Literacy Talks

Pet Peeves, Round 3: The Gripes That Just Won’t Quit

• Reading Horizons • Season 8 • Episode 9

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We’re back with more of the literacy gripes that make us wince, laugh, and think deeper. In our third pet peeves episode, the Literacy Talks team—Stacy, Donell, and Lindsay—sound off on persistent myths, misplaced blame, phonics fluff, and why reading will never be obsolete. With listener submissions in the mix, this candid conversation is part venting session, part professional reflection. If you’ve ever cringed at a reading log or been told teachers are the problem (spoiler alert: they’re not), this one’s for you.


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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, and I'm joined by Lindsay Kemeny and Donell Pons, and if you're not watching the video of this, then you don't see that I'm smiling because this is one of our favorite topics. We have one every season. It's all thanks to Lindsay. And so this is no exception. We're going to let her introduce the topic. Those of you have been listening for a while can probably already guess what it is, but I'm looking forward to the conversation Lindsay. What are we going to be talking

Lindsay Kemeny:

about, yay. We're going to be sharing our pet peeves, our pet peeves in, you know, specifically, literacy, anything teaching literacy related in this space, the science of reading, you know, this space that we're in, it's so fun, I think because, you know, we get a variety of topics to chat about in like, one episode, and we all can let off a little steam. It feels good. And this today is fun, because we also have some listeners who contributed their pet peeves, and so we'll share some of those as well. And so I think what we'll do is Stacy, we're going to start with you, and I think, you know, we'll each just share a pet peeve, and we can get reactions. And so we'll go Stacy, and then Donell, and then me, and then we'll do a viewer, and then we'll just circle around a few times. Okay, so you get to get up on your soapbox.

Stacy Hurst:

Great, here I go. Big step up. This actually was brought to my attention again the other day as I walked into a classroom that I was preparing to teach in my classroom. But of course, in university setting, there's another class before mine, and the professor was telling the students that in the very near future, we won't need to know how to read. Reading will be obsolete. And he invited me graciously to debate him. And I thought, okay, there's a few pet peeves examined. There a I'm not in the mood to debate, like I have other things to focus on, I generally try to avoid that if I can, but also that reading will be obsolete with technology as it is. And I want to say, what do you think is informing the technology we were only as smart as we the knowledge we have, and right now, the way we can access knowledge into the past is through print, right? That's the way it becomes immortal. In a sense. I don't even have as much confidence in video files like there. We don't know if they're going to be around in 20, 3040, 100 years, right? But print is actually tangible and can be preserved. So I don't know, what do you guys think about that it was it was annoying.

Lindsay Kemeny:

That's the most ridiculous thing. I think I have heard. I have never heard that before. I don't know why someone would think that. I mean, think about just like jotting down a note or giving a birthday present to someone, and you need to write who it's to or from on the tag. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, and it's so much faster to read something or skim something than have to listen to something. So I assume that's why he's he's saying that because what you're just going to do, like, speech to text, text to speech all the time.

Stacy Hurst:

But I mean, still about speed, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And even when you're on, like, on technology, you're like, on your phone, you're looking at social media, you're not having every comment read to you that take forever. You're reading them.

Unknown:

So that's yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

And he was saying he was comparing reading as a technology. Said it's a new technology, relatively speaking. And so technologies come and go, and I'm like, I don't know about that one. Donell, were you ready? Yeah, I don't

Donell Pons:

know about this one. And I don't know if he's ever read a history of reading by Alberto Manuel, because that's a pretty darn good argument for the fact that it's not going anywhere anytime soon. He does a really fed. Fantastic job with it in that book. So if you've ever read it, give yourself a treat a history of reading. It's just a beautiful it's a it's a well thought out love letter to reading. But more than that, it also gets into the history of it. That is really fascinating, that someone would say that, because think of what you gain, Lindsay, you hit on a few of the positives of reading, but think of all that you gain when you are quietly and we know this quietly to yourself with your own thoughts, reading something and having an experience with it. On that level, nothing else replicates that experience. And imagine what we would lose. I just think it's really fascinating.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, so thanks for starting with me. That been bothering me for a while,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and see how that would bother you. And I it just be like, how do you debate that? Because you're like, it just seems so ludicrous.

Stacy Hurst:

And he was telling college students this too, and that's where it was like, Oh, dude, the last

Donell Pons:

thing they need to hear.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I mean, reading and write, writing, the writing system is, I can see how he's saying, it's a technology, yeah, it is an invention. And, and, you know, we've talked about that relatively recent, you know, as Emily Hanford, kind of Pons out, but it's not going away, yeah?

