of thinking. Well,

Unknown:
37:02

that's not accidental. This is elitist roots. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:
37:06

exactly. Yeah, you can see that. I think that history matters for sure. But as I read this, I was thinking that too. And Lindsay and I and Donell, we've had an episode on Fine McGorness before, but one thing I appreciated in the book also was talking. Not only did you highlight the phoneme blending and segmentation have the most impact on reading and spelling, you talked about how to introduce that initially to preschoolers or kindergarteners, and initially without letters. And I I didn't notice the citation, but I appreciated the context of saying for the first two weeks, perhaps of the instruction, so that they can get that sense of blending and segmentation, just in the way you just demonstrated, Stephanie. Which I think, without that kind of direction, we can trip over ourselves in trying to achieve those things. So I appreciated, I appreciate the detail of of this book in those areas too. And

Unknown:
38:06

there's even more because once you're teaching students to spell the words that they now how now know how to read, they're going to clip each of those sounds because that's going to be more supportive of the spelling. So if if our aim is phonemic awareness in service of reading. We're going to teach, you know, one behavior. If it's in service of spelling, it's going to change. We're going to do that differently.

Stacy Hurst:
38:29

Yeah. And my next question, I I just envision this being such a good resource for any teacher, but my next question kind of combines your world, Stephanie. When we're talking about MTSS, and I, I'm just maybe it's a statement, but you, I know you can speak to this too. Aligning the materials or even the routines across tiers one and two. What suggestions would you have for

Unknown:
39:00

teachers to be able to do that in the systems they're working in. I think look at the context, look at the needs of your class, the magnitude of the need in your class or in your grade level or in your school, and let that guide you. Some schools that I work with, the first reading instruction should look more like how intervention shows up in a different school, because of the needs of the students, we don't need to wait and then make decisions about intervention or special education in another setting. The classroom instruction, the first way we teach reading, needs to be this supportive, Direct, explicit, errorless type of instruction. So I think that's for me where prevention really comes into play, and that's the school-wide MTSS framework using data to make that very first important. Decision: Should we be talking about how to catch up a small number of students, like 20 25% of the grade level, or do we need to be talking about how to catch up 50% of the grade level, or how to get them off on the right start as kindergartners? So the context matters, and if you have students who are coming to school being more novice or naive to the academic setting or to literacy and language, then the instruction has to step in to be more supportive. So hopefully, the routines in the book will help teachers to accomplish that. Yeah, Kelly, would you add anything to that? Yeah, was that was the first thing that came to mind is thinking about how we can leverage our differentiation in tier one, what we're doing there, to be more supportive of the needs of that context, because you you can't intervene with 50% of your students. It's just gonna it's gonna overwhelm the system. I think we all we all know this. We've all talked about it. So how can we leverage better instruction in tier one to be more supportive of the students? And I also think this just also provides an opportunity to reduce transition time between you know getting moving students to other places for if we're going to provide that more supportive instruction right in the moment in tier

Stacy Hurst:
41:24

one. Yeah, and maybe we've said the term MTSS too often that we don't stop to think about what that systemic support actually is, and it's not a way to label the students. It's what we provide in the way of getting them the instruction that each of them needs.

Unknown:
41:42

Yeah, that's one of the most salient principles within the direct instruction approach. Is that if the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught it in a way that supports them to learn. So, really owning that and then giving teachers tools to be able to implement that is is what this is all about.

Stacy Hurst:
42:03

Yeah, I do want to just highlight something that was mentioned in the text. You cited Stockard and colleagues, and that their research showed that students receiving 60 minutes of daily intervention made more growth than those receiving 30, and I know you've already stated this. A big tenet of direct instruction is to accelerate that so the gap shortens quickly, and because so often we see that it doesn't. What should a school with a 30-minute intervention block take from that finding, and part of me is asking for a friend too. Honestly,

