Skip to content

Episode 7: Space and Grace: The Drive for Improvement

| Literacy Talks | Episode 7

As schools and districts transform literacy instruction, invest in new professional learning for teachers, and train literacy coaches to implement instruction anchored in the science of reading, a key question arises—When will we see results? This episode of Literacy Talks addresses the question and provides insights into how changes in literacy instruction will deliver measurable and observable improvements. From improvements in spelling to incremental gains in formative and summative assessments, this episode encourages frontline teachers and administrators alike to give themselves and their students the space and grace needed to make continuous, systemic improvements.

💬 Want more insights like this?
Subscribe to the Literacy Talks Podcast Digest for episode recaps, resources, and teaching takeaways delivered straight to your inbox!

Do you teach Structured Literacy in a K–3 setting?
Sign up for a free license of Reading Horizons Discovery® LIVE and start teaching right away—no setup, no hassle. Sign-up Now.

Coming Soon: Reading Horizons Ascend™
From Pre-K readiness to advanced fluency, Ascend™ offers a consistent, needs-based reading experience across every grade, tier, and model—so every student can build mastery, one skill at a time. Learn More.

View Transcript

Narrator:

Hello literacy leaders and champions. Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast series from Reading Horizons dedicated to exploring the ideas, trends, insights and practical issues that will help us create literacy momentum. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor at Reading Horizons were reading momentum begins. Joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education and Lindsay Kemeny, a Utah based elementary classroom teacher. Today's episode gives listeners much needed encouragement as they make transformational changes in literacy instruction. parents, administrators and teachers alike ask the question, when will we see results? You'll hear how our trio of literacy innovators and practitioners are finding and sharing answers to that critical question. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst:

Hello, and welcome to this episode of literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst. I am the host. And I am joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, for our conversation today. And we are going to be talking about something that I was inspired to consider from a Facebook post, Donell Lindsay, I already shared this with you. But for the listeners, somebody had posted anonymously, in the science of reading Facebook page, I believe it was and she was sharing about her journey a little bit about the science of reading. She was just excited to be learning about it and implementing it, I believe she mentioned she'd has some professional learning opportunities. And she was making changes in her classroom, she taught first grade. And her issue was that her coworkers or her other first grade teachers or colleagues did not embrace the science in the same way that she was, in fact, they were using programs that were contrary to what we would consider to be effective. And yet their scores were higher than hers. And this is her first year of implementation. And I know I'm done on Lindsay, we had a conversation about that. And honestly, there could be a million reasons for that. But it led us to the bigger question of okay, so I'm implementing these things that are based on the science of reading, when can I expect to see a change? Right? Or, and that may be in your students or your scores or whatever? Now, you may be asking that question as a teacher, as a literacy coach, as a building administrator, as a district level administrator. I think we're all looking forward to that's why we're all doing this, right. So that dial will move and we'll have more literate members of our society. So I thought I would start by asking the first question because Donell, Lindsay, all of us have made changes to our practice and implemented new things that are aligned with the science. I know, I did that as a first grade teacher, and I'm doing that now as a college professor. So I thought I would ask each of you to think about when you first made those changes, and what setting you were in it, and what were the most immediate things that you noticed as a result of that change? Lindsay, can we start with you?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Sure. When I first started learning about the science of reading, I was teaching kindergarten. One of the things I did, one of the first changes I made was in the books we were using, and to have students learn how to read and I switched to decodable texts. So I guess the biggest difference that I saw was the way students were approaching text, where I was teaching them to keep their eyes on the words, they were sounding out, they weren't just looking at the picture and memorizing the pattern and kind of guessing the words from from context and from the picture. So I think the way they approach texts was probably the first thing I saw.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, great. Donell, whatabout you?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I think for me, this is kind of an interesting one, because I work with older students. But I haven't always I've worked with younger students as well. But I think what was interesting for me, I've been open about talking about my husband's struggles with reading and my son was, and I have another child that also struggled with reading but have fewer difficulties. And was interesting, I had to do my own research. So that's how I came. I didn't come as a classroom teacher to the science of reading. No one was ever talking about that. I think I've also been open about the fact that I did two master's degrees in education and teaching and a special education and never heard anything about the science of reading. And I had a really good program. I'm not unlike other people across the country who feel like they got some really great teaching experience and and knowledge and then entered the teaching field and didn't really get the stuff they needed, right basic stuff. So I think that is very similar to a lot of people's stories, I had to do a lot of the research myself, thankfully, in my state, more people are being offered opportunities than ever, which is great. I know, across the country, we're seeing that with a lot of states implementing legislation. So they're being offered those opportunities, I had to go seek it out, had to literally rent a car, go drive into another state, to get my first training, right to get to find that knowledge. And really what led me there wasn't just my personal experience, knowing that my children needed something else in order to become readers and my husband too. But then also that first classroom experience at a middle school with with a majority of students struggling to read, and I did not have good resources. And so that's how I came, I think, to my first understanding.