Donell Pons:

All right, Donell, all right, geez, I have a pet peeve. With that pet peeve, can we do that? Pile on to a pet peeve? Totally. Okay. I do this one almost every time, but it's still at the top of my list. I have a list, and I go, Oh, dude, do I do the same one again at the top of my list? Until it's not a thing. It will be at the top of my list. Why are we still here? And that's the one I do all the time, is, after all this work and effort and energy, why are we still here, and what is the why are we still here? Why am I still having conversations with teachers who don't have a clue about how we really teach reading to students. Why is that still a thing? Why do I still have people fighting back about what's dyslexia? I didn't think that was really a thing. Why are we still having Why am I still having these conversations? And I think I've said this before, if we're doing such a cracker jack job, we've got this all saw, you know, figured out. Why are we still having these conversations? Clearly, we don't have it all figured out. Clearly, we need to do more work. Clearly, we maybe need to examine what we've been doing to see if it's adequate. Anyway, that's that's my top pet peeve. I know Lindsay, you're stunned.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Well, there's a lot of things there, and I'm just thinking it Yeah, I just

Unknown:

where I

Lindsay Kemeny:

don't know, I don't want to get into mine quite yet. My pet peeve, quite yet. But like, where, how do we shift this, and why aren't teachers getting the information they need from the beginning? And Stacy, maybe this goes to our universities and our teacher prep programs.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, and I was thinking that too, and the word that came to my mind as you were talking Donell is Sisyphean, right? Is that what this is? Or are we really making progress? We just see how much progress there is left to be made that it's hard to focus on, or is it two steps forward or one step back? You know what? What kind of progress are we making here? And I would say, from a higher ed perspective, I see, I see progress from what my students know about reading and how they apply it, but I also still hear very much, especially in social media, that they're pointing fingers at higher ed, right? And I react to that because I'm like, wait, some of us are doing this, but then I have to step back and think, but probably many aren't.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah. Like, what percentage are, yeah, yeah,

Stacy Hurst:

which is a great, yeah, that's a good one,

Lindsay Kemeny:

because I still think the majority of schools are not following the principles we talk about with the science of reading. I I still think that. So some people are saying, Oh, look, the NAEP scores are still terrible. Science of Reading isn't working, and I'm like, Whoa. Back up. First of all, a lot of people are just barely learning about it, so they aren't sure how to apply it yet. Second, I think the majority are still stuck in some old ineffective practices, and that's like at the forefront, they're

Donell Pons:

not being supported, right? Yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

okay, are we ready for mine? Yes, yes. This, guys, this is going to be a little bit of a rant. And I have, like, my main point, and I have a few points, okay. Yeah, but I'm doing it all as like this one pet peeve. All right, let's stop blaming teachers for everything. The burden seems to always be on the teacher. And you know, I hate in the news, you'll see some headline that are like, teachers are not teaching reading the right way, or teachers are not teaching reading comprehension the right way, or whatever it is. And I'm like, can we flip that, you know? How about you know, teachers are not being provided with quality materials in their schools, or districts aren't providing high quality materials to their teachers. Or, you know, I just like, I feel like the blame is always on the teacher. It's interesting because, you know, my latest book just came out, rock your literacy block. And I get the same question over and over in in that I go through my day and explain my day, and part of my day I call close reading, which is where you're working more on the language comprehension strands of Scarborough's Reading Room. So the number one question I get is, what, what are the texts and materials that you're using for close reading? And they ask that because they don't have a program. I come back and say, Well, what's your core program? Because that's what you use. And I've, I've used different core programs in my district. My district has always provided me with a core program, and I use that and as my base, and I can adjust. And so I couldn't believe, I mean, I still can't believe how many don't have anything, and that's, that's just insane to me, because you know, our job is to fly the plane, not build it, and it's kind of like you're asking us to build the plane while we're flying it. And so too often, I feel like teachers are not provided with adequate programs, or then even any program, and then any weaknesses in our programs, especially a lack of a program, become burdens for the teacher. So that's a lot of burdens. We have a lot of burdens placed on us to make, you know, to make it work, and then maybe we do have a program, but are we being provided with training and support? If not, that's another burden on us for how to figure that out. And then I'm not done. There's a okay, there's not research to inform every single part of our day. We don't know exactly the best way to do everything. So you know that Steve dykstras bullseye, we're trying to get as close as we can, but sometimes we're not on that bullseye, and we're trying to figure out, you know, best practices and how to do something that's reasonable and make decisions in real time. So and then there's this research to practice gap. And whose job is it to get us the research that we do know? Because that burden can't be placed on teachers either, because we're teaching all day and then and and, you know, if we're lucky, we get lunch, but a lot of us are grading over lunch, and then we come home and we're working and we're grading. And so whose job is it to translate the research, and even when they do, it's not perfect, because a lot of researchers and experts can't give us the really specific details we need for what that looks like in the classroom and how we should do that. And I find that like the further removed the researcher or expert is from the classroom, the more lofty their ideas are, and they can't really give us the nitty gritty of what it looks like. So that is my huge rant, like, it's not perfect, but let's take some blame off the teachers, because we have a lot of burdens.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I think you touched a nerve with me too. That is, it's been perpetually an issue. But, and I I know that people get hesitant when we compare teaching as a profession to something like the medical world, but honestly, to me, they're Of equal importance, right learning how to read in our society, and, you know, just to have a high quality of life is just as important as being healthy and well, I think it's part of that. So when you were talking about, we don't blame doctors. We don't expect them to have to create their own tools or to find their own tools, right? They're supplied with those, and many of those tools have already been researched, but it seems like teachers are left on their own. It sounds like that's amazing that you get that question so much.

