Literacy Talks

The Urgency of Structured Literacy: Preventing Reading Failure

• Reading Horizons • Season 7 • Episode 3

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In this episode of Literacy Talks, we dive into the essential question: Why is Structured Literacy critical for all learners?

Hosts Stacy Hurst, Donell Pons, and Lindsay Kemeny explore research-backed reasons why explicit, systematic reading instruction is the most effective way to support students—especially those who struggle. They discuss the life-changing consequences of reading failure, the importance of well-trained educators, and the role Structured Literacy plays in promoting equity in education.

Tune in for an insightful, passionate conversation that reinforces why literacy is a right, not a privilege.


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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 Stacey Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donnell 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, and I'm joined by Donnell pons and Lindsay Kemeny. As you know, if you listen to our podcast, we take turns leading discussions, and today it is Lindsay who will be leading our discussion. So Lindsay, what are we talking about?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Thanks, Stacey, okay, yes, I'm excited to continue on our podcast series on the 75th anniversary issue of perspectives of language and literacy the journal by Ida. And today we're focusing on the why, why structured literacy is important. And there are two articles in this issue that focus on the why. The first one is by Reed Lyon and Margaret Goldberg, and in their article, they identify three reasons why structured literacy is critical. So I want to jump into these three. The first one, number one, they say the negative consequences of reading failure for children, their parents and their teachers are debilitating and life changing and wow, don't we have, you know, some experiences with that. So Donnell, why don't you lead us off? Could you, I mean, that's a bit of a heavy topic, but any comments on that that you'd like to share?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, oh gosh, there's so much to say about this, and thank you for giving me an opportunity. I seem to talk a lot about this. You know, I also want folks to pay attention to when you start looking at the infographic for structured literacy, and it breaks it out, tier one, tier two, tier three, and it talks about who, who those people are, the professionals in the building that fit into a tier one, tier two and tier three setting, the whole implication is really good training all along the way. And so we're talking about excellent training for the teacher in the classroom, excellent and specialized training in a tier two, even more excellent and specialized training in tier three, and addressing that even a dyslexia specialist in tier three. So even narrowing in even more on that number one reason why a student will struggle with reading. That's why this is so important. You can't really do this work and do it well, because it is, it's difficult work. I think, well, we've talked about that a lot in all of our podcasts that we when people say teaching reading is rocket science. I mean, there's a lot of things to it. I think the general gist of things and information that we give folks. Sure there's a lot that you can learn. Letters is a great program, too, but it continued training and making sure that we have specialized training for those kids who are going to struggle for various reasons with language acquisition, reading and writing. And so I've been on the receiving end when a teacher doesn't receive the training. Excellent teacher in many ways, excellent teachers in many ways that my students had, that my children had, and yet they didn't have that very specific, specialized training that was needed. And then they'd be handed off to somebody else who didn't receive it and someone else who didn't receive it. And so it was many layers deep. It wasn't just the teacher in the classroom. And this is, I think, structured literacy. I love the way they break it down. It's a really helpful way to discuss why that's important.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, you know, it's talking about these negative consequences of reading failure. And, wow, there are huge consequences when students struggle learning to read, when they don't learn to read. And I, you know, I saw that firsthand. I didn't fully understand that until I had my own son with dyslexia. And I'm talking, you know, there's these repercussions beyond just not being able to read, but boy, it takes a toll on that individual's self esteem. And I saw that with my son, because when he was diagnosed with dyslexia, he was diagnosed with depression as well, and his depression all centered around his struggles learning to read. And there was night after night of sobbing, and I. Um, trigger warning here, but of him wishing he were dead, and he would scream that and sob that over and over, and he would collapse on me and just cry. And you know, I appreciate that in this, you know, article, they not only said the negative consequences for children, but also for their parents, because that was so hard for me to see and and I was a teacher too, and it commented about, you know, how this is, you know, the negative consequences are debilitating for teachers as well. Because, you know, as a teacher and a parent, I was so embarrassed. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't help my own son learn to read. Why didn't I have the skills necessary, you know, the basic skills I went to college to get, you know, and study elementary education. Why wasn't I taught these basic skills for how to take a non reader and help them grow into a proficient reader. And so, you know, it affected my son. It affected me as a parent. I felt terrible. It affected me as a teacher. I was angry, and then I was guilty when I learned that some of the things I had been taught were not aligned with research. They had been debunked by research. I mean, I can't describe how angry I was about that. And, you know, and then I saw because we did all these things, and when he started this suicide ideation, and he did, you know, just everything he was saying and he was doing, of course, we took him to therapy. We got professional help. Because I'm like, this is beyond me. You know, I started off on my own trying to do little things to help his depression, and then when it got so bad, I'm like, I need help. But out of everything that we did, the ability to read is what helped them the most. And I feel like, I feel like, if I say that, people could brush that off or be like, Oh, whatever. It's not just reading. You know, it's not just reading. But it really was. It was because his confidence grew when he could see that, hey, I'm capable of this. I'm not dumb. I have the skills. Now I can work on these skills, and now I can read. And as his reading improved, his self esteem improved. And you know, I think you hear stories, you hear about a school to prison pipeline, and you know that that pipeline that is huge for these kids who can't read, because, why? Because reading opens up opportunity. It opens up opportunities. And when they can't read, you know, so many doors are cut off to them, so then they turn to maybe choices that aren't the best for them. They turn to other things. So I just, you know, it's like, we're starting this off on this negative note, but wow. I mean, they hit the nail on the head. The negative consequences are debilitating and life changing. We're talking about our most vulnerable students here, and this is like, why I'm so passionate. Donnell, you wanted to see some

