This is an episode to listen to many times over and share with your literacy colleagues. With featured guest Dr. Anita Archer, this Literacy Talks episode covers the literacy landscape and explores the power and practicality of explicit literacy instruction. From instructional content to instructional design, effective delivery to feedback and practice, listeners will have the opportunity to understand why Dr. Archer is in demand as a speaker, writer, curriculum developer, and consultant. Hear some of her most memorable “Archerisms” and come away inspired, informed, and energized to, as she says, “teach with passion and manage with compassion!”
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This is an episode to listen to many times over and share with your literacy colleagues. With featured guest Dr. Anita Archer, this Literacy Talks episode covers the literacy landscape and explores the power and practicality of explicit literacy instruction. From instructional content to instructional design, effective delivery to feedback and practice, listeners will have the opportunity to understand why Dr. Archer is in demand as a speaker, writer, curriculum developer, and consultant. Hear some of her most memorable “Archerisms” and come away inspired, informed, and energized to, as she says, “teach with passion and manage with compassion!”
Subscribe to our Literacy Talks podcast digest and never miss an episode! We’ll send you summaries of every session, links to the resources discussed on each show, and some extra goodies so that your learning never stops.
Subscribe to our podcast digest.
Download the new Reading Horizons Discovery Product Guide.
Access the show notes.
Read the transcripts.
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 Officer at Reading Horizons where 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 is a special opportunity for our listeners to meet Dr. Anita Archer, an internationally recognized and revered literacy leader, consultant, author and curriculum developer. She's a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, and we're so honored to have Dr. Archer as our special guest today. Let's get started.
Stacy Hurst:Welcome to another episode of literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst. I am the host and I am joined as I am every episode with my awesome co hosts, Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And this week, Lindsay chose the topic that we get to talk about. So I'm just going to turn the time right over to you, Lindsay. And we can dive right in.
Lindsay Kemeny:Thank you. Well, I'm so excited for today. Because this summer, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Portland, and spend four days learning from Dr. Anita Archer. And you guys know I've said before, Dr. Archer is my personal hero. And so it was amazing getting to learn from her. And I was so excited to come back. And I wanted to share with you guys on the podcast some of the things I learned. But I have something even better today, because we have Dr. Archer herself with us here today. So welcome, Dr. Archer.
Anita Archer:Well, thank you, Lindsay. And I just have to tell you, it's a delight to be here. You were an excellent student for those four days. And I am honored to share information with your colleagues in Literacy Talks.
Lindsay Kemeny:Thank you. So let's start by having you tell us a little bit about your career. I believe you started off as a special education teacher, is that right?
Anita Archer:I did. Actually my career started before that. During my undergraduate career, I had the great gift of working with some renowned people in special ed, doing research. And so I was a research assistant. And then I taught elementary special ed. And that's before I got my masters and then went on and got my doctorate. But you know, I have taught 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of lessons in elementary and middle school and high school, because most of my work has been in consulting and teaching at universities. And so I've continued to teach children again and again and again. Just to give you a little bit of history. So I've 75 So I've had 55 years in this career. During that time Special Ed teacher, yes. But very early on. At 26. I was asked to take a position at University of Washington as a visiting professor at 26. So I was extraordinarily blessed. All my degrees are from University of Washington, because I'm a Washingtonian, though now I live in Portland, Oregon. Then I taught at the University of Oregon, and ran their reading school. All the services they gave to students I was in charge of, and taught classes. But luckily I was surrounded by very brilliant people who had is their background direct instruction, and had written many programs. So I learned a great deal from them. And then I taught it to San Diego State University, which gave me another opportunity because of the number of students who were learning an additional language that they were serving as students in their classes. And also, the teachers would be serving children. During that time, I continued to consult and write curriculum materials. But then all three jobs of university teaching consulting, writing curriculum was plenty on my plate. And so I left the university and subsequently have been consulting in the United States, all 50 states all territories, been consulting in Canada, particularly west coast provinces, and in Australia, in Queensland for 10 years. I've spent at least a month there. So I've had a really rich career, but most of it has been throughout that time is writing curriculum in the area of literacy.
Lindsay Kemeny:Well, that's fabulous. You and just all the people you've been able to impact. It's amazing. And I blessed.
Donell Pons:You know, Dr. Archer was interesting listening to your talk about special education being one of those first settings that you were teaching in, because that was mine for setting to special education. So I have a real love for that. And then it got me thinking, as you were talking about the various ways in which you've helped others, come to realize, you know, the impact of their teaching, he got me thinking about what explicit instruction is because you're known as the Queen of explicit instruction, which is fantastic. And who explicit instruction is for and I hope we're all saying everybody, but I'll let you kind of take that over explicit instruction, give us your
Anita Archer:right on everybody. But one day, a principals said, Well, how do I know what explicit instruction is? And I said, You know what, when you see it, because the students will be engaged, the instruction will be systematic, and the teacher will gain many, many responses from the students constantly give them feedback. And success will be the goal and learning is the outcome. So any time you walk into a classroom, you can tell if it is explicit instruction. And who is it for? Well, you will do now you know this? Well, there is a continuum in terms of instructional procedures, from very explicit instruction, which I tell you what you're going to learn, I systematically teach it to you, I check to be certain that you've learned it. And I adjust my instructions based on that information very, very explicit over here to total discovery, where you even can pick what you're going to learn and how you're going to go about it and how you're going to gain it. So we have this huge continuum. And so your question really is what would end up at this end of the continuum? First of all, it's almost totally based on background knowledge, that is the biggie, do you have something to connect it to what you're learning new. And if you have no background knowledge, which is pretty much elementary, middle school and high school in that they walk into your class, that's because they don't have a lot of knowledge of that area. And so then they really profit from it being very explicit, because instruction that way, is not only effective, but efficient. Then when I gain lots of knowledge, like all of you have a huge amount of knowledge, so that you can expand on it by personal discovery, picking up a book and then being able to sort through it. But we're mostly talking about students who are new to the content are what we would call novices in that content area, who actually process differently than an expert. Thus, they need to have it be very systematic and very explicit.
