100 Episodes Later: Our Never-Aired First Episode

Episode Notes

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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 0:46
Welcome to this special episode of literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst, and I’m joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, as I have been joined for now 100 episodes of our podcast. That’s why this is special. I know. Congratulations, you guys, congratulations. When we we recorded the episode you’re about to hear in 2021 October 14, to be exact. So that was four years ago. Um, some things have changed about the podcast, and other things have stayed remarkably the same. So we have never aired the first episode, which was really a lot about our backgrounds. So our producers thought it might be a good idea for us to release that now. Lindsay Donnell, what were your reactions when they said that?

Lindsay Kemeny 1:44
I thought it was fun. I forgot that we had recorded this episode and then we never released it. So this will be fun, because perhaps some of our listeners don’t have, you know, background information on us, and this one really is just kind of sharing how you know all of our three, you know, individual journeys, you know, were into the science of reading.

Donell Pons 2:05
So yeah, and for me, it was kind of a time capsule look back I that was prior to the horrible bike accident that I had had. So I just remembering all of that and going, Wow, I look different. And that was a pretty big deal for me that occurred within the four years, and just feeling like I’m getting back on my feet just recently. And so it was kind of interesting to look back and see that, and it was interesting we were so hopeful about many things with the podcast, so that’ll be interesting to talk about.

Stacy Hurst 2:37
Yeah, I agree. One thing I remembered because we did do a video recording of it, even though those of you have been listening for all 100 episodes, or many of them, or some of them know that we started out not with video. So in this episode, please apply grace. I’m in a sweatshirt like I think we had no clue that it would ever be in video format. So basically, as we listened to this, we asked ourselves the question, what has changed in four years? So listeners, as you hear the next 40 minute episode on our backgrounds and so forth. I want, I would ask you the same question to think about what has changed in four years, not only with us, of course, but with the literacy landscape in general. Donell, Lindsay, any other Look Fors for our listeners? No, just happy listening. Yep, happy listening. Enjoy our very first episode. Okay, welcome to our podcast. My name is Stacy Hurst, and I’m here with Lindsay Kemeny and Donell Pons, and we are here to talk about all things, anything related to the science of reading. We’re grateful to have this opportunity to talk about it. There’s a lot of conversations that can be had and are being had. I’m sure about the science of reading in schools and classrooms in homes across the country. So we’re happy to share our stories with you today, and just obviously, this podcast is sponsored by Reading Horizons, which we’re grateful for. And you’re welcome to go to their website, go to the website and check out any of the resources there. So today we thought we would just be really general and talk about the science of reading our journeys, is the word that most people use these days to talk about our experience with the science of reading and relationship with it. Something that’s really fun about this group is that we all have different perspectives currently. And I’ll let Lindsay and Donell share more about their story as well and where what they’re doing currently, but Donell is working with older learners who are struggling, usually with dyslexia, and helping them learn how to read. Lindsay is currently teaching second grade, and also has a son who is dyslexic, and then I am teaching pre service teachers after a background teaching elementary so we have a lot of different perspectives on this topic, as I’m sure most of you do, and so we’re excited to have this conversation with you today. And so I thought we would start by just giving asking a question to each of us about how we became aware of the science that’s related to how we learn to read and why it became such a central part of what we do in our professions. So Donell, since you started outside of the profession of teaching, I thought we’d start with you. Yes, your story.

Donell Pons 6:02
So I’m showing my age already, huh? Stacy,

Stacy Hurst 6:07
I said nothing of your age.

Donell Pons 6:10
Thank you. Yeah. So it’s interesting, my first career was actually as a reporter for a local newspaper. I was a journalist, and I hadn’t really thought much about reading, other than I loved it. That’s that was what I knew about reading, and I didn’t ever really think about my journey to reading. I was told when I was older that I struggled with reading until I got my first pair of glasses, and then I took off as a reader. It was, it was visual. I couldn’t, apparently, see the letters. And my mom loved to tell that story. It was her little story that she would tell. My mom was an educator. She had been an educator in the early grades, and by the time I arrived, she was a piano teacher and lost she loved to read too, but I just remember as a young girl climbing into her room with her climbing up onto the bed and slipping under the crook of her arm while she was reading, and watching her eyes scan the page and watching her turn those pages. And thought it was magical. I wanted to be able to do that in the worst way, and then when I did, I don’t even remember how it happened, but suddenly I was reading myself, and it was something that we shared always. And so to me, reading was fantastic. And then I get married to this wonderful guy that I’ve been dating for a while, and I never thought to ask about reading, and reading is so much a part of my life. But we went on our honeymoon, and we had purchased a book earlier in the day to read and attend at night, and I start out reading the book, and he had said a word about reading or anything. I handed over to him to take over reading duties, and he starts this labored, very labored read. And I didn’t know what to say. And I mean, obviously it was a moment, you know this guy that I’ve just married, and then when I asked him, boy that sure seemed like it was hard, was that difficult? And he was on the Dean’s list at a local college, so I would have thought that I came to learn that not only did he struggle with reading throughout he had family members who were struggling. He was probably one of the better readers in his family, and that began what became dyslexia for me. But I had no idea that’s what I was facing at the time, and getting information was very difficult. So he would read with each of our children as they were born, and he was practicing his reading to be able to and we just picked up things that I was finding along the way. And then eventually we had four children, and two of them would go on to have dyslexia. And so the child who came first had more of a mild case, and had some excellent reading teachers. They did. They didn’t tell me anything, though, that was the issue. They took care of her. They didn’t tell me anything. And here comes this last child who has it all. He’s got the three D’s, you know, he’s got dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, the math piece, and he wasn’t getting any help. It was so difficult. And that’s when I went back to school and did two master’s degrees in teaching and in learning and education, got a special ed certification, didn’t hear anything about dyslexia. I had a fantastic education. Didn’t hear anything about dyslexia, and then I hit my first teaching job, and I had a classroom with kids who had dyslexia and nothing was being done. Rented a car that summer, drove myself to Colorado and did my first training in the issues of dyslexia. And then in 2015 a fantastic book comes out by this guy named David Kilpatrick. And really it was a game changer, because it, for me, synthesized a lot of the research that you had to gather on your own, that people were talking about here and there. And then, for the first time, you had this book where someone had brought it all together. And so as soon as I’d finished the book, I went to our local chapter of Decoding Dyslexia Utah, and said, This guy’s fantastic. This book is amazing. We got to invite him. And one of his first conferences was coming to Salt Lake City, Utah, and it was fantastic. Yeah, got us all talking science of reading.