Donell Pons:

and you know, Lindsay, this is the thing. It is a spectrum as well. So we're talking about, oftentimes, we talk about those kids with really clear cut cases of dyslexia, and there are other challenges, but there are kids suffering all along that spectrum. And so it may be that maybe they didn't have the challenges in first, second and third that were so obvious, but later it becomes clear that had they received better instruction by fourth grade, their skills would be better. They're kind of hanging on by fourth grade. By fifth grade, things are getting pretty difficult. By sixth grade, they're deciding, you know what, I just don't know if English is even for me and I don't really want to read, and they're missing out too. So this goes across a continuum for folks. There might be people who can't really understand what we're talking about when we're talking about a student with a real clear cut case of dyslexia, that there will be other people who parts of this story will resonate with them too, and they often end up in practice with me too. These are kids who wouldn't have maybe been caught out in those first, second and third grade years, and in fact, they have no history. But by the time they wanted to get to college, and it was certainly evident by high school that things were far too hard. Literacy was too difficult for them. And then certainly by college, they've done a semester here, a semester there, and their dreams are dashed. That shouldn't happen either. So as we're talking about this and getting the skill set, getting the training for folks, it helps so many students on that continuum, right? We might be talking specifically about some kids with dyslexia, but that's many, many students. And so when we talk about that emotional, social emotional impact, it's huge, and there are far more students that can relate to that than any of us would be comfortable knowing about as. Educators,

Lindsay Kemeny:

Ian, we're talking about, so why? Why structured literacy is important. And I just think that is the biggest reason right there. And structured literacy is the best thing we've got to prevent some of these issues. So, you know, there was, you know, there's big social media storm a while back when I was, you know, someone that worked for a certain company said, you know, something along the lines of, are we really going to turn education upside down for the these 10 to 20% of the of our classroom? And you know, so much, so many of us were so angry or heard that was like, yes, because you know what, it's life and death for some of these kids. We're talking about our most vulnerable kids. So yes, we want to give everyone the best chance at success, and yes, some are going to or could learn using any approach, but this approach doesn't harm anybody, and we can still differentiate, and we could still challenge the ones that don't you know, need as much of this intensive instruction, but this is going to be, you know, the best chance for everyone in the class. So, number two, their their second reason for why structured literacy is critical is they say there is extensive replicated research that shows children can and must develop proficiency in the reading related language domains included in the structured literacy models. So Stacy, could you explain what exactly that that means? What are these domains that they're talking about here when they said reading related language domains. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