Stacy Hurst:So as you're talking, I'm thinking about a couple of different settings that I've been in, kind of begs the question, What about discovery type learning or problem based learning? You did stick to where that fits in. And if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you to address a specific example. I have worked with more than one Montessori school. And I really, as an early childhood educator, I appreciate that philosophy. But they are very discovery based. How does that relate to early literacy instruction?
Anita Archer:You know, because I've not read all the research on Montessori. I'm not going to go there. But I'll go in general, one of the researchers that I follow is John Hattie, because John Hattie, who is basically a kiwi from New Zealand who now lives in Australia. And he has a team of researchers who take in information on certain questions that are very viable for us as educators. And one of them is should we do problem based instruction? Should we do discovery? And many other should we use explicit instruction? And they look at it in terms of taking the best studies and removing the ones that don't meet their criteria. And then coming up with what's called effect sizes, and effect sizes. Basically, the name tells what it is it's how effective is it. And they go from zero to one, the effect sizes, and we pretty well have looked at and determined that if it has an effect size of point four zero or more, then it is highly likely to make a difference and would be useful to add to our repertoire. But the most recent data that I published was in 2019. And in 2019, I just wrote this down because luckily, Lindsey sent me the question, so I'd have data you needed it. So if we look at the studies that looked at Discovery, the overall effect size was point two, one. So that would be below, what would get us to say, whoo, whoo, let's do it. problem based instruction had a effect size of point three, five, explicit instruction had a effect size of point five, seven. So you get an idea of the difference in effectiveness. Now, in one of John Hattie's recent books, and also a reason book by Dylan, William, they both addressed this challenge, and said, The problem was that so often students were not given the amount of knowledge that they needed to solve a problem beforehand. And that they really need to have that knowledge. So explicit instruction first, before they would have a discovery or problem based. Now you think about us, we can discover why well, you Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, you've got doctorates, master's degrees, we've read about education forever, I own 5000 books in my basement, that aren't education, if you ever want one. And so we have the knowledge so that then we could solve a problem because we know what to look for and how to proceed and what we need to do. And this is true of any profession, you know, a plumber comes to my house, and they have knowledge, I don't have, I'm a novice in the plumbing department. But they're able to attack the problem because they have knowledge. So my conclusion is this. If we're going to do problem based authentic kinds of tasks, then let us proceed it with explicit instruction. On the knowledge we need, the skills we need, the vocabulary that we need. So also we have a level playing field, everyone that has enough knowledge now to do that authentic task. In fact, both of them concluded that without the preceding knowledge, that problem based and discovery base might have a negative impact on your attainment. So I think that speaks to us. And I think that we should be looking at that it isn't an either or it is a win, and who and how we're going to set you up for success.
Donell Pons:Dr. Archer, I love this. And I love you drawing this out for us and letting us really think about these various topics that we've heard about before, and what they are and what how they impact education. So with that, I'd like it. We've talked about it, but I'm having to build out a little bit more, can you give us an overview of the different components of explicit instruction? Because I may think I'm being explicit, but what is explicit instruction? Really, what a component you want to say,
Anita Archer:well, Lindsay took a class for four days on this, but they're not gonna ask you right? You're not gonna ask you, you know the answer. But, Danielle, I'm going to give a summary of it. Okay. So I wrote a book on explicit instruction with Charles Hughes at Penn State. And what we looked at was the research over 50 years on explicit instruction. And what were the high leverage practices that consistently emerged, and we divided them into categories. And the first was content, that if I'm teaching you something explicitly, I'm going to focus on very high critical content, critical content that you could use in the moment, and you could use in the future. But consistently, we know that we need to break it down into obtainable pieces, no matter what we're teaching, I don't teach seventh graders how to write an argument. And one lesson, I'm going to break it down to obtainable pieces, you know, how to do the research, how to determine what you're going to have as your claim, what are the reasons for your claim? How are we going to make a plan, then how are we going to write a introduction that grabs the attention of the reader that tells what your claim is that previews the reasons, and we're going to do that one, time two, time three time four time more. And then we're going to learn how to write the paragraphs, where you have a reason and details and reason and details. And then I'm going to teach you how to write a conclusion where you like wrap it up. So this is critical content. Learning how to write an argument is critical content, but it has to be broken down into obtainable pieces, and that's where a really good case curriculum uses all of their knowledge to do that, so that the students don't have cognitive overload. You know, every one of us have experienced a moment where too much is coming in. And we are not able to process it within working memory. And we needed to have a smaller piece taught with demonstration and taught well, so that then we can put it all together and have something that is complete. Second category is the design of instruction. And not surprisingly, the research showed that teachers who are most effective had organized systematic lessons. And what would that entail? Well, it would entail telling the students what they're going to learn the purpose, sometimes even making a more formal, as you're seeing today in schools where they have a learning intention and success criteria. Then review of any pre skills or knowledge that you need for this lesson. So for example, I was working yesterday with people who are utilizing one of my rewards one of the research validated programs I wrote with Dr. Marie Gleason. And a person asked, Why do you have in every lesson, a review of letter sounds and pronunciation of prefixes, suffixes? I said, because the strategy we're teaching is dependent on that knowledge to automaticity. And so you get a long word and you ask yourself, how are you going to figure it out, and we teach them to circle the prefix, but they've got to know the prefix, circle the suffix, they'd have to know it, underline the vowel sound, they'd have to know it, say the parts, say it fast, make it a real word. So we're going to tell the kids the goal of the lesson, but we're going to review any necessary pre skills I can sample before they are going to have new material. And then when we get to new material, we have divided it up into three parts, demonstration, guided practice, checking for understanding, or what I coined in 1974, the terms I do it, we do it, you do it. But you know, one of the things that we have to remember is, for me, as a writer, and author of books