Stacy Hurst:

So basically, in your, in your practice, you have you implemented the science in a sense from the beginning in your tutoring situation. And maybe you didn't have access to that information when you were teaching in a middle school setting.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, I think I've said before my son, definitely my youngest child would never have become a reader. Had I not found out how do I teach this child to read? Because no one seemed to know what to do to help this child?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, I had the same experience to where like, I'm the one that taught my son how to read.

Stacy Hurst:

I am thinking, as you're talking around, there are so many so many factors. So as we answer the question, When can I expect to see results? As we talk about that? What are some of the first thoughts that come to your mind? Donell?

Donell Pons:

Oh, yeah, it's, it's a hotbed. There's a real hot that because like you say, there are so many factors, we don't like to hear that too, right. We'd like to hear, hear all the things, I've now been given great training, and you're gonna go into your classroom, and things are gonna be so different. That's what we want to hear. That's what we want to see. Reality is things are very difficult. And it's really hard to turn things around. And some situations and environments may be even harder to turn things around just depends. The other thing is just because I received training and understanding in the foundations of what it is I'm supposed to do. Implementation is another piece, right? We don't give them their due. Learning for myself. And coming to a knowledge and understanding of why I should be doing the things that I'm doing is different from stepping into my classroom and knowing what to do with those pieces. That's another piece, right? And then you may have a classroom of students who vary in their needs to so I mean, we stated this, it's obvious, we talked about this before. That's the challenge to say, Oh, why isn't this working right now? Well, how can things be so different? Just in my own family, I had three people struggling with reading and all of them came to reading differently. We were using the same foundations that would that didn't change, but how they got there and the timeframe different for every single one of them.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm thinking about my own classroom. And the very first thing that I changed in my instruction, it was in relation to phonics instruction. And I do recall, in addition to what Lindsey said, for the first time, my students were actually accessing text, they were reading the words on the page and not guessing or or parroting. But I think the other thing that I noticed was their spelling improved, and I honestly wasn't focusing on that. So I would say, probably the very first thing to look for when you're looking for results is to consider what it is you're implementing, and what you can expect from that, right? Because if you're expecting that end result to change, just magically, it's a process. We call it the journey for a reason. Right? So Donell, you're speaking to the fact of continuing to gain knowledge and then implement that and adjust. Lindsay, what are you thinking?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, it's one thing to receive training. And like Donal said, it's another thing to do it in the classroom? Also, How are teachers supported in the classroom? What materials do they have? What resources do they have? Or, you know, is this teacher just getting training and going back to the classroom has exactly the same program that they did before. And we need well designed programs and we need well informed teachers. We need both and then like Darnell was saying, they go back to the classroom trying to figure out what to do, but also what not to do. And did they understand fully, you know, you know, some problems that could be in their curriculum. And so you go back and you have your same big curriculum, do you now understand, you know, what, maybe you can take out So, and that's huge. And then we know that it takes time. And so I always say Baby steps, baby steps, add one thing in, you know, or you know, change one thing. And then okay, I got a handle on this, now I'm going to do another and now I'm going to do another. And it's not all going to happen at once, you know, and I feel like every year, I kind of I do my own personal goal every year, I've like kind of a new area I'm going to try to get better at. So every year, I think I'm better than the year before. And that's how it is it's going to be a little bit gradual is going to take a little bit of time.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, absolutely. And I am in a situation where I teach a new set of classes every semester. And today is actually the first day of our semester. And as I was preparing, you know, Canvas courses and so forth. I was looking at my very first semester syllabi and thinking, oh, man, already, you know, I've learned a lot. So that is a really good point.