Stacy Hurst 9:39
That’s so great. Do you remember that conference? And I met him at that conference, and I’d only read half of the book, and I asked him to sign it, and he said, I’ll only write my first name. I’ll finish the autograph. When you finish the book, oh my gosh, I love it. He’s smart and windy. That’s great. Yeah, and don’t know. Well, as you were talking about her, I’ve heard this story a lot, but I’ve had a couple more epiphanies and questions maybe. So how old were you when you got your glasses?

Donell Pons 10:10
Yeah, so I was first grade. I was a first grader, and I was struggling, and my mom was telling literally, got the glasses, go back to school and I’m reading because I had the foundation. I just couldn’t see the what to put it with it literally,

Stacy Hurst 10:26
was the visual piece. Literally that reading is linguistic. It’s not in nature. It’s not visual solely, but you need to do that. You have that that’s good. And then just, this is random, but you were so observant. I mean, my parents read to me. I don’t ever remember paying attention to their eyes going left and right. Lindsay, have you had that? Did you notice that as the youngster?

Lindsay Kemeny 10:50
No, not at all. I just remember that in like a professional development conference once where we had to watch each other’s eyes as they were reading to see what they were doing.

Stacy Hurst 10:59
But yeah, that’s really interesting. And an observant also. And this, again, the story of you and Curtis on your honeymoon. It’s one of my favorites, honestly. But what book were you reading? I don’t

Donell Pons 11:13
know if I’ve ever asked Michael Crichton

Unknown Speaker 11:16
Jurassic, yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stacy Hurst 11:19
Okay, interesting, good stuff. And you know what else I thought? I asked my college students this question about any memory they have about learning to read. Of course, most people who picked up reading seemingly naturally. We know that’s not how it works. Probably assume everyone else gets it too right? I don’t remember paying too much attention to my friends that couldn’t read or struggled to read, because I just felt like, well, doesn’t everybody just, you know, learn to read. So I thought it was interesting. Just help me remember that, that we don’t want to take that for granted, right?

Donell Pons 11:58
Yeah, and, you know, Stacy, one thing I need to mention, because I do it myself too, and I’ve had to catch myself many times that when you do love reading. And so a lot of my Happy Places are associated with reading. And so for instance, there’s, I have a favorite bookstore that I love to go to. It’s still open date Kevin’s, and it’s a mom and pop shop. It’s fantastic. And I used to go with my mom, so I love it, but my husband literally breaks out in cold sweat if I make him go in there, because and so I have to remember that, that I schedule that to make sure I’m not forcing him into those spaces. But even after all this time and today, he reads fantastic. He’s had loads of intervention, but that is still difficult. So just something to

Stacy Hurst 12:39
think that is really interesting, maybe the way that some of us feel about dental, dental offices, hospitals, yeah, yeah. Lindsay, tell us about your story.

Lindsay Kemeny 12:51
Yes. Well, I’ve always loved to teach reading. That has always been my favorite thing. And so and I was heavily trained in balanced literacy, you know, which is basically whole language repackaged right in both my college years and then my early years of teaching. And so I just, I always said, Oh, it’s the best way to teach reading, right? So I taught for five years. So then I stayed home for about 12 years with my children, and then I returned to teaching, like four years ago, and there was a couple things happening the same year. So the first thing that was happening was, it was my first year teaching kindergarten. And before this, I had always taught second grade. So now I was teaching kindergarten. You’re automatically, you know, you’re one of the main object objectives in kindergartens to teach the letters right and the sounds they make or they represent. I should say

Unknown Speaker 13:48
we’re gonna talk about that later. Yeah, split hairs right now, right? Not right now.

Lindsay Kemeny 13:56
So we’re naturally, you’re focusing on that a lot. And then I was so frustrated, because then I would bring my students to the small group table, and I’m so excited because I want to say, oh, now I’m going to show you, you know, you know your letter sounds. I’m going to show you how now you’re going to be able to read words. And I would give them the little books that were provided to me through our big box curriculum. And suddenly I am like, Oh, wait. Oh, you can’t sound this word out. And I’m finding myself having to say, Oh, look at the picture. Does it give you a clue? Now, I always said that when I taught second grade, I didn’t really think anything of it. You know, those three cueing strategies. You know, what would make sense? What’s the first letter look at the picture. But it was when I was teaching kindergarten that I started to realize, Oh, my goodness, this is giving my students like the wrong idea of what reading is. I don’t want them to look at the picture and guess, I want them to apply the phonics skills that they’re learning, right? And so. So I started to get uneasy about the way, you know, the ways I have been taught. And then that same year, my son was in second grade, and he had been struggling to read for a while, and I didn’t understand it. You know, we read to him from the time he was a baby, did all the things that I had been taught, you know, in college, in my early years of teaching and and he just he, he couldn’t get it, and I didn’t know how to help him, or why, why he couldn’t read. And the end of his second grade year, he was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, also like Donnell son, dyscalculia, dysgraphia. And so then I thought, you know, dyslexia, what? What is that? And I thought, I’m a teacher. Shouldn’t I know what this is? And as I started investigating, I got really angry, because when I learned that it’s the most commonly diagnosed learning disability. Then I was really like, Wait, why wasn’t I taught about this? And so as I was investigating dyslexia, that brought me to that, what we now call the science of reading, right? This research, research based on reading and what the brain does when what we when we read, what Dyslexics need, what everyone needs, and, you know, and it was like a gradual process, but I just, it was like I was a starved animal. I couldn’t get enough. I was, you know, every time I was at the gym, it was like little mini PD sessions. And I remember watching like, eight hours of, like, lectures on synthetic phonics and and then getting books, and then watching YouTube videos and just it just didn’t stop.

