Episode Transcript
Kate Winn 00:00:05 Hello to all you travelers out there on the road to evidence-based literacy instruction. I'm Kate Winn, classroom teacher and host of IDA Ontario's new podcast, Reading Road Trip. Welcome to the show. This is episode four of our very first season. Before we get started, we would like to acknowledge that we are recording this podcast from the traditional land of the Mississauga Anishnabe. 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 Dancing with our Ancestors by Sarah Florence Davidson and Robert Davidson, illustrated by Janine Gibbons. In this picture book, you can learn about the cultural significance of the heda potlatch through the sights sounds, and dances of this once banned ceremony. Add it to your home or classroom library today and now on with the show. I am absolutely thrilled to introduce our guest this week. She is a classroom teacher in Utah and author of the fabulous hot off the press, new book, Seven Mighty Moves: Research Backed Classroom Tested Strategies to Ensure K to 3 Reading success. And she's someone I now also call a friend. So glad to have her with us today. Hello, Lindsay Kemeny.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:01:39 Hi. I'm so excited to be here, Kate.
Kate Winn 00:01:42 Well thank you for joining us. So Lindsay, usually with the guests, I kind of just jump right into practical suggestions and getting at all of that stuff that our listeners wanna hear, but in your case, your professional background and your personal background and the way that they kind of weave together is pretty relevant. So could you just give us, uh, a bit of the history there?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:01:59 Absolutely. So I started teaching and I was heavily trained in balanced literacy originally. So I taught, you know, second grade for about five years, uh, using balanced literacy. And I just, I was really adamant that it was the best way to teach reading. And then I took a little break because I have four children and I stayed home with them for a little while. And then when I returned to the classroom, a couple different things happened the same year. It was my first year teaching kindergarten. And naturally in kindergarten you spend a lot of time teaching the letter names and sounds. And I was so excited to bring my students back to our small group table and say, okay, now I'm gonna show you how you can use those sounds to read words. But the books that were provided to me were these pre predictable repetitive texts, um, filled with words that had, you know, phonic skills that I had not taught because they were more advanced.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:02:59 And so I found myself having to say, oh, oh wait, um, you can't sound this one out. Look at the picture. Does it give you a clue? <laugh>? Now I had always done that before when I taught second grade, but, uh, it really, it was when I was teaching kindergarten that it really started to hit me like this, wait, I'm giving these students the wrong idea of what reading is. And I started to grow a little bit uneasy with some of the ways I had been taught. And then that same year, my son was in second grade at the time and we had known for a while that he was struggling and I, uh, to learn to read. And I couldn't figure out why he struggled learning his letter names and sounds. He struggled with phonemic awareness, everything. Uh, and that year he was diagnosed with dyslexia.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:03:47 So, uh, and not just dyslexia, but very severe dyslexia. So that really is what started me into this deep dive of literacy instruction because I began to search what do students with dyslexia need to learn to read, which led to, what does everyone need to learn to read? What does the brain do when we read? And it just started me on this path and I, I just feel like I was this starved animal. I couldn't get enough. I wanted more and more information, and I began to apply everything I was learning, both with my son and in my classroom. And that's really where I was seeing, you know, huge, huge positive gains and results. And I just, I became really upset, I guess, at some of the ways I had been taught because there was no research behind them and it just, it just, it just changed everything. And my, my son also had depression, so, and it was all related to, you know, reading and his, and I just learned self-esteem and reading are so tightly connected. And so, um, you know, as his reading improved, his self-esteem approved too. So it just, it has lit this fire under me cuz I just wanted to help everyone.