Donell Pons:

You know, I was just going to add with Lindsay, you talking about getting better each year? I think in this area, this particular thing, if you teach here, there should always be tension. This year, I finally just decided 2023, that I'm okay with tension being a reading teacher, because you're never satisfied and you never should be. I always think about what I could tweak, make a little different get there quick, help a student just quite get it there. Could I be a little smoother? I'm always doing that. And I find it Sure. I'm just like, that's how it ought to be. This is really important when I'm teaching and there's always going to be a bit of tension, because I want it to be the best.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, implementation science tells us and I think the science that I recall reading back when my district was implementing MTSS, back in the early 2000s, was that it takes three to five years systemically to see a major change when you're talking about implementation. So also Donell as you were talking thinking about that gradual release of responsibility model we talked about so often that that applies to us as teachers as well. And living in that struggle of what's just beyond our comfort zone. I love thinking about normalizing that and feeling like that's where we should be. Another question that I was thinking of in relation to that posters question was, it depends on the assessment, too, how are you measuring progress. And if you're still using if your school is using assessments that aren't aligned with what you're teaching, they're not as sensitive of a major compared to what you're implementing them, that may be maybe discrepant, as well. So given that, what can a teacher do? What can a teacher do to measure that progress? Well, I

Lindsay Kemeny:

think you need a valid, reliable assessment to begin with. And, you know, there's a lot of talk out there right now about some of these really popular assessments that a lot of people use, their ability to, you know, determine if a child is at risk for reading or not, is about the same as if you roll the dice. I mean, I think it was, you know, there's a few people on Twitter and stuff talking about that, and going into better detail than I can provide. But we need a valid, reliable assessment.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that's true. And there are free versions. I think dibbles has a free version online.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, I that's what I use is dibbles. Next, it's now called a KT. And so it was formerly dibbles. Next, but you can find that online. And there's a lot of research behind it.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I think also letters training, because we know a lot of teachers are receiving letters training and in volume one, and it's page 79. So folks who want to come back to it, they'll pause and run back here to grab the page number. We'll also have it in the in the notes. But there's also a graph. So there's lots of information now to that's available to say what should I be measuring? What are the most important things, right? So we know we're teaching what we know, is structured literacy. We know it has components. We know there's phonemic awareness, amongst other things. And so I like things that break down in a graph, these grades, what are the things that we're focusing on? Because as we talked about sensitivity measurements, sort of what assessments are we giving and how sensitive are they, but you can also look at what are the most important things that my student ought to be be concentrating on at this particular stage of development in order to help with reading progression, right? So those are important two is to understand reading progression, the skills that are required most important at those particular points, and to make sure you're meeting the needs of the students. And so you can come up with ways of grabbing an assessment and then also monitoring progress as you go. Right. So the different ways, we're also doing a large assessment. We might be doing screeners to pull up kids for different things. So we hear terminology, but what are all these things that kind of fit together? So we're screening general population to find students who might be at risk? That's what a screener does right? general population students who might be at risk, and then depending on how those students come up on those screeners, and we might do further examination to see exactly what was it that caused us concern off of the screener, right? So we want to get more approximate. And then we want to examine What are the skill sets that are needed for this particular age of this student? And then make sure that we're doing some sort of assessment to see, am I improving those skills while I'm doing my, my instruction, right? That's called that progress monitoring along the way as we go. But these are all really important. And Lindsay made the point. Do do we also have materials provided to the teacher? If I'm using, say, a program of some kind? Have they provided for me an assessment that goes with it too, for what I'm teaching that's important to how well rounded is the piece that I've received as a teacher? Or am I going to have to go out and find those things? And do they align with what it is that I'm teaching well enough, that they're really measuring what I'm teaching? This is all really good questions.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. And I just want to reiterate that what Donell was saying, because there are different types of assessments, and they have different purposes. So when Stacy and I were mentioning earlier, dibbles, or acadiens, those are screeners. And those are going to tell you who's at risk for reading difficulty. And then you can use those to progress monitor to see if your students are, you know, but if you let's say you teach third grade and you have a student who does really poorly on their screener, then you need to dig deeper to find the weakness. And that's where other assessments come into play, like the core phonics survey or something, let's see exactly what phonics skills they are missing, you know, and then as you said, like, your program might have assessments with it, or, you know, you're gonna assess also, what you've taught.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah. And Lindsay, you were mentioning assessments that may not be sensitive to what you're teaching what is essential for beginning and early readers and struggling readers. And I think frequently about the assessment system that we were using in my school when I was a literacy coach. And that was the Fountas and Pinnell benchmark system, which as you referred to Lindsay, the results of that test are about as reliable as flipping a coin. But I will say that most of our students actually just had odd test results, right? Like, according to the their algorithm, and the way that they measure success, a student could be doing very well and be on grade level on the level. And their accuracy can be very poor. I think the test developers would contradict that. But I have given that assessment a million times, and I've seen it a lot. But again, that didn't really lead me as a teacher or literacy coach to know what that student needed. Unless you kind of dial it down. I really liked dibbles and acadiens. That's one of my favorite assessments ever. The earlier grade level, the higher the validity for what we're teaching. But I want to point out something to Donell, you mentioned this and continuing to learn more about how reading happens, how we develop that ability, also will impact the way that we analyze that data. So a case in point and I think somebody who is involved with acadiens, or dibbles could speak to this better than I could, but there is a nonsense word fluency measure that is given in kindergarten, first grade and the very first of second grade. So what we noticed once my school started teaching, systematic explicit phonics was that nonsense word fluency measure, our scores went up significantly on that measure, and tell second grade, and then always at the beginning of second grade, those scores dipped, however, dibbles. And remember, the D is stands for Dynamic because what a student needs at a specific point in development is different than another point of development. So at the beginning of second grade, we were stumped by that. Why are those nonsense word fluency scores going down, by the way, they were on benchmark, but the scores were going down. But when we looked at it, the benchmark for that particular measure at the beginning of second grade was lower because the assumption is the brain at this point, is more fluent and automatic. And we're not breaking down nonsense words on the same level we would be when we're learning those phoneme graphing correspondences. So you can take that into consideration as the dibbles people did. And realize, especially when we're talking about changing neuronal pathways in the brain, that we have to go slow first, in order to go fast. So it may seem like your students aren't making the progress that you want to see. But then you really, if you're building it, well, then they'll take off at some point