Unknown:
42:49

what they should take from that is that their students make might make half of the progress that's possible, and they should take from that that the most important variable in the equation and in the outcomes for student learning is the instruction. So it's possible, but if we're going to put up barriers about schedule or time or adult resource allocation, it's not the student who's making that difficult; it's the adults in the setting. And I think that's. It might sound harsh. I mean it in the most supportive and loving way. Yes. But I think what is within our control to change in the school Environment are our actions and the decisions that we make, and it is possible. I want Kelly to talk a little bit more about Jean Stockard and that particular citation that you mentioned. But it's been proven time and time again for decades that it is possible to teach every student to read, we just are not acting on that reality. So, Kelly, do you want to say more about that research? Well, I I think I would mostly just echo what you just said. I think that you know, the thing about research is that we can always learn more, right? So, I I think there are 2.1 is that yes, it may mean that you achieve half of the outcomes, but it may or may not mean that because what happens if you have a very very powerful program and you work very very efficiently, so you reduce the amount of transition times and you reduce the amount of teacher talk to the minimum that's required. The kinds of things we try to demonstrate in the routines in the book, but are also very present in all the direct instruction programs, are just that. And that efficiency is really important because time is like our currency in schools, right? And every. Everybody talks about never having enough time, so we need to do whatever we can as adults working in schools to try to minimize the things that take away from the time that students can learn. So, how you're using that 30 minutes is really, really important. And even doing the best things during that 30 minutes may still not have the impact that 60 minutes would, but that's a really good point, Kelly. Because it it is, I should not be responding just with assumptions. It's a data based question that Stacy asked, right? Like yes. So if you can accomplish the outcome in 30 minutes, good on you, and I would applaud that every single day.

Stacy Hurst:
45:41

Absolutely. That is the both of your answers are so powerful, and I'm going to be time stamping this and sharing it with a few people in my life. I am thinking too. Just again, and this is a little selfish of me from the perspective of preparing pre-service teachers, we do use a little DI program. It's scripted for my students who are tutoring, and I have seen the the power that that script provides them in the exact wording, the preciseness, and if I were to take the time to measure the impact it had on the students compared to a program that wasn't scripted, I think we would see the the benefits of that. What are some of the? Well, I'm just gonna say typically that's a pushback that we hear, right? That scripted programs are demeaning to teachers, and that they're not very respectful of the teacher knowledge. And Lindsay, I'm going to turn to you on this one because you're. What What are your thoughts on that?

Lindsay Kemeny:
46:52

Well, I feel like it's it's helpful because I don't want to have to come up with everything. So it's kind of like you know, it's just having the tools that I need, and you know you can you can still make it your own even with a script I think and the idea of things like you know you're talking before about like the worry of like stifling creativity or different things like that and I just think like it's just it is putting the student first what do they need to learn? And let's put learning outcomes first, and not necessarily like what you as a teacher want to do to have fun. But there's definitely times in the day for creativity, and you can bring you know you can bring all that creativity and excitement in in your science lesson, in your math games, and even yes, in reading, but without like, like without sacrificing the important parts of the lesson. You know, I can still use the routines and use the wording, and I could say, okay, we're going to whisper our answers today, you know, and I can put my own personality into it, right? So I, I don't know. I just think, yeah, it's there. It's like a scaffold for the teacher. And then when you have that language and you really don't need it, it's just kind of ingrained. You don't have to read it anymore because you just know. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:
48:12

teaches the teacher right along with that.

Lindsay Kemeny:
48:14

Yeah, there's yeah, yeah,

Unknown:
48:16

and I think this the script itself is not. I don't know. It's not the important part because I I wouldn't want to script certain instruction like the script is not the defining nature of or the defining element of DI. I guess

Stacy Hurst:
48:37

yeah. You

Unknown:
48:38

can script really bad instruction, and I wouldn't recommend that people stick to the script, right? Good point. True. So for me, the point of the script is what Lindsay said about like she doesn't want to have to come up with every example. She doesn't want to have to come up with the sequencing. She doesn't want to have to on the fly figure out how to correct the error. She wants her cognitive load to be freed up to focus on the students in front of her and to be responsive in the moment. So, I think in the DI program specifically, what the script does is allow you to deliver instruction that has already been proven to work. There's so much field testing and background that goes into so many different iterations, so that in the DI program, what the script gives you is this has already worked for the vast majority of kids. It's been tried with. There's no guarantee it's going to work with all the students in front of you, but in the past, this has been used. This this routine, this language, this sequencing, these examples. This has worked with other students, so start here. It gives you a starting place, and then for some students, we're going to have to iterate, we're going to have to intensify, we're going to have to individualize. But at least we're starting from a level plus. Field of something that is known to be effective. We're not experimenting and starting from scratch. So to me, that's the value of the script. One of the things. Oh, go ahead. Go