Donell Pons:

Okay, so I'm going to pile on to your pet peeve. Here's another thing, Stacy, and it goes with the meta. Cool thing that you're talking about, what I do find, too, and it just annoys me to death, is that if and when we decide that it would be advisable for a teacher to have say, additional education, then it's on the teacher to go pay for it. And I've noticed teachers have more letters behind their names than ever today, because that's another way that we seem to then say, Oh, I guess they're qualified now that they've done this program and that program and this program, and they've got XYZ and infidium behind their name there, do we think they're qualified now that one's crazy to me. Would you expect a doctor who has spent that much time training as a doctor to then go back and prove over and over and over again that they're qualified by getting additional letters after their name. No, you don't. The MD is sufficient. That tells you that you trust this individual. They've got the training. We don't do that with teachers. It's getting to be absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion, of how many letters a teacher's got to have behind their name to say, Do you think I'm qualified yet and still within that they're not getting the nitty gritty that they need, that we're talking about here. We're still not getting to that stuff that. Okay, so exactly what do you want me doing from nine to noon? Yeah, it's really interesting.

Stacy Hurst:

Oh, the whole thing it because also it goes back Lindsay, you've opened a Pandora's box, but it goes back to, I know I've shared this one before. Teacher pay like they get those initials behind their name. You're getting more money up on the pay scale, but it takes them years to compensate for what it costs them to get those. And then you don't know, are they learning the thing that really will impact their practice or not? And I think that's frustrating, especially so this is one of my previous pet peeves still happening today, that teachers spend over 400 hours that they don't get paid for, on average per year every teacher that's unacceptable, unacceptable. Doctors don't do that. They get paid for every little, tiny thing I know, if you've ever had a hospital bill, yeah, then an aspirin ends up costing $13 Right?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Like, and then when I see people like, nitpicking, what, what teachers do where I'm like, you know, we don't, we've got to make these informed decisions in the moment. So, you know, you know, you hear different people debating different things, and you're like, Okay, I'm just going to do a decision. I'm making a decision, and do it and then it, you know, it's fine, like we always need to refine our practices, but don't come on social media and scream at us in all caps for something that you don't like, that we're doing, because guaranteed, I can find something that you do in your day that doesn't have research that says to do it that exact way, you know what I mean? So like, be kind. And like, yeah, we can all improve, but let's be kind because we're making, like, a lot of decisions through the course of a day.

Unknown:

Understood, yep.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, okay, let's go to a listener one. Let's go to a listener pet peeve, and we'll do this one. Someone said that their pet peeve is phonics, crafts, and she said most of the time is spent cutting, gluing and coloring, then the words are usually either just copied or the kids can't even read them. Then there's the whole idea that phonics was just made, quote, unquote, fun, but some of us find regular routines and learning fun and the crafts a waste of instructional time, so any thoughts on that

Stacy Hurst:

immediately cut the fluff, teach this.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, I loved, I loved reading that. I was like, Yes, I agree. Now I will say, like, if you are a pre K or kindergarten teacher and you want to do some kind of cut and paste, and it's a letter A, and you're going to have them cut things that start with and they're gonna glue it on like, that is fine if your goal is fine motor. Do you know what I mean? Don't just don't think of that as like, that's my that's our phonics learning for the day, because they need, you know, some explicit, direct guided instruction with feedback. But if you're like, I need a little fine motor practice for my students. It happens to be a letter that's okay, if your goal is the fine motor, right?

Stacy Hurst:

That's actually very smart, right? Fine Motor Skills brought to you by the letter A you're supporting what you're teaching it, hopefully in another part of the day and working on that important skill of fine motor, yeah.

Donell Pons:

And I just want to add to that that my son, who has dyslexia, I want to count. I'm trying to see if I can get them all in my don't want to leave any of them out. I think we had five alphabet books that they had him put together because he has dyslexia, and I think he was putting them together clear until fifth grade. He. Because somewhere along the way, thought that was a fantastic thing for someone who has dyslexia, that he needed to cut out all kinds of pictures from magazines that started with the letter A mind your sounds were never discussed. Things that he really needed were never even talked about. So I like that you point out maybe it's a fine motor thing for a first grader, but if that's something you're going to even in the older grades. You really need to rethink that, because, as Lindsay pointed out, is there a point to it on another way in which a child might be learning a skill, and that's great reinforcing something, but again, we need to be teaching them what they need to know about reading.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, that's a great one. And you know, you know, I've actually seen where students who are going to resources special education, and they're cutting and gluing in there, and you know, their IEP is all about reading, right? That's a huge red flag. If you see that you should be like, they should not be wasting their time cutting and gluing in an intervention space. They need to be doing the thing, which is reading and writing. Yeah, okay, Stacy, we're back to you. What's your

