Literacy Talks

Reflections from the Reading League Conference 2025

• Reading Horizons • Season 8 • Episode 12

Share episode

Fresh from the Reading League Conference in Chicago, the Literacy Talks trio—Stacy Hurst, Donell Pons, and Lindsay Kemeny—share highlights, favorite sessions, and key insights that left a lasting impression. From impactful keynotes to deep dives into phonological awareness, explicit instruction, AI in education, and writing practices, this episode is packed with thoughtful takeaways. Join the conversation as they reflect on what inspired them, what challenged their thinking, and what they’re bringing back to their own work in literacy.


Do you teach Structured Literacy in a K–3 setting?
Sign up for a free license of Reading Horizons Discovery® LIVE and start teaching right away—no setup, no hassle. Sign-up Now.

Coming Soon: Reading Horizons Ascend™
From Pre-K readiness to advanced fluency, Ascend™ offers a consistent, needs-based reading experience across every grade, tier, and model—so every student can build mastery, one skill at a time. Learn More.

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. I'm Stacy Hurst. I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, and we are excited for this particular episode because we're coming off of the energy of the reading league conference held in Chicago, Illinois, we just got back days ago, literally one two days ago. And so we always look forward to these recaps. It helps us synthesize what we learned, and Lindsay is going to lead our conversation today.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Okay, I absolutely loved this conference, you guys. I had the best time. I just felt like rejuvenated and refreshed and just it's amazing to be in this place with all these other educators who are just as passionate as you know we are about literacy instruction, and I mean, throughout the conference, I just felt so energized. There were a lot of people there. There was 2400 attendees. We were in Chicago at the Hilton downtown, which had just beautiful meeting spaces. I mean, I'm particularly thinking of that Grand Ballroom with these gorgeous chandeliers and just, you know, this just beautiful ambience, the lobbies, all the central areas. Let's dive into sessions. And let's start with, let's go like, day one, day two, day three. And that is something a little different this year than previous years is that they had an extra half a day. So whereas before it was just a two day conference, today, it was like, I mean, this year, it was like two and a half and we had two different breakout sessions on the first day. I think it was Wednesday. But even before the conference officially started, Stacy, there was the higher ed Summit. So do you want to, you know, start us off by sharing a little bit about that?

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, it was a combined effort between the reading League and stars in higher ed. And we have had summits before, but the feedback that we received on this one is it was the best one yet. And like you mentioned, Lindsay, it was half day, but the structure was that we had Dr Reed Lyon come and talk to us, and the theme of the summit was learning from the past and looking towards the future. And he gave us really excellent insights about his career, what he would have done differently, and then also the hope that he has for future. In fact, his presentation was titled hope, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention thank you to Reading Horizons, because they were a sponsor that allowed Dr Lyons to come. So that was really great. And Lindsay, you were part of that summit as well. And the panel that we had after Dr Lyons keynote included somebody from every, almost every walk of the educational world. We yeah, we had Dr Lyons and his wife, Diane, who is an advocate and a parent of somebody with dyslexia. And then we also had Dr Anita Archer, and I just can't help but smile when I say her name. She is always so direct and just has so much wisdom. She was a great member of the panel. And then we also had Dr Elsa Cardenas Hagan, Dr Mitchell Brookins was the moderator for the panel. He did such a good job. And then we had Margaret Goldberg and Jamie Allardyce had I don't I feel like I practiced his name, and I probably say it differently every time, but I wish every principal could hear him. And then none other but our own. Lindsay Kemeny was on the panel as well, and then that. And then we just, I'll give the out, I'll continue giving the outline Lindsay, and then I'd like to hear your takeaways too. But then after that, we had two rounds of what we called book talks for professors in higher ed who are always looking for for textbooks and resources to use in their course. Is we had many authors there with their books. I say many. We had 10, I think, and we had the opportunity to interface with them and hear from professors that use their books and how giving ideas about how to do that. So what we had, I think, almost 100 attendees to that Lindsay,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I thought Reid lion did a great job. I had not heard him speak before, and so that was interesting. And then I loved being on the panel. I thought Mitchell Brookins did an excellent job of moderating it for us. And I liked bringing in the teacher perspective. And you know, one of the things they were asking was a lot of the questions, of course, were geared towards, you know, how can we help pre service teachers? What do they need to know when they go in their first year? And one of the points that I had made was that, you know, in our in our universities, our teacher prep programs, hopefully we are sharing these evidence based practices. But I think it's also important for these brand new teachers to understand what practices are not aligned with research and why. Because inevitably, when they go into schools, they're going to come across some ineffective practices, and you know, they might be paired with a mentor teacher who is doing something that's not aligned with research. And so, you know, it's going to take courage, of course, to like, kindly say something, but it's also takes the knowledge that they don't know the mistake, you know, that we're moving away from. Then they they might not realize it's a mistake. So I thought that was something important for them, and I loved it was an honor being part of the book talks, and it was really fun to talk to, you know, the different people that came up to my table about how they could use seven mighty moves in their pre service courses. And there were a few different professors, actually, that came that were using and could share with the others, you know, what they were doing. And then I also talked about rock your literacy blog, how you could pair that with it to get a more like, how does this look? What does a day look like? So it was fun. And there were a lot of other authors there with fantastic books. And it was just really casual, you know, just chatting with people as they came up. But I thought, I thought it was a great I thought you guys planned a good event, Stacy, like, there was a variety of things. It was kind of different. It was great. So let, let's move into sessions, because after the higher ed Summit, then, you know, we grabbed lunch, and then it was time for the conference. So that first day, Donell, Donell, let's start with you. What stood out to you that first day? Any sessions, any takeaways, or kind of a little summary of the sessions you went to.

