Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Sold A Story: All over the country. We need to improve reading. In Wisconsin, schools are changing the way they teach reading. I'm calling for a renewed focus on literacy. We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation, and it's happening because of a podcast. I think your podcast has changed my life and I'm going to share this podcast with everyone I meet. Sold a Story investigates how teaching kids to read went wrong. New episodes of Sold a Story are available now.
[00:00:34] Kate Winn: Hello to all you travellers out there on the road to evidence-based literacy instruction. I'm Kate Winn, classroom teacher and host of IDA Ontario's podcast reading Road Trip. Welcome to our season three premiere. Before we get started, we would like to acknowledge that we are recording this podcast from the traditional land of the Mississauga Anishinaabe. We are grateful to live here and thank the generations of First Nations people for their care for and teachings about the earth. We also recognize the contributions of Metis, Inuit, and other indigenous peoples in shaping our community and country. Along with this acknowledgement and in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, we'd like to amplify the work of an Indigenous artist. And this week we are sharing the picture book Indigenough, written by Nikki Soliman and illustrated by Julian Grafenauer. Recommended to us by Katherine, Indig-Enough is a rhyming story that captures the author's journey in navigating and embracing her indigeneity. Honouring her roots, and walking tall towards the future. This book can help guide young people in the exploration and the awareness of identity and intersectionality, which can sometimes make it difficult to fit in and find their place.
Add this title to your home or classroom library today in each episode. This season we're also going to share a reading road trip review from the Apple podcast app and this week we want to thank Susie YYC for so kindly posting the following amazing guests. As a literacy intervention specialist, I was so excited to find this podcast. I love that it's Canadian, hosted by a lovely teacher in the field doing the important work in bringing the science of reading into her practice. She has amazing guests, experts in the research field, asking all the right questions and putting it into perspective for other educators. Thank you. I will be sharing this podcast with other teachers in my PD sessions, so thank you, Suzy YYC. Our premiere this season is very exciting. We recorded this episode in front of a live audience at the IDA Ontario Literacy Learning Conference back in April. It was our first live episode and we are thrilled to share it with you. To kick off season three, Doctor Sonia Cabell is an associate professor of education in reading education and Language arts in the School of Teacher Education at Florida State University, and research faculty at the Florida Center for Reading Research. Doctor Cabell's research focuses on the prevention of reading difficulties among young children who are at risk, particularly those who are living in poverty. The early years are especially critical because high quality interactions and environments during these years lay the foundation for children's future reading success. Doctor Cabell's work, spanning pre kindergarten language and literacy skills that serve as precursors to both successful reading comprehension and word recognition. Thank you for being here, Dr. Cabell.
[00:03:33] Kate Winn: Thank you for having me.
[00:03:35] Dr. Sonia Cabell: Thank you.
[00:03:40] Kate Winn: And Doctor Anita Archer serves as an educational consultant to state departments and school districts on explicit instruction and literacy. She has presented in all 50 states and many countries, including Australia and Canada, and is the recipient of ten awards honouring her contributions to education. Anita has served on the faculties of three universities, including the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and San Diego State University. She has coauthored numerous curriculum materials, including Phonics for Reading, a three level intervention program REWARDS, a five-component literacy intervention program, and a best selling textbook titled Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. Doctor Archer, thank you for being here with us.
[00:04:25] Dr. Anita Archer: Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks to all of you. What a gift it is to be here and to have a chance to be Sonia and you. Thank you very much.
[00:04:36] Kate Winn: All right, well, let's get started. I have a couple of warm up questions. So first, it's wonderful to have you both here in prayer. I mean, people I feel like I know from webinars and from social media, but to be here with you in Toronto, Ontario, I'd love to know, do you have any other experiences or connections to Canada?
[00:04:51] Anita Archer: Had to think back over 57 years of doing staff development and traveling. And there was a period of time where I was in my thirties and then in my forties, and now I'm in my seventies where I did a lot of work in British Columbia and mostly in the Vancouver area. I mean, we're talking many, many, many visits over that period of 20 years. And probably the thing that I remember the most was at the end of all of those trainings. I spent five days visiting First Nation communities and giving feedback to teachers and to staff members. And that was a delight of my heart. It was a beautiful trip up to British Columbia, but then I remembered when I came in to Toronto and to the airport and through all of the different series of checks, the airport that I flew into Vancouver was very similar. But I often, when I lived in the state of Washington. I would drive in there, and there's two entranceways into British Columbia, and one of them has statues for each of the ten provinces. And it was very slow go through that, and so I would challenge myself to learn the ten provinces. So then I was reminded about the importance of spaced practice over time, because here I was doing retrieval practice, and I didn't have all that, but I did. I got British Columbia. I worked in a lot. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and then I remembered Ontario, because, woo woo, I'm there. And Quebec. And then I realized that I left out Manitou. Every time I did the remembering of those statues through, I would leave that one out. So now I have to go visit there because, my goodness, I can't forget it.