Stacy Hurst:

next? You could not have queued up my next one any better. In fact, I was like, which one do I choose? Which one do I choose? And you just made the decision for me. Now, this has always been a pet peeve, but I haven't quite been able to contextualize it thoroughly, so I don't say enough about it, I think. But when I attended triple Sr, I found some more research that highlights this problem, and it was teacher knowledge research. And they they gave a survey to many teachers. They found that the least the ones who, I will put it this way as to not ruffle feathers, the type of teacher that scored the lowest perpetually were the ones who are delivering intervention. So we're talking about knowledge of the basic constructs of English, right? And in my own state, our students are required to take the Foundations of Reading Test. And it not all, not always the case, but students who are some students who are getting a special ed degree are also scoring in that lower one of the lower lower than maybe, say, general ed teachers are. So I think that I'm not frustrated the people involved in those situations. I'm frustrated at the system. What in the system can we do to make sure that those two scenarios are communicating well with each other and Donell, you gave the example of your son doing alphabet books in fifth grade, how can we support our special educators and paraprofessionals and whoever is delivering that intervention to communicate With the general ed, hopefully knowledgeable general ed teacher and really maximize and accelerate learning for the students they're working with.

Donell Pons:

Okay, I just had a conversation with someone this weekend who is an interventionist working in a high school setting, and a couple of things that were brought up in the conversation just made me shudder. But I'm thinking this still, this is happening, so I need this is a good thing to be talking about. First of all, the interventionist didn't get any special training at all in how to help students with reading or writing. Has had none. Maybe some of the teachers have had a little Am I just a high school setting? So I'm telling you, that was my pet peeve. Number one, right? Is that we might be jumping on k3 but boy, are we leaving Middle and High School adrift. And there are students who could use help, and we still have time to help them. So here's this intervention. Who's interventionist, who's been tasked to help this student who's clearly behind in reading and writing, yet has not any training, trying to do their best, reaching out, understanding that there's, there's a proper way to do this. I'd really like to know more. Zero training offered. A teacher gets offered some training, goes off to training comes back and won't share with the interventionist. No, no. This is my this is the thing that I've been trained. So that's another thing. Is we need to be willing to help each other, to lift all everybody, lift everybody back at your site. So there's the training that's not being offered to individual who's spending the most time with the most time with the student that's this interventionist. You've passed the student off to the interventionist, then you've not given them any training or materials, and then, likewise, we don't treat them like professionals, because then any information about an IEP is not shared with them because they're not quote, the professional, they're not the teacher. Yet you've made a choice to put the student with that individual, and then you've tied their hands to do the best job that they can to help the student. And I think we need to have more of these conversations. Stacy, it ties right into what you just said there. What have we done to help these individuals for success?

Stacy Hurst:

Right? Yes, and I know special educators are are so skilled at things like behavior. Or that. I think general educators, you know, we're managing a whole class, and yes, they're individuals, but we need help with that, so we could learn from the special educators. But I always think about Tim odegaards presentations when he's talking about the research. It's kind of what comes first the chicken or the egg, right? If you teach somebody how to read and they feel success there, it will impact their behavior for the better, and so maybe helping highlight and lift up that research will help with this issue too. But it's kind of frustrating for me to continually see over and over and over again.

Lindsay Kemeny:

You know, at one point I looked into like going back to school and getting a special ed degree. And I remember when I was looking at the classes, it was all special ed law and behaviors there. There wasn't anything really specific to literacy that I remember. And so, you know, that's a huge problem right there. So we need to back up and look at how we're, you know, training them in the first place. And then I just have to say, you know, I love Texas. I seem to go to Texas a lot, and I'm so impressed, because they have dyslexia interventionists at every school. It's really impressive. And I'm like, That is awesome. So they're doing a lot to make sure that they have some trained interventionists at their schools. And Lindsay,

Donell Pons:

I agree with you about Texas, because even in settings, because I met a couple of interventionists from Texas just about a year ago at Ida conference. We were in Texas, and they were new, new to the job, so they were learning as they were, as they were doing the job. But even just having the title is so empowering, because I'm a dyslexia interventionist, so I can say and talk about and ask for resources for students that we consider have dyslexia, and also those that a teacher might be considering, does this student? Do they qualify? And those conversations are out in the open. Just having an individual in your building, and I love the enthusiasm from the two educators that been in traditional classrooms, mainstream classrooms, to begin with, and then had moved into this position so they understood the Kate the school and how it worked. I just thought it was fantastic, but just even having the title was very empowering.

Narrator:

Yeah. Interested in diving deeper into today's episode and exploring more literacy topics, join us in the science of reading collective, where we host the literacy talks podcast chat. It's the perfect place to share insights, ask questions and keep the conversation going, but that's just the beginning. When you join the science of reading collective, you're stepping into a vibrant, dynamic community explicitly designed for literacy champions like you access decodable texts, sound wall resources and professional learning in our AI enhanced community all brought to you absolutely free. Find us at collective dot reading horizons.com. Join the Science of reading collective today and be part of a movement that's eradicating illiteracy. That's collective dot reading horizons.com.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, are we to you? Donell, was that yours? Stacy? That was your pet. It was okay, yeah, so Donell.