Donell Pons:

So I thought it was nice because we started at midday. Sometimes you'll have to get there that night before and then quickly try to register if they have an evening registration, so you don't have to jump in line the next morning. So this midday was an interesting way to do things, and I think it really worked well. So as Lindsay said, you had an opportunity. You're able to get your lunch and then you start. So it's around 130 that you start that first session. You don't feel that crush and that trying immediacy, to try to get your registration done and then race down to that first session. But we didn't start with a keynote. Instead, we went into sessions. And so that was that was also different, and I thought it was, I was a nice way to begin as well. So we weren't all crowded together in the beginning, we went off to sessions, and then they also had on that program that Lindsay was talking about, a little asterisk that said whether this session was going to be a presentation that would appeal to attendees with a more advanced knowledge. And I thought that was interesting, that they had that indicator. And that was the session I attended, one of those to begin with, and that was Shane piasta and Beth Phillips, and it was project Opal. So it's some research that's going on about practices around phonological awareness. They didn't have the data yet, so it's going to be very exciting when it's out. They gave us an overview of the research that's going on, the projected times for when they're going to have the information. But then they also gave some really good information about things we know already, and the research what it really does say and the research doesn't say. And in other words, there's a whole lot of practice that's occurring without a lot of research either way. So that was a really interesting thing. And Lindsay, you were in there without that one with me.

Lindsay Kemeny:

So yeah, can I jump in before you go to your next one? Because like that, I was so excited for that session. Donell, if you remember when you went to triple SR this summer and you came back during that podcast episode, I was asking about this research study by Hudson and others about phonological awareness and phonological sensitivity, where they found in pre. School that the students were being trained in both phonological sensitivity and phonemic awareness did better than the ones who who only had one or the other. And so if you remember, I was asking Jake downs a little bit about that. So for our listeners, if you want to go back and listen, that study still has not come out yet. I think it's still in review, but Shane piasta is the one who had shared that on LinkedIn, and so I so I was so excited to come to her session, because I really wanted to hear more about this. You know, does this phonological sensitivity carry more into kindergarteners this? You know, are those results strictly for pre K, and there's a cap, we have so many questions. So her session was fascinating and frustrating all at the same time, because, like Donell said, they introduced this project Opal, and in it, they're doing a study where they are looking at students who are beginning with phonological sensitivity and then moving to phonemic awareness. That's one of the groups. Another group is going to be phonological sensitivity only, another group is going to be the delayed phonemic awareness. And then a fourth group is business as usual. They are studying, gosh, I think it's, is it kindergarten in first grade, and it's going to be a three year study. So they are only in the beginning. So I was like, That's what I mean, I'm so excited about this, but so frustrated because we really have to wait three years before we get the results. But Donell, I thought it was fascinating when, I mean, it was Shane piasta and Beth Phillips, and they it went, they went really fast, but they were talking about what we know about the science of teaching phonological awareness. And surprisingly, like, there is not a lot of research for teaching phonological awareness. And they were saying there's a lot on, you know, the importance of it, but not teaching it. And one of the big takeaways that they shared was there are a lot of inconsistencies and so many unanswered questions about it. So I thought that was, I thought that was interesting. Okay, Donell Go ahead, go to your next your next one you wanted to share?