So. But there are ten promises and three territories, and I still have work to go, but I have years to learn in them, and I'm just gonna do more space practice. But I also taught at some of your universities. So every summer in my thirties and forties, almost every summer, I taught at UVic and University of British Columbia. So, yes, I have a little edge into Canada, but I have to tell you, there's things I still have to learn, like curriculum. You define it differently than we do. Yes, you do. And I was using the wrong definition. Mm hmm. Thank goodness I was corrected. So, yes, okay.
[00:07:44] Kate Winn: Wonderful. And, Sonia, how about you?
[00:07:46] Sonia Cabell: My uncle lives here, and he was my dad's closest brother.
My closest uncle, really the only uncle we got to really visit on a regular basis. I saw in the reading road trip map that you showed earlier that there are folks in Pakistan listening, which is really great. My whole family is from Pakistan. My dad's twelve brothers and sisters, most of them lived in Pakistan, but my uncle Nuran lives here, and so I got to see him on Fridays, which was really wonderful. And so Toronto has been close to my heart over the years because I lived in Indiana, and we just. We drove up to Toronto to visit when I was little.
[00:08:30] Kate Winn: Wonderful.
[00:08:30] Kate Winn: Well, welcome to you both in Canada. You're both such prolific speakers. So I'm curious to know. I mean, I've been nauseous for a long time about today's presentation and tonight's podcast. But you both presented today. You're both here tonight. Do you ever get nervous? You know, Sonia, I'll start with you. How do you feel about presenting at this point in your career?
[00:08:49] Sonia Cabell: Well, I think some nerves are a good thing because they make you excited for what's coming. I think I try to reframe my nervousness sometimes I'm nervous around certain individuals, like, look who I'm sitting right next to.
[00:09:03] Anita Archer: Look who I'm sitting next to.
[00:09:04] Sonia Cabell: Okay. And look who we're sitting next. You can't win.
[00:09:07] Anita Archer: Yes.
[00:09:09] Sonia Cabell: But then, you know, I try to reframe it to think about, we're all here to do the same thing, which is help kids and help kids learn to read and write. And so I would love that I get to be a part of that. So thank you for having me on this show. The podcast, is it a show?
[00:09:28] Anita Archer: It is a show. It's a show.
[00:09:30] Kate Winn: Anita, how about you?
[00:09:31] Anita Archer: May I turn my page in my yellow notes?
[00:09:34] Kate Winn: You may.
[00:09:36] Anita Archer: How to reduce nervousness - be prepared.
Absolutely.
And so I spend a lot of time preparing and, but you do that as a teacher. You step into the classroom. All of us have had a moment. Let's just do a little survey here. You've had a moment where you have prepared and you teach an absolutely brilliant lesson, and you're so thankful that the principal is visiting. Raise your hand if you've had an experience of, wow, that was good. They learned. Raise your hand if that's ever happened. And at home, raise your hand. Okay. But every one of you have had a moment where you hope the principal's busy, that the coach is out of town, that the superintendent will never drop in, and you're not totally prepared, and it didn't go, like, smooth. Raise your hand if you've had that experience. Now, that reminds us of that when we observe teachers, that there is a range that we've all experienced. I try to teach what I know, so I want to be certain it's in permanent memory, so that I have easy access to the content.
And so, like, if I was teaching social studies, I'd really want background knowledge, really clear, so that I could easily respond to children as accurately as possible. So it is beyond preparation. It is the knowledge of what we're doing.
Now, have I ever been a little bit nervous?
[00:11:16] Kate Winn: Only we're on the edge of our seats waiting for…
[00:11:18] Anita Archer: Do I get nervous?
It's not worth it. On the other hand, to prepare, to have knowledge, have a mission, do it well, and believe that the highest virtue is doing your best at every moment.
[00:11:37] Sonia Cabell: That's beautiful.
[00:11:38] Kate Winn: Yes.
[00:11:39] Anita Archer: Okay.
[00:11:39] Kate Winn: There are definitely some similarities.
She's flipping the page of her notepad.
[00:11:49] Sonia Cabell: Oh, yeah.
[00:11:50] Anita Archer: Lots of it.
[00:11:51] Kate Winn: You've got your notes in your head. You don't need your paper. I have my cards that I'm reading, my questions. So there are definitely some similarities in your work and the literacy related topics that you both speak and write about. So, for example, I know that you both advocate for high levels of interactions and increasing opportunities for students to respond. So, Sonia, I'm going to ask you first, can you speak to this in the context of oral language?