Stacy Hurst 16:45
So that were you? Were you running while you’re listening to these things? Because that’s easily a marathon.

Lindsay Kemeny 16:51
Yeah, I know. Yeah, different things, the bike.

Unknown Speaker 16:58
So, win, win.

Lindsay Kemeny 16:59
Yeah, so and I remember, and, like, I remember in a social media like, a Decoding Dyslexia group where a parent was asking about a certain curriculum, and someone said, Oh, that’s balanced literacy. So, no, that’s like, the worst thing for those with dyslexia. And I was like, no, what is she talking about? Balance literacy is the best way, you know, it’s the only way I knew, because it’s the only way I had been taught. So it was just this gradual thing, and then kind of connecting with, oh yes, these three queuing strategies and these, you know, debunked methods that I had been taught, you know. So then I started applying things with my son as I worked with him, and then I started applying the things that worked with him in my classroom, and I just saw the difference, and I just had so much clarity. I can think back on those early years like I feel like there was a fog. I was just confused. I didn’t understand, you know, I knew I had students that were struggling, but somehow we’re just going to keep, you know, plotting through our leveled books, and somehow it’s going to click and they’re going to magically get it right. And now I just, I have so much clarity, I know, oh, okay, let’s drill down. Where’s the weakness? Where do we need to work? So, yeah, that is how I came to the science of reading.

Stacy Hurst 18:18
Do you know that’s really interesting, because this is such a topic. Uh, thank you. Emily Hanford, right, like helping the whole country become aware of this, that any educator that’s been teaching in the last 510, 1520, 3040, years has been creating their own journey to this topic. Somehow we don’t think about it consciously. It’s just we’re doing our best, right as we go along with the information we have. And I always think it’s interesting, yeah, back and see where we come from with that.

Lindsay Kemeny 18:53
And I think that’s just a really important point. And we say that all the time in this community where, you know, we know better, we do better. Because at first, you know, I was so angry at what I hadn’t been taught when I started learning these things, and I also felt so much guilt. I just felt, you know, like, Oh, my goodness. Think of all the kids that I could have helped and I taught, I gave a presentation, and I had a teacher come up to me just crying, and she’s just like, why? Like, think of all the kids I could have helped if I had known this. Why didn’t they teach us this? And so I think so many of us just, you know, we beat ourselves up sometimes, and I really think we need to give ourselves grace, and we need to say, you know, we were doing the best we could with the knowledge we had at that time, and now try your best to, Okay, move on, and let’s do better.

Stacy Hurst 19:45
Yeah, I think that’s really relevant, and especially leading with that teacher heart, right? None of us go in, none of us go into teaching for the money, and none of us go into teaching, you know, because it’s an easy job. And if we do, we learn very quickly that it’s not so yeah, thank you for sharing that. Lindsay, you know, I’ve been reflecting knowing we would be having this conversation, and I don’t frequently tell my story or my journey to the science of reading, but I have been thinking about it, and I feel like there’s some key moments in my life that kind of led to where I am, and I came to the realization that actually the science of reading, I feel lucky that it has always guided my teaching, and it’s interfaced in different ways with the whatever was the thing in the moment, right? So I thought clear back, and maybe because I’m teaching at a university level right now, I thought clear back to when I was a college student. And frankly, I hated it when my roommates who were taking organic chemistry and other really hard classes, would say to me, your major is just cut color and paste, right? I get really frustrated with that, but I had no evidence to the contrary. I really didn’t, and I thought, and I that’s where I learned things like the phrase, well, if you just marinate kids in text, they’ll get it marinate has been that word has been ruined for me ever since I realized the damage of that kind of thinking. But I realized too early on that I felt like my own education at that point wasn’t academically rigorous enough, which is ironic, because we’re in education, right? So I that’s when I changed my major to sociology, and I’m really glad I did, even though there are some people in my life, like a father figure of mine, who was like, Great, now you’re going to have two degrees that are equally low, paying a good job. But, but I loved my sociology studies because it did have the academic rigor I was looking for, including research, how to do it, how to look at it, how to analyze it, how to design it. It wasn’t thorough in that regard, but it did give me enough of a footing. So when I did decide to go back to teaching and finish my teaching degree, I started. I was hired the year before I started teaching. So in the, you know, first hiring round, February, March of the year, before I started teaching. And I was part and Lindsay, I think you and I have kind of connected with this. We had the same kind of training, like, exactly. It was very balanced. It was balanced literacy. And so I was getting all this information and soaking it in. I felt like I was in a very advantageous spot, because I didn’t have anything to unlearn, right? And I could tell that from the other teachers that were in this training with me, because they were always figuring out, how do I fit this in? Where do I and I was like, Great day one, this is what I do. So I embraced it fully. But because of my love of research too, I also read the first grade studies, because I was teaching first grade and a book by Bill Hoenig calling called Teaching our children to read. And you don’t often hear about that book, but it was very impactful in my early my first year of teaching, for sure. So like you were saying Lindsay in first grade, I I I taught all day literacy felt like but I realized about October that my students and I was embracing all the things. They loved reading. They loved stories. We had talked about how fantastic being able to read is and getting all the meaning out of it. And first graders are so impressionable that you just have to tell them they love reading and they do right until about October of the first grade year, when they started realizing I can’t do this thing. You know, I It’s hard for me to get these words off the page and turn them into speech, and not for all my students, but enough of them that I started noticing their motivation was going down. So I went to the National Reading Panel research that had just been published because I started teaching in 2001 and I read the whole big fat Green Book, wow. And that’s where I realized phonics was what I was. I missed it was missing the most of and fortunately, they gave us a lot of guidance that meta analysis was career changing for me, so I knew what I was looking for. But there was not a program for tier one instruction I could find that met all of the checked all the boxes, right then, like you. Lindsay, I was at a I was actually being trained, a certified trainer in another program, and kind of lamenting about this, and somebody flippantly mentioned, oh, you might want to check out Reading Horizons. I’ve heard it’s good. I was like, What is this? And as I got into I realized it was systematic, sequential, explicit, it was all the things, and that was the. Be until then, I was creating my own stuff, and anybody who’s done that before knows that is hard work. So I was really grateful to have that guide, you know, at kind of at the heart of my instruction and making a long story longer, but that led me to where I am today. I did end up working full time for Reading Horizons and helping to inform the curriculum, but also in that I had the opportunity to work with teachers across the country, and Lindsay, like you’re saying about that teacher who just had so much guilt, there was not one training that I had, not one I keep saying, I look for the forward to the day that somebody didn’t come up to me and say, Why didn’t we learn this kind of thing in college? And I had the same question, right? I don’t know. And so really grateful that I could now be upstream and teaching those pre service teachers daily. I get so excited, and I should mention too, I taught first grade, but then I was a literacy coach for a long time too. So I really helped. I tried to help teachers. I tried to translate the science for teachers. And it was tricky. You know, it’s hard for us, all of us, to change and to embrace new ideology and science, frankly, so.