Donell Pons:

Well, the next one was Mitchell Brookins, unlocking student potential, the writing, reading feedback cycle, and that was really good, too. Did an excellent job, walked us through writing, yeah, and the reasons why explicit instruction in writing isn't exactly what's happening for a lot of students, and then the importance of modeling as well. So we went into the teaching aspects of

Lindsay Kemeny:

it. Yeah, I think Mitchell Brookins is just a gifted speaker, and he's so he has such deep knowledge. So I loved it. One of the things he said, I went to that session too. He said, How do you help children show their brilliance on paper. And I really loved that, and and I loved Donell, how he was using the story of black beauty that was like the text they're reading, and he was showing how he would have them write in response to that. And just He did such a good job showing how he's trying to pull out more information from the students after reading that text. And so he'd keep asking, Why? Why? Why? To really kind of probe them to see what information they know and and just to activate their knowledge so they could write.

Donell Pons:

So yeah, he went after a couple of things. I thought was interesting. I turned to Lindsay, and I said, this is interrogating the thesis is and he's using it with his young students, obviously on a level that's useful and helpful to them, but he's asking them to go after their own thesis, asking those questions. So why would that be the case? So what do you think about that? And then the students have an opportunity to respond. And either, by the way, they're able to answer, they're able to tell themselves, hmm, I don't think that was really what I was trying to say. Or that's right, I didn't say a whole lot with that. So that's that interrogation part that I thought was really interesting. But he had a nice way of handling that with students. And then the other was to look at vocabulary and see he was really questioning. The student may have a denotation or dictionary understanding of the word, but it's really the connotation, the many layers of meaning that are really important, particularly in a text like black beauty, that you can get to those layers of meaning. And that was interesting, as he took them through the vocabulary too. Yeah, that's really good.

Lindsay Kemeny:

And one of the ways he helped them improve their thesis statement was doing sentence combining. So he did a sentence combining activity to help, you know, really strengthen their thesis and come up with something that was really strong. And I just thought that is like exactly the way to build in sentence level activities. We don't only do sentence level but we integrate it within the. Whole, you know, the essay or the paragraph or whatever. And that was one way he did that. And I thought it was fantastic, Stacy. What about you? What sessions did you go to? Day one,

Stacy Hurst:

I went to Julie Washington, and her session was titled The structure of a reading revolution. It was one of those sessions that had an asterisk next to it, and she compared the phases of scientific revolution, as authored by Thomas Kuhn, to where we are with the science of reading. I thought she made a lot of interesting parallels, and something that I haven't stopped thinking about yet, but I haven't taken time to dive in. I have a background in sociology, so I want to compare that theory to social change theory and see how how they match up. But she did a really compelling job of saying, This is how change happens within the scientific community and gets implemented. She also talked a little bit about AI, and she made a very solid point about large language models. And she said the problem with the language that's going into those models is that it is created by a certain demographic, a specific demographic, I should say, and it is not doesn't reflect dialectical differences and so forth. And I think that even that just little piece of information that might have even come up in a question and answer period, but I thought it was a good point and something for me to think about as I work with students who have who well, we all speak a dialog, but to be aware of that when we're using technology, I think that's important. So she was great as always, okay?

Lindsay Kemeny:

And let's go to day two. Day two is when we had our opening keynote, and it was Hildebrand Peltzer, the third who spoke, and he gave a really powerful keynote, sharing a lot of stories about this connection between illiteracy and the prison system, and he asked us three questions that I just want to share with our listeners, just for you to think about number one, what does reading frustration look like at your school? Number two, what is your school doing about it? And number three, how are you contributing to the school to prison pipeline. What are you doing or not doing? So I just think those are some powerful questions that we can consider. What stood out on day two for you guys.

Donell Pons:

So that keynote was really powerful, and I do always think it's interesting we talk about the impact of reading difficulties on a person's life, and we can pull out statistics, and we might reach for really dramatic circumstances, and for a moment you see people even having conversation after, you might even see people leaning over and going, Oh my goodness. And to me, where does that go after? I really wanted to say, let's even ask folks. A week from now, will you be thinking about this a week from now? What does this feel like? So if you're shocked right now, and these statistics feel really bad to you and you don't think they should continue, what's it going to look like a week from now? Right? Because we're not going to get change unless we all decide we're really done and we're not going to let up until it changes. And so it was a powerful but I also wanted to follow it up and say, Let's keep it going. Let's keep the power going. So that was a thought I was having when he spoke, and then those individuals that got up and spoke after him, so there were continued to be various individuals who got up to speak after him, to contribute to the conversation. Again, additionally. So it wasn't that they just left with that. So it was, I mean, if they spent a lot of time with it, they gave us a lot of information. Again, I wanted to ask, what's it going to look like a week from now? Will we remember this? We remember how outraged we felt or the shock that we had? I was hoping. Anyway, next session for me I moved into was malt Yoshi, Emily Binks, Cantrell, Ramona, Pittman and Taylor Seymour. And it really was just malt Yoshi, and he was talking about spelling. And Stacy, you were in that one with me, and that was hard to get into, wasn't it? I mean, it was pretty crowded, and a lot of folks were in attendance, and it was, spelling is the foundation of reading and the greatest ornament of writing. And he was just talking about the best ways to instruct on spelling and the fact that we don't again, some themes that kept coming up, I kept hearing, in terms of what we know about teaching and good teaching practice was being very explicit in our instruction. Then also modeling, and the fact that modeling is kind of seemed to drop away. And everybody said that, no idea why, because it's a fantastic teaching tool. Modeling, we know it has great results. So he also brought that up as well. I thought that was interesting.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I thought that was a great session. And really, oh, I don't know if we call it a heritage session. He's done so much to contribute to the work, as well as his co authors on that. And I was happy to see that it was so crowded, because it really is. You could a lot of the research that he cited and went into detail about has been around for a while, and you can see how that's influenced what we're doing today. I thought it was a really good, good session, too. Hey, friends, if you've ever wished for something that just makes sense when it comes to teaching reading, this is it. You can get free access to Reading Horizons Discovery for the entire school year. It's structured literacy that actually supports how learners develop reading skills and how teachers want to teach. No student setup, no extra stress, just solid evidence based tools you can use tomorrow. Go to reading horizons.com/free, and check it out. I think you're really gonna love it.

Donell Pons:

So Stacy, you and I got an opportunity to attend another one that was AI. This is an individual who's working on some AI. So he's not, you know, necessarily, from the education world. However, he is doing work with folks in the education world, and he did teach for some years in the classroom, but reading really wasn't his forte, or not what he, you know, had dedicated himself to doing, but really it was in AI, and his background in AI, and his desire to help facilitate, maybe some of the learning around reading and reading instruction and AI. So that was an interesting conversation. A lot of these things are in the works. We'll see how they turn out. He is doing some work with you fly and providing some back end supports, but it was really talking about the potential understanding exactly what is AI and the potential of AI. He really had some interesting comments that he made about the hope that we don't lose the human element from teaching no matter how supportive AI can be, and the pieces that AI might be able to help equalize for folks in terms of reading instruction, the human element, he kept emphasizing that how important it is in reading.

Stacy Hurst:

And I thought that was fascinating, also because of the order of sessions that I attended. So I went to David share right before that, and he was talking about the combinatorial model. But he was talking a lot there. There's so much to it. I loved it. I want to take a deeper dive too, but that he spent some time talking about the difference between decoding and unitization, which needs to happen for proficient reading to take place. And he he made a great case to say, we you need to start on this smaller level. You need to start with the phonemes. You need to take it apart. You need to and that leads to unitization. And he was talking about that. I learned a new word in that session, which I'm surprised. I haven't heard it before, but it's lexeme. We have phoneme, we have grapheme now, lexeme anyway, that's just an aside, but he was saying that we need to start language starts with that. Then I went to VIV session as well, and he said, he stated, the problem with AI right now is that they're large language models. They start with whole units, and so it's not built in a way that speech progresses developmentally. And I thought it was so insightful that he called that out, and it would only take somebody with a reading background or influence or resources to be able to say that. And he said it makes developing these things effectively harder. So I thought that was interesting. I think we're going to see great things from him in the future.

Donell Pons:

Yes, I was really appreciative of his sensitivity. The obviously he had done his research and background, and he was laying a foundation of understanding, and it was very sensitive approach. I really appreciated it too.

Lindsay Kemeny:

I went to some great sessions day two too. First I spoke. So I got to speak and do a session on rock your literacy block. So I talked about some effective practices that we can use during, you know, of course, anytime, but especially focused on the literacy block, and then I also kind of talked about scheduling and walked through my day. And it was great. I was speaking in this beautiful ballroom, and it was so surreal just to look out and see those gorgeous chandeliers I mentioned at the beginning. And so fun having people come up to talk to me before. And after, like, I love talking to other teachers, educators, coaches. You know, they're they all have different roles, but I just, I love chatting with them. So I had such a great time. And then I went to so I told you I was really looking forward to Shane piastres her session. The other one I was really excited for was Adrian, Adria truck and Miller's and so I went to hers about writing. Specifically. This session focused on sentences. If you don't know who she is, she is just a fantastic researcher. And so she's been on my radar for a while. So in fact, I had to make sure, like, when I got assigned, when I was speaking, I just, I was like, I have to make sure I'm not speaking at the same time as Adria, or I'm gonna, like, beg them to move me, because I need to go to her session. So she is just such a brilliant person. She was fantastic. She talked a lot about the research behind, you know, sentence instruction. Some big takeaways that she mentioned were integrating writing instruction across levels of language. In other words, you don't do sentence only you are integrating that you can work on sentences within the text level. And she was sharing, you know, research and things that support that also not to forget that this starts oral. So even in kindergarten, you can be working on sentences within, you know, a paragraph in the fact that you are speaking these right, and you can teach them how to speak these sentences, of course, you know before they can write them. She another takeaway. She talked about revising sentences in their writing right? We don't need all this isolated sentence work. We can do this. We can embed this in our writing instruction, expanding oral sentences, she said. And she said, do less, diagramming sentences and parts of speech and isolated sentence work. So those were like her three, do less, do less, diagramming sentences, do less parts of speech, do less, isolated sentence work. And one of the things she explained was that teaching the parts of speech there there are no essa level, one or two studies conducted on its effectiveness. And so she was really talking about how we need to think about the use, the use before the label, right? And it kind of reminds me of Big Sky when we're talking about syntax and how, like, the important thing is, is the use and how those phrases relate to one another, right? That's the critical part. So I love she shared some things that I still like. Want to go back and think about a little more. And then I also went, went to young Sook, Kim, who is another brilliant researcher. And I was expecting, I've heard her speak before, so I was expecting her to be, as Curtis would say, very researchy. I think Curtis donell's husband is the first one was like, yeah, it's kind of researchy, you know. And use that. I was expecting her to be really researchy, and she was, but she was a fabulous presenter. Like, I couldn't believe, like, I started taking notes for just how she was presenting, because I wanted to remember that and even, and like, do that the next time. So I was thinking, okay, like I was making all these notes, because I'm going to be presenting at plain talk, and I was making notes like, Okay, do this, do this, do this. And then even this week I have a webinar. And after I watched young soo Kim, I was like, Okay, I liked this. Put do this, do this, do this. But she had a lot of good like, turn and talks. She had an outline she followed. I just thought she did an excellent job, but she was talking about how reading and writing are built on these shared skills. And so, of course, she shared her interactive, dynamic literacy model, which you guys may have seen. It's a fantastic model of reading and writing, and even though I heard her speak about it before, it was very helpful this time as she slowly went through it. And something that really stood out to me is that so she has, like this base, like this house analogy, right, of reading and writing and the base, the very foundation, is executive functioning, and part of that is working memory. And one of the things I just thought was really interesting, and just maybe hit me in a new way, is that when our students have different struggles, it usually all comes down to that working memory. And so she was saying, you know, people were asking. So, you know, is this why a lot of students with dyslexia also have dysgraphia or dyscalculia? And she was saying yes, because a lot of those come back down to the working memory. And it just to me, was this really nice visual to see, like how everything is built on that foundation. But she was fantastic. She talked about ideas for writing for reading. She talked about ideas for reading for writing. And then she also mentioned that you also need specific writing instruction, and reading, specific reading instruction, right? And so I, I I liked, you know, a lot of times we're always saying, oh, writing and reading should be connected. And so she clearly showed that, but also said, hey, you need reading specific activities to like your decodable text and your fluency, right? And and same with writing, you need specific writing instruction where you are explaining the writing process and idea generation and revision, and so I just thought it was excellent.

Stacy Hurst:

She is brilliant. That's a word I would use to describe her over and over. Donell, I remember a conversation you and I had this summer all about that model. It's one of my favorite models, if not my most favorite of reading and how it develops. And I have certainly appreciated the iterations over time. She is an amazing individual. Lindsay, I'm curious, what kind of things did you notice in what she did to present specifically, like turn and talk. What else?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, those turn and talk. She was very clear in and you know what you see? You see presenters do this where they kind of share their little outline at the beginning, but she was really good at this clear outline and then going going back to it. So I that was very helpful, because I knew where we were in the presentation, and she just had really good questions and places where she stopped to have us discuss and then come back together. Let's see if I put any other notes. I think even at the end, she told us name one thing you want to do next week. Informed by our time together today, she asked things like, What are potential challenges and solutions for implementing this? And so it was just really well done with those, those little, those little tweaks, you know. Okay, so let's go to day three, our final day. Any standout sessions for you guys?