Lindsay Kemeny:

Along with that, because that's what I was wondering with that poster, what age, you know, what grade was she teaching? I don't know if it said but it's like, especially in kindergarten. Listen, if this child is using the three cueing system and memorizing the pattern and just seeing the pattern, guess what they sound like a lot better reader than somebody who was slowly decoding, you know, sounding out each little CVC word and then you come to the same word on the very next page and they have to decode it again. And it can be a little like as a teacher, you're like, oh my gosh, it's, you know, but this is a productive struggle that has to happen. They're doing exactly what has to happen. So like, you're saying go slow to go fast, right? Like, those students are reading a little slower than the students like, I cleaned up the garage, I cleaned up the kitchen, I cleaned up the, but in time, who's going to read better, right, and we're going to see the difference. And those students that are mapping the phonemes, and the graphics are going to take off, whereas the other ones are just not all of them. Some, some are okay, but others are just disguising the problem. And it's not going to be for another year to tell the teacher you know,

Stacy Hurst:

and research supports that. Right. You know, I

Donell Pons:

think that's funny, Lindsey that you should mention that specific thing, because I was just reading back over Dr. Sally Shaywitz, his book overcoming dyslexia, in her new addition, she at the back of it quite nicely. She puts together what you should be teaching, which is she didn't have in her first edition quite as in depth as she has done here. But she called those students that you refer to the ones who come having essentially memorized, right, they have really good memories, and they have essentially memorized a lot of words. And she said, they seemingly have jumped past the phonemic awareness, skill that everybody else seems to me, but they don't. And then later, you come to find out that of course, they didn't get any of what they needed, right? They were simply memorizing words whole is interesting. And it has a limit.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and I think the assessment is key here, too. Because when I was using the benchmark assessment, that is exactly 80% of those words, are those high frequency words? Now, when I look at the way I was taught to approach reading instruction, there was a big focus on having students memorize those words, right? And so if you know, what is the first 20 of those high frequency words, you can read up to 80% of the text accurately. So they were looking like readers. And then when you factor in the fact that their eyes were leaving the words, and they were looking at the pictures to figure that out, they really looked better than they actually were doing. And I can tell you, I've shared this before, when I moved from being a first grade teacher to a literacy coach. I really became aware of this because the conversations among teachers, about specific students were always they were on grade level in kindergarten, they were doing just fine in first grade. They were okay in second grade. And then the poor third grade teacher is thinking they need a new career because they're not effective. Right. When in reality, that's about the time that if we haven't taught the way that we should, the way that science is indicating we need to then it breaks down for those students and then Danelle, you end up with a high caseload.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, really high caseload. And what's interesting is, I always get asked, what do they need to know what are these older students need to know to learn to read better? The same things they need to know when they were younger. Right, I'm not doing anything different. We need to go back and and teach them appropriately, those same skills that they needed when they were younger, and they didn't receive. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

I think that's comforting to know that that's how it works.