Kate Winn 00:05:13 Yeah. And wouldn't you say what I'm noticing in, you know, this community that we're a part of, you know, all these people who are all for evidence-based literacy instruction, it seems like the ones who have children with dyslexia, children who struggled, they tend to be the earlier adopters because they figured out faster that it wasn't working cuz they could see it in their own home and they knew that they were doing all of the other right things right. And that, that something just wasn't working. Yeah. Like I, I am so regretful. I mean, I'm lucky that my daughters were in that group of kids that learned to read more easily, but I wish I had known earlier for the sake of my students, right? Yes. Like what I missed because I just thought, oh wow, this is how all kids learn to read. You just put some level books in front of 'em and then they'll memorize them and then something's gonna click. And yeah. That is not how kids learn to read. Right. So, so that's a shame. Yeah. So you have been just doing your thing, this rockstar primary teacher, I know you've been in kindergarten and first and second, um, and then now you're this book author. So how all of a sudden did that happen? Please tell us.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:06:11 Um, yeah, this, you know, I never would have imagined that I would write a book. I actually, I, I actually had in the back of my mind, gosh, I would love to write a book just because I am, I'm so passionate. I've seen the difference in my, in my son and in my students and I, it's, it's hard to talk about, but some of the things my son went through, I'm just like, if I can prevent one student from feeling that way or or saying that, or, uh, you know, it's all worth it. So I had started a blog and because I was really passionate about sharing this stuff, I want all students to be able to learn how to read. I want all teachers to understand what to do to learn to read, and to just improve their instructions. So I started a blog and just kind of sharing some of the things as I was learning them.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:07:03 And I don't know how, but several people from Scholastic saw my blog and had read through it and they reached out to me about a year ago. It was May, and if you're a teacher, you know that May is a very crazy month <laugh>. So I get this email from the editorial director at Scholastic that says, would you be interested in writing a book? And I'm just kind of thinking, is this for real? And it's like, please don't ask me to do anything right now because, you know, it's like crazy time. And, but I was thinking about it and I just thought, oh yes, I just, I wanna help more students, I wanna help more teachers and maybe this could help. And it took me a few weeks to respond to the email <laugh>. Um, I had to wait till school was out and it was in June when I'm, I was like, okay, let's, let's meet and see what they have to say.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:08:01 And I was just really, uh, I just had kind of this burning where I was just like, yes, I really want to do this. So they invited me to write a book proposal and that's a bit of work <laugh>, and you have to have a sample chapter in there. And so I worked on that that summer. And then that sample book chapter had to go through several different levels of the company, kind of like these cuts, right? Where they told me, oh, it could be a no and then our, our journey is over, or, you know, if it's a yes then it goes to the next group and the next group and the next group. And so while I was waiting for them to evaluate and kind of, um, see what happens there, I just, it was the summer, right? So I'm like, I'm just gonna keep writing, I'm gonna write this book and then if they pass I'll just, I'll find someone else, maybe or another publisher.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:08:50 Well it was the end of October, um, when we got the Yes. And so then we just started writing, uh, or I guess I had written, but I started revising. So I kind of would revise each chapter, give them to my editor, he would get back to me. And um, it was really exciting to see how the process, you know, worked. And then in December I started reaching out to some, uh, experts that I know to read my draft chapters cuz I was just like, I want everything to be really accurate, so let me know, you know, if there's anything wrong or if I need to fix anything or what your opinions are. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how it happens. Yeah.
Kate Winn 00:09:36 Well, and I'm gonna just, uh, add to what you just said about your, um, chapter readers. I mean, we're talking about people like Matt Burns and Nancy Hennessy and Stephanie Stollar. Like this isn't just the person next door. Like you have some great names who have looked over your work, which is amazing. Now it's funny because I mean, I said off the top that I consider you a friend now we've done a lot of emailing Yes. And texting and, and um, tweeting and that sort of thing. But this is our first actual voice to voice. We can see each other that listeners don't know that, but we can see each other right now as we're talking to. But when you first told me about the book, I remember sending you that gif from friends where Monica and Chandler have just gotten engaged and Rachel and Phoebe are talking and the quote is, I'm probably 98% happy for you and 2% jealous <laugh> <laugh>. And I just remember sending that to you because like, let's just be honest here. Like that's, you know, so incredible for you. I was really excited. Now I do want listers to know though, that I was involved in this book in a couple really important ways. So if you could share that, that would be great.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:10:29 Um, well this is so fun, Kate. I consider you my soul sister <laugh>. And this is, um, yeah, it's the first time we've actually spoken, but we, as you said, we've emailed back and forth, we've texted back and forth before we realized that we were being charged like International
Lindsay Kemeny 00:10:47 And um, yeah, when I was coming up, when I was trying to come up with the title of the book and I was going back and forth, um, with the publisher and I was just like, I need, I'm really indecisive and I'm like, I need another person's opinion on some of this stuff. And so I would email you and you were so nice and gracious and mean give you, give me your input. And that was so fun.
Kate Winn 00:11:14 And I think some of it, you know, but I mean it's, it's interesting cuz there's always the title and then there's the subtitle and then mixing matching titles and subtitles. Yes. And then of course the publisher is, you know, the one putting their money behind this and, and they really get a say. Right. So Uh Huh, but I think maybe little pieces of what I liked ended up somewhere in there, which is good <laugh> and I also was so honored to be asked to write an endorsement for the book. Yes. And I just wanna read to everyone the endorsement that I wrote because I mean every word of it. So here is what I gave to Scholastic. This book is pure gold in what feels like a conversation with your most knowledgeable teacher friend, Lindsay Keani expertly weaves together reading, research and practical suggestions for the classroom.