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I came in late. I had another one that I had popped into, but I came into Amanda van der Hayden. She was doing, following the Science of Instruction, and that was really good. She's also an associate of Matt burns, and I'm hoping I'm getting that correct, because she was also math. And I thought it listed math in there, but, yeah, I think that's right. And she was talking about just the Science of Instruction period, whether you're teaching reading or teaching math, and she has some really underpinning guidance there. And we talked about it before you've mentioned it. You've mentioned it in the last presentation you had the explicit instruction. So that's a resonating theme. We know that from structured literacy as well. So that's the principle of explicit instruction, and then enough modeling students seeing you do it right, and that's the Gradual Release of Responsibility. It's in that as well. So just talking about these principles that we know are really good, and then wanting to see them more often used across the board, whether we're teaching reading, we're teaching math, and then also the idea of students who have working memory. Difficulties with working memory, there is no better way to provide instruction than to have it be very explicit, to have it modeled, to have an opportunity to see someone else do it. So just again reiterating that fact that if we know these things about the students that are in our classrooms, then it makes even more sense to organize our teaching around this. So she was really interesting. She talked about sequencing of skills being very important. Of course, we know that in talking about it's cumulative, it's systematic within reading, but she also applied that to math. So again, we're seeing some some ways in which the two things speak to each other. She was also talking about dosing and making sure that the students are getting enough time with the instruction. And that was something else that Matt burns also went into, is making sure that the instructional time is appropriate, so that students get enough time with the instructor and you're giving the new instruction before you move students on to doing the activities. And he has seen a disconnect. And she was also speaking to that too, between those two things, and oftentimes we're moving them before they're ready, they haven't indicated that they're anywhere near having mastered to a level they can take that on their own. She also mentioned something very interesting, particularly about math, that. I've heard many students complain about and that is, she said, there is a thing that we see happening where we give instruction and then that first problem is quite different from the instruction we've given. And people like to call that, she said, and I'm going to use it, and it's not a good word in teaching productive struggle. And she said, That's not, not a very good teaching principle, but you'll hear people use it a lot. She said the only thing about struggle is struggle, it's not productive. That's really interesting. So she was pretty clear on that. And then Matt burns came in and just wrapped it up. But within the audience was Anita Archer. So Anita Archer was sitting there. And of course, as Amanda is giving her presentation, she's too far to the front to see that it's Anita Archer. And Anita had has had her arm up wanting to ask a question, and as Amanda finally gets to Anita, who's had her arm up and down and up and down several times, as she gets closer, she's it's Anita, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, unknown. Oh, answer the mic. And then says, oh my goodness, I apologize. My apologies. Of course, Anita is unflustered. She just goes ahead and says what she's going to say. But again, Anita being the queen of explicit instruction, right? Who better to speak to that and just giving her Yes, yes, yes, definitely, explicit instruction. And that the also giving her two cents worth about the productive struggle business. Yep, don't know what that's about. We're just struggling. So it was really interesting. And then she hung out for Matt burns as well when he came in and followed up again with what Amanda was talking about. It was very good. It was a really good

Lindsay Kemeny:

morning. It's interesting. The term like, so I've seen on X everyone, like, all you know, talking about math, pretty much about this productive struggle. And I use like, they're all, you know, everyone's very passionate about that. I actually use that term in, I think, a different way, because I think that then they are in math, yeah, they're just struggling. It's nothing predictive productive about it. If they're actually struggling, I use the term in reading productive struggle in the fact that I want them to decode the words, and I'm like, I'm right there helping them, like, so if they come to a word that's irregular, I don't just tell them the whole word. I tell them the part they need, and then I have them say the sounds to blend right, like in the word house, if they haven't learned oh you yet, I tell them, oh you is Ow. And then to me, the productive struggle is them going Ouse and having to blend it house. Do you know what I mean? And so it's just interesting. I've used that a lot. I'm like, That's the productive struggle I want, right? And it's just kind of like the terms are being used differently.

