Literacy Talks

Bright Beginnings: Shaping the Next Generation of Literacy Champions

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This bonus episode of Literacy Talks recaps the Bright Beginnings pre-service teacher conference. Hosted by Stacy Hurst and featuring insights from a panel of esteemed educators, Lori Anderson, Stephanie Edgren, Dr. Vicki Piquette, and Papae Wymore, the episode delves into the key sessions and takeaways from the conference. 

Listeners will gain valuable perspectives on empowering pre-service teachers with the latest research and best practices in literacy instruction, from foundational skills to engaging and motivating learners. The episode highlights the collaborative spirit of the science of reading community and the passion shared by the committee in equipping the next generation of literacy champions.

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Narrator:

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

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to this episode of Literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst. I'm the host, and today I am actually joined by not two other co hosts, but four other co hosts, and we are doing a conference recap, which we've done before on literacy talks, but this one will be a little bit different, because this was for the conference titled The Bright Beginnings pre service teacher conference held in November. And I am lucky to have the planning committee with me here today. So we're going to do a recap of the sessions that our pre service teachers got to hear and the the experts that shared their knowledge and wisdom with us. But before we do that, I'm just going to have each of my guests introduce themselves. So if each of you will just say your name, where it is, you teach and just briefly about your background in education,

Lori Anderson:

let's start with Lori. Hi. My name is Lori Anderson. I am currently an adjunct professor at university, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. I am teaching four literacy courses this semester. This is my 26th year in education. I taught for 10 for 13 years in third grade, mostly then I became a literacy coach for 10 years. I became a national letters facilitator two and a half years ago, and I spent the last two years working for the State Board of Education, supporting the literacy coaches in the universities. This is my second year teaching for UVU, and I've also been a consultant for Western Governors University, and they just asked me to be their literacy specialist, so I would be doing some consulting for them. So that's

Stacy Hurst:

great. Thank you. Laurie Stephanie,

Stephanie Edgren:

hi. My name is Stephanie Edgren, and I am currently an independent contractor working with higher education, and I also tutor students. I've been in education for over 30 years, which makes me feel very old, I've taught preschool, elementary, middle school. I supported teachers as an instructional coach, and then I taught pre service teachers in two local institutions here in Iowa, and I primarily focused on literacy courses. I am a dyslexia specialist, and I serve as the vice president of the soon to be Iowa chapter of the reading League.

Stacy Hurst:

Awesome. Thank you. Dr. Vicki Piquette,

Vicki Piquette:

Hello, I'm Dr. Vicki Piquette, and I am a an assistant professor at Colorado State University in Pueblo, Colorado. A little bit about my background. I taught mostly in first and second grade, but I've actually taught everything from preschool through graduate school, except for middle school. Middle School kind of scared me, but now that I've had my own kids go through middle school, maybe it's not so scary, and my bachelor's degree is actually in biology, which is interesting, because once upon a time when I was going through my program, there was a teacher surplus, and they told us we needed to get a bachelor's degree in something that we could fall back on in case we couldn't find a teaching job, which is so weird, because now it's the complete opposite. But I have a master's degree in early childhood and a master's degree in reading, and then I just finished my doctoral degree in reading, language and literacy. I've been at the University now for 18 years, but most of that time was spent as an adjunct. I just took a 10 year track position two and a half years ago. So

Stacy Hurst:

great. Well, thank you for joining us today. Papae, hi

Papae Wymore:

everybody. I'm glad to be here today, and I love hearing Dr Vicki Piquette, the doctor is amazing. Little bit about myself. I am a professor here at Central College in Pella, Iowa. This is my first year at Central that I have been in higher ed for nine years now, goes fast. Previously, I was a kindergarten teacher in public schools. I also taught middle school at risk exploratory for a couple years, but I do have 16 years in public education. Education like Stephanie Edgren, she is my Iowa co partner. We are working on getting a reading league in Iowa, and I am the president of the pending Iowa reading league. I also serve on the advisory council for the Iowa reading Research Center, and I'm just interested in learning more about anything literacy just really excites me, not only myself learning, but sharing that learning with my pre service teachers, great,

Stacy Hurst:

which is a fantastic segue about how this conference got started, right? And just for some background information, the five of us know each other, actually, with the exception of Lori, I feel like we all met at conferences. So we attend the same conferences, and we started thinking, You know what, why don't we offer something like this for our pre service teachers? We do take back what we learn, and of course, we're going to apply it in our courses, but we thought it would be really great for our pre service teachers to have the same information from the same experts that we get to hear from when we attend conferences. So we asked for volunteers, and these four were so gracious to say, Oh, I'll help. And we started with a survey, and we sent a survey out to everyone who would answer. We did get. We got quite a good response when you guys say, and we asked questions, like to the pre service teachers. We asked, What is something you want to know more about? What is something you're most concerned about in your pre service education, or when you think about being a teacher. And we also sent the similar survey to professors to see if they would be interested in such a conference. And of course, almost without exception, I feel like everybody said yes, we would be interested in something like this. So we forged ahead and Stephanie Edgar, and I know you know this, but how long were we planning? How long did it take for us to plan this? Well, over