and I'm actually just turning in my issue to page 45 which actually covers those domains of language. So phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and one that I often overlook, pragmatics. So I think that's really important, including discourse. And they talk about how those are different in spoken language, related to listening and speaking and written language, with reading and writing.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Now maybe explain pragmatics, in case some of our listeners aren't familiar with that.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, yeah. I think of pragmatics as what how to know when to use which aspect of language that we're talking about differences between if you're having if you're writing, let's say, in writing, and you're writing about a conversation that's discourse that would be a different format, say, than if you're doing academic writing, where you're not using that conversational kind of a focus, or even just knowing things like the difference between spoken and written language, and knowing when to use when you can be more formal in your speech and less formal depending on The situation,

Donell Pons:

and if folks are thinking about different students who don't necessarily have dyslexia, but may, for other reasons, struggle with pragmatics, see how structured literacy already is bearing fruit. So as we're looking at these key areas, there may be students with other challenges where areas of language can be impacted. And if we have a structured literacy background, we're not missing those students as well see. So that continuum I was talking about of many, many students, we might think of a small percentage of students with dyslexia, relatively, although it's rather large when you think about it, but there's, you know, another 40% for their 40% so this is where you start to get in. And you go, Oh, Aha, I see how this is very useful, not just for a few students, but all students, yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

I have pragmatics, especially, too for students who have various dialects that are dealing with like they're really a lot of benefits to that, and that's only one aspect of the structure. And

Lindsay Kemeny:

you know, that was just a fast little overview, but we're going to be diving a little more deeply into those things in this special, you know, season that we're having where we're we're going to dive into all aspects of structured literacy, and this, this issue of perspectives, so and then, you know, remember that in that number two, they did say extensive replicated scientific research has shown that children must develop proficiency in all those domains. So it's not just someone saying, oh, we should do that. There is research to support instruction in these domains and then read lion and Margaret Goldberg, third reason why structured literacy is critical says there is overwhelming evidence that direct, systematic and explicit instruction is the most reliable method for building expertise in word reading and reading comprehension. So why wouldn't we do it? Right? We have overwhelming evidence. Donnell said. You work with adults learning to read. Could you share any specific examples of how this direct, systematic, explicit instruction might look in your one on one settings?

Donell Pons:

Yeah. So it's interesting, because I've worked with a lot of different ages. Adults are as appreciative of a direct explanation of something explicit examples of it opportunities to be explicit when they're now saying, is this the way it looks? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing, being very explicit through that whole process. Adults appreciate it almost more than younger students do, because these are adults who never had the opportunity to have it taught in a manner in which they could understand it. They were often left in a classroom to sit in the back going, is that what they would What does that even mean? I can't connect that I'm not making and they were shuffled along to the next grade or wherever else, or maybe they spent time out in a hallway. I have many students who have memories of sitting in a hallway waiting for the right person to arrive who might be able to help them, and that never really happened, so spending a lot of time just busying themselves in a hallway there, every bit is engaged. I it's really interesting to watch adult students are hungry for this type of teaching where you're direct and explicit with what it is you'd like the student to do, create opportunities where they can be direct and explicit. Back with what is this? What you would like is this how it is done, and you have these conversations and they're able to master that particular point before you move on. It's beautiful to watch. Yeah, we

Lindsay Kemeny:

can almost all appreciate it. I think I remember sitting in a professional development class. I was sitting next to my sister, and she leaned over and she's like, teachers needs need explicit instruction to like, just tell us what to do. Just explain it to us. So you know, we can all benefit. Stacy, how do you teach your pre service teachers the importance of this direct, systematic, explicit instruction