Donell Pons 26:16
And Stacy, that’s when I met. Was it a training? It is exactly that was our meeting.

Stacy Hurst 26:21
And by the way, Donna was so stealth, like I had no idea that I had such a knowledgeable person in my presence. Sat there and soaked it all in. I didn’t remember you ever commenting or asking a question. And then after all in, yeah, yeah. So after she came up and we started talking. And I know this is a podcast, you can’t see us, but we’ve worked together since then in one way or another. But when we were both involved with a school, I had somebody comment, because Donnell and I would frequently run into each other there and have conversations, and somebody said, I just love watching YouTube talk. I can be a mile away and because apparently we’re both very animated with their gestures. So anyway, nothing changes, right?

Lindsay Kemeny 27:12
Nothing changes. So Stacy. So would you say that you taught phonics before, when you taught balanced literacy? And how did it look different?

Stacy Hurst 27:21
Oh, my gosh, I love that question. Uh, you know what? I taught a form of phonics instruction. I knew it was important. We learned that in balance literacy, right? Yeah. It was called Word Study, and it was kind of separate from everything else, although I had read it, yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, interesting.

Lindsay Kemeny 27:41
I just remember, like, I remember I did phonics too, but it was just kind of, oh, what word chunk is in our story today? Oh, here’s a word chunk. We’ll do that, you know. And I read this little poster with the vowels, and I put little word chunks up there was, like, no system. It was just whatever’s coming up in the store. You know

Stacy Hurst 28:01
what? I love that you asked that, though, because I think this brings up a really important, really important point I in that training. I had a year long training, I won’t say the name of the training, just to be respectful, but it was very balanced literacy. And there was one specific training we went to that was on the word work part of the, the part, and we, the person who was training us was, they were training us on this specific manual, and it was really a lot of activities with words, not necessarily phonics, right? I mean, yeah. Anyway, so she mentioned, and she was the author of it, I think, or she said, But she said this, and this was after the National Reading Panel. And she said, By the way, those of you who have the first edition of this book, don’t worry about purchasing the second edition. But because after the National Reading Panel came out with their study, all we had to just rearrange the lessons and put on there that it was explicit, systematic and sequential phonics and that inside of me at the time, I remember thinking, that’s weird, that’s weird, but I didn’t have the context or the understanding at that point to say, Oh, I see what you’re doing here, right? You’re marketing something that isn’t actually the thing, yeah, but that. And then as time went on, I realized the impact that I had on my students.

Donell Pons 29:22
So Stacy, it’s interesting the National Reading Panel. You know that you went to the green book, read the whole thing, right? Because that was my, my first touch with National Reading Panel, and how important that foundation, then to then move to the rest came from Dr Sally Shaywitz and her book overcoming dyslexia. And so in 2010 she put out the first edition of that book, and I picked it up at the library. I was you had to go to the library to get this information. There still wasn’t actually a wealth of information yet available online. And so I went to the library and checked out that book, and I remember I started reading it in the library and didn’t set it down until I was finished a few hours later, because. Speak. She was just speaking everything that I was seeing with my own child, and for the first time, somebody had a path, somebody was laying out a way to get there to reading.

Stacy Hurst 30:11
Yeah, I’m so glad you mentioned that. And Daniel, you and I have had this conversation frequently. And Lindsay, I think you have a really unique combination of being a teacher in that early elementary space and having a son with dyslexia, Donnell, your path to this was directly because of dyslexia, right? And as a general educator in a as a first grade teacher, I differentiation is always front and center in my mind, right? I had that as a goal of the time daily, and I remember hearing about dyslexia. And do you remember early on the conversation was there was a lot of doubt as to whether or not it was an actual thing. I remember hearing that frequently, and then I always remember when I’d go to trainings, and people would start talking about dyslexia. I honestly, as a first grade teacher and as a literacy coach, focused on the general tier one instruction, I remember initially thinking, Now, like myself today, I would be embarrassed to admit this, but I’m giving myself grace. I didn’t know better, but I remember thinking, why do we have to learn about dyslexia? That’s a special ed issue I am teaching all the kids, right? And it wasn’t until I read overcoming dyslexia and post in the squid actually by Marianne Wolf, and my fascination with both of those books was the fact that finally, it told me how the brain learns to read. Finally, we know what happens inside of a head and how to inform that right? And then I started realizing the impact that Dyslexia has. And interestingly, Lindsay, you express anger about the fact that we weren’t taught any of this stuff. My anger specifically dealt with dyslexia too, because I then you go back in your mind and you’re like, oh, this kid, this kid, this kid I got, I could have done better by them, but I didn’t even, I didn’t even hear the word. I bet you, I didn’t even hear the word. And you guys, I graduated from college with my reading endorsement.