and materials, is that there was a great deal of history that came before. And so I'm always very careful to talk about the roots of this, because it wasn't just all my ideas. In fact, that was a perfect example. During the 1980s, probably the premier educator was Madeline Hunter. And Madeline Hunter talked about demonstration guided practice checking for understanding. And then when I wrote a chapter in a book, I wanted terms that were more memorable. So I adopted I do we do you do? Often I do it, we do it, you do it. But it is off of a longer pathway, longer history, that we need to honor the roots of good instructional practice in education. So that's the design delivery, we put a lot of energy and I do in my trainings to delivery, because we could have an organized focus lesson. We can even have the goal we could have review. We can have I do it, we do it, you do it. And the students are going into deep cognitive floating. Why? Number one, they're not asked to make enough responses. The opportunities to respond in a lesson is one of the best predictions of learning within the lesson. And then the teacher needs to monitor those responses listening carefully. Looking carefully, then the teacher needs to give feedback based on the responses and have a brisk pace throughout. So the delivery of it those are the four big ones frequent responses, monitoring the responses, giving feedback, and having a risk or perky pace. And then the last area is practice giving an adequate amount of practice spaced over time that will lead to learning. Just look at all of the knowledge we have. There has to come to our curriculum material designs, to our teaching in the classroom to our university teaching so that teachers have from the get go hole, a vision of a mental map about what good instruction looks like. And that's it, Stacy, you're teaching at university and you know that the first mental map that people get in any career is very difficult to change over time. So they've got to get this idea, they need to watch videos and see lots of good instruction, so that they know what it looks like. So that is the components as we've organized them. And there's probably more than one way to organize them. But in terms of content, design, delivery, and practice.
Lindsay Kemeny:I love that Dr. Archer and I love that you had us really practice and we did retrieval practice ourselves this summer, because we would write down all the 13 you know, every day, every class, you would have us write down that 13 Until everyone could write all 13 from memory.
Anita Archer:And on like, the second day,
Lindsay Kemeny:I'm impressed you remember, but it's so good. Because like you said, I love how you're talking about that mental map, because that's really what I think of and I, okay, what of these areas do I need to work on? And what what can I do? So if a principal or a teacher came to you, because there's all these different elements of explicit instruction that are so important, but if they came to you and just said, What is one thing we can do? What's one thing we can work on to improve the learning outcomes for our students? What would you say?
Anita Archer:You know, what I would say? I would say, give all of your effort to opportunities to respond. Basically, here's some of my mottos in terms of opportunities to respond. Now, number one, everybody does everything. Whether it's a small or large group, everybody says it, everybody writes it, everybody does it. Because one of the first things we need to do is move away from the long historical use of raised hands. Because we still see this predominant in schools, I ask a question, the students raise their hands. So I call on that student. And who are they likely to be? They are likely to be students that are high performing students, confident assertive students, and students that are proficient in English, which I call teaching the best and leaving the rest. But it is harmful because very quickly, other students in the classroom particularly at the secondary level, learn this student, this student and this student, are the hand raisers. Well, they're probably right here, Danielle, Stacy and Lindsey, you'd be raising your hands. And so teachers constantly calling on them, giving them all of the practice. And other tones just say it's their job I'm checking out. So that's the first thing I work with schools on if we're going to do everyone does everyone thing. Everyone says the answer. Everybody writes the answer. Everybody does the answer, then we need to get rid of the raise hands. My teachers teach students on the first day of school, that in my class, when I ask a question, you won't raise your hand. The only time you're gonna raise your hand is if I say raise your hand. Or if you have a question for me, that is useful to everybody else in the classroom, not just to you, but everyone else, then you may raise your hand. So then we have to teach simile, what can we do instead? And we have a whole array of possibilities for saying, you can have students say answers together when the answers are short and the same. You can have structured structured partners assigned like one and two or a and b, where you give them a chance to think and they share it with their partner before you call on a student. You could have written responses, maybe on slates, maybe you're going to have answers on paper. We found particularly at the secondary level, having students write down their ideas before they share with their partner or the class. The quality goes way up in terms of their responses, same in college classes. And they could also do things they could touch things point things they could buy favorites are the holdup. So some of the strongest research in terms of opportunities to respond are holdups. Everybody writes it on their slide, holds it up, every buddy that only maybe has cards in front of them, and they held them up. So one day I saw a teacher who had cards in a social studies class in the middle school, the executive branch legislative branch judicial branch. And I'm going to tell you about some aspect of this branch, you must identify it. When I say show me, you're going to hold it up. So holdups another great one is you have multiple possibilities for answers. You ask an item, students look on this screen and decide if it's 123 or four, and they show it with their fingers. Now, you might say, Well, why did hold ups come out? So well, in the research is consistently one of the strongest possibilities? Well, because I can hold everybody accountable, which when people write things down, unless it's short, and they hold it up, I'm not going to be able to look at all their papers at that moment. Or if they say it to their partner, I can't hear everybody, but I can see everybody, are they participating? Do they have the correct answer? So it's a very strong way to hold them accountable, and get a better view of the class gains? So I don't have any problem with this question at all. I've said it a million times to principals, you want to make a difference, we're going to start by increasing opportunities to respond. I just worked yesterday, all day in Hawaii, virtually. And so we've been working for two years on a literacy grant. And that was the first thing we worked on. And it has gotten better and better and better. But here's the other reason, Lindsey, in terms of why I would want to do that is that when you increase opportunities to respond, your lessons have to be more organized and focused. You need to know where you're going. So impacts that if you have more opportunities to respond, you have more opportunities to acknowledge and praise children. So it changes the environment in the classroom. If you have opportunities to respond, you get feedback as a teacher on are they getting it? So in other words, why we start there is that it affects every thing else.