Stephanie Edgren:

a year. I think we started August of 20 was it 2022? I think, yeah, it's been a long time. It's been a long time we meet fairly we met fairly regularly. We would divide and conquer and just get things done, but also having really good conversation about what we want the conference to look like, and how would it best meet the needs of not only pre service teachers, but their professors.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, thank you. And we did what we met weekly at one point at 730 in the morning for Lori and Vicky and I, it was 730 on Friday morning. So the very day after the conference, which was on a Thursday, we all got to sleep in. And I think we all rejoiced in that a little bit. One thing I want to ask each of you about the survey results, I know we we went over those results together, and that's how we selected the topics, and therefore the speakers that we were going to reach out to. So what were some of those questions that or responses that stand out to you as we looked over that data?

Vicki Piquette:

Yeah, so there was a lot about some different trepidations that the students had that they would like more information about. Some of the things that I saw were that students were concerned that they had to know all of these phonics rules or generalizations, and a lot of them hadn't been taught those themselves, and so it felt very overwhelming for them, and they didn't know even where to start. I also noticed students really wanting to know, like, what does this look like in practice? What does it look like? What should I be doing in the classroom to make sure that all of this comes to fruition?

Papae Wymore:

I'm just going to piggyback off of what Vicky said, you know, what I noticed overall, too Vicky was that students wanted to know, how can I ensure that my future students are going to be proficient readers at the end of the year? I saw that over and over on our survey that we did. So not only just about those, you know, phonics rules, but like overall, how will I know that our students will be proficient readers, yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and I would emphasize, that's what I noticed Tupa pay with, like all of my students, right? Every student in my classroom, not just generally my students. That was a concern. How will I know if they're struggling? What do I do? I feel like

Lori Anderson:

having been in education for as long as I was before I knew what to do for those kids, that was my, that is what feeds me as my why. I just want all future teachers to not have to struggle to figure it out like, like I. Had to. I know some of you had to run training than I did, but it was a big struggle. And I'm like, it shouldn't be a struggle, like we know what what we need to teach our teachers and how this works. We know how the reading brain works, and we know what is needed to help our kids. I'm a mom of a dyslexic son, and it was a huge struggle to help him get to know how to read. And I was like, this shouldn't be happening, like we should know better. And that's like, my big why is to make sure that our future teachers have those skills and knowledge so that they can, they can hit the ground running and feel empowered. I feel like we're losing a lot of teachers because they're so frustrated, they're like, I don't know how to teach reading, and that's been a trend for several years. And I feel like now that, now that we've got the science of reading, and we've got all of these amazing speakers and just better knowledge on how to help our pre service teachers to be better prepared, it's just exciting,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah, which again, brings us to our why for the conference. So the format of the conference, we absolutely asked speakers that could answer those big questions. We chose five questions. So this is how the rest of the podcast will go. Each of us got the opportunity to introduce this session, so I we were just going to stick with that pattern, and we're going to talk about the speaker and the session, the question it was answering from the survey, give a little synopsis, and we also got the opportunity to have feedback from our pre service teachers. And so we'll read some quotes about each session. So I'll begin because I got to introduce Dr Mitchell Brookins, and he gave the keynote, which was titled teacher as practitioner. And I have to just add a little quick side note when I noticed in the registration, and by the way, we had over 1500 people register for this conference, so we knew there was interest. I don't think we knew there was that much interest. That was so great. But one of the things that I noticed in the registration there was a drop down question of, what is your role? And the options were, pre service. Teacher, in service teacher, I don't remember the other ones, but a lot of our pre service teachers would select other and then when we asked, what is your role, they'd say student. So even the terminology they weren't familiar with, right? Like I had to Oh, a pre service teacher is you. You're somebody who isn't yet in service. So the the term practitioner that Dr Mitchell Brookins really introduced to our students as well, I thought was very useful. But he talked about this is what, how he defined a practitioner, an individual who actively engages. He emphasized that in their profession, especially one who is skilled in the application of their knowledge. And he really shared his journey as a teacher, which I thought was very inspiring, because he demonstrated being a learner and applying it. He really was talking about action research in the classroom, and the question that his session helped answer we had a lot of students ask in the survey, what if I'm at a school that is requiring me to teach in a way that is not aligned with what I've learned in my university about the science of reading, which comes up frequently, I think so. His response to that was, sometimes you have to stand up and get in the way. And he really emphasized that literacy is liberty and that we have to get in the way of our current literacy rates. And he Another thing he said is to the pre service teachers, was, it's your time. It's your time, and we're not, you know, we're it doesn't have to those low literacy rates don't have to stay that way. So I thought that was really inspiring. One thing that really excited me as a professor, he made reference to things like research, like the four part processing model of word recognition, Aries phases, things that my students could recognize and resonate with so that was really helpful, I thought, too, and we did get to hear him sing. He sang a little bit in that session. So I should also mention, before I read a quote from the feedback, which I thought was equally inspiring. The every presenter, without exception, that we reached out to, responded emphatically that they would like to participate, and so very grateful for that. And Dr Brookins was no exception to that, and he really got the conference off to a great start. So here is I'm going to read a quote from a student in their feedback. Back, and she was talking about his session, she said, and he also made reference to literacy is more than phonemes and graphemes. It is liberty. So she says, in this way, literacy is not is not just a skill, but a gateway to freedom, equality and social mobility. Ultimately, literacy is Liberty is about ensuring that every person has the opportunity to shape their own life and contribute to a more just and informed society, recognizing that teachers are empowering their students, which he said, frequently allows teachers to see their role as more than educators. This is the part I love. They become facilitators of freedom, providing students with the tools to navigate the world, advocate for themselves and build a better future. And that was all in response to her, what she experienced as she listened to Dr Brookins speak. So I thought that was really encouraging anybody else have a takeaway from Dr Birken session that you'd like to share,