Kate Winn 00:11:52 Seven mighty moves should be required reading for teaching early literacy. And I really do mean that. And when I say required reading, like I'm already, you know, so my friend Kim Lockhart and I, we do PD together sometimes we're working with a group in another province next year and we've already said, how about you buy Mighty Moves for everybody and then we'll kind of do like book study and you know, pull apart the chapters and things like that. So I mean, I am, uh, I am promoting it and working with and teachers with this one because it's just, I really mean what I said, you are the real deal in the classroom, right? You've got that frontline experience, you've got the parenting experience piece as well, but you bring in all the research. So, I mean, things that I love about the book, you've got so much meat in there for teachers.
Kate Winn 00:12:35 I mean, no offense to the vegans and the vegetarians, but you know what, like the definitions and the charts and the examples, classroom anecdotes, routines, there are QR codes to resources, all of that stuff, right? Like, and I love the way too, like you kind of name drop some researchers and things like that, but without making it sound like it's an academic, um, article, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's really reader friendly. So I love it. We're only gonna be able to scratch the surface of what's in it today. So listeners, definitely you all need to go get your own copy of Seven Mighty Moves, but we are just going to give you a sneak peek at an example of what might fit into those different moves. So,
Lindsay Kemeny 00:13:09 And before we jump in, Kate, can I just say thank you so much, I just, your endorsement meant so much to me and you're one of the first people I thought of when, you know, Scholastic said, do you have suggestions for people that could give an endorsement? And I just thought, you know, I would love, I mean, Kate, you're the perfect person because you're my audience and you're a teacher and I knew you would get it. You know, it's not, like you said, it's a little more informal. So sometimes I had people reviewing it that were like, oh, you know, you have some contractions in here, or you're, you're talking in the first person <laugh>. And I'm like, yes, this is not a research article. It's very like teacher to teacher, right? Yes. Like, you're just, and so anyways, I I loved your endorsement cause I felt like you really got that.
Kate Winn 00:13:57 Yeah. And I know after I read every chapter, I mean, again, the texting before we realized the international charges <laugh>, that was such brilliant idea. But back to the Twitter messaging where I was like, wait, here's what I loved in this chapter and, and so on. <laugh>. Okay. Let's start with move one, teach phonemic awareness with intention. Can you just kinda give us a little peek at maybe how you shifted? Cause when we say moves, it kind of implies going from one place to someplace else, right? So what's a little way that you changed in terms of teaching phonemic awareness with intention?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:14:22 Well, what's interesting is with phonemic awareness, I had to move several times. Um, initially it was just even knowing phonemic awareness was a thing, to be honest, I had just not been, you know, trained on this and really had been taught anything about phonemic awareness. So when I was teaching second grade, I never really realized that, oh my goodness, a lot of my students struggle with this area and I need to explicitly teach phonemic awareness, not just phonics, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then it was shifting again to learning that, you know, we don't need to spend all this time with the larger units that we want to focus on getting to the phoneme level as quickly as possible. And in addition to that, we can connect our phonemic awareness with letters and show them how that matches. So that was, you know, a, a, a couple shifts I guess that I made within phonemic awareness.
Kate Winn 00:15:22 Yeah. And I know like even as the research keeps evolving and we're learning more, like, you know, like little bit of oral only might be okay, but I mean, like, we're talking a few minutes max and those great points that you just mentioned, like connecting to letters those phoneme units right? Instead of the bigger unit, all of that stuff. And, and you've got some great tips. So I mean, your book, as I mentioned, it's not just like, here's the research, so go figure out what to do in your class. It's okay, here's a bit of the research and here's what I do. You mentioned in that chapter the idea of a sound spelling wall. Some people call 'em sound, sound walls mm-hmm. <affirmative> at this point. But some people are saying sound spelling walls, which I do, like I find in my class, the kids use them for writing just as much as they do for anything else. What's kind of a best practice? I mean, you've, have you used sound walls in K one and two?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:16:03 Yes. I use them in all, and, and I like calling them sound spelling walls to really focus on, uh, you know, the point of it is connecting the phoneme and the graphene, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I like using them. I do point out that there is not research specifically on using a sound spelling wall, but there is that, there is research about, uh, you know, bringing students' awareness to those articulatory gestures. And so for me, with the sound spelling wall, it's not, the, the magic is not in the wall. It's in the instruction. And so, you know, the first year I put up, I'm trying to think, I, I think I've used, uh, sound spelling well for four years. And the first year I put it up, it was kind of just for me and it really brought a lot of clarity. Okay, here's all the phonemes and I'm teaching them the different graphemes that represent those phonemes.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:16:58 And, um, and so it, I i, it just really helped me kind of make that connection, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then I love just being able to do a quick, if I'm teaching a new phoneme, let's say, you know, our phonics lesson is going to be the sh digraph sh well, I can start my instruction by, okay, let's say the sound, shh, look, what's our mouth doing? What are, what's our teeth doing? And it doesn't need to be super long. We don't need to go crazy with it and spend 15 minutes on just a sound spelling wall. But I can draw that awareness to them. Um, we can look and find the mouth picture that matches on the wall and we can find the graphene that represents that sound. So,
Kate Winn 00:17:44 Yeah. And I love how you mentioned too, like there's no actual, you know, research on here is the best way to use, use the sound spelling wall or, you know, that sort of thing. It's just that we know, like you mentioned the articulatory gestures and of course the linking of the grapheme to the phoneme. So whatever tools we're using, and like you said too, in terms of teacher knowledge and improving our own instruction, if it's helping them, that's great. Um, I, I posted something on Twitter a few weeks ago because sometimes in Facebook groups, sometimes they drive me crazy <laugh> and you know, the whole idea of like, there is one right way to do this sound wall and here's how you must do it. And Yeah. Until there's actual research to, uh, to argue that point, I think we have to allow a, a little bit of flexibility there.