Narrator:

Get all the resources discussed during literacy talks, podcast episodes, and stay up to date about webinars and other special events from Reading Horizons, go to reading horizons.com/literacy talks and subscribe to our podcast digest. So you're always in the know about everything literacy.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I had just another thought. So let's say you have learned about science of reading, you're applying and changing things in your classroom, you have a valid assessment, and your scores still aren't that great. One thing that I think would be a good idea to look at is the amount of meaningful practice opportunities your students have. Because we can't teach these things in isolation. We can't just go here's our phonics lesson. Okay. Everyone should know that Oh, ye spells boy. Now it's mastered? No, you know, these kids, and some of them take a lot more repetition and a lot more experience seeing and writing those graphemes, you know, before they have mastered it, and I don't think we get enough practice so and what I mean by practice is not like worksheets, but how much time reading and reading those things. You've taught those, you know, how much time do they have to apply those phonics skills to their reading? And that's what I would say look at that, because you might see a really big difference if you increase that time.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, telling is not teaching told, is not taught, and they need time doing the thing. That's how our brains turn that into an automatic skill.

Donell Pons:

And I was going to mention, that's one of the things that Dr. Sally Shaywitz mentioned again and again and again, is if you find that it's still a bit bit of a struggle, and what am I doing one of the most effective things to do right away is have them read get them into text, you find the text, it's appropriate, right? You find that level where they can read most of those words, you're making sure that if it's connected to what you're teaching, then you have some decodable text for that student to spend time in. But she also said students are not spending enough time reading aloud. So they need to read out loud too, and reading with someone who right can give some feedback, appropriate feedback to that student to help them but she said she's noticed a lot of classrooms is silent reading or the students alone with someone who can't provide the feedback. And that's,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and that is not what I'm talking about. Yeah, absolutely. They allowed. We do that in whole group. We do that in partners, and I'm walking around, and I'm providing support. And we do it in small group, every one is reading. We're not doing like popcorn reading. We're not doing round robin reading, because how much reading aloud practice do they get? Not very much. That's a waste of time, you know, but everyone reading and reading with feedback.

Stacy Hurst:

I'm laughing because I again, this is the first day of my semester, my first reading class Foundations of Reading. Today, we brought up popcorn reading, we're talking about our memories of learning to read. And I said, What do you remember about learning to read and so many people mentioned that, and they have a lot of anxiety and trauma. Related to it's just not a good practice, we don't need to belabor that. But that is an excellent point when you think about actually allowing them the time to do that. So as a teacher, this would be my advice to you think about. Maybe take five of your students and think about how much time they spend in your classroom actually reading per day, and then structure your day in a way that gives them opportunities to do that. Some will be with feedback, some will be without, the research is really strong where this is concerned. I know because I read it. As a first grade teacher and I built up to 20 minutes, my students would read aloud every day for 20 minutes as a whole class. Now what did that sound like? Cacophony a little bit, because they're all reading out loud. But they were engaged in what they were reading. And I would walk around and listen, of course, I had small group where you're able to get feedback there as well. But really setting the goal that your students are reading at least 20 to 30 minutes a day in your classroom, that they have that many opportunities to do that.