Stacy Hurst:Thanks for that. It's a lot to think of. I'm beginning my semester, and I have 1,000,010 ideas. So one question I do have for you. Could you say more about how you would adjust those response opportunities for different age groups or instructional settings?
Anita Archer:The content demands the response, not the group of learners. So Lindsay was in a class with people that were all all had undergraduate degrees, I would say the majority of them had masters. And remember, Lindsey, there were three people with doctorates in the audience. Yes. Okay. And did you say things together? Yes, we did. Did you use hand signals? We did. Did you share with partners? Yes. They didn't share with teams? Yep. Did you make sure it written responses? Yes, that end. And so I want to have a short response in return to some information I've taught, I had them saved together. We had long answers. I had them write down their ideas and share with their partner or their team. So that was a university level class. Now, let's say we go down to kindergarten. So I just met with kindergarten teachers, and has Monday. And we're starting the year with only using one major method of response, which is choral responses. Listen, say, Listen, say, takes a few weeks for kindergarten kids to get this well, a few days, actually. And they were really good at it. And then we work on point to touch. And so yes, that's differentiated until we get a whole repertoire of potential responses that the teacher could choose, that would match the content. Wonderful.
Lindsay Kemeny:So one area that I want to improve this year is in the review section of my lesson. And you just shared some great advice with us this summer about that review section that I'm wondering if you can share some of that with us about what makes a good review
Anita Archer:case. So let's go back to something you mentioned from that summer class, is that every day after I introduced the major components of explicit instruction, you had two minutes from memory to list them. I didn't just go back and recap them all. I had you come up with them from memory and write them down. And then the next day the same thing. And the next day the same thing, because we had on the first day rehearsed it quite a bit. And now we are into retrieval. And retrieval practice is very powerful in terms of digging deep neural pathways that lead to retention. So if we can just hear we have a body of knowledge I want you to learn, we rehearse, well, first I teach. Then we rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, then we retrieve, retrieve, retrieve. Now, in your question you gave me You said, could you give me a literacy exam example? Okay, so just to show you because we did many, I think three times I showed you, I did one with just a recap, and one with retrieval. But let me take you to a classroom where I was visiting. So I was visiting a school district and giving feedback to teachers in walkthroughs. So we're doing walkthroughs. And we're in kindergarten in the principal sitting here, I'm sitting here and we're taking notes. Why shouldn't kindergarten teacher who is teaching literacy skills and is reviewing letters sound associations, okay? So we're all familiar with teaching letters, sound associations. So the teacher gets up and puts up a flashcard, and says, This is the letter B. It sound is, say the sound. The sound is at what sound? This says the letter T is sound is what sound. And the principal wrote down, excellent job going back and reviewing what you taught them. I said to the principal, let's step out in the hall and have a discussion. I said, here's the problem. The teacher is recapping is modeling the name of the letter and the sound, the students do not have to retrieve it from memory. And inadvertently, this teacher is teaching the children, you don't really have to focus in and learn it. Because every day, I'm going to tell you the sound again, and you're going to then mimic that sound. He said, Well, what should she do? And I said, Well, excellent that she's having review moves celebrate that. But she should simply put up the letter B and say, what sound and then yes, and what sound at. And so I see, then the students are held accountable. On this too. Students have to retrieve it. And the practice is much more likely to lead to retention. So we got to look at how we review. Now. That would occur after I've taught it. And we have rehearsed it with scaffolding. We've rehearsed it with scaffolding. And now I'm taking the scaffolding down. And in our retrieval review, there'll be no scaffolding.
Lindsay Kemeny:And you scaffold it for us when we were doing those 13 writing those down. I mean, the first time you gave us the topics content design, delivery practice, and then we would write you know, and then by the end,
Anita Archer:just do it. Yes, exactly. Nice remembering Lizzie, you are a delight as a student.