Donell Pons 32:31
I totally firmly believe it. You don’t have to tell me, yeah, absolutely. And you know, Stacy, it’s interesting. You should mention that, because I call my folks with dyslexia the canaries in the cave, because, bless your souls, you’re why we have a lot of this information, right? Are the folks who struggled. The other thing that I think was really critical, important to understand about dyslexia, particularly, which really kind of broadened my understanding of reading and then helped me as I started to pick up the information. And that what we’re going to call science of reading the information the research was living around so many people who have dyslexia, and knowing that, like Dr Sally Shaywitz said, the profile of the dyslexic, the definition from the 1800s is the definition we have today. I mean, that’s it, because it’s neurobiological in origin, right? And so that was just so interesting. And the people I was around were otherwise really bright. Yes, they had learned to read. So that was the other misnomer. Oh, folks with dyslexia don’t know how to read. Yes, they do. It’s just not great, right? They’re struggling with it doesn’t sound very good, and they’re not getting a whole lot out of it. And that was another piece to understand. Is because I think people truly thought that if you didn’t know how to read, or were struggling with reading, then you couldn’t read anything, right?

Lindsay Kemeny 33:45
Well, and I, when I first was investigating dyslexia, what I read was, Oh, your your son will probably not never read past a fifth grade level, right? There’s just so many misconceptions, and it’s like no that, you know, even though they’re dyslexic, they can still learn to read.

Stacy Hurst 34:07
Yeah, I think that’s a really important thing to note. And then the other thing that I think that came out of that and where we currently are with the science of reading and all the research that has gone into what are, what, how we practiced since the National Reading Panel, which, by the way, I’m still surprised when teachers can’t name the five I and maybe to me too, in a way, it’s because it’s informed my entire career. But not everyone you mentioned. I know it was 2010 until, like, that’s, you know, it’s probably most people’s experience. And I did what I do, and I got off topic on say, hacking. Yeah, I can’t remember where I was going, so I’ll just Well, I thought it was, well, I thought was

Lindsay Kemeny 34:57
interesting, Stacy, when you were saying, like, back. When you went to that training, and they kind of repackaged themselves to kind of line up with the national panel reading panel. And I think we’re seeing a lot of that today, where a few years ago we were, there were so many people trying to get the, you know, science of reading out there. Now it’s out there. It’s gaining traction, and now we have to protect it, because there are so many that are just slapping the label the term science of reading, even though they might not be, you know. So I just we have to be such critical consumers now. We really have to learn the research base.

Donell Pons 35:34
Yeah, yeah. And Lindsay, you made an excellent point, and you pointed out yesterday that there was a presentation by Dr Steve Dykstra, who’s in this field and area.

Stacy Hurst 35:43
And he presentation, just to clarify, don’t know the reading link, yes,

Donell Pons 35:47
it’s a reading LEAD conference. He gave a presentation, and this, it was so excellent, because it’s right on point with what we were discussing. And Lindsay, you were very quick. We were texting each other. That was so exciting. Yes, that was fantastic. But he, he, he starts off. And I thought the first 26 minutes, I was like, Oh, this is Dykstra. I’ve heard him before, but no, he was setting up. And he put a bull’s eye on there. He was setting up the conversation about what Lindsay’s just made the point of Steve Dykstra saying, okay, so we have the research, which is in the middle, it’s the bullseye, the stuff we really know, the science of reading, which is the research, and it has the salient points. It’s made some excellent points. It doesn’t know everything right? The science of reading, it’s still it’s spongy, and we’re figuring things out. We haven’t researched absolutely every aspect. We know certain particulars. And so Steve Dykstra said we have to be careful about what’s in the bull’s eye and what our understanding is, and then what’s outside of it, and how far we get outside of it. And I that’s such an excellent I think we’ll be using that Bullseye conversation a lot as we Oh,

Lindsay Kemeny 36:44
I love it. And he was talking about how for some people, the Bullseye was is a little smaller, and for others widen it a little more, right? I just, I loved that.

Stacy Hurst 36:54
Do you know why I think that is as I was listening to that. And just by the way, America, whoever’s listening, it is true. Lindsay and Donna were texting each other on our texting stream, and I was trying to go to sleep, and I kept getting this at 104 he says this.

Well, don’t you worry, at three years when I did wake up, that was the first thing I listened to. So I got it, and you’re welcome for me not adding to that text strand at 330 in the morning, just Yes. But as he you know, speaking of Steve Dykstra, I went to a presentation that he gave, I think it was a plane talk a couple years ago, pre covid, when you got to see each other in and he talked about the history of reading, I teach my students that he framed it around three studies that impacted reading. And I think Lindsay to your point, that’s the context we were all missing. So how can we expect, how can I expect my pre service teachers that in a few short years are going to be the teachers in the classroom. How can I teach them? How can I prepare them to analytically, look at programs, look at curriculum, and tell what’s going to be effective and what isn’t not based on what I said, But based on what science says. And as I thought about that, oh, by the way, I do teach my students, that I teach them the three studies and the impact that they had on on the reading community, and I think that has, so far, I’ve seen that really help them. But I also think we cannot underscore the importance of teaching or focusing on the scientific process. Yeah, that whole thing, we learn about it in science, but it’s relevant in education daily.