Donell Pons:

And you know, I don't want to dismiss to or make sure that we point out because we've talked about a lot of things. And there's just not enough time to do justice to everything. We could talk about any of these points for a long time. But also during that time, when Lindsey you've talked about it, Stacy, you've talked about it, you're walking around, you're listening to students read, you are assessing, so don't don't forget that opportunity. Because you may say I didn't have time to do this assessment or that assessment. Remember, when you hear students doing the thing, that's an opportunity to pick up information about how they're doing with the thing, right? So that includes reading and spelling, what you're seeing there opportunities to attempt to spell are telling you a lot, right, those attempts, when they don't get the word correctly, are also telling you so just those opportunities for assessment all the time when you see a student Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

informal observation. That's the assessment, it doesn't have to always be a formal thing.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I mean, as teachers, we really are assessing 100% of the time, anytime we're in front of the class, right? Or anytime we're assessing, gathering that information. So I would also just want to encourage that teacher. She did mention in her posts that she is playing the long game, I was encouraged to know that she understood that. And I am confident that she will see the results that she's looking for. So one last question is what kind of advice would you guys have for maybe administrators? Actually, we'll do this in the interest of time, Lindsay, you're a classroom teacher. What advice would you have for literacy coaches that are helping their teachers and wanting them to see the results?

Lindsay Kemeny:

I would maybe try not to overwhelm choose one or two things to work on at a time. And I think a key here is like thinking of those practice opportunities. Like I mean, of course, we need the explicit instruction. So we need that and we need more time to practice. So I think helping teachers figure that out would be great. Yeah, I

Stacy Hurst:

love that is very important. Donell, as far as administrators go, what advice would you give for them as they're waiting to see these scores skyrocket?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, so I think you know, Stacy, you're quite familiar with one of the settings where I was running some loss and literacy intervention teams from K cheese. We went up to middle school, I had para educators that were working on reading with students. And we it was our goals were big, and we had taken on some some really big opportunities to help students improve their reading across the school. And so I had to temper our enthusiasm with the reality that we had students of varying levels and we had teachers who had a varying level of knowledge as well. But the biggest thing that we could do and it really paid dividends was to make sure that the Para educators who were working with those teachers in those various grade levels that The teachers knew who they were. And they knew who the Para educators were. And we had a comfortable enough relationship between the two that we were sharing information constantly about the students we were working with, with the teacher. Likewise, the Para educators understood what was being taught in the classrooms. And I think that is vital to make sure that there's enough respect for each other, and comfort with each other, that you're allowed in and out of those rooms, because that's the best for the student. And when you have that kind of free flow of help and information happening, it's a real boost. So I would also look at that as an administrator to make sure that across my building, there's that sense of camaraderie that we're all in this together. And we're sharing information because those silos are damaging,

Stacy Hurst:

Agreed. And I think, if you're at that stage where your literacy coach or an administrator also take a look systemically, at maybe programs that are still being implemented that are contradictory to what we know about the science. And I think, because that can actually have competing results in the brain, right. And we don't want to confuse students, certainly, I think the other thing would just be to continue to learn and ask yourself, now what questions can I ask as a result of knowing what I know? And consider the reader profile for every student to I think, as you learn, and as you implement? And you keep asking those questions, why is this student's accuracy so high, but they're not comprehending anything they read? Or why is it the opposite, right? They can't read very fluently, but they understand everything, keep asking questions, and seeking those answers. And I really do also want to I'm thinking of classroom teachers in this moment, do not beat yourselves up yourself lots of grace. I know that the impulse is to get anxious about this, because we're in teaching to make a difference for those students. We're in teaching because we want everyone to learn how to read well. But again, we're all learners. And so it those things take time to become automatized. In our own teaching, as well. And then Donell, as you mentioned, let's just seek out become familiar with and embrace that effectual struggle, right? Just that we're going to be moving to the next level and always improving and that, unfortunately, doesn't come easily. It takes a little bit of work on our part, but no matter the effort, I know we'll have a return on that investment. Any other parting words of wisdom or advice?

Lindsay Kemeny:

I like that it takes time be patient, but you know, do all you can each year I guess.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, amen. Donell?

Donell Pons:

Same.

Stacy Hurst:

So I think the consensus is keep on keeping on, keep on learning, keep on applying and analyzing what you're doing right. Okay, well with that, then we will end this episode. And looking forward to our next conversation. Thank you so much for joining us, feel free to contact us if you have anything to add to this particular conversation. We'd love to hear it. Otherwise, we will see you next time on the next episode of literacy talks.

Narrator:

Thanks for listening to literacy talks, the podcast series for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Literacy talks comes to you and your colleagues from Reading Horizons. We're reading momentum begins. Visit reading horizons.com/literacy talks often for resources, ideas and great literacy learning conversations. Subscribe to Our Podcast digest and you'll always be up to date on all things literacy. See you next time.