[00:12:12] Sonia Cabell: Yes, absolutely. I think the, you know, one of the things that we've been talking about here at IDA Ontario is the Strive for Five. The idea of having conversations that go back and forth and last at least five turns with one child, you want to make sure children are successful. And so if you just ask a question, they respond, and you say, good job, or you ask a question, they respond incorrectly, and you move on to somebody else.
You're missing an opportunity to scaffold their learning a little further. That wouldn't take much time.
[00:12:54] Kate Winn: And Anita, I've learned a lot from you as well in terms of the reading instruction piece, whether it's phonics lessons or vocabulary, and that idea of getting away from the whole raise your hand if you can tell me. And instead, trying to maximize participation, that sort of everybody does everything line. Right? Can you tell us a little bit more about how that supports line learning?
[00:13:15] Anita Archer: So if we look at those variables that we can intensify, that will increase outcomes for students. The first thing you should look at is opportunities to respond.
The more they say things, write things and do things, the higher probability is that they will be thinking about it and learning it. And so this is measurable. I could come to your classroom and count the number of times that you got responses from students, and it would make a huge difference in terms of the outcome. But there is more to it than that.
If we wanted to have equality in our classrooms, then we would want not only to increase the opportunities to respond, but to be certain that they were inclusive.
And so I start with, everyone does everything. Everyone says it, everybody writes it, everybody shares it. So that would make a difference. And that means that whether I'm visiting classes, first Nation classes in British Columbia, or last, two weeks ago, three weeks ago in Oregon, I visited course classes that were learning phonics for reading and watching those teachers. And then I was in Hawaii for two weeks in January and February, an excellent time to go from Toronto to Hawaii. Okay, highly recommended.
But what I still see us doing is asking questions, having students raise their hands, then calling on the student and giving feedback on their answers. I always tell this story because it was a moment to be remembered. So I'm watching in a class and a teacher asked a question, does anybody know what precipitation means?
Hand goes up. Child is answering it, and the child said, well, it's when you're really wet under your arms.
Okay, so. All right, maybe not. Right on. And so then another hand goes up. And that child said, precipitation means you sip it.
[00:15:33] Kate Winn: Okay.
[00:15:34] Anita Archer: Just a little bit hot.
So there we've gotten two incorrect answers. Now, I am somewhat concerned about particularly young children learning incorrect information because they don't have background knowledge. Childs raised his hand. She called on him and said, well, what does precipitation mean? And the child said, well, precipitation is referring to water that comes down to the earth, and it comes in rain, snow, it might even be sleet, but that would be called precipitation.
And the teacher said, wow, that's such a good answer. Let's move on. So the two responses is one incorrect information. Number two is brilliant answer. Brilliant answer. And the teacher assumes that everyone has it and moves on. So my schools have no hand raise policies, no hand raise, unless I say, everybody, raise your hand.
[00:16:33] Kate Winn: Raise your hands.
[00:16:34] Anita Archer: Raise your hands. Good job.
Too bad you're not all here who are listening in, because it's a really good group. And the challenge is that you could have errors or accurate answers, but the teacher would move on. So, in our schools, we have a no hand raise policy. And it starts with, the only time you're going to raise your hand is when the teacher says it, or if you have a question for the teacher that will be useful for everyone.
And sample partners are better if they're structured.
And most of us did. Oh. Turn and talk. Oh. Turn and talk. Oh. Woo woo. Turn and talk. The problem was turn and talk. Is, is it possible you could talk about something other than the question?
And particularly as they go up the grades, they seem to have more topics.
And so, having some structure, because, again, it is equality, because is a child likely to dominate the partnership?
And so having a one say the answer, or two say the answer. I don't know what you would want to do. In Canada, in Hawaii, some groups had sunshine and rainbows. Now I live in Portland, Oregon, home of rain. And so I really couldn't get into rainbows and sunshine. But anyway, so, looking at our practices for the purpose of real equal opportunity. But there are some other things like monitoring.
You ask a question, have them say a response to their partner, you're out monitoring. And we found most teachers went to the same students, usually off their dominant hand. They would go this direction. And my feeling is, if we're really hoping for learning, not praying for it, but praise, all good, but maybe just doing it constantly, that our best bet is to significantly increase opportunities to respond more answer than you wanted. But it's the most critical thing we can do to turn around schools is increase opportunities to respond.
[00:18:55] Kate Winn: Well, I'm glad I asked.
[00:18:55] Sonia Cabell: I love that.
[00:18:57] Kate Winn: Okay. So, Sonia, I was looking back at your previous Reading Road Trip episode. You were our second ever guest back in our first season, and one line you used was that we need to, quote, help teachers to help children think.
[00:19:15] Sonia Cabell: Yeah.
[00:19:16] Kate Winn: Another similarity that I saw here because you've also both done research and shared great guidance for classroom teachers when it comes to scaffolding for students. And so I'm going to start with Anita. So when I was prepping these questions, I came across a document that you had wrote called scaffolding reading comprehension. I did not realize that was going to be a topic of a micah that you were going to give here. And so, of course, you could make that an entire session on its own or an entire episode on its own. But if you wouldn't mind just sort of sharing the framework, some ideas for tips for before, during, and after reading to help readers access what might be more challenging texts. That's a big question for teachers right now, right? If we want kids to access these texts, how can we scaffold? And I know you have some tips.
[00:20:00] Anita Archer: Passage reading, text reading, what we might do before that would increase comprehension. What we might do during that would increase comprehension. What we would do after that would increase comprehension. So I will give you a short form on this, because you're right, it could be, like, all day. We could discuss it. So before we put in our mind what we know about the situations in which the students will understand the text, they have to be able to read the words. They have to know the meaning of the words, they have to have background knowledge, and they have to actually focus in on the critical content. So that drives what we do, because, really, comprehension is an outcome. And so I would, number one, be sure they could read the words. So I would read the passage, and I'd ask myself, well, this word, they have the decoding skills, but we have not read many three syllable words. I'm going to put that on a list. So difficult to decode words. We're going to practice beforehand. And when we look at the research of students that are in 3rd, fourth, and fifth grade who are in intervention, one of the major barriers is they can't read multisyllabic words. So we use simple things like take the multisyllabic words and put scoops or loops underneath the parts and have them say it. The research validated practice that Doctor Mary Gleason and I used in REWARDS, which is used in Canadian schools, was you circle the prefix, circle the suffix, underline the vowels. That's how to break it into decodable chunks. And then you say the parts, and then you say the whole word.
So I would be certain that they could pronounce unfamiliar words. And number two, I would look and ask myself, what is the essential vocabulary that was necessary for this passage that was not well defined in the material that they didn't already have in their lexicon? And I would systematically and explicitly teach those words. And so there's a number of routines that could be used. We used one, Charles Hughes and I, when we wrote Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. We said, teach the pronunciation of the word, introduce a student friendly explanation, give examples of the meaning of it, and then have them interact with it by asking questions or tasks around the use of the word. So we get them prepared. Now, you asked a long question here, but I'm going to continue answering it because, I mean, I. It goes on. Okay, so then we're gonna read.
[00:22:46] Kate Winn: Yes, during reading, what do you think we're gonna read?
[00:22:48] Anita Archer: Well, I'm going to have them read a part to themselves. And as I always mentioned, the problem with silent reading is the number of children who fake it, don't actually, like read it. So we have them often, particularly in the lower grades, read out loud, whisper to themselves so we can hear you read or you read Sonia, and then afterwards, after they've read it once themselves, we might read it together. We might have them read it to a partner, but I might call on individuals occasionally. But one thing I'm concerned about is some low-performing students are very apprehensive to be called on. I mean, outright fear that I'm going to be called on, particularly in like, middle school grades. So we use the me or we option. If I called on you, then you could say me or we. And if you thought you could read it, you'd say me. If you said we, you just invited the whole class to read it with you. And you have a safety net.
And so, listeners, I hope that that would be just one thing you'd really do in your class at your school site is get a safety net for fearful children because they'll be in your rooms. And I think we should remember that the more you read, the better you get. And we have so many teachers reading the directions to students and reading the books to students and reading the assignments to students. And, you know, they're getting really good, but that's not in our contract. To improve our fluency. No, better that they would read. So I would use reading and partner reading.
We would get as much reading as possible. And afterwards, then I would ask questions of them, good questions that are based on the text, so that I could keep all of their cognition in the text, and they could compare and contrast. They could answer literal questions, they could answer inferential questions, but it will be based on the text. And afterwards, yes, it could be. Put them in the text. Not out of the text. In the text. Not out of the text. Now, those of you who are listening to us, you could join us. Get your hand ready. And everybody in the text, not out of the text. In the text. Not out of the text.
[00:25:15] Sonia Cabell: So the hand movement is. The hand goes down into the text, and then it's kind of like raise the roof out of the text.
[00:25:21] Anita Archer: That's right. Sonia, you've got it.
[00:25:23] Kate Winn: Like, let's do it one more time for the actions.
[00:25:27] Anita Archer: Sonia, I would take you everywhere.
[00:25:32] Sonia Cabell: I'd be happy to come. I learned so much.
[00:25:34] Anita Archer: But I will tell you afterwards we could have a discussion. But what I think is really critical is the relationship of writing to comprehension, and that you've read something and you should be writing something in response to it. So I just high, you know, I see this, the movement away from having kids just write about their personal experience, which also is not an equitable act because they don't all have rich experiences, they just have different experiences, but having them think about what they've read. And I think that even for us as adults, rehearsing or retrieving information afterwards will increase our recall. But that is really the short answer of what we might do before, during, and after. It didn't seem short to you, but you asked, like, a question that was pretty good.
[00:26:24] Kate Winn: No, no, I know.
You gave me exactly what I was looking for.
[00:26:27] Anita Archer: I know, but it has a simplicity into it that we could do again and again and again, and that makes it a highly salient way to respond.
[00:26:43] Sonia Cabell: And I think it's also very applicable for younger readers, too, those who you'll be reading aloud to. So the before, during, and after portions of a read aloud are critical. There's a large research base that shows that the things you do relates to children's vocabulary development, relates to their growth in language and engaging them in conversations after reading, in discussion, but before reading as well, and some during, depending on. You don't want to detract too much. From the text itself. But thinking about how you are structuring the before, during, and after pieces really matters for children's learning. And then doing that in, you might use text sets, conceptually coherent texts that build children's background knowledge.
[00:27:31] Anita Archer: Susan Neuman.
[00:27:32] Sonia Cabell: That's right.
[00:27:33] Anita Archer: Susan Neuman.
[00:27:34] Sonia Cabell: And the beautiful thing, one of my favourite things about Susan Neuman's work and how she thinks about how words, she thinks about how words are connected in categories. And when you are reading books that are, are on the same topic, you get exposure to not only the same words, but similar words, similar ideas. And you go, and you can then link those together in webs versus sometimes books. When books aren't selected to go together, we sometimes choose words that don't relate to other words there might be learning. And so thinking about how you are building your read alouds would be very important for their building of their background knowledge as well.
[00:28:13] Anita Archer: Susan Neuman's All About Words, even in preschool, on the same topic. And the books would be maybe I saw one when I was in Hawaii on oceans and second grade, and they had a narrative about oceans going to the beach, and then they had one about whales, and then they had one about coastal ranges and so forth. And by the time the kids were done, they had a knowledge network. But the book I highly recommend, and I noticed it, it's a book that you've utilized in the past. Well, or the understanding of Susan Neuman.
[00:28:43] Sonia Cabell: Yes. Susan is incredible. I think her scholarship has influenced my thinking and work tremendously. So if Susan is listening, I'm grateful for your work.
But I do think that the ideas that words are connected. Ideas are connected.
And like my colleague Tanya Wright says, we learn new words when we learn new things is important.
And so the idea is not just teaching vocabulary for the sake of vocabulary, but just like Anita was talking about that building of the background knowledge and thinking about how words and knowledge and comprehension, how all of that is interrelated, is critical to learning.
[00:29:28] Kate Winn: Well, in kindergarten right now, we're learning about chickens, and so we're using a text set where we've got nonfiction books, but also just some funny fiction books about chickens and things like that. Listening to the kids just at playtime sit looking in the little book nook at books, and one of them said, hey, here's a picture of the cycle. And somebody said, oh, I've got a picture of the cycle, too.
[00:29:45] Kate Winn: And I thought, oh, yay.
[00:29:46] Kate Winn: You know what that means. Now right back to scaffolding. So I know, Sonia, I have some first hand experience applying some of the guidance coming out of your research about scaffolding spelling, particularly with our emerging writers. Could you speak to that a little bit?
[00:30:02] Sonia Cabell: Yeah. I think that one of the things that I love thinking about writing before children are doing anything close to conventional spelling.
I love their earliest marks. I love how their marks develop over time. I love their understanding when all of a sudden they. The light bulb comes on and they understand that what I say can be written down in English roughly from left to right. You know, the alphabetic principle.
My son, when he was about three years old, I was reading to him, reading to him at bedtime, and he said to me, I know s is for circle. And I'm like, yes, s is for circle! That is awesome. Because for the first time, he was not thinking of a circle as just a circle. He realized that.
He realized he had metalinguistic knowledge about circle and independent from the object, and he was beginning to grasp that concept of that alphabetic principle. And so that to me, you know, is JUST super EXcited and, you know.
[00:31:06] Anita Archer: Do you assume he's brilliant?
[00:31:08] Sonia Cabell: You know, yes, he's nine now. He's a wonderful reader, and. But he had a really large vocabulary.
But I did things like scaffold his spelling really early on, and it's scaffolding. When I say spelling, I'm talking about also all that leads up to it far before conventional spelling. So in some of the research that I do, I'm looking at preschoolers, and how do you move them from scribbling to writing CVC, spelling CVC words and all that comes in between.
And I think that there's a missed opportunity there because children are curious about print, about writing, and it can be a fun thing and not a skill kill drill thing. People sometimes are like writing in preschool, but children do engage.
They see it in the world around them. They want to engage. And then how do you. I like to think about how, in the moment, a teacher can scaffold that as she's seeing it unfold and help the child move to the next level.
[00:32:20] Kate Winn: I'm going to turn a little serious for a moment. So, as you both know, back in 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission released their Right to Read inquiry report. There were 157 recommendations. And I'd like to share a quote, quote with you from their report and ask you both for your thoughts on it, really focusing on this idea of the achievement gap, which I know you both are concerned with, too. So here's the quote.
Children from groups protected under the Code by which they mean the Ontario Human Rights Code disproportionately suffer the effects of failing to use evidence based approaches to teaching reading and supporting struggling readers. Their parents do not always have the same access to resources and private supports as more advantaged parents. These students rely on the public education system to give them a strong foundation in reading to help reduce their historical and social disadvantage. When the education system does not do this, it can worsen their marginalization and risk of intergenerational inequality.
So process that one for a moment. Sonia, I'll ask for your thoughts first, reflections on that.
[00:33:22] Sonia Cabell: Thank you, and I’m excited about all that you're doing. When I think about that statement, I'm thinking about the importance of helping all children learn to read. I love that the back of our badges has a statement from the Commission saying, learning to read is not a privilege, but a basic and essential human right. And I think about the ways that we maybe inadvertently do not provide that ability to everyone. And so I think about research that has shown that children who live in poverty tend, on average, they tend to come into school with lower language, with lower literacy skills. They tend to have less exposure to books, less availability of resources.
They tend to also end up being in schools where they have, a lot of times, disproportionately lower quality instruction. And so you have this from very early on. The gap just widens. I think about how skill begets skill over time and when we know something, and this is not only true for language and literacy, but this is seen in other subject areas as well. What we know, we build on top of what we know, and that catapults us forward into success. So then the gaps that are so small in the beginning widen tremendously. Everybody is growing in their skills to some degree, but some are growing exponentially. And how do we help all of those, all children learn at the best of their ability and provide the opportunity for everyone. And I love that about what Anita says, that opportunities for everyone to respond and participate and be a part of it, to learn, are critical. And so I think about how do we shift trajectories of the most vulnerable learners so that they will have the opportunity to learn how to read.
[00:35:34] Kate Winn: And, Anita, it resonated with me when you were talking about writing about reading and how that's more equitable than having kids necessarily writing personal narrative about their own lives.
[00:35:44] Kate Winn: So that's a really great point. I'm wondering how this whole quote from the Right to Read resonated with you.
[00:35:51] Anita Archer: It led me to a lot of reflection in thinking about it, of different experiences coming into school that will often affect the vocabulary that they have, that mirrors the vocabulary of their environment that they're raised in. That's true, except my whole career is filled with optimism of schools that have gone way, way beyond expectations because they had more explicit instruction, they had more instructional time, they had much higher level instruction constantly. And so I was reflecting on, for example, the 500 studies that were done on Direct Instruction in the states in which every single study that was done, it did better than the comparative curriculum material materials. And it was because of the very intentionality, well organized curriculum, which means, in Canada, the scope and sequence of what's being taught, the standards. But then the materials were well designed to go with it, and they were taught by teachers that were ever present and had very, very high opportunities to respond. Poverty is not the cause of not knowing how to read, let me tell you. Whoa. That's no excuse at all. And race is not. And gender is not. The only thing that differentiates students when they enter is their background knowledge is different. And so then we have to add to it in terms of what we are teaching. So I said to myself, well, pick a school that you've seen that's made a difference. So I'm going to talk to you about one. In the state of Washington, in a small town called Auburn, 90% free and reduced lunch, 90% students who had as their first language Spanish.
And a few years ago, they had a dynamic principal totally dedicated to using the highest level of instruction, very explicit, very direct instruction. And as a result, they were in the area of math, the top 5% for the whole state, and they were. 80% of their students were at or above grade level in reading, at all grades.
It is the power of the teaching. In fact, when I work with schools, we start with the yeah, but deal. You will never give me a yeah, but. Yeah, but they're poor. Yeah, but they are African American. Yeah, but they speak Spanish. Yeah, but nooooo, because we are stronger and more powerful than any one of those excuses.
And if we want everyone, and I'm talking everyone, students with dyslexia, students with learning disabilities, students who are immigrants. If we really want to get to the point that everyone reads and writes and has opportunities, this is hard every day. This is being aware of children that are behind intervening quickly. It is about doing our mission. It is not a job.
It is not a hope. It is helped by prayer, but it is work.
And the children are brilliant, all of them. They can learn it, but we have to teach it. We can't wait for them to discover it. We've tried that before. We have tried discovery. We had whole language. It had a, in Hattie's work, an actual effect size of point zero two. I want to tell you, that's close to death.
We have to teach it, and we know what to teach, and we have to teach it until they master it so that everybody, everybody has the chance to read and have all the opportunities. Can you imagine not being a proficient reader as an adult?
Can you imagine not being able to read the excellent Japanese restaurant menu tonight, which I plan to go there tomorrow, too, but so, and that's the energy of your province. It's the energy of your documents. It is the energy of the teachers in this room.
But it can happen. And it will be a glorious day when there's no need for any intervention because we taught it so well in kindergarten, first and second.
[00:41:13] Kate Winn: So, Anita, I'm going to apologize, because now, as we start to wind down, Sonia and I are going to talk about you in front of you.
[00:41:19] Anita Archer: Yes.
[00:41:20] Kate Winn: So you are famous for your many pearls of wisdom known as Archerisms. We talked earlier about the everybody does everything one.
So I'm going to ask Sonia now which archerism is your favourite? Tell us about it.
[00:41:32] Sonia Cabell: Okay. I have a new favourite, though. Can into the text, not add the text, be one of my new favourites.
[00:41:38] Kate Winn: Mine might be woo.
[00:41:39] Sonia Cabell: Now, I love that one. It was a new one.
[00:41:41] Anita Archer: Yeah.
[00:41:41] Kate Winn: Add that to the list.
[00:41:42] Anita Archer: Woo.
[00:41:43] Sonia Cabell: Yes. I love it.
[00:41:43] Anita Archer: But there are different woos. Yes, yes. And so one day someone came up to me and said, would you do a few woos? And she recorded me and she said, no, not that one.
No, not that one. And so I didn't really know that there was more than one way to do woo, woo, woo, woo.
[00:42:06] Sonia Cabell: You know, I need to listen. I need to listen to you more live to get all of the woos. I'm going to find all the videos and investigate the woos.
[00:42:16] Anita Archer: Somebody.
[00:42:17] Kate Winn: That's a research data project.
[00:42:18] Sonia Cabell: That's a research project. Somebody do a research project on this.
[00:42:20] Anita Archer: Someone took data on it. It wasn't research.
[00:42:25] Kate Winn: Hi, listeners.
[00:42:26] Kate Winn: Just jumping in to say that we had a few little audio glitches with this episode.
[00:42:30] Kate Winn: Sonia began her response to this question by saying one of her favourite Archerisms was connect, connect, connect. Back to Sonia.
[00:42:38] Sonia Cabell: And I love that because that relationship that teachers have with students is so critical to their learning.
Just like in developing oral language, developing all skills, but developing oral language, that warm relationship, to have those conversations really matters to our language learning. It really matters when students know that teachers care yes. And.
And students believe that children can learn and rather than have expectations that they can't. And I feel like Anita's last answer spoke to that really well about they will rise to the level of our expectation. And when it was, when I had my own child, I was like, children are so smart so early on, and we don't give, I didn't give them enough credit as a teacher, but they're so smart very, very early in life, and so they will rise to the expectation you set. And so I love the connect, connect, connect.
[00:43:46] Anita Archer: That's a good one. Good.
[00:43:48] Sonia Cabell: Connect, connect, connect.
[00:43:50] Kate Winn: We need hand signals.
One that I love is the teach the stuff and cut the fluff.
[00:43:54] Kate Winn: Right.
[00:43:55] Kate Winn: And I find, as we've talked about, there are so many great ideas on social media and so many good things. But I also find sometimes I feel, you know, you feel inferior. You're looking at things and thinking, oh, that's a great activity. And, oh, I should buy that. No, why am I not using that? But then you realize, wait a second. No, that's not serving the purpose that I'm trying to serve here.
[00:44:14] Sonia Cabell: Right.
[00:44:14] Kate Winn: That cutting the fluff. And so there will be things now that I weed out. No, Anita would call that fluff.
[00:44:19] Sonia Cabell: Right.
[00:44:19] Kate Winn: Because we want to focus on what the kids really, really need for whatever the purpose is that we're teaching them so many wonderful archerisms.
[00:44:26] Anita Archer: You've shared with us.
One of the things I'm concerned about a little bit with the science of reading, and so many of you have taken classes, LETRS classes, AIM classes, CORE classes, other classes on the science of reading. Raise your hand if you've done that.
And that was to be certain that we had the best understanding of all of the aspects of language possible involved in reading. But it didn't mean that we had to teach all of that to our students.
And what I'm concerned about is that sometimes we are increasing the cognitive load that students have that may actually slow the acquisition of reading and then get them reading. May I just give example?
So this one was recent. Someone said about an intervention I had that, well, they're learning oi and oy. And you don't say that it is a diphthong. And I said, no, we don't mention that it's a diphthong. We mentioned that the sound is oi, o I, oi, o I, oi, and they master oi, and then they're able to read words with oi.