Lindsay Kemeny:
50:12

ahead, Kelly. It's

Unknown:
50:12

okay. Oh, I was just going to say one of the things I think Doug Carine has talked about with scripts is that it's sort of a way for the teacher to be like the conductor of an orchestra and not the composer of the music, so like I wouldn't want to even try a composed music. It would not sound good. But but if you know with some training, the appropriate training, I think I could I could orchestrate. And so I I kind of liked that as an analogy. I know others have used different ones, but that one sort of resonated to me. Like I've been given this great piece of music, and my job is to make sure that the orchestra sounds good by orchestrating things correctly.

Stacy Hurst:
50:53

That's a good point.

Lindsay Kemeny:
50:54

And a lot of these scripted programs, like I like that Stephanie brought up. You know, like you do need to tweak them sometimes. Like it's sometimes I read through a script, a program, and I'm like, oh my gosh, the verbiage, or it's just so it's just so lengthy, and I have to figure out where I'm going to embed in some choral responses and some things, or you know, like some. There was one I was reading that was like, you know, I had this paragraph the teacher was saying to the students, and it was using vowel like what was it? Vowel syllable exceptions. These are vowel syllable exceptions, and it kept saying that over and over. And I'm like, that they don't need to know that term. I'm cutting that out, and I'm just saying, look, this says this. It looks like it will say this, but it says this. Let's practice, you know. And you can kind of read through that script, and you know understand what what is the gist here? What's the important part, and what is all this extra that maybe is too much? You know, I think you can play with it, but but if it's a program that does have research behind it, you just need to be very careful and knowledgeable before you do that, which I'm

Stacy Hurst:
52:02

glad you use that word because I think this conversation is highlighting the importance of teacher knowledge. And I'm going back to what you said, Stephanie. You could be teaching from a script that is not good, right? Like if you know better, then do better. And I think, yeah, the example you gave to Kelly of the orchestra or the conductor, right? They're always referring to their music, whether or not they wrote the actual measure. So to make a point about teacher knowledge, as we're having this conversation about scripting, Stephanie, to your point, we could be using a script that is not aligned or does not have evidence, and so it really comes down. Like it's important for us to be able to recognize that, and I think there are a lot of ways we can gain that knowledge. And Kelly, I'm going to ask you specifically because you've taught or you teach in a reading science program. What should teacher preparation programs change to better prepare future teachers to deliver that direct, explicit reading instruction.

Unknown:
53:06

Yeah, this is such a great question. I would say one of the things we want to do is to not just focus on the what of the science of reading, but the how to integrate what we know about the science of learning and the science of instruction and instructional design. So really, these things I see them as inseparable, and I really appreciate. Again, I'm going to talk about Doug Carine again. He says really like true literacy isn't achieved through this sort of haphazard exposure, but through like that very explicit, systematic, and intentional design and delivery of instruction. So, knowing that we need to make instruction more explicit doesn't mean it has to be challenging or hard. Pre-service teachers need to be able to access resources to support that effort. So, clearer information about why certain approaches work and others do not is really important. So it's not just circus science of reading, but also the science of instructional design and the science of learning. You're probably thinking of a book that's out right now, Canada Literacy. As I'm saying these things, but these are these are things that practices we can employ really with any learner to help them learn more quickly and to master the skills that we're teaching, so pre-service teachers deserve access to that knowledge, both the why and the how.

Stacy Hurst:
54:30

Yeah, I agree. And I'm thinking too, as an instructor of pre-service teachers, I'm thinking more about the way that I provide my students with those practice opportunities for these routines, some of these routines in the book, and how I provide that feedback and correction for them too.