Lindsay Kemeny 38:48
Well, you know what book you should have your students read is the Goldilocks map. I just read this Andrew Watson, and it is all about taking research or hearing something someone says, and finding out if that’s what the research says, and kind of digging in just to see how valid that is. And it’s like it goes through the step by step process. I love it. And then I wanted to say just about Dykstra, because he also kind of followed up on Facebook. And I just, I’m just going to read you what this little part that he said, because it’s just so good, because he’s talking about that bedrock science and how there’s more time in our day we, like, we can’t only teach that. We’ve got to make some informed decisions other things. I think about that all the time when I’m like, You’re hearing debates between experts, and you’re kind of like, okay, but you guys can debate that. I have to go in, and he should tomorrow. You know, he says we must also be cautious about the admin admonition to do only that which is clearly dictated by science. I don’t think that’s possible. I think we should do everything that science dictates, neglecting nothing, but with the remainder of our time. We should fill instruction with other scientifically. Reasonable things, things we are prepared to adjust and modify, to reconsider, reform and replace, that will be easier to do if we are clear from the beginning. What is that science? What it is that science dictates and what it is that we judge as reasonable in the light of that science, because they are different things.

Stacy Hurst 40:18
I love that it’s the same thing that I’ve heard many people, David Kilpatrick among them, that says, if you have a solid theory based in science, then you can make assumptions that are going to be accurate. And he was talking about what we now call the heart word approach, right? But the way to teach irregular words that will facilitate orthographic mapping in the brain, and it’s based on linners theory, but it wasn’t, you know, they didn’t have to test that itself to know that it’s going to have good implications, because it’s based on a sound theory. And then is it Daniel Willingham that wrote, how do you trust the experts too. That’s another book that I think I’ve been Oh, I haven’t read that one. It’s really good. He frames it really well too. And then Lindsay just quickly, too. I love that you brought up how Steve Dykstra followed up on Facebook, because social media has played such a big role. And the fact that those of us who have been immersed in the science of reading for a long time now feel this instinct to be protective of it. That’s to me, where those instincts are in full play, because I have to really monitor the way I interact with social media, because sometimes I see things that are incorrect on there, and just knowing how to address it, I’ve been really impressed, Lindsay, with the way that you have you’ve approached that.

Lindsay Kemeny 41:47
I feel like I’ve learned so much from, sorry, from social media. Like I’m always like, I need like, you know, can I get professional development? You know, point credits from Twitter, because I’ve learned more there than anywhere else. Yeah, you know,

Stacy Hurst 41:59
Jan Hasbrouck was an early promoter of Twitter for reading instruction, and knowing about the science, she’d say that at every presentation, I thought it was really cute and beyond cue, very useful too.

Donell Pons 42:11
Stacy, you brought up something interesting too, as we were having this conversation we do all the time about the science of reading, and we’ve talked a little bit about a term that emerged around the same time? Well, not came much after, but it was interesting. It was a term structured literacy, right? And it was a term that a group of individuals came together. Louisa Moltz was part of that group, and they wanted to come up with, what are the things that should be in a good lesson, right, the things that we know from science and so that teachers could have some sort of foundation or guide through a lesson. And so the structured literary literacy was referring to teaching that systematic and cumulative, right? It had some really nice, good terminology for folks to hold on to, and we were kind of lamenting that that’s term and and understanding is fallen by the wayside. And we’re wondering why. It’s kind of interesting that in all of this shuffle of information that has been kind of left behind, yeah,

Stacy Hurst 43:05
because, to Lindsay’s point, that’s the how you do it, right, right? And I think that has been brought more to my attention as a college professor, because I I’m teaching my students that following the three study, I say, okay, that whole language came from this nine page study. And then after the National Reading Panel published their study that aligned more with the other two studies that were many more pages than that, as Steve Dykstra helped us to remember, then we have a new term called Balance literacy, which is mostly whole language repurposed plus phonics, right? And then we have structured literacy so it just, it tracks. But we have, I think if you ask most people, they would say, whole language, balanced literacy, science of reading, which is, in my opinion, misuse of that term, because the science of reading should inform our practice, absolutely. But it’s not just the practice, it’s everything that goes into how we know reading happens, right?

Donell Pons 44:09
Yeah, and so Stacy, it was interesting when we met, going back to that first time, when you were you were doing a training for Reading Horizons. When you gave that training and you said, I was so quiet because I was absorbing and I was running through how this fits structured literacy. So I very much. I put everything through that what I understand and know of what it should look like when you’re putting it into practice, and was running it and checking off my list. And it was interesting, because we kind of talked about this later as we got to know each other better, that I was so excited when I saw this, and I was really just literally soaking it up, hoping I could remember everything I wanted to remember about what I was seeing, because I thought it was such a fantastic method that was ticking all of my boxes. And you you saying later that that isn’t that interesting. When someone has a background and understanding they know it when they see it, right when you see. You are very excited, yeah,

Stacy Hurst 45:02
and you know, I was thinking about that too, especially because I have had the privilege of working for the company, but a very unexpected career path for me. I You could have said to me 12 years ago, you’ll be working for a company, and I literally would have had a negative reaction to that. Why? Why would I work for a company? I’m not gonna lie, part of me still feels that way, but not about Reading Horizons, and that it goes along with when you know, you know, right? And when I joined Reading Horizons as a full time employee, it really was just sure I could do this for a year or so and see what it’s like. It might be cool to take it back to my classroom what I’ve learned, but honestly, that is where, you know, we’re not just repurposing things and putting a label on something. These are, this is we call it a company, but I still think there’s got to be a better name, because we really are helping. We’re helping with this big cause of literacy, and that is very much at front and center of everything that happens at Reading Horizons. In fact, even though I’m teaching college full time, I’m still associated with Reading Horizons