I said to the person, now, when did you learn the term diphthong? Well, I learned it last fall when I took this class, I learned diphthong. I said, now, how old are you? She said, 64. I said, oh, so you had a good 50 years that you were able to read quite proficiently, not recognizing it was a diphthong. So. But that's just an example of the care we have to have, because they don't necessarily, they need to know what they need to know, and they need to know letter sounds. They need to know how to do continuous blending and sound out words without stopping between the sounds. They need to know how to segment so that they can spell. But sometimes I see where people have listed all the possible variant sounds for a. Yeah. All the different graphemes that could be used. And I had to look up one on a list at the bottom of the list because I couldn't come up with any words that had that sound in it. Now, I think that's the test. If I can't generate any words, then perhaps maybe we could, like, skip it.
And when they're in college, they could see that word and say, oh, there's another way to say that sound. Isn't that fascinating? But there is, I'm quite serious about this. We have to be careful that we don't adopt methods content they need to learn, and they increase the actual amount of cognitive load that is occurring. So that's just my curiosity right now.
And so teach this stuff and cut the fluff sort of covers that.
[00:47:26] Kate Winn: Perfect.
[00:47:27] Anita Archer: You just delight me. Thank you. And thank you for connect. Connect.
[00:47:31] Sonia Cabell: Thank you.
[00:47:34] Kate Winn: So, we are almost ready to wrap up our time together. Is there anything either of you would like to add before we say goodbye? Anything we haven't talked about yet?
[00:47:44] Anita Archer: You know, so I'm much older than you, but we came in at different times. But isn't it such an energetic time in our field because so many people are so interested in this. Look at this group and listen. All the people that are listening in, the commitment and energy and mission is so much. We must not miss this moment, because we need to do it. We need to then make it so habitual that we wouldn't even think about having a higher education program that didn't teach all of these knowledge and skills. We wouldn't even think about that possibility.
[00:48:36] Sonia Cabell: And I would. I completely agree. I think this is an amazing moment in time. And I would also say that 20 years ago, some people might say, oh, 20 years ago, we had a similar moment with Reading First and the National Reading Panel report and scientifically based reading research. But I would say having lived in that moment, too. I was a reading coach during that time, a teacher and a reading coach.
This is a very different moment. As a teacher and reading coach in the early two thousands, I wasn't attuned to what the research said. I just assumed that whatever I was getting from the, from the instructors, the glossy materials I had, I assumed that they were research based. I didn't have a frame for that now. I didn't know about the simple view. I didn't know about Scarborough's rope. All that stuff existed.
But now there's an interest in what does the research say? And this is evidence based, and that's a really big difference. So I want to encourage people when they, you know, might hear people say, like, didn't we just, didn't we already do this in the early two thousands and now 20 years later, we're doing it again? No, I think it's qualitatively different.
[00:49:42] Anita Archer: Yes.
[00:49:48] Kate Winn: Thank you so much for bringing your gifts to IDA Ontario's Lit Learn 2024 conference and for spending time with us on this really fun episode.
[00:49:58] Anita Archer: Thank you. What an honor it was to be with you.
[00:50:00] Sonia Cabell: Thank you. Congratulations on the success of Reading Road Trip.
[00:50:04] Anita Archer: Yes.
[00:50:04] Sonia Cabell: Amazing.
[00:50:04] Kate Winn: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you everyone.
[00:50:09] Anita Archer: You are a great group!
[00:50:24] Kate Winn: Notes for this episode with all the links and information you need can be found at the podcast.idaontario.com, and you have been listening to season three, episode one with Dr Anita Archer and Dr Sonia Cabell.
We mentioned Anita's Archerisms in this episode and I went so far as to have a poster of these wise sayings put on a canvas to take a place of honour in my brand-new home office area. And we will pop a photo in the show notes to give you a little peek of that if you are interested. And now it's time for that typical end-of-the-podcast call to action.
If you enjoyed this episode of Reading Road Trip, we'd love it if you could rate and or review it in your podcast app as this is extremely helpful for a podcast and your review might make it onto an episode. Of course we welcome any social media love you feel inspired to spread as well. Feel free to tag IDA Ontario and me. My handle is this mom loves on Twitter and Facebook. Kate. This mom loves on Instagram. Make sure you're following the Reading Road Trip podcast in your app and watch for new episodes continuing every Monday throughout the summer.
We couldn't bring reading road trip to you without behind the scenes support from Katelyn Hanna, Brittany Haynes and Melinda Jones at IDA Ontario. I'm Kate Winn and along with my co producer Una Malcolm, Dr. Una Malcolm, we hope this episode of Reading Road Trip has made your path to evidence-based literacy instruction just a little bit clearer and a lot more fun. Join us next time when we bring another fabulous guest along for the ride on Reading Road Trip.