Donell Pons:

Donell has been tagging on to everybody today. Oh gosh, you guys. I'm looking at my list, and I'm going, we've pretty much touched that. If you ever want

Lindsay Kemeny:

to skip, we can put in a listener one instead of yours, if you don't have one so

Donell Pons:

well, my number three, I'll jump to my number three. Pretty much did my number two. Are we really screening for reading difficulties? Are we? Because I still talk to people across the country, and it's like, let me look up your state and just see if there's mandatory screening. Yep, there's mandatory screening in your state. There is well, so what are you doing at your school? So yes, this is still a sticky widget. We it's talked about people act like it. We gather data, or they're gathering data. We're doing the testing, but I don't know that we're treating it like a true screener. Are we really? Is that what we're really doing? Are we treating this information like it's truly screening for reading difficulties, because if we were then what we did would look different. I think so

Lindsay Kemeny:

the data. You have to do something with it, otherwise, the whole thing was a waste of time. Yes, don't make the assessment a waste of time. Use it.

Unknown:

Yes, yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

What is the next step? Right? Are they die? Are they doing a diagnostic? Is that require? How I imagine it would be right? And then what? Yeah, all good questions. Also, we've talked about this before, multiple times on our podcast, especially when we did the IDA perspectives. Season, are we screening for language in the way we should be? I know they're language screeners, but they're certainly not as frequent.

Donell Pons:

Well, that's just it. Stacy when we start having more conversations in Lindsay, we've been we've all chatted about this that thankfully, we're having more conversations about language and overall. So oral language, how much earlier can we get in and start? But if we're still struggling to screen for reading difficulties

Stacy Hurst:

or even to communicate, it right? Like I was talking to a teacher a few weeks ago. She was telling me about a student she has struggles, and I was asking about his Acadian scores. That's what we use in our state. And then I said, Has he had any language screening? And this is the classroom teacher. And she said, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, because I think our speech and language pathologist tests every kid. And I said, Okay, how did he do? I don't know. I'd have to go ask, like the teachers don't have that readily available to them. Maybe, I mean, that was an n of one, but I don't think that's uncommon. I certainly didn't know when my students got tested, unless the parents said something,

Lindsay Kemeny:

what is the quality like? Make sure we have assessments that have been shown to be valid and reliable, that are easy to administer. You know, that's why I love that we use a cadence, like my whole state uses a cadence. I like hope that doesn't change, because there's so much research behind it. I love it. So step one, if you're a district leader, is to make sure you have a high quality, a good screener, and you don't need like sometimes people are testing to death because they have several different assessments that are measuring the same thing. So you might need to pare those down. Number two, do the teachers understand the purpose of the assessment and what the different components are showing, you know, I just heard not long ago, people talking about, well, they're fine, like they did fine on words, correct per minute, but the nonsense words was terrible, but, but they're like, but they were reading fluently. So, yeah, it's like those that is a red flag, and those kids can just slip through the cracks. You've got to watch those kids, because there is a good chance that they have memorized a lot of words and are guessing from context. You got to solidify those phonic skills, right? So just like the little things, it took me a while to understand the components of a cadence, and even now, sometimes I'm learning like, Oh, how did they come up with that composite score? And I'm, you know, there's like more things, but So step one, get a quality a Cain dance or not. Get a quality screener. Number two, make sure everyone knows the purpose and what it means. And number three, make sure you teach them what to do next, right? Then, what do they do with the data?

Stacy Hurst:

Yes, and you know what, when our state Lindsay, we're in the same state, all of us are. We started, they started requiring dibbles, right? And I was at the forefront of that. As a literacy coach, I had to train the teachers. I got extensive training on that. It is very research backed, and our teachers would say, Oh, we just have to do this for the state. We just that was their rationale, not any fault of their own. That's what was communicated. In some cases, it's just something you have to do. And then they would get frustrated when that was their accountability in their mind. And then they were like, well, what do I do? Like, what do I do? I have half my class that's scoring in the red area. What do I do? You know? So, yeah, making sure they're supported in that exactly.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And that's and, yeah, and understanding that purpose. Because that was me, it was like, you know, if someone is sitting there saying nonsense word fluency test is a waste of time, they don't understand the purpose of it. So you've got to make sure they understand the purpose. There is a purpose. Okay, um, okay, so we're to me, and one of my pet peeves is adult egos. And we're all a little guilty of this, I'm sure, like, you know, but like, and specifically adult egos that get in the way of learning, either the learning of the person themselves, the learning of another teacher or the students. So somehow that adult ego is causing a barrier. And just kind of a funny example, I was in this happened a little while ago. I was in a social media group, and someone was asking, you know, about a question of blend words with blends Okay, or consonant clusters, whatever you call it, where there's two consonants right close together before or after the vowel. And she was asking if it was one sound. Sound, or two sounds, the blend. We know blends are two sounds, so you think of St, it is two separate sounds, but they do glide together so easily, which is it's hard to pull it apart, which is why students sometimes struggle when they're spelling with words, with blends or with the reading. Now, it's usually like four sounds, so that's going to be a little more difficult, but it's clearly two sounds. So this lady gets on the social media group is just like, it is only one sound, you know, and goes off on this little tangent of why it's only one sound. K, she's clearly wrong. And someone very politely replies to her and is like, it's actually two sounds. And, you know, does an explanation, and this lady comes back and puts her name and lists all her letters, you know, behind her name. And she's like, I am, you know, this, this, this, og certified this. And it is one sound, her ego is getting in the way of learning, right? It doesn't matter how many letters behind your name you have. It doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter than everybody else. And there was these other people in the group that were so nicely and gently trying to teach her that it is two sounds, and she refused. And so, you know, in that case, her own ego is getting in the way of her own learning. So I just think it illustrates it. But you know, you see it all the time.