Stacy Hurst:Yes. And your students are lucky to have you because of that. Lindsay, you're a good learner. I was thrilled to know that you coined the term I do. We do you do. I learned that a long time ago. And it made a really big difference in the way I thought about teaching and what my students need. And as you're talking and you just barely said, Teach, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse retrieved. That's another way of saying it right. But out of those three, I do we do you do, which would you say is the most important?
Anita Archer:Well, anything, any skill or strategy that I'm teaching you, I better have demonstrated clearly, clearly articulate what I'm doing and what I am thinking. And I might do that more than one time, I might demonstrate it one time, two times, depending on the complexity. Then we have the we do it. And we're I'm going to guide you in doing it. I'm going to go step by step, supporting you through scaffolding so that you could do it correctly and then gradually reduce the amount of scaffolding and then check to see if you could do it independently. Now here's the sad thing. Is Stacy the most common use of I do it we do it you do it is I do it, you do it. Watch me do this math problem. Now you do it. Watch me write a paragraph. Now you do it. But the strongest part of the lesson actually is we do it and where I am as the expert guiding you through it. Just think of a plumber saying, watch me connect these two. Now you do it. Whoa, you know, maybe they need to give some advice. As the do that we do it, all of us would profit from we do it. Now let me just Can I take an example from yesterday. So yesterday I was working with third, fourth and fifth graders, teachers of an intervention is on the Big Island. Hawaii, actually, yesterday was a wahoo. The previous day was, I should go there. I mean, really. But anyway, Portland had good weather yesterday, too. So we were talking about teaching students how to utilize context clues. And one of the simple strategies that you can utilize is inside outside, where you have a word you don't know the meaning of first you look inside the word and ask yourself, Do I know the route? Do I know a prefix or suffix? And if from that you can't figure out the word, then you look in the sentence and ask yourself, are there any hints in the sentence? And then, if that's not enough, you ask yourself, is there any hints in the surrounding sentences that will help me get to the meaning? And when I figure out possibly what the meaning is, then I try it in the sentence. And I asked myself, does it make sense? Okay, got the strategy down, inside outside, very easy. And I could model that, and I might model it one time two times. But there's all types of embedded context clues, could be just stated right after the word it could be. Later on, they have have a another word that means the same, or they have an antonym that is meant to cue you in, or maybe a cause and effect is to cue you in. So there's a whole range. So I'm going to have to guide you to lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of practice, before you ever would do it on your own, so that I can cover all of the possibilities over time. And it might be over time. So it's the same thing, if I was teaching you how to write a paragraph, you know, I could model first we have, we've planned the topic sentence, then we plan the details. And then we prime the concluding sentence, and then I show them how to write it. But that's going to take a lot of doing it together, and guiding them and doing it and guiding and particularly if they're like third graders and fourth graders, so the we do it should not be neglected. And I see so often children that have watched you do it. But they need you to be right there, guiding them through it. So that there is outcome hope. So we make this error. We make it in literacy. I know that you've literacy talks, but you know, somebody who's watching teaches math to and we do it all the time and math, watch me do this problem. Now do items one to 50 on your own unless, you know it would have been helpful if we had some guided practice. What's the first step? Do it what's the second step? Do it was the third step do it was the fourth step do it here's your answer compared to mindless look at the next problem. First step, do it second tip, do it third step do it. So it is the we do.
Lindsay Kemeny:I remember you had a slide this summer and it said You know, it's not always I do it. We do it. You do it. But sometimes it's I do it. We do it. We do it. We do it. We do it. We do it. We do it. And then you do it,
Anita Archer:you know. But Lindsay, that was an important thing for you to remember. Because sometimes I'll see evaluation tools that say, I'm in this lesson that I see. And I do it, we do it you do it? Well, many times, just like you said, it would be done over time. And so yes, you could do a demonstration, and maybe another demonstration. And the next day. You're doing we do it and we do it and we do it for many, many days. The students go on holiday, they come back you do one more demonstration. And then you do we do it, we do it now they're looking better and you're gradually reducing the scaffolding enough that you can say you do it, and that then opens the door for independent practice.
Lindsay Kemeny:And that scaffolding is important too. And you show that on the slide because this the font of the we do it got smaller and smaller and smaller.