Papae Wymore:

I do want to share one of my students. So the amazing thing about this pre service teacher conference is that we provided a reflection form for our professor friends to assign to their students. And of course, all of us assigned it to our students. And you know, I am no exception, and one of my students wrote in her reflection, I love how Dr Brookins talked about one time he used Lucy Calkins and Fontes and Pinel material. It shows that he has made mistakes, but he has overcome this, and he has become such an inspiring teacher of teachers, it inspires me to become the best teacher I can be. I'm just wow, how powerful, Dr Brookins, that you were able to influence our pre service teachers like that. So thank you. Great

Stacy Hurst:

example of a lifelong learner, right? And then after Dr Brookins, we got to hear from Dr Holly lane and Lori. You got to introduce her.

Lori Anderson:

Yeah, she is incredible. She wears so many hats, but I feel like her most known hat is that she is an associate professor of special education at the University of Florida. So Dr Holly lane, she's amazing, but she was able to present to us on effective instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. Her session was chosen because the majority of our students responded with that fear or anxiety over, you know, being able to what even do these words mean, and how do we teach these like, what does this look like? And I feel like she did a beautiful job of just explaining every part of it, like she took seven weeks of instruction for me and just simply, like, simplified it and explained it in such a beautiful way. So she began her presentation by just really going over the five pillars of literacy from the National Reading Panel and and how, like, there's an illustration that shows that they're five separate pillars, and just helping us to understand that's not what literacy instruction looks like, really. So then she went into the simple view of reading and Scarborough's robe and told how it's interleaved and intertwined and and you have to teach them to gather and and for and do all the parts, right? So as a professor, I every week, was constantly helping my kids, or my teacher, preseason pre service teachers, to really go like, I use the scarboroughs Rope as a checklist. That's what we went by every week we covered a different rope. So it was beautiful how she illustrated that and explained it and and helped our students to remember those important parts. She then went into talking about what effective instruction is. It's got to be both explicit and systematic, with lots and lots of opportunities to practice and respond. She talked about feedback and how critical that is, and I love that while she was explaining it, she actually modeled what explicit instruction would look like with a U fly lesson. So she explained the difference between blocked and interleaved practice, helping our candidates to understand really how to get to mastery with that practice and how to get long term retention from our feedback. We saw that one big takeaway was really understanding and comprehending what effective instruction looks like. What are the different pieces? It's got to be explicit, systematic, lots of opportunities to respond. So that was fun to see, like those little nuggets in our feedback, that they really did take that away. I loved hearing about her explain that practice makes permanent. I think that's an eight need a Archer, maybe not, but that's that's where I heard it from. She also discussed just how critical that feedback is, that it's got to be behavior specific corrective to actually get realignment with the practice of whatever it is they're doing. I loved I felt throughout the comp. And so Anita arturisms were interwoven throughout the session, but she then dove into explicit instruction and what that was. And so it was fun to see her take on that. She talked about explicit instruction, tier one, tier two, tier three, all of the tiers like, what does intervention look like? We don't. She talked about how we don't teach students who struggle differently. We give them the same exact lessons, we just give them more practice. I felt like as a coach for 10 years, that was a huge, huge thing to help the teachers understand we're not going to do something totally different. We're just going to do the same thing and just give them more practice. She described Aries phases and went through each phase. And the big takeaway for me with that was just our instructions should be, how do we move them up to the next phase? She talked about the road to fluent reading and how it She just broke it down step by step. Here's how we get our fluent readers. She talked about alphabetic knowledge, phonemic awareness, use of sound walls, orthographic mapping. What that was, what body coda Blending is, how important it is, used in Elkonin boxes and then ending up with connected text. So just it was a beautiful symphony of incorporating all of the bottom strands of Scarborough's rope. And how do we do this to help our students become fluent readers? So those are my big takeaways. What did you ladies think?

Stacy Hurst:

I just thought I did. Think it was amazing how there is a through line throughout every session. And I really appreciated about Dr Lane Lane session that students did get to see what it looks like in application as well. So I think that was very powerful. Yeah,

Lori Anderson:

I just loved that she reinforced everything we've been doing in class, like helping my students to really understand all of the elements, how to put them together, summarizing, you know, seven weeks of instruction. It was just a great review for my final test for me, but like, that's not what we want. We want our kids to be able to actually know how to do this and actually be able to take this into the classrooms. But I just The Body Code of blending was really good to deepen my understanding too, and I'm a huge component of Alcona boxes. So anytime I see somebody else like sharing the love, that was the biggest thing when I was working with my son, helping him to read, that helped him to make progress. So I'm a huge component or component of that.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, that's great.

Stephanie Edgren:

Sorry. I just wanted to throw out too that Holly Lane mentioned it during the Q and A instead of having our pre service teachers creating new lessons. And I think Anita Archer also joined in on this. Let's have them spend their time looking at how to annotate those lessons, what routines, what what feedback might I give I mean? And takes that burden of I have to create all of these new lessons, and then the lessons aren't systematic. They're not following a scope and sequence. Yeah, it was a really good

Stacy Hurst:

portrayal of from beginning to end, what a scope and sequence should look like as well. Yeah, I have some more comments. I'll save them for when we talk about the Q and A,

Papae Wymore:

okay, then that and Dr Lane really emphasized, like Lori said, how that looks in each tier of instruction. And I think our pre service teachers in the survey, they were, they were concerned about all the tiers of instruction. And so Dr Kearns was really expert at addressing that. So Pepe, do you want to talk to us about that session I would love to so I was honored to introduce Dr Devon Kearns, and he presented six reasons students struggled to read, from dyslexia to ineffective instruction. And it seemed to be seamless that he followed Dr Holly lane and even shared, oh, we covered some of this. Let's move on. So he went a little bit deeper into some of the slides that he shared from what I was thinking. But for our listeners who don't know who Dr Kearns is, His research focuses on literacy, intervention, special education. If you do not know, he is on X, I am a fan of his on X, go visit and see his stuff. He freely shares things on his own website, Google Scholar, research, gate and, of course, on x. His areas of expertise are the science of reading, early literacy, reading instruction, reading disabilities and difficulties, intervention systems and so much more. But our team specifically chose Dr Kearns to present because we noticed on the survey that we sent to our pre service teachers that they were unsure. How do I really know I'm going to make sure that my students are proficient readers at the end of the year? I do know that a couple of my colleagues were able to. See Dr Kerns before, and knew that his presentation was amazing. This was the first time that I saw Dr Kerns in action, so it was amazing. And what he shared, I can't wait to share with you. So first his slides, he showed great visuals of the reading brain and the parts that are engaged during reading, so the four part press processor, he clearly showed what was activated when students are processing sounds, when they are decoding and when they were recognizing words automatically. His slides, I'm going to encourage everybody to go see Dr Kerns present. He just made it very attainable for our pre service teachers. Next, he also gave a simple, clear definition for dyslexia. He said that dyslexia means difficulty with word recognition. And then he also went on to say that dyslexia is not and he said this several times, dyslexia is not a visual processing problem. It is a sound processing problem, and that was so important, I think, for our pre service teachers to hear and solidify in their learning. So his whole presentation was the six causes of breeding difficulty, and I'm going to summarize them really quickly. Number one, he said the student has a phonological deficit. Number two, student has a phonological and other concerns such as a deficit and processing speed or verbal memory in addition to a phonological deficit, third reason was the student may have a low achievement or cognitive processing, and this looks like difficulties across all academic areas, including reading. His number four was, student has attention emotional or behavior challenges. This is a difficulty from lack of exposure caused by distractions. His fourth reason was, student has had insufficient exposure in language and reading experience. And his sixth thing that he was sharing was, student has received poor instruction focused on essential, foundational reading skills. And he really did highlight that. What I loved about Dr Kerns is he is no nonsense. And I'm going to share some quotes that he directly said. He clearly stated that color overlays, overlays do not work. And he said it several times. There is no evidence to show that color overlays work. He also said, don't use Erlan lenses, colored glasses. There is no data that shows that this is beneficial. Also, he said there is no data out there that proves vision focusing therapy works. And then the last thing to the visual part he shared was, don't buy special fonts. All you might want to do is add more space between words, or more space between the letters, so that students can easily read them. He was sharing that some people or teachers are buying these special fonts that may cost upwards to $70 and we don't need to do that. Okay? The next things he shared, I'm just gonna say it, because it was amazing. He said it in a way that nobody else could. He says three things you should not do. And he said it a couple times, do not do this, right? Number one, lips the fish. He said, It is a bad strategy. If you see it out there, stop it now. So lips the fish, if you remember, was the Beanie Baby strategies from probably the late 90s and early 1000s. And guess what? I'm guilty too. I used it too. I feel so sad for those students that I impacted negatively. But lips the fish is, get your mouth ready. It is inadequate, because you need to look at all the letters and sounds in the word, not just at the beginning of the word. His second thing he said to stop doing right away is Skippy the frog. Skippy the frog is skip the word and go back to check later. That's not a good practice. And the third thing, Lori's shaking her head. The third thing was Eagle Eye, or looking at pictures and not text. He emphasized and I have quotes. Tear down those posters right now. Dr Kerns, yes, everybody should tear down those posters right now. He also stated, We need students to trust the letters, because they have all the answers. That's my favorite quote from him. If you don't trust the letters, we won't be able to prevent reading difficulties. Then he had his last slide, he kind of went over quickly, but he did say, here's what you do to address difficulties in reading. You practice phonological awareness, right? You practice decoding using sound spelling. You are reading having students read words with phonograms. You're learning strategies for reading polysyllabic. Words, your learning strategies for reading polymorphic words. I just want to end by sharing a comment on a reflection form. I hope I have it here. Astute. I loved that we assigned this in our classes and my students at Central College. Abby Goering, she said this was great information about dyslexia and understanding more about it. I love how he speaks about trusting the letters. Such an amazing message. I want to know from you all, what was your favorite quote from Dr Kearns, or your favorite takeaway from Dr Kerns? I

Vicki Piquette:

learned so much from Dr Kerns. It was so fun. And he was one of the, he was the, I think the only one who chose the live option. So he did this all live. I think it was mind blowing to a lot of our students and professors that were on the Zoom call with the color overlays. They asked a lot of questions surrounding that, and he addressed that again in the Q and A and I just think it was really, I mean, it was just really, really good information. It was high impactful information for our students. And I know my students really took a lot away from him. They were still talking about him a week or two after his presentation, just about how much information they learned about the brain and how reading works and what doesn't work and why it doesn't work. And I'm so glad that he addressed the Beanie Baby strategies, because we still see that and those posters in classrooms and Skippy frog is my absolute worst. I hate Skippy frog, so I'm so glad that he addressed that. That

Stacy Hurst:

is great. Thank you so much for sharing about that. Pepe and Vicki, your insights are in line with what my students were talking about, too. For his presentation,

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Stacy Hurst:

Next we have, of course, this is the goat, right? Greatest of All Time. And we really couldn't have a conference like this without inviting Dr Anita Archer. And again, she was so eager and willing. I loved it. She was great. So Stephanie, you got to introduce her. Tell us about her session. Okay,

Stephanie Edgren:

well, just in case, I'll go back and say I can't imagine that anyone would not know who Anita Archer is, if you don't google her for Seriously, she is the goat. Just a little bit of background. She's an educational consultant. She's presented in 50 states. She's presented in Australia and Canada, she's written numerous curricular materials. Rewards is one of them. Phonics for reading is another. And kind of the end, all be all book for anybody who's everybody who's anybody in education, everybody, everybody in education, is explicit instruction, effective and efficient teaching. Anita Archer is just like a beloved teacher of teachers. She's just an icon, I guess is what I would say, an icon. And her session was on engaging and motivating learners, which I think was interesting, because that was something that when we looked at common themes from the surveys for pre service teachers and professors motivating as professors motivating their students and as pre service student students. You know, what are best practices for motivating students? What are best practices? How do I engage struggling readers? And I think their questions really showed I'm kind of going back to when you asked, like, what stood out to you on that survey? I would say, from the questions, from their interest levels, from their concerns. I think the pre service teachers, they exhibited this desire to be the best they can be. Like you could feel the commitment in them. So anyway, that is why this. We asked Dr Anita Archer, and she was, like a hands down, yes, she was just so thrilled that we were hosting a conference for pre service teachers. And interestingly, she attended all sessions. Sessions. Not only did she present and attended the Q and A live, but she attended all the sessions and actively participated in the Q and A so obviously this session focused on how to engage and motivate learners, and she kind of started off by doing something that is totally Anita Archer, right? She practices what she preaches. She doesn't just talk about engaging and motivating students. She actually presents effectively. She presents like she wants teachers to teach. And so she started off by saying that good instruction always involves participation. And then she went on to explain how the participants should be participating in her session using choral choral responses, close reading, note taking. She used hand signals, you know, all the things she incorporates when she teaches. She then went on to just define motivation as the general desire or willingness to do something. And what I really loved, because I was able to take this back into the ed psych course I was teaching in the fall, or this fall semester, was the expectancy value theory, which suggests that students are more likely to engage when they believe they can succeed and when they see value in the task. So she put out a simple equation, success plus value equals motivation. And She stressed that it's strong teaching, not gimmicks, not cutesy worksheets and activities is what sets students up for success, high quality teaching. And another comment for students and Lori, you mentioned it in Holly's archerisms, Anita archerisms, and the students loved them. They found them very memorable. One of them she shared was teach the stuff and cut the fluff. So again, strong teaching, not cutesy activities. She talked about active teaching methods are the key to engagement and motivation, and that passivity dampens motivation. So we want high quality teaching because it directly impacts students outcomes. And again, how well we teach is how well they learn another Anita archerism, one of the comments from students. This is a quote Dr Anita Archer shared wonderful information about motivation in the classroom, explaining that motivation looks like effort, engagement, saying or speaking, writing, doing, providing accurate responses, being present, staying on task, and learning. I think that really sums up that first part of her presentation really well. And then she goes on. The rest of her presentation focuses on describing the seven elements of effective, explicit instruction. And so as Pepe did, I'm going to quickly summarize those seven. Number one is focus on the most important content, and then break number two, break that content down into obtainable pieces, and that it's so important that we do that because we need to avoid cognitive overload when we talk and talk and talk and talk, right? And we provide lots and lots of information, and I can tell you, I was guilty of that as a teacher, you know, I wanted to get all the things in. So sometimes we just go on and on and but really we need to figure out what is most important. And then how can we break that down? And so when we talk about, instead of having pre service teachers creating lessons, let's have them annotate high quality curriculum. And this is where I think teachers can apply that. Let's look at what does this high quality curriculum say I need to do, but then annotate. How are you going to break that down into manageable components? Are there things in that lesson that maybe aren't as critical, that we might leave out or that we might not spend as much time on? What do my students need? The third element of effective instruction, or explicit instruction, was providing instruction that is systematic, and she talked about how she coined the I do we do you do, or the I do we do you do together and you do alone, practice and or framework. And one of the students that really impacted her, it was one of her big takeaways. And that student said that her explain her explanation of the I do, we do you do? Approach was insightful and practical for structuring explicit instruction. The Fifth Element was active learning. And another archism, everyone does everything, and I love this one, and I really use this in my teacher prep. Courses, learning is not a spectator sport. I think that's again, something that as professors, we can take away again, not lecturing. But how can we make sure that our students, our pre service teachers, are engaged and actively participating as well as our pre service teachers? How are you going to ensure that your students, when you are doing field experiences, when you're in your student teaching and when you are a teacher? How are you going to ensure that everyone does everything? She talked about some research in this this area, as far as active learning. She shared that research on opportunities respond, that research on opportunities to respond reveal that when students have lots of opportunities to respond, that increases time on task, that, in turn, increases learning, which leads to a decrease in disruptive behavior. And then she also said, when we apply that to interventions, that also enables us to intensify those interventions, right? We don't have to teach something different. They need more intensity, more time, more instruction, more practice. And then she also shared, and this was like one of my big takeaways, that research states if all students used core or, excuse me, if all teachers used choral responsive responses instead of having students raise their hands, we we utilize core responses that we'd have significantly higher outcomes for students. I'm kind of let that sink in. If all teachers used choral responses instead of having students raise their hand, that would significantly increase the outcomes for students. Her sixth element of explicit instruction is that we need to monitor responses and then Biggie, and adjust our teaching so as we're teaching, monitoring what students are doing, and then be able to take that instruction and make it meet the needs of our students. Of our students are struggling with something, oh, we're going to go backward and go back to that I do. We're going to go back to that we do. Component number seven was providing affirmative and corrective feedback. I think we all know that's really important for learning. And then lastly, oh, I have an eight here, so I wrote seven, but I have eight listed, so we'll go give the eighth was to incorporate deliberate practice, retrieval practice and space, or can be called distributed practice, and that's really important as well. And then a really big takeaway is that these elements should happen every day, in every class, in every lesson, it's kind of how she ended her presentation. And then, as a comment from a student that I think really summarizes this component of her presentation, she said my key takeaway was the importance of explicit and systematic instruction to keep students actively engaged. Student involvement is key. If we let students passively pursue learning, we fail them. How insightful? Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

that is powerful. Thank you. Stephanie and Dr Archer is a national treasure, not only does she have all of this knowledge and and wisdom, but she shares it so freely, and I don't even think we can begin to measure the impact that she is going to have on teaching as a profession. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, Vicky, you got to introduce Mrs. Becky palone, and she kind of showed our students how it looks in action. Tell us about that session. Yeah,

Vicki Piquette:

that's exactly right. I love that we ended the conference with her before we went into the Q and A session. Because, you know, we have all of these brilliant minds and all of the wonderful tidbits that they have added throughout the entire conference, and then she was really able to say, and then this is what it looks like in a kindergarten classroom. So, yeah, so Becky Pallone is a currently teaching kindergarten, although most of her career she spent teaching first grade and kindergarten. She has 20 years of experience, and she is currently in the classroom. And we found her, I think Stacy, you had seen her on x, and she posts a lot of videos. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

I used in. With my students, actually, so they knew who she was. Oh, fantastic.

Vicki Piquette:

That's amazing, yes. And so I didn't, I didn't realize that. So I had to go back and find some of those. I had heard her on previous podcasts, on other podcasts, she's just, she's just amazing, because she really does, has taken all of the research and all of this information and then put it into practice. She is a goyim literacy fellow in 2022 is when she completed that. She does have her reading specialist and literacy coach certification, but she has chosen to stay in the kindergarten classroom, and so her presentation was all about taking the viewers through a typical year, what she does at the beginning of a year in kindergarten, and then what she does in the middle of the year, and then how she ends rounds out her kindergarten year. And what I loved about her presentation was she showed videos of herself teaching in the classroom. She also, she recorded herself in her own classroom. She modeled a lot. She had her own whiteboard out there, and she was modeling exactly how she instructs her kindergarteners on on some of these foundational skills. And I didn't really pull out a quote. Well, I had a quote, but I also looked through the students responses, and they pulled out the same one that I did. I saw this, this same quote, over and over and over again, and that was specific, structured routines build great skills, and that's exactly what she modeled. So she started out with that, and then she showed like, these routines are the same routines that I use throughout the year. They change a little bit based on like, as the students get master some skills and learn some skills, then we go a little bit harder, a little bit more difficult throughout the year, but this the structure and the explicit, systematic, intensive routines stay the same. So yeah, one of the quotes that I took from the students reflections was, I would love to go watch her teach in the classroom, because she sounds like an amazing teacher and has so much knowledge to offer. I want to be a kindergarten teacher. So hearing from her was really cool. I enjoyed learning and hearing that multi sensory learning is so important for students, as well as working and developing their fine motor skills. And she really did show the integration of writing and reading as well and so and

Stacy Hurst:

I saw a lot of comments from pre service teachers saying how grateful they were to see it in action. And that was fantastic. Um, the one thing I failed to mention is that we will put in the show notes links to all of these sessions. So even though we're doing an abbreviated Recap, you will have access to go watch them and learn for yourself for how fantastic these presenters are. Our final session was a live Q and A with all of the presenters, and they were so gracious to come back and join us for that and Andrea setmeier was the moderator. She did such an expert job. So we definitely want to thank Andrea and actually the reading league in general, because they also participated in this conference in a way that set our expectation of kind of kind of building this community around the profession, and they invited our pre service teachers with open arms into the reading League and gave them information and resources. So we cannot thank the reading league enough. Thank you so much for your support and for your participation, and I should say too that they are probably the reason that we had 1500 people register, because they shared the conference on their social media. And I know a lot of people registered because of that, so thanks so much to them. So for the Q and A, what I thought I would do is just ask each of you if you had a takeaway from that session. I actually learned a lot from it. I thought was really great. I guess

Stephanie Edgren:

one take I had, I have two. One of my takeaways was just, and I think it's pulls all of the sessions together, was Doctor Dr Lane reiterated during the Q and A session that efficient and effective routines do way more to increase engagement and reduce disruptive behavior than gimmicks that we often see, that we that that are added to, quote, unquote, jazz up lessons. Um, what do you guys think about

Stacy Hurst:

that? Yeah, she did reiterate, cut the fluff. Uh, and teach this stuff, I will tell you, my students have had the most conversation, probably about that archerism than anything else. And I've had to clarify that that doesn't mean that learning is not fun. It is very fun, but we want to be intentional. Yeah.

Stephanie Edgren:

And I think Anita shared her poster that students can get her poster and and I agree in in pre service training, I tried to encourage my students not to use the word fun, but to use engaged right to have students. We're not trying to create fun activities and lessons. We're trying to to teach engaging lessons and then kind of sidebar. My other comment for the Q and A, or takeaway from the Q and A, was two, what I saw as two shifts that Anita and Holly and I think the others would support this as well, two shifts that are needed and teacher prep programs. One was I mentioned it earlier, to have pre service teachers move away from having to create lessons, but instead using high quality, evidence based materials going in and annotating how you are going to make those lessons engaging. What do you need to adjust? Are you how are you going to have students respond? Is it going to be a core response? Is it going to be a whiteboard hold up, but making that shift in a teacher prep and then also, not only teaching pre service teachers how to move away from just standing up and lecturing, but how are they going to get students actively engaged? But I think that also applies to us as instructors, instead of us providing lectures, how are we utilizing explicit instruction? How are we utilizing the I do we? Do you do framework? How are we utilizing active participation to make our students or to help our students learn the material, but see we need to model it. And I'm going to have to give a shout out to Professor Weimar here Pepe that that's something that she does seamlessly. She teaches her college courses as she expects her teachers, her pre service teachers, to go out and teach. She models all of those elements of explicit instruction. So those are my big takeaways from the Q A Well,

Papae Wymore:

Stephanie, I just have to say thank you for that shout out. But that was my number one key takeaway from the question and question and answer session is that, you know, we as professors need to be modeling and showing the thing. So I encourage all professors who are teaching anything and teacher prep, make sure that if we expect our students to do it, we also do it first. So if we want them to do a lesson plan or model something specific, we need to show them. Anita Archer, I do it. We do it. You do it. Number one takeaway,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah, that's great. Lori, what was your takeaway from the Q? I was

Lori Anderson:

just so grateful for Dr Kerns, like I just he just kept reiterating and was so patient. And I just think sometimes, when we're in education for a long time and we've been doing the same thing for a long time. It's really hard to change and to like, be like, Oh, I was wrong. I need to do this differently. I didn't understand what dyslexia was. I need to, I need to change how I'm teaching these kids. And he was just super patient and just super knowledgeable. And I felt like he did that with his Q and A. He did that with the everyone Q and A, and just was super patient with even professors that were like, Well, what about this? Well, what about this? And just helping them to understand that's not what dyslexia is. This is what dyslexia is. And so I just feel like that is my wish for all teachers out there is to have those skills and knowledge to know exactly what dyslexia is, what other reading struggles are, so that they can really, truly make literacy attainable for all kids, right? That's That's what our purpose in this was, to help all teachers, all educators, all professors, to know like, what is needed to help every kid out there. So that was my big takeaway. Thank

Stacy Hurst:

you, Vicky. What about you? So

Vicki Piquette:

my main takeaway was not so much. What was said? Well, it was more how the community, I mean, the science of reading community, what I have found is so supportive and really embraces everyone and is there to help along the way. It's not like a I don't feel like a whole lot of people are in it to compete or to be the best. And so it was just amazing to me. I want to be, I want to be Anita Archer. And I grew up how incredibly, like she was just singing Mrs. Polons praises during the Q and A session and saying she is an excellent teacher. How amazing would that that compliment be from Anita Archer?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, there's no higher praise, I know,

Vicki Piquette:

right? And then in turn, everyone was like, you have the goat here, right? This is Anita Archer, and I did see that explicit instruction weave its way through all of our sessions, and also through the Q and A. And everyone was just on the same page, but also just very, very supportive one another. And I just feel so incredibly blessed that we were able to give that to our pre service teachers too, so that they could experience like this is these are amazing people. These are big names in the science of reading, and they're not here to compete. They're here to support you and teach you and help you along the way. And so that, for me, that was what was so amazing. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

I loved that. And you know, Dr Archer also said, when she was talking about lessons, lesson plans, she did say that pre service teachers should teach from a script. And I think that's a scaffold that is very essential. I've seen that no matter the curriculum you give them, they we remember this as teachers finding the words right, like the right way. And so I think that is a perfect time to use that script as a scaffold. And then just to sum up to I think the whole thing, because, like you said, Vicky, we want our pre service teachers to have access to the science, we always want them to refine their practice. And Dr Kearns, for the win again, on this one, gave some really good advice. And he said, trust the people who are real, reading scientists, not just thought leaders. And I think today in our culture of influencers and thought leader is even a term right? Like we can easily get swayed by people who may not actually know the science and maybe what they're doing is kind of fluff or attractive in that way, but it's not the stuff that we need to be teaching, right? So I think that was that was definitely an objective that was met by the conference is that our pre service teachers had a lot of access to these experts, but then we also left them with a lot of resources. And those will also be linked for anyone listening to this podcast, in case you want to access those as well. I just wanted

Stephanie Edgren:

to share one other thing, and I think going back to Mitchell's keynote, he's so passionate. And he said practitioners skilled in the application of the knowledge, the knowledge of the research. And I think that just sums up everything that we want, people. We want teachers skilled in the application, and as instructors, we provide the knowledge, but we also provide the application. We show them how to do that. And all of our presenters incorporated that into their presentations. And I think the pre service teachers and instructors, I mean, the passion of all the presenters was just amazing. It really came through, and whether their presentation was recorded or live and in the Q and A and I think the that was very appreciated by all the pre service teachers and professors, yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and a big thank you. I know we we could talk about what we want for our students forever, and maybe we'll do that in another episode. We were running a little bit long, but this has all been great content. So I do want to just close by saying thank you to each of you, because it was an idea, and you guys supported it, and we were a small but mighty committee, right, like I think that we can be proud of what we offered, but it wasn't really us. It really was the presenters that brought it home, the support from the reading League and just all of the the resources for our students, our pre service teachers as students. And I tell my students this all the time, but, but even after they take my very first literacy course, I say you're already more prepared to teach reading than I was when I graduated with a literacy endorsement, right? So I'm so excited for our students to see how they apply this knowledge and become the best teachers like you've all said, they're all very passionate and want to do that. So thank you all for joining us today. Thank you listeners for joining us for this special episode of literacy talks, and we hope you'll join us in the future for other episodes of literacy talks, and we'll see you next time.

Narrator:

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