Donell Pons 46:12
Stacy. You know what’s interesting, because out of that same conversation that we had, I had, I had to receive training in a lot of different methods, and at that point, and I was, like I said, a sponge. I was just trying to and what I was really looking for was to be skilled enough to not only help others, but I still had needs in my own household. I still had needs under my roof, and I still had a husband that had received a little here, a little there, and it wasn’t fantastic, and there were still a lot of holes in what he needed and wanted to have, and he still expressed a desire to become better. And that was one of the things that the science of reading beautifully because of the research tells you that they can still learn, right? And so my husband, many other people had told him, Oh, you’re too old, you know, because they didn’t understand the research. They don’t understand the science. And the science says, No, you’re not too old. It’s never too late, and then being able to come back and say, I think I found something here that would be useful for you. And then to have him go through that program and receive skills that he never dreamed he could have. And now to have a confidence to read in a way that he never thought he could and to do so in public, which he never thought he would ever do. He would always be looking for the exit, in a way, to leave the room, and now he comfortably, no, I can handle that. I can do that, and you can have it to him a few minutes before, and he’s fine with it, even on the spot, he’s okay with it. And he never thought he could be that person. And that’s what we’re talking about here. That’s the difference between having the knowledge of this, not just having access to but the knowledge of the research and understanding and then the practice and all of it coming together. That’s what it does. It changes lives, right?

Stacy Hurst 47:44
Yeah, and like Steve Dexter was saying, I don’t think any of us would say there’s one way to do it right, but knowing the correct elements to put together in a systematic way makes a big difference. Yeah, do you know I remember I have done now, and sometimes we’re lucky enough to have Curtis make an appearance when they come to my class to talk about dyslexia, but Curtis says something really powerful that I had the opportunity to make sure my students understood the context. But he said, I don’t even show up on dyslexia screeners as dyslexic anymore. So my students thought that was really cool. And one of them says, so you can fix dyslexia now you can’t you and Lindsay, you’re gonna you know that you’re in the thick of all that, right? But anyway, there’s, there’s so much we could continue to talk about, but it’s probably time for us to stop talking for now. We’ll take this conversation back to our text strand. Yeah, right. And you guys, I’m planning on going to bed about 10 tonight. So okay,

Lindsay Kemeny 48:49
all right, we still have more to watch, though. There’s more of Yes,

Stacy Hurst 48:53
lots more to talk about, right? Yes. Thank you all for joining us today, and we’re we’re looking forward to more conversations like this.

Unknown Speaker 49:03
All right, thanks.

Narrator 49:05
Educators and administrators know how important it is to close the gaps in foundational literacy skills for older learners. Reading Horizons Elevate is designed to help students in grades four through 12 and beyond master foundational skills they may have missed by combining direct instruction with engaging age appropriate software. Reading Horizons Elevate makes reading proficiency attainable for older learners, helping students build a strong literacy foundation is key to unlocking success across all academic subjects. Visit reading horizons.com/elevate to learn more.

Stacy Hurst 49:43
Well, that was really fun to listen to. It’s been a while, so those of you listening, we’re back in the present, 2025 so I would I asked the question right before the episode aired, what has changed? In four years. Donnell, how would you answer that question?

Donell Pons 50:03
Yeah, well, I kind of answered a little bit before it started with saying I had a dramatic bike accident, and so things changed for me quite a bit that way. And then also I was just thinking that in that four years, a lot of our hopes and dreams, anyway, for the podcast, was to have a place that we felt we could all come knowing all of our backgrounds were quite different, and be able to discuss topics around reading and the challenges around teaching reading correctly, where people could feel like because of the diverse voices, maybe there’s someone in there that sounds a little bit like me or close to my situation, and so you could find yourself or a place in there that felt like it spoke to you. And I think that’s one of the things that I, I hope, the most that that has occurred. We’ve tried to maintain the integrity of that by encouraging each other to bring their viewpoint. And I think that’s one of the unique things about the podcast, even today,

Stacy Hurst 51:01
yeah, Lindsay, how would you answer that question?

Lindsay Kemeny 51:04
Yeah. Well, for one, you know, I just shared a little bit about my son, and so it’s interesting thinking back then he was in sixth grade, and now he is a 10th grader. He’s a sophomore in high school, which is just crazy for me to think about. And so back when we were, you know, recording this, I was just in the thick of providing intervention for him and helping him learn to read every day, which I did like for four years, up until he was in sixth grade. And then once he started junior high, the next year, I wasn’t working with them one on one anymore, but so it’s kind of fun to think about that, and it’s interesting to think about how much you know this maybe wouldn’t be apparent by listening to the podcast episode, but just thinking, how much more have we learned? Like I feel like I’ve learned so much more than the beginning when we first started this podcast. So that’s kind of, you know, exciting to know and realize that you’re just continuing to grow and to, you know, go on this journey, you know, deepen our knowledge all the all the time.

Stacy Hurst 52:12
And there were a lot of things that we hadn’t planned for that’s happened with the podcast, like the fact that we have video. I mentioned that before, but also we, at the time, I don’t think we were releasing episodes weekly, just start out with right every other week. So that changed. We, I don’t think we had in our heads that we would do conference recaps like we have, or how having guests would look, because initially we didn’t plan on having guests. So yeah, there’s been a lot of things that have changed. Um, what landed exactly the same for you as you listen to that.

Lindsay Kemeny 52:54
I love how we mentioned Dijkstra Bullseye analogy and we were talking about watching the reading league conference. So was that virtual in 2021 because we were talking about recordings, you know? And we were, yeah, we were talking about how we were up late, like Donna and I were texting, and then we were saying, there’s more to watch. So I’m like, what, what were we was it, uh, online, or maybe there were both versions and we did online. I don’t know. I don’t remember either. So I was thinking, is that when he the, when he first introduced his Bullseye analogy, I don’t know, but I love that, and I think it’s still so, you know, relevant today. And I was like, gosh, do we know a lot more now about, like, what’s closer to the bullseye or not really, you know. So I think, I think that was interesting. And then I really love how we were talking about the term science of reading. And it’s almost a little disappointing that it’s like we are still four years later, it’s still the same problem where, and probably even more now, where all these programs are just slapping the term science of reading on their products, whether or not they are well aligned or researched or have any evidence, you know. So it’s just, you know, the point we made four years ago still holds true, that you’ve really got to do what you can to understand the science yourself, so that you can be a critical consumer as you’re looking at the different products and trainings and things

Stacy Hurst 54:26
available, which would inform that would help inform how close you get to the bullseye too, right? Because the more knowledge you have, the closer you can get. And I think as a community, I think we are getting closer to the bullseye when it comes to phonemic awareness, right? We had those hard conversations in social media and other places, and I think we’re getting closer to the bullseye with the way that we implement that in practice. Donnell, what were your thoughts? What landed the same for you? And what did you notice?