Donell Pons:

What's so interesting is any definition of a blend would have given her the right information. It's just astounding that she was so off track. That's super interesting. You know, one of the things I think about teaching, and you guys tell me if what you guys think about this too, but I've thought about this often in teaching, oftentimes it's almost as if you're expected to know something about absolutely everything sometimes, and instead, in teaching, I often have to remind you don't know everything there is to know about everything. You do know a lot about very specific things. And because you're a good teacher, you're not averse to finding out those things that you may be asked or maybe you say, oh, wait a minute. That's a good question. I don't know, to me, that's the best modeling a teacher can do. That's the best teaching is to say, Wait a minute. Hmm, I'm not quite sure. Let's, let's look that up. Let's see. Why did we lose that? That's really interesting. Clearly she had lost that. Because if you had that, she would say, oh, please explain to me why you think it's two sounds. I've not heard that. I've heard it's one or I've been taught. And she could share where she got it from. Do you see how different that looks if you're saying you're modeling? Because to me, that's good. Teaching is modeling for your student. If I don't know, what do I do next? That's so interesting to me, and I can

Lindsay Kemeny:

see how it's hard, like, it's hard for all of us sometimes to be like, Wait, am I wrong, right? Or just, is there a better way to do it? But we have to, like, learn somehow to check ourselves and get, yeah, get over that, right? Yeah.

Stacy Hurst:

I'm having a little bit of I don't know, I don't even know what you would call it, but as I have the opportunity to help create a new class at our university, I'm being reminded of my own deficiencies in my pre service training, specifically related to things like syntax and writing, and I don't like that feeling, I don't but I'm not gonna fake that. I know you know what I mean. I'm gonna take that and like learn more and improve my knowledge and practice. And that we've said it many times on this podcast, is teachers were learners first and Donell, you make a good point. Let's be explicit about modeling that for our students? Yeah, that's a good one, too, Lindsay,

Lindsay Kemeny:

and it's okay not to know everything we can tell them. And, you know, sometimes will, someone will ask me something, and I'll say, that's not my area of expertise, you know, like, they'll ask something about, like, pre K, and I'm like, That's not, you know, I haven't done a ton of research into that, and I'll clarify that, and then say, This is what I, you know, this is what I'm thinking right now. But you need to know that that is not my area, you know, like, so I think it's kind of good to clarify. But I love, you know, I get questions a lot, and I love that, because it really makes me think about what I'm doing. And sometimes when I have to explain how I do something in the classroom to someone else, it like, really solidifies it for me. Like, recently, people were asking, you know, like, how you deal with your writing lessons, when some. Students are taking so much longer than others, and how do you kind of keep everyone together if you're collaboratively writing something together? And I so appreciated thinking about that, because really, when I thought about it, I'm like, there's really only two reasons why students would be slower than the others. One, they have an attention problem, okay, well, if it's a tension problem, it's easy. I just got to remind them. I sit them in the front. I'm checking if they're with me, and two, they forget how to form the letters. Okay, I could do that too. I can use my verbalizations that we do with handwriting to say how it's formed, and that cues them into how to form it, you know? So I'm just like, I really think those are the only two reasons right now. And so that just helps you now in my classroom, because I'm just thinking, like, if someone's getting behind, which reason is it? And what can I do anyway? So yeah, and anytime I've ever thought I knew everything about something, and like, went to a class and thought I knew about it. I always learned something, always something to learn. Okay, here's our next listener one. This person said this is their pet peeve, limiting an end. I will say this is fun, because I think I shared this like maybe our first season. This was my pet peeve that I shared, limiting students independent or personal reading choices based on grade level, slash ability level. I had a very advanced reader who loved reading Piggy and elephant books in first grade during centers. A lot of people, including her parent, discouraged me from allowing her to read them during choice time, because she was advanced. This was her choice time. I was challenging her in other ways. When else was she going to be able to read those books that she clearly loved? 100% I agree with this, like that is completely appropriate. They want to read the piggy and elephant books. Let them do it. And in that other season, I shared my own son, who I think he was in fifth grade, and he wanted to read these Diary of a Minecraft zombie books. There's these chapter books, and they're like a million of them, and they're really they're easy, and my son was really advanced. And so this is a different son than my one who has dyslexia, so, you know, he could read more like on a seventh grade level. Books on a seventh grade level were not appropriate for him to be reading. They had a little more, you know, content. And like, he wanted to read those books, his teacher did not want him to read those books. And she said, and she did this thing where she would track the number of pages, and you got Pons and all this stuff. She said she wouldn't, she wouldn't count any of the pages that he read from those books. And I was like, Well, I and I told him, you can. And this was home reading, okay, this is what he was reading at home. And I like, there's no way I was going to tell my son he can't read those. I was like, you go ahead and read those. That was his interest level. I'm getting

Stacy Hurst:

some insight because I've also shared on this podcast at the beginning of every semester, I asked the five books that have impacted your life the most essay for my students, and more and more, I am getting students who only share children's books because that's the last time they read a book, or they have fond memories, that kind of practice will kill the joy of reading. So you're limiting the books that can impact your life if you're being limited in whatever you choose. And inversely, I've had students. I had a first grader. I still can picture his durable little red head during our independent read aloud time. It was read aloud in first grade. He was re he was working through Harry Potter. He was in one of my lower reading groups. But that kid had stamina. I'm not going to take that book out of his hand. He was actually reading. He was actually working through it. He wasn't just faking it because he wanted to look cool. And why would I say you can't do that, right?

Donell Pons:

Oh, it reminds me of a book called the rights of the reader. Daniel penac or pennak. He's French, and it's a fantastic little book. It's not very big the rights of the reader, but he puts together a list of the rights of the reader, and one of them is your choice. You get to have your choice when you're reading, and it's a delightful book, but it is about giving choice back to the reader, and that maintains that joy of reading. You need to be able to choose what you want to read. And I was just the other day cleaning out my shelves because I've gotten to that stage in life when I don't need all this stuff that I've got in the shelves and pulling and boy, it's a wide variety of books, but I loved that as I'm pulling him off the shelf, thinking to myself that I had four kids with very different ideas about what they wanted to read. I didn't say to them, Oh, I really enjoyed this one, so you've got to enjoy it, or your brother really liked this one, so you're going to read it. Yeah, it's what do they want to read? Yeah, what do you want to read?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, let's go around one more time and just share one more. And then my last one is very short, so one more, and then we'll be done at a time,

Stacy Hurst:

okay? And I'll be short on this one too, but it has to do with research to practice. We said it when we had Dr Jake downs on here, I feel like that door should swing both ways. But the frustrating thing so here's where my Peeve comes in. It's hard for schools to actually participate in the type of research that we need to show what is impactful for students, because they have to be randomly controlled, right? So I there's got to be a way. There's a Peeve like, let's fix that sooner than later so we can get the research. We need to help anybody learn how to read. And I don't even know who to like. There's, it's just systemic, right? We need to see what we can do about that.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Need more implementation science, right?

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah, all kinds, yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

okay, good, yep. There's still more. There's a lot we need our researchers, and there's a lot of work to do there. Okay, Donell Do you have a final one. It just

Donell Pons:

leans into all of these, and I think we've mentioned it before, is dykstras bullseye, that one keeps coming to me. He it's been a while ago. And Lindsay, you even tried to pinpoint the timeframes to where you might maybe we first all heard it first. But why are we still so averse to that uncomfortable space, right? And Stacy, you brought up, well, let's just kind of look at, how can we get into schools and make this happen maybe a little better. And why is it so difficult? But that seems to just be really tough space, and I hate to see sort of a divisiveness, and that's maybe I'm hitting on it, maybe, perhaps, but we take these stands on things, and I hate to see that in this space, because that that we can't have, that we've got to still be we can talk about these things. We can work our way through it. And like Dykstra said, This is what we know. This is maybe what we don't know. But we're trying to, we're trying to stay close, and I'd like to see us stay flexible, malleable learners within this space, because that'll be our saving grace, is the fact that we as teachers were learners first.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, yeah. Any, any comments on that Stacy before I move on? No.

Stacy Hurst:

Just Ditto. Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay. My last one is the term like, it really is my pet peeve. When people use the term like, brain friendly, or these are, like, brain based strategies, or this program is brain based, or, you know, versus what, like, what other people's aren't like, Isn't everything to do with learning brain based or brain friendly. Like, what is that? Why are we using that?

Stacy Hurst:

Okay, that's really funny. I have never thought of that, but you're right. Like, we don't have, this is elbow based. This is that

Lindsay Kemeny:

one's brain based, that program. Or I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to that, you know. PD, because they're talking about brain friendly strategies.

Donell Pons:

Or Lindsay, even the tag that says brain moment, you know. And then they're doing it well, were you seeing your brain the whole time? Yes, I'm with you.

Stacy Hurst:

Should we just start, every time we see that on social media, start saying, I'm looking for a good kidney based program. Have you guys seen one of

Lindsay Kemeny:

those, something that's not brain based?

Unknown:

Okay, that's funny.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And then the last listener, one is about reading logs, and this is what the person said. They said, My child loved to read until his fifth grade teacher made him write about what he read every night he never loved reading after that year. And then, like another, like this, person had said reading logs, and then several people had chimed in underneath another person chimed in. This is my pet peeve as a mom. It made reading a torturous chore for my dyslexic kids. Reading was hard enough, tracking number pages and writing a daily summary was torture.

Unknown:

So

Lindsay Kemeny:

yeah, I can agree. I had a son who, you know, every one year, every year, as soon as they finished, not every year, every time they finished a book, they had to write a book report. Well, guess who doesn't want to read a book? Yeah, no. So there's

Stacy Hurst:

got to be a better way, right? Like, think about we are proficient readers. Think about all that we read in a year. I certainly I have had good intentions some years, like, I'm gonna write down every book I read. I don't do it for longer than three books, maybe. But there are other ways to show what you've read, right that aren't so arduous. Like, what have you learned? Learned, or how would you communicate? You know, what did you enjoy the best out of the things you read this year? Those kind of questions, I think would be better.

Donell Pons:

And, you know, I always had a pet peeve with this too, because you can say whatever you want on there the teacher, they know that, right? So sometimes kids were just filling them out, and the kids were, who were, it was interesting to me, were more proficient as readers would oftentimes just do that because they could where the poor dyslexic kid, as you're saying, isn't gonna be able to make that up. It's gonna be hard enough as it is. And so I had a chat with, a conversation with one of the teachers, and we came up with a plan, and it can't it, I don't know, maybe we can think of something, but they work for us. That the teacher was like, well, then, as a parent, you're the one who's driving this certainly in the first, second and third grade. How about a comment from you each night to make sure that it's happening? I'd love that. So if you say, Oh yeah, we did the 30 minutes, and this is the you can do that, teacher said, that's great, because you're really the verifier of, is it really happening? And if I know that you've written on there, then I know what's happening. The other thing is, she says, What does your son do when you're reading? Well, he doodles, attach the doodle pages. That's fine. I said, this is what he did for 30 minutes while we read data. So, I mean, it's things like that, yeah, we get the idea,

Lindsay Kemeny:

yeah. Like, I'm like, well, technically, I guess I sort of have a reading log, not like what they're describing here. But I sent home two to three decodable books on Monday. They return them on Friday, and I just have a little tracker for the parent that lists the titles. The parent just has to put their initials by the title so that I know they've read that book and I can give them a new book. So can I say something else? Yeah, it's just an initial, and the kid doesn't have to do anything except read the book, right?

Stacy Hurst:

But Lindsay, here's what I want to say, you also ensure in your classroom that every student is reading 20 to 30 minutes a day. Your students get that 20 to 30 minutes in class. Yeah. And I think a big thing, in fact, when that initiative started in our state, it was from a governor's wife, and she knew the research, so she was like kids who read 20 minutes a day, you know? And I think that was the way the system shifted that responsibility to parents, and so those logs became critical, right? I think as a teacher, my challenge would be to you, and I did. I did that. I did that. In my classroom, my students read at least 20 minutes a day, out loud, individually, every student, I could guarantee it, but ensure that work that in as a teacher that's going to give you bigger gains than most things.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, and just to clarify for those who are listening that Stacy when she was saying that she doesn't mean that I'm having kids just read for 20 to 30 minutes, right? Yeah, but we're saying, like, okay, as part of our phonics lesson. And we are, you know, maybe choral coral reading, you know, the Decodable maybe that was like 10 minutes in close reading. In our close reading lesson, we have a text that they might be partner reading, and that was 10 minutes. And then in our small group, you know, they are, they are reading and and you know, for at least 10 minutes where they're actually reading out loud the words, and I'm giving them feedback. So then that's 30 minutes. So there's so much practice in the classroom that, you know, if I have a child whose parents or caregivers can't read with them at home, it's not like I'm so dependent on that for their practice, because we've had a lot of instruction practice in the classroom right exactly home is is extra.

Stacy Hurst:

So, yeah, we have technology too, and maybe I'm giving somebody a multi million dollar idea, but what if parents just recorded their students doing that reading at home, and the program did all the data, right? They read this many pages, this many words, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I do teachers need to

Lindsay Kemeny:

know that level of detail.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I know that's my point. If it's just like, Oh well, that's my point, then just send the information to the teacher or whatever. But if that is their need, if they're trying to ensure that students get 20 minutes a day, the best thing to do would be to work it into your daily schedule. And I know I'm saying that, knowing teachers have a full schedule. But I think what Lindsay said, and in my experience, it's well worth finding that time, you'll get the payback, for sure,

Lindsay Kemeny:

always thinking about like I'm always thinking in the course of the day, how many minutes of practice are my getting, my students getting? So, yeah, go back to that. Make sure we're providing practice. All right, we did it, you guys. I that was really fun. Thanks to the listeners who chimed in. I'm sorry I don't have, didn't have time to share all of your great ones, but it was fun to have them contribute this time, right? We'll have to do that again.

Stacy Hurst:

I do love that this has become something we do every season. So. So we can save those listener comments. As you have pet peeves throughout the year, feel free to send them to us, and we'll bank them and we'll put them in our episode for next season. Thank you all for listening, and we hope you join us on the next episode of literacy talks.

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. Oh, I.