Unknown:
54:47

Yeah, and I think the hard part is a lot of folks weren't taught that way in college, and most schools aren't providing teachers with the training and coaching in that knowledge. So. Need more of that, yeah.

Stacy Hurst:
55:01

To be more explicit about all of it. This has been such a great conversation. I do have a couple more questions, and they're they're just really going to force students choose one thing. So, if a first year teacher, for example, could master only one routine from this book, which would you choose? And for teachers who are listening, maybe what is one concrete step they can take in their next lesson?

Unknown:
55:32

Well, my top pick for the first place to go in this book is chapter 10, and and that's the the word reading, the beginning word reading that Kelly referenced earlier when she talked about the error correction routines. This moving from sound by sound to reading a whole word as a unit that that is such a stumbling block for so many beginning readers, it's something that interventionists are trying to, you know, move students through who are older, struggling readers, and it's preventable. So I think going straight to chapter 10 is the place to start, and you know maybe for teachers who are listening, something to just draw your attention to would be as you're as you're about to teach a lesson tomorrow. If you would think about the prerequisites, what are the skills that are required? What are the components that to be able to be successful in the lesson you're about to teach? What do students have to know and be able to do? And if you could build that in, you know, upfront at the beginning of your lesson, prior to that lesson, to not be expecting students to apply things they're not yet automatic with, to not ask students to to practice independently things that they're not yet accurate with, to be thinking about that instructional hierarchy as you're teaching, that's what I would encourage. It's a little philosophical, maybe not that practical, but that's what I would hope that teachers might start thinking about. It

Stacy Hurst:
57:12

could be practical. As you were talking, I was thinking that that would be a good opportunity to pre-teach some students who you aren't quite certain have those prerequisite skills. Well,

Unknown:
57:22

I love that. I mean, I love that approach to intervention time, small group in your classroom, or even tier two intervention. Being supportive of that tier one lesson by pre-teaching what is about to come and and backfilling if you need to some of the missing prerequisites, so that the student can access the the tier one lesson.

Stacy Hurst:
57:44

Yeah, great, Kate. I'm going to go right to chapter 10 and review that as well. Kelly, how would you answer that question?

Unknown:
57:52

Well, I had the same answer in terms of where to what you know routine to go to if I had to just pick one, direct people to chapter 10 because I agree that that's a really significant stumbling block we see for first grade students in particular, and we see with older learners too. But the place to prevent that is right in the moment when we're when we're teaching that skill. So I unfortunately I didn't have a different lesson. That's

Stacy Hurst:
58:19

good. That just adds power to. That means we really need to go to chapter 10, right? Yeah. And then as we're talking about maybe school leaders supporting these practices, what would you recommend for them to put one step that they could do to put these things into action?

Unknown:
58:41

Kelly, you go first. Sure. Well, I'm going to go back to something I said with respect to teacher preparation too. Is to focus on helping teachers understand the why in addition to the what. And in the first couple of chapters of the book, we lay that foundation, and so that I think we need to not skip right to the other things, but instead make sure that we're supportive of teachers' understanding of why we're asking them to maybe do something different than than they're currently doing, or why we might want to make some shifts in practice. So I think that's a really important role for a leader to to play, even if teachers are feeling really confident in the science of reading, I think also they might not feel super comfortable with scripted routines that might be new to them, especially the kinds of routines that are in the book. So that foundational understanding is going to help them think, you know, maybe be more receptive to some of those shifts, and then the other thing I guess I would add is about analyzing the data they have in their building, and thinking about where they might implement some things from the book. And those Stephanie already mentioned the at the end of each chapter we have the sort of process of thinking through how. You might take content and and apply it to your setting.

Stacy Hurst:
1:00:05

Yeah, and I will tell you, having read most of the book, the answers to your questions are in there. They really are. This is so comprehensive. So my quick answer to that question would be for leaders: buy the book. Step

one:
1:00:21

Get the book, Stephanie. How would you answer that question?