Stacy Hurst:

the same way, in fact, I start by teaching them explicitly, directly and systematically. Many of them don't know something as simple as the fact that we have 42 to 46 phonemes in the language and over 250 spellings for those that fact alone, which might seem minor at this point in our careers, to them, is an aha moment and oh, there's structure to it. And then just talking about and demonstrating that they needed explicit instruction to be able to teach it, you need to know it explicitly. Explicit instruction requires explicit knowledge, right? So, the same way, it's the same way.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And I am in the first in first grade setting, I was gonna say. And you know, when I think of explicit instruction, I try to make my instructions as clear and concise as I can. I don't want to be too wordy when I'm talking with my students, and then, you know, immediately, I want to give them a lot of opportunities to respond. You guys, can hear the Anita Archer training in me, right? I do something, they do something. I say something. They say something. I write something, they write something that is where the engagement comes in. And you don't need a super creative fun activity or lesson to get students engaged and learning. We want those learning outcomes, and as we improve, increase the amount of opportunities they have to respond. We increase the learning outcomes and so and then, of course, if they don't understand something, I'm going to explain it again, but always try trying to do it as clearly as I can.

Donell Pons:

And you know, Lindsay, This hearkens back to the heart of language. I'm just I'm going to share with everybody, because I love having this new grandbaby in my life. I've got the first grandchild, and I'm talking about him all the time, but it's really interesting to me how language so natural. I mean, we talk about it all the time, right? We talk about the fact that language is very natural. Speaking this oral language part is very natural to us and to be able to pick this up. But watching this baby try to engage with his parents. It never more true to me to just have those that lens in those eyes watching this occur and trying to form, and his little lips are moving his little time. And he's tiny. He's brand new. November is when he was born, and it just harkens back to we need the opportunities to do these things. As you said, Lindsay, very quickly and explicit, direct instruction right away. We're engaged. This is not something you sit back and someone provides. That's the explicit, direct experience with this. Students are right away performing, doing, engaged, and you're short and concise in what you're giving the students. So they're immediately given the opportunity to come back in with what they're what they're learning. I love,

Lindsay Kemeny:

attend. Teaching Anita Archer session, because she just does that with you and the audience. And I feel like I'm still not really good at doing that when I'm giving a presentation. I mean, she has it mastered, you know, I do it with my students, but I'm like, I'm still working how to do that when I'm, you know, teaching other teachers

Narrator:

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Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, so we're going to be talking with Margaret Goldberg in our next episode. We're going to talk more about this article that she co wrote with Reed Lyon, as well as her journey and the wonderful work that she is doing. So let's move on to the second article on the why of structured literacy, which is written by Kareem Weaver, called inclusivity and excellence. Why structured literacy is essential to safeguard students civil rights. So I've seen, you know, a lot of times I've seen science of reading being criticized that it's one size fits all right, and especially when there's a script, and then you see it kind of, you know, a lot of people harshly judge that. And I love that in this article, Weaver says teachers adjustments can occur from a well grounded design that's intended to get the greatest number of children to read. We talked a little bit about that just a few minutes ago, right? This is our best chance at getting the greatest number of children to read, and we need these well designed, research based programs. But that's not all we need, because we have to as teachers, we have to make adjustments, and we need the flexibility to make those adjustments and go off the script a little bit when we need to. Louisa moat said, programs don't teach teachers do right, but we need, as teachers, we need to be well informed so we understand what to do when we need to go off the script, or when we understand maybe what's missing in a program I love. I attended a session by Jamie people are last year, and I love this analogy. I think I talked about it on here, but she talked about how a program is like a road map, right? You have this road map that's going to tell you what to do, but it's not a GPS. It's not like Google Maps, so it's not going to tell you what to do when something goes wrong. You know? Whereas when you are using Google Maps to drive somewhere and you take a wrong turn, it just takes a second reroute, and it's going to help you get back on track. And that's that's the job of the teacher. That's kind of what we need to do right is to know those things and what to do so so I've never used a program where I haven't had to adjust something I've always had to make an adjustment. I mean that being said, there's definitely programs that are better than others, and some I have to make a lot of adjustments to, and some, not so many. So Could either of you share an example of an adjustment you've had to make when using a program? Yes,