Donell Pons 54:57
Yeah, I think we’ve all kind of touched on it. The evolution of ideas, and the longer something sits with us, we get comfortable. Terminology is comfortable. We’re able to speak to it better and just have experience with it. And then that really does bring parts of it that feel we have ownership over it, because we’ve actually worked with it. And I think that’s just really important. It’s part of this whole process. And so people can be at different points of that process. And it’s what I love, is that there’s opportunity for everyone to participate in conversation about it, no matter where you are within the process. So you might be, have been a teacher for so many years and worked with many of these various aspects. It’s familiar to you, or you may be coming to this new and there’s room for everybody to have a conversation about it. I thought it was interesting that structured literacy, the term got a little bit of a glow up in the last few years, if you would about it, was a feature focus of the International Dyslexia Association in their publication, and so we did a feature on it, and just coming to understand better what it means and how it is based on the science of reading, but it isn’t the science of reading, and it doesn’t encompass all of the science of reading. That’s how the how you do it, and the what you do, of how you teach this, and that was really important too, is getting more familiar with and a greater understanding of those things. And I think that just comes with the territory and with the space, I think the conferences have gotten, in my opinion, better in the sense that I think there’s more strategic, targeted presentation at the conferences. I think that’s that’s probably my way of explaining it. But it seems like they, they’re really thoughtful at the conferences about where, what, what do? What do you think are the most important, salient things people would probably need to know right now and trying to target that. So I think that’s been interesting too.

Stacy Hurst 56:49
Yeah, I agree. And Daniel in the episode, you brought up that we were still operating with the same definition of dyslexia. We know now that Ida is going to announce the new definition. They’re going to address it at their conference in October 2025 so that’s something that’s changed. Let’s talk about professionally. And I think Donnell, and I don’t have very exciting answers, I think we’re still pretty much doing the same thing, right? I’m still teaching in higher ed. Daniel is still tutoring, doing her amazing life changing work and advocacy. Donnell, would you say that anything has changed with you professionally in the four years?

Donell Pons 57:36
No just having more opportunity to work with even more students who are exiting high school without the reading skills. So even though we’re having all these urgent conversations in k3 and talking about all the things that are being done to help educators get on their feet and get ready to teach students to read so we can do that critical work early, which is phenomenal, and we need it, I am still seeing a ton of students exiting high school that don’t have the reading and writing skills they need. That’s really sad to me.

Stacy Hurst 58:07
I would echo that, and I’m still upstream doing what I can do. I was thinking I referred to the way I start my very first reading class with a lecture, also by Steve Dykstra. By the way that I think, is I still use it, and I think it’s very beneficial to help set the stage for our students to know that they’re entering the field at a different time than we did. And and why that matters. I feel like history is important. Right? Context matters. One kind of exciting thing for me is that I get the opportunity. Nothing has been finalized yet. There’s a whole lot of steps in higher ed to create a class that will be focusing on vocabulary comprehension and writing written expression. So that’s been exciting, and I think that would be a slight change for me, professionally and but Lindsay, you have had the biggest change in four years professionally. So tell us what has changed for

Lindsay Kemeny 59:06
you. Well, I’m still little books. I’m still teaching so but when in 2021, I was teaching second grade, I had, I had just been teaching kindergarten, I got moved to second grade, which I’ve taught, you know, in older years for a while, and then, and now I’m in first grade, so that’s different. And then I think what you’re alluding to is my books, right? So I have published three books since 2021 so seven mighty moves, seven minded moves, reading resources and rock your literacy blog. So yeah, that’s that’s kind of weird to think about, and I do a lot of public speaking and professional development now, which I don’t think I was in 2021 so that’s

Stacy Hurst 59:48
exciting. And you know, I would say too, we have gained some friends through this podcast. We’ve had a great opportunity to interact with many of our listeners. I. I just got a text on Saturday from one of our listeners as she was listening to an episode, and she just couldn’t help but share with me what she was thinking. I love those. We get emails like that from time to time. It’s great. So thank you for joining us for all of these 100 episodes as listeners. Donnell Lindsay, any closing thoughts? This this monumental point for us. Did you think we’d make it 200 episodes? I don’t know if I really thought about

Lindsay Kemeny 1:00:31
it. I don’t know if I knew what to think, but here’s to the next 100, right?

Stacy Hurst 1:00:37
Yeah, any notes for the 200th episode?

Donell Pons 1:00:41
Well, I would just like to add to so many people, as you mentioned, just kind of briefly mentioned, Stacy, that there were so many people who have come on the podcast as guests, and they’re phenomenal folks in the reading world, and how generous they are and how much they really do want to help. And so for the next 100 I’m just hoping that we have even more of those conversations that we can share and that others can join in.

Stacy Hurst 1:01:04
Yeah, and I’d invite you as listeners to think back on the last four years in your life and what has changed in the way that you do what you do with literacy, right? And hopefully we’ve all refined our knowledge and improved our practice. We also would be remiss if we did not mention Reading Horizons. We are grateful that they sponsor this podcast. Clearly, we could not do as well with without them. So thank you for reading horizon to Reading Horizons for doing that. Okay, well, then you hear you heard it here. Here’s to the next 100 episodes, so we will see you before that, though many times, starting next week with our next episode of literacy talks. We hope you join us then, and thank you.

Narrator 1:01:56

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 you.