Donell Pons:

And I wonder if we're to stage Lindsay to make it clear that that's productive practice, because your students are right because you're right there, you're right there, making sure they're able to do the thing. So maybe we start being intentional about saying, Hey, we used to call this productive struggle, but maybe we need

Lindsay Kemeny:

to distinguish I like that. I like that that

Donell Pons:

makes productive practice, and

Stacy Hurst:

I think it's related, actually, to engagement, because we have, I feel like in our society today, our students don't engage cognitively in the same way they used to, because we're used to quick, you know, shiny things on technology or whatever, and you really do need to exert cognitive effort to be able to learn something and get it in long term memory. Everybody has to do that doesn't just slip into long term memory. And so I see that term productive struggle and productive practice. They're both the means to an end, but we need to make sure they're productive, right, that we are using those the science of implementation and instruction in a way that does get the information into their long term memory, and maybe we're talking about that term in ways we haven't in the past. I just think it's interesting.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, I went to Ryan Lee James. She is fantastic speech language pathologist, and she had a lot of slides. And so she joked about that she was talking very fast and going through the slides really quickly. There was a lot of great information in there, though. And one of the things I enjoyed when she was talking about a assessing or surveying language surveys, like assessing language so specifically oral language, and she had a list of things to look for like things like use of non specific words, like if they use the word stuff or thing a lot, an excessive use of filler words, circumlocations. Cains, I think it was where she's like, where they're talking round and round and not getting to, you know, disorganized sentences, heirs and pronouns usage. She had several other things, and I just wanted to share that. She said there is a free survey on Cox campus. It's called survey. Saying language, so I made a note to check that out. And then I also went to Matt Burns's session, and his session was packed. I think Donell and Stacy, you were both in there. And I just have to say, like, I just love Dr Matt burns, and I had seen him earlier in the week, and got to chat with him for a little bit, and he is just, I just think he's like one of the most friendly kind people. He's a researcher, but he makes himself accessible to teachers, and he's out there. He's out there on social media trying to help inform all of us you know about the research. He can speak to teachers, I think, in a in a great way. And so I just really appreciate him. And he was talking about how, instead of always asking if something is aligned with the science of reading, we need to change that and say, how strong is the evidence? How strong is the evidence? And he talked about where a lot of people have this misconception that the science of reading is phonics. So when they say, How does this align to science of reading, he realized that what they meant was, how does this align to phonics? And so we've got, you know, a bit of a knowledge gap there. And he did. He shared five things that every positive intervention had like when they looked at this through studies, five things that every good, strong intervention had. And these are the five. Number one, appropriate challenge. Number two, correctly targeted. Number three, opportunities to respond so dr Anita, Archer fans, we know that. Number four, explicit instruction. Number five, immediate feedback. Any final like, maybe favorite moment for the conference, or anything you didn't get to say that you want

Stacy Hurst:

to, well, just weighing in on Dr Byrne's session. And those of you who've been listening to our podcast for a while know Anita Archer was our first guest. Matt Burns was our second. For a reason, we have been followers. I've have his for a long time. I certainly have. I like his ease of research. He thinks like a scientist, but he applies it like a teacher, and he can communicate that really well, one thing that he just kind of offhandedly said during his session was there is not a right way to do the wrong thing, and so I thought that was a good thing to keep in mind if we're trying to fit science into what we're doing, rather than looking for the evidence first, it can feel like we're we're struggling, or our students will struggle, right? Donell, what stood out to you in that session? There was so much, huh?

Donell Pons:

Gosh, there was so much in that session. And I just kept writing, jotting down, and you've all mentioned some really good things, but he kept bringing up memory, because, as you say, it's the underpinning, right, and the working memory of students. And he used that term seven plus or minus two for students, of how much information they can hang on to. So they're not all the same. Each one has a different number. So that's that having to know your student. And he said, they'll tell you what their rate of acquisition is. They show you by their behavior. That's really interesting. You don't need to be guessing or wondering, but the minute you hit it, you'll know. They'll show you. And if we're not looking and we're not in tune, realizing we're gonna miss it, right? But they're showing us all the time it doesn't have to be difficult. In other words, he's saying you don't have to run a bunch of mathematical equations, but you can see it. They'll show you in their behavior, time off task when you exceed their rate of acquisition. They're gonna show you it's good.

Lindsay Kemeny:

Um, what? And that session was packed too. Wow. There's people. He had a big room, and there's still people on the floor. So I just want to share my favorite moment from the conference. I was so grateful. Reading Horizons sponsored a book signing for me, and that was on day two at the Reading Horizons booth, and they generously purchased about 60 books, copies of rock your literacy block to give to the to the, you know, first 60 people in line. And, you know, I had, I had finished speaking, I was answering questions. I came and joined you guys for lunch for about 10 minutes, and then I headed over to the book signing, and there was just this enormous line. And when I arrived, it was like, they all started cheering. And it was like, such a special moment. I was just like, oh my gosh, I love all of you. Thank you for the support. I've talked before on the podcast. How you know, it's like, it's nerve wracking all these things and being out there, and when I feel such like positivity and warmth and support from people, it just makes it all, you know, it just, it makes me feel so good and like it's worth it, and then I'm helping others, which is what keeps me going. So it was such an amazing book signing. Was so. Fun. I was just sad that the line was so long that took people so long to get through it, because, you know, and I wish I had more time to talk with every person. I had to go kind of quick, but that was my favorite moment of the conference. So and big shout out to Reading Horizons for sponsoring it and purchasing those books. They even because some people were in line waiting the whole time and didn't get their book, and so they're going to send them, they're going to mail them one, which I thought that was really nice, so I'm sorry we went over. We have talked so much. It was such an amazing conference, but I want to give Donell just a little bit of time, because the week before this, she went to the plane talk about dyslexia conference. So Donell, do you want to share anything? Was this the first time they've done that conference or the second? It's