Stacy Hurst:

it'll just be a matter of deciding which one right, because you always have to make adjustments. I feel like and sorry the question caught me off guard only because my mind was thinking about, AI, we're living in a world where companies are claiming and aspiring to being able to make those adjustments based on AI, but I go back to we've jokingly referred to him on our podcast as Donald's boyfriend, but Haynes book how we learn, and he addressed that. But AI is only as good as the input it has, right? And so as teachers, we know currently, if we have the information, we know how to make adjustments to a program, I would say one off the top of my head that I can think of, no matter the reading program I've used, I've always had to infuse writing into. Intentionally. It's not always included, so I always have to extend it that way for example, but that's just one example and and until you know AI knows what we know which we don't, we'll never our unconstrained skill teaching is so I don't think AI will ever really know how to adapt as well as a knowledgeable teacher. Honestly, I don't know, sorry to throw AI into that question, but it's a good one, because I don't think there is a program to your point, Lindsay, that you wouldn't have to make a change to

Lindsay Kemeny:

well. And AI doesn't know my students. Ai doesn't know that. Oh, I know this. One struggles with this, and I'm going to need to do this because I saw this. Doesn't know the reading behaviors, you know,

Donell Pons:

and you know, I tend to have, because we've had this conversation before, and I'm just going to put a plug in there and hope that one day we get an AI version none of us are familiar with. We couldn't even conceptualize. Because I think that would be truly the equalizer. Because I think there are always going to be places where finding really good literacy instruction is challenging for whatever reason, you know, whether it's geographically or whatever else, and so I think that's probably what it would take in order to really see a leveling of access to good literacy instruction. I don't know, but I'm just that's that's a challenge. I'm throwing that out there to Silicon Valley. I guess that's my challenge. Is if it really could become that good, that places where it really is very challenging to get very good, highly trained, exceptional educators teaching literacy, I don't know.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So some changes I've made, I always have to build in more practice opportunities, always, and you know, and that makes sense, because all kids need different amounts of practice, right? So I love when a program has, you know, an extra bank of words that you could use, an extra word chain, some extra connected text that you can use because, you know, kids need varying amounts of practice. I also always need to build in, like that practice with connected text. Sometimes that's not built into the lesson at all, and it's just kind of, also, here's a decodable or whatever, and I, you know, they need a lot of time applying the skill, you know, they'll, you'll, a lot of times have students that, hey, they can spell the word with, you know, AI. They can, well, I used AI because we were talking about artificial intelligence. I'm talking about AI for a they can, you know, read words. They can write. When I'm doing dictation, they can write them, and then you give them a passage, and suddenly there, there's a lot of different letter sound correspondences in there. So, you know, now they've got to remember AI, plus all these other things that we've learned. So it's a lot harder, and they need a lot more practice, I think, than they're typically getting. So that's a huge one. Dictation, like Donnell was talking, I mean, Stacy, you were mentioning writing. That's just one part of writing, but I've had to build in dictation a lot when it's not in the lesson. I do it every day anyway.