Unknown:
1:00:25

Well, I love I love your answer, and I would love for school leaders to provide this book or others to teachers, and then ask the teachers. This is yeah. You know, I'm just on a little bit of a soapbox here, but teachers are the front line, the most important variable in the entire equation, and they're working under tremendous constraints and with enormous responsibilities, and we don't often; those of us who are not teachers, we don't often ask teachers, "What do you need? Like, what's going well? Where could you use some support?" So, if a school leader would buy this book for their staff to let them spend some time with it, and then ask the teachers where do you see an opportunity where our current practices maybe aren't serving our students as well as they could, and where would you like to start? How can I support you to have time to to read the book, to talk with other people you work with about the book, to get some coaching, whatever it might be? Ask the teachers.

Stacy Hurst:
1:01:43

I love that, Lindsay. Any closing comments or questions? Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:
1:01:48

I was just thinking about you know your question you asked me earlier when we were talking about this whole creativity and the you know the idea of maybe a fun or that being stifled with the script or with the routine because I see the same like the routines in this book, the the script is very minimal, but it's very it's this routine, and I just I think maybe as a teacher it might not feel fun to you, but I don't think that's necessarily true for the students. And I find my students thrive on routines. They they thrive, and it's fun to them, and they're happy and confident and really kind of proud of what they're doing. So any part of my day where we have it's very structured with these routines, I just feel like it's the best. And they're just they're really happy, and there's this energy in the room. And so I guess I would just say say that to our listeners. So if you like a little bit, I don't know about having these consistent routines, it's so boring. I maybe it gets boring for you as a teacher. It's not going to be boring for your students. I find that if they're bored, it's usually a pacing issue and and a response. Not enough response opportunities. So if you're building in lots of response opportunities, have that brisk pace, like Dr. Archer teaches us, they're not going to be bored, they're going to thrive, and if

Unknown:
1:03:02

the students are happy, you're happy, right? Absolutely,

Stacy Hurst:
1:03:07

and energized too. I think that's learning is contagious, as they say. Yeah, and then the title for the

Lindsay Kemeny:
1:03:14

book, if you missed it, routines for reading results.

Stacy Hurst:
1:03:18

Yep, get it, get it, get it. You can get it

anywhere:
1:03:21

Amazon, Solution Tree,

Unknown:
1:03:25

and I'll I'll mention that on the books page on the Solution Tree website, all of the routines are available for free download.

Stacy Hurst:
1:03:33

Oh, so that's an

Unknown:
1:03:34

amazing resource that Solution Tree makes available.

Stacy Hurst:
1:03:37

So those of us who have the first world problem of having to wait a whole day for Amazon to deliver something, you can go right to the website. What's next for you guys? Do you have any plans to work together on something else or to continue this work?

Unknown:
1:03:56

Yeah, we're working together to provide some PD opportunities for teachers to engage with the material in the book, we have a full day workshop coming up in December. We are going to offer a book study at the first of the year. Some materials that educators can use to host a book study within their own setting as well, and some other resources that are, you know, emerging. So stay stay tuned for that, but you can you can stay up to date with the things that we have planned at www.routinesforreadingresults.com, and there are also some sample routines for download there.

Stacy Hurst:
1:04:34

Great, thank you so much for for being here and joining us. I was I'm so this conversation did not disappoint. I was really looking forward to it, and I'm glad that you guys are here. Thank you for taking the time to not only meet with us, but to do the important work of updating the book and making it available to everyone else. Because I, yeah, those decisions. Maybe if you're a listener right now and you just have a student that you're a little bit puzzled about, take a look at the book. I guarantee you, you're going to find a routine and some information for how to address that. And for our listeners, maybe just focus on that one skill you're teaching right now as well, and and think about that learning hierarchy as you continue your teaching day. So again, like Lindsay mentioned, the book is routines for reading results: a practical approach for accelerating growth. And thanks for spending time with us again, guys. And to our listeners, we hope you'll join us for the next episode of Literacy Talks.

Narrator:
1:05:46

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy Talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where literacy momentum begins. Visit readinghorizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading.