Literacy Talks

From FOMO to Front Row: A Deep Dive into the Reading League Summit

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What happens when leading voices in literacy come together—not to lecture, but to listen, question, and grow? In this bonus episode, Donell Pons recaps her experience at the 2025 Reading League Summit, joined by co-hosts Stacy Hurst and Lindsay Kemeny and special guests Kari Kurto and Andrea Setmeyer of The Reading League. Together, they explore what made the summit so impactful—from thoughtfully curated panels and civil discourse among top researchers to the “just right” tone set by Andrea’s now-legendary Goldilocks metaphor. Whether you missed the summit or want to relive its most powerful moments, this episode brings you straight to the front row.




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Narrator:

Stacy, 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. 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. This is a very fun episode. I know you'll all enjoy it, and I'm going to turn the time immediately over to Darnell, because she is going to introduce our guests and lead the discussion today.

Donell Pons:

Great. Okay, I don't usually get to jump in this soon, but I'm going to go for it. I had the opportunity this past week to attend the reading league Summit, and the summit is different from the conference, and we'll get into some of that in our conversation. We also have the pleasure of having two folks from the reading league with us, Carrie curto Andrea setmeyer, who also spoke at the conference and gave some some welcome addresses at the beginning, so you might recognize them, too if you were unfamiliar, but just kind of set the stage a little bit for what I experienced this past week in Chicago. Is where it was held. It was fantastic, and it was the third annual reading league Summit. Again, it's different from the conference. And there were roughly, I believe, 750 to 800 people. You can correct me later if I'm incorrect. I said it was held in Chicago, which is great. And it was over a day and a half. And the first day was beginning at one 1pm which is a little unusual, too, for a conference, and then the second day at 9am but what was going on was so amazing. We had the introduction. It all seemed very familiar as a conference. We're all in one big room, but there things stopped, and it became the summit, and there were four separate panels. It was fantastic. Those panels were very thoughtfully curated, you could tell. And they were around things from what we were going to talk about in the reading kind of in the reading world, about the science of reading things that maybe have still some question marks, some areas where maybe there's a divergence of opinion about various things. And those were the topics that were chosen. So they were very good, as I say, very interesting. Each panel was broken up, so there was a bit of a synopsis at the beginning. And then also during it, we had panel members who would give a little bit of presentation, and then we had some discussion. It was within the discussion that I thought things were really fantastic, and the setup was really important, because that balance was so good. And I thought to myself, this does not happen overnight. So Andrea and Carrie. I mean, whoever wants to take it, you can both pick it up, but tell us a little bit about the preparation for this, because, as I say, that was everything to me, is how you curated what happened over these two days.

Unknown:

I'll be happy to take that one. I was deeply involved in the preparation for the summit, and it was just such an honor. The idea for the summit was born right around when I joined the reading league a few years ago, three years ago, to be specific, and it was also at the same time as we were engaging in some conversations with the National Committee for effective literacy. And this was an advocacy group for those in the who support multilingual learners. And there was a white paper they had published with some ideas that we agreed with and some that had us scratching our head a little bit. And what we decided to do was meet with them and ask questions with curiosity and the intent to listen and learn and build trust and to have these collaborative conversations that hopefully would help us kind of meet in the middle and find out what we had in common, which in fact, was a lot. And so as the reading League was planning this secondary platform the summit right, we decided to merge these two ideas and have the summit support these challenging conversations, but in person and so after meeting with folks from NCL and friends, along with some friends of the reading league over nearly a year, we really came to terms with a lot of the things that we've shared our You know, passion for supporting positive literacy outcomes, particularly for English learners, emergent bilingual students. And so together, we crafted the questions that we would be asking to them at the summit. But the magic was that none of us had ever met in person. These conversations had not happened in person. And and these experts with diverse opinions had never had a chance to talk together truly collaboratively. And so that, I think, is the magic that happened that first year, just getting everybody in the same room together. And so over that,

Donell Pons:

Carrie and say that, Andrea, you had a really interesting welcome for us, and you did something called a Goldilocks metaphor about how we talk about research. And I think this is a good spot to put it in, because I tell you, it set us off. And there were many good comments in that welcome edition, but this really stuck with me about how we handle talking about research and the science, and it was an interesting metaphor. Tell us a little bit about that.

Unknown:

Thanks. Donell. I'd be happy to so I have a really privileged view in my role at the reading league right where I'm not directly working in schools, and I have a lot of opportunities to read research and talk to researchers, and also talk to lots of teachers and practitioners. And one of the things that has just been on my heart recently is this idea of translating research to practice and what it means to be a careful and effective translator. So I use the Goldilocks principle as a way to set us up to talk about what happens if we translate that research to practice in a way that's too hot. What if we say every child need this, needs this, or this always works, or this is the only way, right? We we likely cause confusion for educators and harm for students. That's that's not a good translation. Similarly, we have too cold, so we might translate something too cold where we say research doesn't have anything to do with the students in front of me today, right? That theory is outdated. It doesn't speak to this situation. That's too cold, and then we miss out on all that. Research has to give us those effective starting points for instruction. And so I encourage people to be just right, right, to really be careful and thoughtful about how we're translating it, and always aim for that just right, that in between and really look to what the research is, is saying for practice or not. And that's okay, too simple.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I really appreciate it. It's just set a right tone. And it also was helpful to think about ourselves, because oftentimes when we go to something like this summit, you come away so excited and invigorated, and it was a nice way to temper, okay, all right, settle down. So what's that? Just right way in which I'm going to share the information that I'm receiving as well. So I thought it was really nice. Yeah. Appreciated it. Carrie was also introducing us to the fact that there were the four panels, and who was sitting on those panels. Can you give us an idea of those panels and tell us what happened there and how you chose them? Yeah?

Unknown:

So we had four panels all together, include and then a keynote that started us all off. And Carrie and Maria really were the masterminds behind bringing this together and finding the right people and the right topics that would resonate with the field. So I can't take any credit for it, but I'm grateful to be in the room and be a part of it. So panel one started as an exploration of the simple view of reading as a starting point for understanding reading development in all learners. So Dr Jose Viana moderated that one, and we had Wes Hoover, who was one of the early proponents of the simple view of reading, and we had Nell Duke, who's proposed an active view of reading, which is a different model, and it was a fantastic conversation just about the different models of reading instruction. I don't want to go into too many details. I'm sure you're going to go into it, so I'll just quickly give highlights of the other one. So then we use this simple view of reading as our framework. So panel two was moderated by Dr Tiffany Hogan, and was all about language comprehension. Panel three was moderated by Dr Louisa most and was all about word recognition. And then our final panel was on reading comprehension, and that was moderated by Dr Mitchell Brookins. And I can jump in and build off of, I think it's something that I just thought of is, you know, Andrea's brilliant metaphor can really be applied to the researchers and the experts as well. You know, sometimes we get so hot on our one subject that that sometimes it's helpful to talk to others and learn about their research and how yours can, you know, grow there's, there's one concept, for example, that there might be a book baby that comes from the summit of two researchers on entirely different topics that might collaborate, and it's so exciting, and I think that we want it. We were very intentional with selecting the experts and the panelists and the moderators because of their expertise, but also because we thought that there were some things that they might be able to learn from one another. And if you are deep into the literacy space and you hear some of those names that Andrea just mentioned, you might, you know, your job might drop a little bit and say, Wow, they're talking together. And I think that they were also surprised. Some of them, when we invited them to these conversations, we did have a couple of people that initially said no, but after explaining the situation, and I must say, for very valid reasons, right, because of the idea that we are thinking and talking in silos. But you know, after explaining the concept and the pre work that we were going to do, it made folks more comfortable. And so Maria and I did get the opportunity to meet with each of the panels ahead of times, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three or more times, and having a lot of conversation via email back and forth, and all of that felt like such incredible progress. You know, even just that pre work felt like such incredible progress. And Maria and I were texting back and forth as these conversations were happening. Can you believe that that person is just helping that person with this thing? You know, it was just remarkable. And so we knew that these conversations had to be brought to a larger audience so that you all could listen and learn to the magic that was happening in these pre meetings.

Donell Pons:

You know, so Carrie, I'm going to say, I have to admit, when I saw some of the members sitting on certain panels and what they were going to be talking about, I said to myself, I've got to find a way to get to Chicago. I have to say this, because, as you say, if you're in the literacy space, a lot of these names were incongruous at times, and you're thinking, oh my goodness, if we could really get down and they could sit down and be in the same space at the same time, what would that look like? Loved it, yeah.

Unknown:

And Maria really touched upon that in the keynote a lot, and spoke about these summits and these gatherings that would happen in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, and really unfortunately, have gone away since the internet, and, you know, in social media and everything, and you know, just knowing how divisive our world can be, I just feel so strongly that it is time to bring this back.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, yeah. And it was fantastic, I have to say, from a spectator part, it was wonderful to be able to listen and watch and to hear this level of conversation and exchange, which you don't always get. And the moderators of each of those panels, you could tell, were carefully selected, because they did such a fantastic job of keeping it on that level. Another thing I found interesting that maybe you'll hear later too from other people. There were folks at my table who were new to the literacy space, so I was kind of intrigued. They kind of just saw the reading League, saw that the summit was in a time period they could attend. So they landed into something that maybe was a little bit more than they were expecting. But as we had conversations at our table, they were really getting a lot out of it, and in fact, using a lot of it to look at their own practice, which I thought was great.

Unknown:

I love that you said that done now, we actually talked about that as we were getting closer and planning like, what if I'm a second grade teacher and just walked into this, and this was my first time. And what we really trusted was that, since our whole community was going to be in one room listening to the same thing the whole time. We trusted that that educator would find herself next to somebody like you, who could fill in gaps or help explain things in and bring it to really be a community experience for learning.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, it was fantastic. I thought that was that camaraderie right within the field, even amongst educators, was fantastic too. Were there any things that surprised you about what took place over those two days? Anything that you guys weren't prepared for, or that you were even yourselves? Were like, Well, that was interesting.

Unknown:

I was a little bit surprised to hear some of the same themes throughout all of them. Again, I didn't get to hear the content, but I thought there was so many through lines of conversation and about certain topics that that was a really clear takeaway for me of the message that I want to translate and carry back. And then the main one was just this need for integrating the layers of instruction we've pulled apart all of those components, and that makes sense for research into to really learn more about a particular component. But I heard every single panelist say, we weave those layers of language together, we need to integrate our instruction and making sure we're giving students an opportunity to transfer and practice. So that was a great surprise for me. I think that a surprise for me, it was just the power of human being together, and not even just on the panels, but afterwards, just you know, as you mentioned, Donell about the person at your table and just seeing practitioners and experts mingling, if you will, and really getting A chance to answer their questions in real time, and the, you know, the chapter event afterwards, and being able to see tables where folks that you would never imagine would be sitting and having a meal together were sharing ideas, and it just, it was so much growth. And. And even in those small moments of being able to human together,

Donell Pons:

yeah, I thought it was fantastic to have a space like this. You've created. What the reading League has done is fantastic for it, for educators, for a whole host of reasons, but particularly to have educator space, but then now to add this layer to that safe educator space, I thought was just fantastic, full, fully encompassing everything for the educator. I thought it was great. And Stacy and Lindsay, you guys didn't get to attend. I know you both had obligations, so you were unable to attend. And this is kind of how we ended up in a conversation together. So I have to share this with you guys, because it was pretty great. I opened a document and just started putting down. I was just typing away as it was occurring, and just typing everything. And great, the great comments that were sent throughout the week, and Stacy and Lindsay were both, oh my gosh, this is so great. And it was almost in real time, right? And Lindsay said she never hangs out in a document when someone else is in there, but she hung out in the document the whole time.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I felt kind of creepy. I was like, at first, I was just reading through and I'm like, dang, these are really good notes. This is like, I feel like I'm there, and then I got farther down and I could see, like, where Donell was adding in notes. And I'm like, I feel really kind of like a soccer right now. I think I might need to get out of this document. I

Stacy Hurst:

rarely do this, but during class, my students were working on something else. So I'm like, I'm just gonna peek over here. I'm usually 100% present for them, but I have to admit, that day I was not. It was a great document. It developed quite a lot of FOMO.

Donell Pons:

You know, that's another thing about a really good conference that is well thought out, is that when you are taking notes, it flowed very well. Oftentimes it can be difficult to get into a flow when you're at a conference, to be able to articulate and to take away some of the key points this, though, was just had such a good flow to it. The preparation, you could tell was there. So really appreciated that. And I'm going to, I want you guys to kind of comment on something I think Carrie, it was you who might have said and correct me if I'm wrong, but at one point, it was said, don't just say research says, don't use always or never, but value research for helping us think around certain subjects. And that right there is, is a really helpful thought.

Unknown:

Yeah, I think, I think that slide was in my keynote section, actually. And again, it goes with that translation piece of if we expect reading science to tell us what to do. As an educator, we're we're likely to be disappointed. It's just not always about this next instructional move or this this particular group of students to that level of specificity, but if we can shift our thinking and ask research to help me understand, help me understand why this is happening, or why this type of student might be less likely to respond well to this intervention, right then we empower educators to really have a more robust understanding of those instructional settings in front of them. They'll see more nuances. They'll have more ideas of different directions to go, and it enables their understanding. So when I think about science to practice, I always have to put the educator in the middle, like it does. It's not a magic wand. It doesn't go straight from science to practice. It goes from science through that brilliant mind of the educator, deepens their understanding, and then it informs practice, which can improve outcomes,

Donell Pons:

yeah, and this was a real opportunity to have that go back the other way too, right? So educator being able to sit down with researcher, which I thought was great. And also, Andre you gave the you gave educators the opportunity to kind of sit with some things that was that educator who happened to walk through and didn't realize that she was coming into something quite like this, but at the same time as we're chatting at the table and giving her an opportunity to think about her practice in her classroom, she was starting to see opportunities where she could implement and like, Oh, I could adjust here. I didn't realize that was really interesting

Unknown:

too. I'm so glad you brought that up done now, because that's a big part of what we strive to do at the reading link also is make this a science and practice community where it's not just scientists as the experts, right, but it's also scientists and researchers needing to hear from classroom educators about what happened when I tried to implement this, or what topics I need research on next. And so trying to cultivate that, we actually had an email from a school psychology graduate student in Michigan, who said I was just so excited to see researchers and practitioners together, right? It just shows that they can come together, they have the same goal, and learn together in that same space. It was really special. And I think it was on the final panel where we heard some of the researchers also saying how much they've learned from the questions, and, you know, really realizing that a strong focus needs to be on how to translate and implement their research. And I think that's just as powerful, because we will be able to learn from their research in a more productive way. I think that way, yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

That's right. And as you were talking, I was thinking the phrase is research to practice, but what you're describing and what you've set the environment for is also practice to research. So it's a two way street, yeah.

Donell Pons:

And I think having us all in the same room, it really put that into focus. Because oftentimes I think it might be difficult at a conference, which also is a great environment too, for certain things, but this summit really has caught on to something that I think is needed, and it has provided a unique space that that really these kinds of things. It's not as I don't think they're going to happen as readily as they did in this particular space. So I really appreciate the thought that went into this

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Stacy Hurst:

we were talking I was able to attend the first one, which I was so blown away. And Carrie, I have a very distinct memory at the end of it, of how, well, there's no other phrase like worn out you were, because it was such an endeavor, but so appreciated. And I we were talking about the numbers of people who attend. So can you tell us a little bit about how it's grown over these three years and who you see attending?

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that. I used to say there's no tired like Disney tired, but maybe there's no mental exhaustion like reading league summit mental exhaustion. However, I have to say that people were energized until the end. I think this year I mean that reading comprehension panel with Mitchell, he's just such an expert moderator. It was people were still so energized and took so much from it. So it has it has grown. It has shifted, and we definitely had the right audience this year the first summit, it was 500 attendees in Las Vegas. The second summit was a follow up to that discussion, they were both really, as I mentioned, focused on supporting the needs of English learners specifically. And we had 1000 folks at the second summit. But that was also, you know, in California, which is really the hotbed of that discussion of, what can we learn from the science of reading, what can we learn from the research that is part of the corpus of of the body of knowledge that we refer to as a science of reading that's specific to supporting English learners? And so we had many attendees that were very interested in that conversation for this year. I think we had just under 800 in Chicago in prior years, some of the attendees were a little bit, you know, they were more of the practitioners, folks that would come to the conference, and the structure was different than what they expected. But the folks that are here this third year for these conversations, they're the ones that are like, Oh my gosh, this conversation is happening, and they were really jazzed for it. So we've refined our audience to those folks that really were were chomping at the bit to hear these discussions, and they were not disappointed.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Are you already in talks for the next one and what you're planning next

Unknown:

earlier today? So as soon as it was over, I felt like the Nightmare Before Christmas. You know, where they're like, Jack has just performed and the mayor shows up at his door with like, I've got the Pons for next year. Is what I mean, Maria, we could do this. And that we had two researchers that came up to us and said, we got the whole thing planned out for you next year. We're ready to go. I think Maria's response, we were on our way to the pizza restaurant after she's like, yes, just yes to everything, yes, yes, yes. Now just be quiet and eat your pizza. But we've got some great ideas. Oh, yeah. Can

Lindsay Kemeny:

you give us any hints? Or No? Not yet, not yet,

Unknown:

because I don't know if Maria really meant yes. I have to check in after her vacation probably,

Stacy Hurst:

what about time of year? Because I'm going to need plenty of time to convince my university to have graduation a different week. If it's doing this same week,

Unknown:

I will give folks. We'll put in a good word for you. Stacy, no promises.

Stacy Hurst:

Let's see what we can. Do Yeah, we were just so glad that Donell was there, and it sounded like it was just such a great, energizing conversation. And as you're talking all these thoughts, there was one panel in particular that the three of us were like, oh, and that was the one on word recognition, because we had all as a community, seen that kind of play out in social media, just not too many years ago, right? And there were some very acerbic interchanges in that process. And I know have it from having attended the first summit, these conversations are not that. They're very civil, they're very welcoming, they're very I don't know what the word I'm looking for is it just it generates a lot of understanding. I think, is the thing and thought beyond, beyond our blind with our blinders on.

Unknown:

Stacy, I agree with that. I'm so glad you could feel that from afar, right? Like that was one of the goals of this. As a lot of educators are new to reading research, and maybe haven't been trained in how a research study is conducted and spent time in a lab, and like have seen the evolution of science over time, if their first exposure to the science of reading are these nasty fights on social media like that's a really terrible representation of what the research community is doing. And so I was so proud to be a part of the reading link and watch those conversations happen. And there were times when people disagreed and it was okay. They were civil, they were polite, they stated their case, and then they said, well, we'll keep learning together. It was, I was really proud of that, and I think that was an important part of the pre meetings as well. Was just kind of getting rid of that expectation that we're here to solve all the problems and answer all the questions, because that's never going to happen. That's not what research is. Research is constantly evolving, and we are constantly learning from it. And so naming that, there are some things that I I'll bet this audience doesn't know, that you all agree on these things, and there are also things that require further research, and let's name that so it's not this back and forth. I think this, I think that we need more research to fully understand what the best practice for the situation is. And that was a relief, I think, for the experts as well. Yeah,

Donell Pons:

that was really interesting, the way that the panel so on the panel discussion, particularly the one Stacy is referring to, because it was highly anticipated. It was really interesting to see that in the same space, like you've mentioned, Carrie, they didn't agree on some things, but they were able to state their case, did exactly why they felt the way that they did. And then, okay, we'll leave this open. We'll see where we go from here. And that, to me, was so refreshing to see that, and like you said, you'd made it comfortable enough. There was enough trust there. The space was comfortable enough. I think the moderator was well selected. I mean, you're in good hands with Louis emotes. I think you can feel safe there. But

Unknown:

here's the understatement of a century, right?

Donell Pons:

So I really appreciated that, because that was, as you say, it's important to also be able to still maintain that, hey, we still don't agree, and this is the main piece as to why we don't agree, and be specific about it. That's good and healthy, but also to have laid the groundwork with what we do agree we agree on a fair amount, and then we might have these key points, right? Could

Lindsay Kemeny:

you name, could you name that for listeners and those of us aren't that weren't there? What were the things that they agreed upon, what were some things that they were disagreeing and that we still need more research on?

Unknown:

One of the items from the first panel that sticks out to me is I think all the panelists were in agreement that we have different models of reading that serve different purposes, right? So really understanding why the simple view of reading was developed and why the active view of reading was developed, or why Scarborough's reading rope was developed, really gives you an insight into how to use it. And so there was a lot of agreement around that of the simple view and active view aren't trying to do the same thing, and that was helpful for everybody to agree on what was different, right? Was, like, the relative importance of their models in the goals that they had, right? Like, there's still, I think, some disagreement about, well, my model is really about this, and I think that's really the most important thing to focus on, and that's okay to have those disagreements. As long as the audience can say when I need this purpose or when I'm looking for to answer this question, then I might use a different model of reading. And then for the next I guess we could kind of go panel by panel. I think the panel two talking about language comprehension, they had a lot that. Agreed on right as a field, we need to make sure that we are focusing on language. Julie Van Dyke says, you know, language is everything, and syntax is the most important building block of language. So syntax is everything. We had peep hours talking about morphology. We had Teresa Chriselle from wida, who was talking about assessment. And I think although they mostly agreed on everything, what was interesting is that they didn't know one another ahead of time. And so the synergy of being collaborative and understanding that as a science of reading community, we place, must place and do place equal importance to the development of language as word recognition was really powerful for them to all understand that, to take that back to their audiences and the folks like, for example, WIDA. There are many states that are WIDA states, and the hope would be that they then take back the idea that the science of reading is more than just these misunderstandings that are surfacing around. So I thought that was a really powerful piece to panel two.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, the word

Unknown:

recognition panel had a couple of, I think hanging disagreements, right? So the first one that I heard was really about syllable instruction, I think we heard consensus that starting with syllable thinking that starting with syllable, blending and segmenting will lead to better phoneme. Blending and segmenting was dispel I think everybody agreed with that. You don't necessarily need to start with that to get to the phoneme level. But what is the role of syllables? Is there value in it? Maybe later on an instruction I think there was some just outstanding disagreement on that topic. And then, of course, we got to the teaching phonemic awareness with and without letters, which is personally what I was on the edge of my seat for. And I think again, we were able to summarize and say, The research is clear. Again, we're integrating these systems of language. We want to teach phonics and phonemic awareness together. There are reciprocal benefits to putting those two things together in our instructional practice. But I loved Louisa at the end, she couldn't just let it hang there as a disagreement. Do we do it with or without? She said, well, well, it's maybe not a completely either or right? Of course, we want to move to segmenting and blending with letters, that's what's going to enable skilled reading. We've got to get the student there. But if we err on the side again of being too hot or too cold and interpreting and saying never, don't, ever use phonemic awareness activities without letters, we're really doing teachers a disservice, because there could be a time in place to pull back the letters, regroup attention, think really carefully about this skill of segmenting and blending, always knowing we're moving back to letters, we're connecting it to words as quickly as possible. And the other area of requiring further research, I think, is this idea of phoneme proficiency. That was the big discussion between you know, David Kilpatrick and Susan Brady, and we do need more research right in David's point of view, he sees the development of phoneme awareness as something separate for the most struggling readers, thinking about the simple view and orthographic mapping, and that that this idea of phoneme proficiency might support these older, struggling readers not to happen and occur in a tier one classroom for all students, and in the pre meetings, he clarified that was never the intent. And Susan's point of view was perhaps, I think we all love that, that moment where she just said, perhaps, and also maybe we could do that by having the students continue to focus on final, you know, initial, final and medial phonemes, and that might support them better. And the last, the last panel, Carrie, do you want to start with that one? I don't have any notes about specific areas that were left for further research. So I think that a big conversation there was on background knowledge. What does background knowledge really mean? And the idea of strategy instruction. So Reed Smith discussed background knowledge. K wijakumar shared some of her incredible results using her framework, and we talked about the role of writing and syntax and everything within reading comprehension. And really, yes, you know, background knowledge will help us understand the content better, but thinking about some of the limitations of even, for example, the baseball study, and how specific the vocabulary within that study was, and how do we teach all of it? And I think the panel came to the agreement is of well, we need to teach them. Way to learn that background knowledge, and so we do need some level of strategy instruction and making sure that that is present and ever present in the classroom. And we are not talking about using short, disconnected paragraphs just to teach strategy instruction, but we have to make sure that our students have a framework, have a way of supporting their comprehension while they are learning this content knowledge. Yeah, and I loved Dr laud in her sessions, Leslie laud actually shared a quote from the baseball study from Leslie and rec, and it was like really clear in one paragraph about the need for both building background knowledge and strategy instruction that the baseball study was never meant to prove one is more important than the other, that that it was really meant to communicate the role of both actively during comprehension. Is this helping your promos Stacy or making it worse? No

Stacy Hurst:

worse. I could see that clear. But also I am thinking about, I'm part of the the appeal of our podcast, I guess, or the foundation of it is the different perspectives that Donell and Lindsay and I are in right now in the world of literacy. And as you're talking, I'm thinking constantly, like I have this I don't I don't know if I want to use the word balance, but how do I prepare my pre service teachers with a solid foundation, while at the same time saying, and I do this frequently, and I hope I don't confuse them, but saying, you got to keep your eye on the science, because that's the nature of science. It evolves. We learn more, we learn better. And as I was, as I'm processing all of this, I'm wondering, Lindsay and Donell, what are, what were? Are you thinking Donell, especially because you were there in how you're going to take all of this information and apply it to what you're doing now? Yeah,

Donell Pons:

I think it offered a great deal of clarity, as we say, on some specific points, some key specific points, and that will be very helpful. And it's okay to say even the experts got to a certain point and they said we need more. Even the experts say we need more. So that's always nice to be able to say as well, something Maria Murray said in the beginning, that kind of resonated with me here too. And Stacy, I thought of it when you were speaking, was something about the fact that science doesn't swing. I love this way she said, science doesn't swing. It lands with a thud, right? It's science. It lands. And I thought that was really good, because that's oftentimes what you'll hear, is people will talk about this pendulum. And that one always concerns me, because I think we're not talking about a pendulum when there's science. That's not what we're talking about here. That might have been with other things that were very much theorized, but not when you're talking about science. And so I really appreciated Maria saying that, and thought I'm going to file that one away, but it did make me think about having some really good information around these key critical points and being able to say it's okay for now, if this is where we are with what we know,

Unknown:

and Donna, what I usually say about the pendulum is that's an implementation, right? And we hold the pendulum in our hands. Every educational decision maker, whether you're just, you know, you're sitting in front of a student and making a decision, or you're in control of the scheduling, or you're a building leader. You're a curriculum decision maker. You're a policy maker. You hold a piece of that pendulum. So in those decisions, you have to make sure that you are not swinging the pendulum. The researchers provide us with the impetus to understand what mean. You know how to make sure that that pendulum is in the middle. It's not their job. They're not swinging anything, but it is our job to take that research and apply it in a manner that keeps that pendulum going.

Donell Pons:

That's so good. So if we're getting motion sickness, we need to look

Unknown:

at ourselves

Stacy Hurst:

good analogy also. And I don't know Andrea and Carrie, if you know this, but donells First profession was a reporter, and so the level of the the notes on this document really demonstrated that. And so I have the opportunity to talk like I was there, but I wasn't. But another thing that she wrote in that document that resonated with me about as we're talking about implementation is, and I think it was Dr Murray who said, you don't need to know the science of reading to use a curriculum. You need to know the science of reading when your students need more than that. I thought that was pretty profound. Anybody want to add to that,

Lindsay Kemeny:

since that program doesn't tell you what to do, when, when, when things go wrong when students don't reach that destination, right? And like, I think, you know, it's you hear about the research. But like, as teachers, I love that. Dr Tiffany Hogan said, We're the ultimate implementation scientists as teachers, because, you know, through the course of a day, even like five minutes, I am making so. So many decisions, and there's not always, you know, so I'm never just going to be like, well, that study exactly said this. So I have to do this, even though I just saw my student do this, right? Like, we're constantly, like, we're taking what we know from research, and we are taking what we know from the students in front of us, and we're taking our knowledge and using, like, the best judgment we can. But that's why I think teacher knowledge is so important, because that helps us to make the most informed decisions. But when I'm, like, working with a child and I and like, I wouldn't say, well, oh my goodness, we have to do phonemic awareness with letters, when that child doesn't know letters, or it's just taking so long for them to, you know, pull out and retrieve those sounds. But I still want to be working on some blending and segmenting at the same time. You know, that's where I use my judgment. Okay, right now we're doing some without and then over here we're going to do it with the five letters they know, or whatever you know. So I just like implementation is where it's at, and I'm excited for implementation science, like, I think that's an area we've talked about it before on this podcast. I think is really exciting, because it is talking about that communication between the researchers and the educators. How can we come together and work together? Lindsay, I love

Unknown:

that you shared that, like, moment by moment, experience of what it's like to be teaching, right? Like, that is that's so real and so important for us to remember when we're talking about this, we use an analogy at the summit of an astronaut in space and NASA engineers on the ground. And I said, Okay, who knows more about flying a space shuttle? Well, clearly, the astronauts have to know a lot, right? They're out there doing it, and they're making some of those decisions, but when something goes wrong, they say, Houston, we've got a problem, right? I said, How awesome would it be if we had classroom educators have that little phone in their classroom and be like, hey, researchers, this didn't go as planned. I've got a problem. You know, help me think about it. But really, we're relying on you all to to be those implementation scientists that said really beautifully done. Now I would, I would love to hear some of your takeaways. What thoughts resonated with you as you're thinking about the panel a few days later?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I so first off, I thought it was a great selection. I all the topics were really important, word recognition, comprehension, you're hitting all the highlights of what we're discussing these days, and being able to have those conversations, and also the language comprehension, which was really important. Thankfully, we're seeing more and more of that, but we haven't for a long time. Julie Van Dyke is someone that you don't really get to see much. She's She's not one of those researchers that is out in the forefront, but I have really appreciated her work, particularly working with older students, and her product called cascade reading that she's been involved with that helps put they know the text in different format for students. So she's really doing some really fantastic work, but her her statements about eye movement, record is the story of comprehension. Comprehension is a dynamic compositional word by word process bounded by somebody's attention, language and motivation. Wow, that just drove it home. So pleased to be able to hear her say that, because I'm gonna really have to think about that. And again, that's that individual sitting with a student you cannot there's just no replacement for a good teacher with a background observing and watching and then knowing what to do. And boy, did Julie really sum it up there. But I enjoyed the whole thing. I think it was great from start to finish,

Unknown:

some of Julie's visuals too, just showing the just so many decisions that our brains have to make while we're thinking and listening and comprehending, is just in one of the planning sessions. I think in the chat I wrote, I'm just so proud of our brains. It's really It's exceptional, and it just helps to understand why we have to continue to teach language and, you know, ensure that our language learners are getting the language instruction that they need in particular, because those decisions are going to change from one language to another, right? The syntactic development, the grammatical structures of languages are so different that we really need to make sure that we're emphasizing language. And I think that a lot of her slides and her models really showed that. And then Pete Bowers at the end with the this is what you can do in a hands on way, and really to, you know, to teach structured word inquiry and morphology. I had a lot of takeaways from that panel was excellent.

Donell Pons:

And you know, you saying about the the wonder of what the brain can do, and I'm also thinking about we really this is honoring all that the brain can do. When you say we understand this is a very challenging thing that we expect all of us to be able to do. We understand that there may be x. Are difficulties for individuals based on a whole host of reasons as to why this could be challenging and even more challenging, and so going after it and having the best background and support for individuals whose job it is to do this thing and support it, that we're really honoring the human experience in a way that can't be duplicated when you think about our life experience was fantastic. Great job. I look forward to the next one,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and if you want to have the next one in Utah, we will help you organize it. Just going to throw that out. I'm volunteering Donell and Stacy too. Shameless

Stacy Hurst:

plug, yeah. Well, rural Utah is beautiful. We're close to, like, four national parks in our backyard. I'm just saying Southern Utah University might be a great place to host it, and then I don't have to miss anything.

Unknown:

You know, we might have an angle there. When Maria was talking about all of those great reading research conferences that used to happen. They were always in these amazing places like Hawaii or Australia. So I think we could make a pitch for a national park expedition, or if you want to be back in Hawaii. I mean, that's probably going to be fine too, sure. So everybody email Madeline. I'm not going to give her Matt, that's a that's for Maddie. Hopefully she'll listen to this podcast and get that feedback. Yeah, we just

Lindsay Kemeny:

need, like, group discount on flights, right? Let's do it in January or February, because that's when it's really yucky here.

Stacy Hurst:

When can we expect information about the next one friends?

Unknown:

It's really tentative, right? Now, I hate to, like, say, a date and then have it be wrong. So just know that the reading league team is small but mighty and working really hard to plan meaningful national learning opportunities. So we're gearing up for our conference, which will be back in Chicago in October, and so it's really a lot of careful planning getting ready for that experience, but we will make sure to let the world know when we're ready to announce what next year's summit will be. Sign up for the newsletter, follow social media, and we will be sure to let you know as soon as we know.

Stacy Hurst:

Okay, yeah, we looking forward to that. And I know you. I feel like at last year's conference, we knew about this summit, so maybe at least by then, right

Unknown:

and always happy to hear about topics that the world is interested in. Right? As the reading League, we are as strong as all of the members of our league, which is every person listening to this podcast. And we would love to know what you want to know about. It's really helpful, and we do make decisions based on what folks need, because it's what we do, and we would love to learn from you all too. Yeah, I feel like that's what makes the summit so much harder to plan in advance, because we're trying to be so responsive to what's going on in the field and where we need conversation. So the conference is more like choose your own adventure. You can pick the sessions and strands that speak to you, but to plan the summit too far in advance, we might miss out on the topic that the field really needs.

Stacy Hurst:

That makes sense, for sure. And just to just give, like a lot of gratitude to the reading League and everything that your organization our it's ours, right? Collectively, we're all part of it, but all the things that you do to help us bridge that that gap is so important. Thank you so much. I know my career would be drastically different without it. So thank you so much.

Unknown:

Well, right back at you, all three of you are amazing in your own right, in doing just really careful translation work and bringing this research to practice in a lot of really great ways that resonate across the country. So we're grateful for partners like you.

Stacy Hurst:

Well Donell thanks for leading our just conversation today. Thank you for joining us today. This has been just the pleasure of this recap, and for those of you who are listening, hopefully you'll be able to join the reading, whether it's at the conference or the summit, or just by reading our journals or going online. And the website is a plethora of resources for educators, and we hope that you'll join us for the next episode of literacy talks whatever that's going to be about. Thanks for joining us today.

Unknown:

Such an honor. Thanks for having

Lindsay Kemeny:

me. Thank you, you guys.

Narrator:

Thanks 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.