Stacy Hurst:

You know what? A lot of programs also don't account for fluency or automaticity. They're just hyper focused on accuracy. So as a teacher, you have to be aware

Lindsay Kemeny:

that's where the practice

Stacy Hurst:

comes in. I think, yeah, exactly. I think everything we've said actually could fall into the realm of practice and making sure they can transfer it, generalize it, yeah, and

Donell Pons:

it's understanding which students are going to need what kind of support, because maybe it's a bigger cognitive load for some of those students, executive functioning at play. I mean, there's just so many aspects, as you say, knowing those students. Oh,

Lindsay Kemeny:

another one that I build in with a program are those response opportunities that we were talking about earlier. So sometimes, especially if you have a scripted program, and, you know, sometimes you look at it and I'm like, Whoa, there's like, three paragraphs of, like, long, big paragraphs of just the teacher talking, okay, if I do that, just how it's written, my students will be checked out and bored to tears. They won't be listening to anything. So I've got to, you know, build in, even if it's just like, you know, the, you know, some people think shooting stars is, you know, are meteors, but, or no, are really stars, but they're actually meteors. What is it? You know, just a little quick, what word Meteor? What's a meteor? You know, I didn't get to that, but, yeah, it's, it's a space rock. So, you know, what's a space rock? A meteor, just building in little things you can tell, like what we're learning about because today talking about space, but just building in little. It just, it can be so easy. It can just be echoing something you just said, you know, anything that you can do to bring that engagement, okay, all right, so here's a quote. From Kareem Weaver, he says in this article, calls for equity without ensuring that systematic direct explicit instruction is provided, open the door for bias and assumption to enter into the classroom. So I'm going to read that one more time, calls for equity without ensuring that systematic, direct, explicit instruction is provided open the door for bias and assumption to enter into the classroom. So what do you guys think he means by that? And could you share an example? Donnell, why don't you go first?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I mean, I think you can take this a few different ways, and I really appreciate him, because it's kind of a nuanced sentence that he's he's provided there. But I think it's interesting that inevitably, if you don't have appropriate training and background, and again, if you haven't had the opportunity to teach in such a way where you know that you can reach every student, right, you know you can then that's the room where we might make assumptions or have ideas about students and what they're capable of, because we don't know any better. And so oftentimes, I think that's often a reason why we fall into saying things about students are just erroneous, things about not spending enough time doing this. And I think they might be speaking a different language at home, and that might be impacting so we're saying things that we fall back on because we don't know better. Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

certain populations, I am thinking about my time as a literacy coach, and the times that educators would make a comment referring to a student because of their socioeconomic standing or otherwise, and say, Oh, that student will always be behind or that student will never learn to read. And those are the kind of very dangerous assumptions, I think that he's talking about something else that came to my mind were some of the conferences I've attended as an educator over the years, over 20 years, oh my gosh, let's not do that math. But that I know because I came into education with also a sociology degree, and I remember attending some conferences where the focus was so much on what he's saying, what other normally people might have a bias towards a certain population or something? I remember sitting in those conferences and agreeing with everything was being said. And yes, we need to be aware and we need to address the needs. And from a sociology perspective, I was thinking, this is what I would expect at a sociological conference, but how are we going to teach them to read? And it was almost secondary to what we were talking about otherwise, right? And so in every case, and I think I've talked about this person before, there was somebody very brave that actually stood up to the Goodmans with this very topic, like, Yes, but how are we going to explicitly teach them to read? Because everybody deserves that. And it was pretty much dismissed because we were over focusing on we were focusing on other things in place of or not giving credence to the fact they need direct, explicit instruction. Everybody does. And I'm also thinking about assumptions of kids, kind of going back to the beginning of our conversation, your son, Lindsay, I think, as you were telling your story, how lucky in a sense, that he is that a he's an expressive kid. So you and he has the parents, he does same thing with your children. Donnell, they he has parents who could be responsive that were in that situation. But how many times are students suffering in silence because they're not going to say anything and they don't their parents or their teachers may not know enough to pick up on it, but once we start teaching with the structured literacy in mind, those of us who know structured literacy will start noticing will be more available to collaborate and calibrate, is the word I think he uses in the article instruction based on what each student needs. So sorry, that was a very lengthy response, but I think it's important sentence that you called out. And