Anita Archer:We like to make things so that's the whole message what I'm saying and what I see is all one message. So yes, the bond time sorted. I might have told you about the number of times though that I will send a hand down to font size being a message? And a secretary will look at and say, Oh, no, this does not look right, and then just fix it right up. So it's all 14, it was meant to be 14. So
Lindsay Kemeny:a well, and I love that because it's a good reminder. And something I can think about is, you know, I can scaffold with my with the amount of prompting and help I give, I can be telling my students, now remember, our A, we're going to do slant down slant down across, right, and then I can start pulling that away and just saying, let's write your capital A and then, you know, pulling that back. Absolutely. So another goal, for my instruction this year is the closing. So we talked about your review the body of our lesson, I do, we do, you do. And then the closing, which I always forget to do. So this is why it's a goal for me. And I know that you said that this is really common that people forget to do a closing in their lesson. So let's start
Anita Archer:you know, we have an opening to our lesson, or we tell the goal, and we do a review. And then we have the body of the lesson. It's organized in focus that includes I do we do it, you do it. And then we have a closing. And closing is definitely doesn't matter if you are a primary teacher, and intermediate teacher in elementary school, or middle school, or high school or college, it's missing in all of them. Most of us teach up until the bell and storm the door is not closing, there is some academic benefit, and some behavioral benefit of having dignity at the end. And it doesn't have to be a long one. It for example, some of your participants are interventionist, and maybe they're only with the kids for half an hour. And so then they might have a closing that was five minutes or less. And maybe I'm a high school teacher and I have 45 minute periods. But five minutes before the bell, I stop and systematically do a closing. What are the academic benefits? Well, the way I articulated is this review preview independent work review means I'm going to go over the big ideas. And if we haven't had a lot of rehearsal yet, I'll use retrieval practice, I will ask questions, or items that they're going to do that will show me remind them of what we've had. But here's the benefit. Often it is a synopsis. And many of our kids, when everything else is gone, or more likely to get it from that synopsis a lot of aha was in that moment, then we might have a preview kids like to know that we have a plan that tomorrow we're going to continue working on inside and outside. Tomorrow we are going to learn a new sound. And I'm so excited about this sound because there's so many words with this sound. And so you have to have passion no matter what you teach, so that the students have some security that you know where you're going. And then if there's homework or assignment in class, if they're going to do you do that. So that's the academic benefits. You have had review, it might have been a recap, if we haven't had much rehearsal, it could be a retrieval practice. If it is something that we are pretty firm on, then you know where we're going, and you have an assignment. But the behavioral aspects also is critical. If we just stormed the door and leave the classroom, we're just setting them up for push and shove and unruly behavior. But instead we have dignity at the end. This is what we learned, review that here's what we're doing tomorrow. And then if I'm an elementary teacher, and we are maybe moving on for some other activity, I'll excuse kids, row one, row two, row three dignity to the end, even in middle school class. Right after I've done this quick review, and the bells about rage ring, I'll say stay in your seats, and all walk over and position my body next to the door. So I can say goodbye to them as they leave. And I will say think when the bell rings. Remember, do not leave until I tell you to. That's my mantra in middle school in high school. Do not move until I tell you to. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Please walk to the door. Thank you. So academic and behavioral benefits. But you know, I tell this story because it was fascinating to me. I'm working in middle schools For a lot in middle schools, and we talked about having closure, and we just never got it. So then we decided to have a ding bill. That's not the real Bill across the school. And that was a reminder, there's five minutes left, you need to review, okay? And they didn't. So we went into classes, and we picked out a child and the teachers choice, this child, and we tell them their job. Five minutes before the bell rings, you're going to stand up, you're in the front row, you're going to stand up, and you're going to stay standing until the teacher does something that looks like closure. Maybe saying something, let's wrap this up. Or let's go over what we did today, something that looks like closure, and then you can sit down, but until the teacher does that, you are not sitting down. And then we introduced it to the class. Five minutes before Jason is going to stand up. And he'll keep standing until there is closure. Okay, guess what? We got closure. And then the teachers got in the habit of it. But still, we had a little personal reminder person. They love the job. They did it consistently.
Donell Pons:I mean, I've been chuckling my hand. My first teaching gig was in a middle school. It just makes me laugh. Just hearing about it. It's so fantastic. I love it. I along this line, Anita, you throughout your career, you've come up with some of the greatest short phrases and mottos, and many people fondly refer to them. What are some of your favorite Archer isms? Have you got a favorite out there?
Anita Archer:Well, I'm many. But basically, that, for example, I do it we do it you do, it isn't our tourism. And the reason for it was to make it memorable, that it would stick with us. So this summer, I had a terrific opportunity. And that was a class that I had taught at University of Oregon 50 years, 48 years ago, had a reunion for me. And they remembered Archer isms. There's many we could go through, but you asked what my favorites were. And some of them are not around literacy, but management. And the one they remembered was a void the void for they will fill it, which I think is probably one of the best reminders, though, to think it's a good reminder for teachers. Because most management problems do come where there is a void, I've either finished the task, and you have not regained our attention. Or you did not prepare enough today teacher and there's a void, and in IT management problems, because children will fill the void. And some children have a whole range of inappropriate behaviors they use to fill the void. So avoid the void for they will fill it. My other one is that almost all management problems, you could envision that they were going to happen. And this goes for parents as well as teachers. So if you expected pre correct it, if you expected pre correct it. And this makes a huge difference. So if you can expect this, this is going to happen. Like I was in a chemistry class. And the teacher did a brilliant job with this because for the first time they were going to have these lit torches that they were going to be using. And so the teacher said, You will not turn on your torch until I give you the command. No one did it. And but this is absolutely, you're going to have sign partners before you ever sign partners, you know, some kids are going to you. So you pre correct it. Today, you're going to get a partner either just had that partner for three weeks only. And then I'll change them. We're a learning community and I expect you to be kind no matter who your partner is. So when I assign your partner not with your face or with your voice, whether it be any negative comments, if you expect it pre correct it.
Lindsay Kemeny:I love that there's so many I don't think I could choose a favorite Archer ism. I know teach the stuff and cut the fluff. That was like my motto a couple years ago especially with COVID. And we were every other day and that was just that was my main goal.
Anita Archer:You just comment on that one. So that goes back to critical content, teach the stuff and cut the fluff. So if I have a curriculum material, I have to decide what's fluff. But then if I have curriculum versus a general ed curriculum, and my students are way behind, then I might have to more deeply cut fluff so that we can fill in this and take them to the level we might normally expect, which is definitely the result of COVID. Right? Yeah, so that the differential is greater. So we have to even be more selective about what we teach, so that we can cover more in this space. So if we have like a list of vocabulary words, we might usually teach online. But now we need to cover more content, we look at it and say, well, that word, they're never going to hear again, never use again. But this word they could use in their reading, they could use in their writing. And there's other words related to it, so I can get more for my money for that word. So it is a really critical one that you remembered.
Lindsay Kemeny:And then the other one, you told us don't commit a suicide. And I love that. And then this week was our first week of school and my first year teaching first grade, and guess what I did, I committed a suicide.
Anita Archer:You know, and with first graders, there's nothing to assume. But even something like K in first grade, with your teaching lucky you really lucky. But let's say in maybe three weeks, you want to introduce structured partners. And so you're going to teach the students to look at their partner to lean in towards your partner, and whisper. And so you're going to model it, and you're going to practice it right. But let's say that I'm working with seventh graders, and on the first day of school, I'm going to introduce structured partners. Now, I'm not going to assume that all of them have been taught those school behaviors of look clean and whisper. And so in a voice that is more appropriate for seventh graders, I'm going to reteach it. I'm going to teach that. And I'm going to have them practice it. Because we're going to use it all off. And I get might get more rationale to the seventh graders than the first graders, the seventh graders don't say we're learning this because, first of all, what you're conveying with your partners should not be heard by other partnerships. So they have to develop their own ideas. And also, it is a social skill that you can use beyond this, that when you're in a restaurant, and you're talking you have someone with you, you lean towards them, so that you can hear them well. You whisper so that not people at their tables are going to hear you. This is a skill this for our classroom and way beyond. So you get more rationale, but you're not going to assume. And every time we assume, then we have to back up because we were like shocked. Oh my gosh, I just assumed they knew that. Oh, my goodness. I assumed they knew that. Now, so yes, go. Suicide.
Lindsay Kemeny:That's exactly what happened. I thought I could say right, three capital A's. I showed it. Go to your C and write three capital A's and three lowercase A's. That was not happening. So I learned my lesson. By Thursday, we had to do it all together on the paper.
Anita Archer:Absolutely, Touchdown, touchdown to Christ. Yes.
Stacy Hurst:I think even some of my college students would benefit from that particular. That is great. I am it is easier, I think in my university setting to commit suicide. And we're really going to make that a focus to make sure I'm not doing that
Anita Archer:academically, of course, doing quick pre tests of information can reduce that. And then you're like shocked to find out they have no idea what this is. And then you'd better like teach it. So academically, some of that can be removed through pre tests. Yeah, I
Stacy Hurst:love that. And I'm so glad you said that. Because I have that has been front of mind. Literally, as I'm planning for this next semester, I need to do a better job of that. And my closures. In fact, I think I teach all my classes this year in one room, I think on the back wall. I'm gonna put storm the door is not a closure.
Anita Archer:That is so bad. But you know, Stacy, all the years I taught in university. I had posters, I modeled for teachers what they needed to do in their teaching. So I had posters up of the behaviors I'm working on because, yes, 55 years of only thinking about instruction, I still have a long ways to go, I can watch videos that I just done three years or four years ago before COVID and say, Oh, Archer, you need to do this, you need to do this. So I would post it so everybody knew what I was working on. But I would love teachers to do this, you know, have a sign that everyone does everything for the teacher who constantly calls on kids to raise their hands. And so they're reminded that everyone is going to be saying answers writing answers doing answers. One, like, if you expected pre correct, it could be an excellent behavioral, to have up so that you're looking at it. But also it conveys to children that this is a profession. And like any profession, learning is not a one and done. It's constant getting better and better and better. And you're only as good in your profession as your willingness to become better and better and better. So you're really teaching kids something in terms of value, that would be very obvious to them.
Stacy Hurst:Yeah, that is so beneficial for me to be thinking about right now and for all of us to be. And I think I know, in my position, I'm a relatively new professor, this will be my third year of teaching in the university level. And initially, my thought was content content, I just gotta get the information to him, they haven't been taught about what we're calling the science of reading, I need to just get it out to them. But I've been able to start thinking about Yes, I need to be modeling being a learner, just like you just have done for us, and showing them what it looks like to continue to elevate your professional practice, and the profession as a whole. So I'm trying to put that more front and center this year to
Anita Archer:if you're training teachers, you must teach them in the same way that they would teach. So you have to work on your opportunities to respond, you have to work on your opening and your closing. But you might even want to articulate it for them, that my instruction is meant to mirror your instruction. And so we're going to have an opening and we're going to have a body of the lecture and then we're going to have a closing, and you're going to participate throughout. And Lindsey can tell you that I even had a person count the opportunities to respond that I had during the sessions as feedback to me, so that they would really understand that good instruction is always interactive, it doesn't matter the age because you have to rehearse the information and retrieve it in order to retain it. Yeah,
Stacy Hurst:I love that. I agree. And I'm going to be more explicit about my explicit instruction.
Anita Archer:That's exactly what you're going to do. And already do, I'm sure.
Stacy Hurst:So one thing when we're teaching vocabulary, I actually have my students watch three of your videos on explicit vocabulary instruction. And then as part of a retrieval opportunity, I asked them to tell me what they learned from those videos. So I have semesters worth of those comments. But there is just one that I'd like to read to you today, because I think it encapsulates some of the things that you've been talking about in this garden that
Anita Archer:everybody knows that the videos are available to them. Yes, explicit. instruction.org
Stacy Hurst:great resource, by the way, so yes, explicit instruction.org. So the student said, I feel that using this type of explicit instruction requires not only the engagement of the students, but the teacher as well, which I really appreciated that she noticed that because again, my main focus was vocabulary at that point. And she said Dr. Archer demonstrated mastery of the content in the way she spoke. And that is one of the characteristics I aspire to as a teacher, so you are inspiring many teachers, and future teachers. And then she said this, I may just be a nerd. But even after watching that first video had me engaged on the edge of my seat, and I already knew what those words meant.
Anita Archer:Me nerves. Yes, absolutely. But you know, that is for you to show videos of good instruction, is that mental map that we want to give teachers, because she already knows what it looks like what it feels like. But what she noticed is how present teachers have to be. And this is true. It's that mindfulness thing that many people are looking into, but it is the presence that your whole energy is there. You're not looking at your Apple Watch, you are not answering the phone, you took it off the hook so that no one could call you during a lesson. You are not doing anything except being present and connecting with them. And it is of all professions. It has more need of being present. Because I can't monitor my instructional quality without being present. I can't give feedback without being present. I can't give positive praise without being present. I can't smile at you without being present. I must be present. Wow. That is a good closure.
Stacy Hurst:And a profound thought to end on I think You must be present in our instruction. We cannot thank you enough for joining us today.
Anita Archer:You know, you asked me one thing, though you didn't use skip the last question. You're a wonderful example of lifetime. What kinds of things are you doing now that contribute to your own learning? And I'm all prepared. Okay,
Stacy Hurst:I will give him that. I would love to hear that answer to your question.
Anita Archer:Well, I think goes with the last comment, I come in and watch a lesson. And I can check you off for you have an opening of a body at close, you have a goal in your lesson, you have a retrieval practice review, you have I do it, we do it, you do it, you have closure, I could check those off. But there is on the other hand, besides those procedures that are researched, validated and need to occur, there are certain attributes of humans that are particularly good at teaching that they maintain. So I was teaching at a conference in Eugene, and there was a group of people from Great Britain. And we had lots of discussions. And one of them said, have you read the book by banner and canon? And it's a Brit, British book, I said, No. And he said, Well, you really need to, which I really needed to, is for the whole aspect of the character of a teacher. It is called the elements of teaching, written in 1997, revised in 2017, only one of the authors is now living. Think about this, it speaks to your hearts. And our souls, as teachers, our mission is a mission. It's not just a job is not even a career, it is a mission. And I just wrote down the ones that touched me one was authority, that the teacher has to convey that they are the authority in the classroom, that they know what you need to learn and how we're going to get there and how we'll know if you get there. It is not authority, like being mean, or demanding. It is authority, I know what I'm doing. You're lucky to be in my classroom, you're going to learn a lot. And I'm going to have you totally involved, but I'll be making the decisions. And that there is order. There's order in terms of what I'm teaching in the sequences, there's order in terms of the arrangement of the space in my classroom, there is order in terms of how I proceed in every lesson. there is order in terms of my expectation, that there is order that there is compassion that we remember, we're teaching human beings. One boy once told me I was a great teacher asked why. And he says, Well, you teach with passion, and you manage with compassion, a fourth grader, to teach with passion, you manage with compassion, and that you have patience, giving them time to learn it. If it takes many we do it's fine. We're going to do it. And tenacity, we're never given up. We're never giving up. children deserve us never giving up. I'll try it another way. I'll do more we do it. I'll go back and demonstrate it again. I will explain it to you after school. Tenacity, tenacity, tenacity. But think about that those kinds of attributes that we bring into the field goes along with very good practice. And one of them was learning. So often I teach, the whole goal is learning. That is what we're paid to do. That is the outcome we're doing. Unless it gets in permanent memory, it hasn't been learned. Our goal is learning. But also I have a responsibility as a professional to continue to learn. For example, today, these are the studies that I'm reviewing on just one issue, how should multisyllabic words be taught, which is my research area, but those are the newest articles on it. I'm committed to learning so that I can get better and better and better. But I love this book. Because even though I teach high leverage practices that make a difference, these are the human aspects that are necessary to bring to our field. I also
Stacy Hurst:love that you share what you learn. You could just apply it and probably be happy but we benefit from you being a learner and sharing with us what you've learned. So thank you.
Anita Archer:Well, this has been a total delight. I hope It has been just what you wanted. I would come back anytime and talk to you guys, you are committed to this and doing a great service for many people by having these special podcasts.
Stacy Hurst:We love them. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you Lindsey for the idea. And I just want you to know, I left a faculty meeting to be able to do this. And I would do that a million times over I was totally supported in that, by the way. Everybody wanted to come with me and they said, No, you'll just have to listen to the podcasts. All right. Well, we will have you visit Southern Utah University someday. You know, I
Anita Archer:have been there and I would definitely return. I'm just good for COVID To pass for I travel a lot. And I hope it soon.
Stacy Hurst:Absolutely. Well. Thank you for joining us today on literacy talks.
Anita Archer:And thank all you participants for listening in teach with passion, manage with compassion.
Stacy Hurst:Great closure. Thank you. And then join us next time on our 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.