Donell Pons:

either the second or the third. Okay, obviously, it was my first time attending, and it was held in Baton Rouge, and it was October 2 and third. And it was a very good conference. In fact, they had a whole really nice handout manual to go with it there. We did have swag bags that went with everything. It was a traditional conference set up with your keynote at the beginning, and then you went off to your different classes. And obviously this one was clearly set up to talk about dyslexia, so that was the topic of conversation. And the keynote, Elsa car Dennis Hagen, took us through what would be the proposed new definition for dyslexia that will be voted on at this conference this month, will be at the end of the month. And so that was brought up, and she discussed that, and then also did some breakout session. And they had some really good speakers. Julie Washington was there as well, discussing and talking. And Christopher wooden, who does math at Landmark Academy and has a math program, he's really good. So there were some really good speakers involved in the conference. And I was also able to see Matt burns. He was there at that conference. And again, he hit it out of the park. He did a fantastic job talking again, about working memory, best interventions when your intervention has stalled out. And so practical. Again, not only is he researched, but he's also very practical, and I love that. He said, If I don't have a point lowest, I'll go is a point four in terms of effect size, but it's got to be higher. And he's so right, because you have such limited time with students, and they working so hard. Eric treatise, who's been part of Ida for a long time, he was at that conference. He's a pediatrician. He's written the pearl. D Nancy Mather was there talking about the Todd. So really good presenters, very quality conference with presenters, and then they had a keynote speaker on the second day. And I tell you, he was phenomenal, Tommy Mabry. Dr Tommy Mabry. Remember that name? He was on the Jennifer Hudson show, so apparently there is some video footage of him on that show, but I can't tell you. I mean, I've heard a lot of keynotes, and some very good keynotes. I'm not saying that there aren't really great keynotes, but there was something about this man. He stepped out and made sure that he walked almost the entire auditorium, and we filled a pretty big room. Obviously, it wasn't a huge conference. It wasn't the 2500 that we had at the reading League. It was more like 300 and maybe four. And he made sure to walk as He gave his talk. And he's a tall, imposing individual. He played sports that was helpful, but as he walked, he talked about his own personal experience with reading and writing and shared some very harrowing stories of growing up. And it was that prison to the school to prison pipeline that he was headed on. And he's very open to talk about that, and then how he was able to pull pull himself out of that, and what it took in order to do that, and then the work that he does as an educator, and it was powerful. I tell you, when he was done, everybody just leapt to their feet and you were applauding. It just really put a fire in you. It was fantastic. Really good conference and plain talk, does it? I tell you again, yeah,

Lindsay Kemeny:

I'm excited for plain talk, for literacy conference, not until March, I have to wait, but I'm excited for that. And Donell and Stacy, like you guys are going to Ida conference next week, so Oh my gosh. And Donell for you, this is your third conference in a month, so I You're like, your brain is going to be like, major overload, right?

Stacy Hurst:

Fourth, if you count the Wasatch reading summit that Donell presented at. So, oh yeah, the Wasatch reading Summit, yeah, that's great. It sounds like it was a really good conference, and it's always in Baton Rouge.

Donell Pons:

Donell, yes, so I think so, I think this one is always in Baton Rouge, and it was, it was a real I was impressed. It was very good

Stacy Hurst:

conference. Good, exciting. Well, thank you, Lindsay, for leading our discussion today and sharing all about your experiences of both of you at the reading league conference. And we should say, these are just three perspectives. There were so many other great speakers, I it was hard to decide sometimes, and I do have to say that they put together a really great program, and I saw the science of reading reflected in the sessions, the science of implementation, which is more systemic, and the Science of Instruction, so. Lee, the reading league does it so well, they address all of those aspects of our literacy landscape and support in very meaningful ways. So thank you to the reading League, and thank you too for this conversation. As Lindsay mentioned, Donell and I will be attending Ida, so look for a recap of that soon as well. And thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time 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.