Donell Pons:

Stacy, you've tipped me off. Lindsay, this has gone a lot of different places. Like I said, it seems like a sentence that's pretty but it has a lot of implications, and it made me think of when you were saying, oh, Lindsay, your young man was so lucky to have and Donnell with you too. And I remember having a conversation with it was a school mental health professional, and she was asking the question of me genuinely, okay, so tell me a little bit of this background about what you did in order. To help your son become a reader. This is all the way down the road after we've already gone the whole journey. Please tell me a little bit about that journey, and I start aiming off the first year that we realize that I go back to school, the double master's degree, the teaching, the Special Education Certification, all the publications, me driving around the country, all the different trainings and tears start rolling down her face. I was kind of shocked myself, and these tears roll down her face. And she said, I cannot even imagine what you what you had to do in order to help your child learn to read. I I don't think I've ever heard anything so overwhelming. She said, I don't think I've ever heard anything so overwhelming that should not be so that's what we're talking about here. When we're talking about well trained with what we know is the way to teach is sparing people

Unknown:

that experience.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, powerful words. I love Stacy, saying Everyone deserves to read absolutely. And yes, I've often thought, you know, I will always be there for my son. I will always be advocating for him. And I've often thought, but who's gonna advocate for everyone else? And you know, there's these students sometimes that come. You know, this is why I'm teaching, because I have students sometimes in my classroom, and I have to advocate for them, right? And not only am I going to, you know, teach them explicitly and systematically because this is their best chance, but I may also additionally need to advocate for them, set up things to have in place as they go throughout their school years, and it's just so important. And thank you, both for like, everything you do, and for this conversation and all of our listeners. I mean, just the fact that you are listening to a literacy podcast in your free time speaks volumes about the type of educator you are, and so we're so grateful, and we hope just more and more will learn about structure, literacy and understand why it's important. Because if you don't understand why it's important, you're not going to really give it your best effort, most likely, right? So in just you know, these two articles and understanding the why are huge. The cream says structured literacy is anti exclusionary. All kids, by design, are included in the scope and sequence. Absolutely. We want all kids to learn to read. They all deserve it, and so thanks for this conversation. You guys on the why. To our listeners. If you haven't read these two articles, remember, you can download a free copy of this edition of perspectives of language and literacy. We'll also put a link in the show notes. And so if you haven't read these two articles on the why, go ahead and do that next time, we'll have Margaret Goldberg, and then after that, we'll be reading the overview, which is a little bit longer, right? Stacy and Stacey is going to lead us in that in two more sessions, right? Yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

mark it down. Lindsay and Donnell. Thank you so much for this conversation. The why is everything right? Like you said, if, if you care. Actually, a colleague just said this to me today. She was talking about pre service teachers, of course, college students, and saying, if you care, I can help you be amazing. You know, if you have the heart, we can take care of everything else. So I know that being a teacher does require us to be an advocate. And as you were talking, Lindsay about advocating for your first graders, I'm thinking short term, like in front of our face, here's Donnell, who is an advocate for all students. I think being a teacher, you are an advocate, that is part of what you're doing. And Lindsay, you called out our listeners, and I know if they're listening to this podcast, this is not the only literacy podcast they listen to, right? Or books that you read or things that you do to just meet the needs of that one student who you can't quite figure out but you're putting in the time for. So thank you for the conversation, and I really love this issue of perspectives as we're getting more and more into it too, because it really does give us the framework, right? And then the direction too. And I think if I were to sum up this episode in one word, one thing I'm going to remember is calibrate, so we can calibrate like a GPS or calibrate for our students needs, right? And I don't. I'm actually going to go look up the etymology for that word after we're done here, so if I had thought about it ahead of time, I could share that with everybody, but that's everybody's assignment. How about we do that anyway? Thank you all for joining us for this episode of literacy talks. Please join us for the next one. You. Thanks

Narrator:

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