Kate Winn 00:18:23 But I know I, I love mine in kindergarten. Yes. And we agree it all the time. Yes, I agree with that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, move number two, teach phonics explicitly and systematically. So we had Dr. Holly Lane on the show last week, and she was talking, she kind of delved into like definitions of explicit and systematic and all of that. And, you know, listeners are welcome to go back and listen to that kind of delving into the ins and outs of phonics for, um, for most of that episode. But what would you say in terms of a practical move that you have made as a classroom teacher in terms of that area?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:18:55 Ooh, making sure to follow that. I do, we do you do a, uh, approach within your lessons and also making sure that you provide enough practice opportunities, because sometimes we spend all that time just teaching the new phonics skill and not enough time in application. So making sure you get that application. And, you know, I always thought I taught phonics before, which, which I did, but I didn't follow a scope and sequence. It wasn't explicit, it wasn't systematic. You know, I would teach a concept as it came up in a book that we were reading. So it's so different now because now I say, oh, nope, we are gonna start, here's my scope and sequence of phonics skills throughout the year, and we're gonna make sure that, you know, we teach all these things.
Kate Winn 00:19:45 So many great things I love in that chapter. I mean, I love you talk about how teachers need to learn and understand the code. And I mean, I would've thought I was a strong English student, right? But I mean, I didn't know that there was a rule about when to use C or when to use K until I was like, I don't know, 43 years old. Yeah. <laugh>. So there are things that we're learning about the code, which is great. I also love, like you talk about multisensory, like the whole idea of the research piece because there are some, um, structure, there's the approaches that use, you know, multisensory, multisensory in there, but we haven't isolated that. It's the multi-sensory part that's most effective, but we have no reason to think that it's not helping. Right. And you just talk about how it might even be a motivational component and that sort of thing. So I love how, you know, anybody reading this, it's like they're getting a little bit of the background, the research, the education on those pieces too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, couple things I wanted to ask you about from the chapter. So you said let go of letter of the week. And so what did you mean by that?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:20:36 I mean, I think it's obvious why. If, if you only teach a letter of, uh, uh, one letter a week, I mean, it's gonna take those students all the way until what, February, March, uh, before they get through the whole alphabet. And, you know, for, for kindergarten, that's just way, that's, that's way too slow. And so I love doing letter a day and then doing cycles where you're gonna do a letter a day and then you're gonna start it again. And when I taught kindergarten, you know, most of the students by December knew their letter names and sounds. Right. And so, um, it's just, yeah, if we go too slow, it's, it's gonna, it's, they're not gonna get into reading quick enough. No,
Kate Winn 00:21:22 And that's, that was definitely a mistake I was making for my first few years in kindergarten. It was actually my prep teacher who would come in the class. She was using Jolly Phonics, which is known to be a fairly effective program. Yes. So that part was okay, but it was just, here's your letter of the week. I didn't even pay attention to what letter of the week she was doing, nor was I incorporating that into the writing or anything else we were doing in the class. I wasn't ensuring that there was sort of that review, that repetition, nothing like that. So I could say, oh yeah, we did phonics, but it wasn't the way we should have been doing it. Right. So that's important. And even some people think like, okay, well I've got a lot of at-risk learners in the class, or maybe a multilingual learner, and so maybe we better slow down for them, but the research actually shows no, they need the quick pace with the review just as much. So that's, uh, that's definitely important. And the other thing I wondered if you might just describe quickly is your show what, you know, kind of dictation idea cuz we're not doing the old school random words, memorize them, regurgitate them. That's not what we're looking for. How do you do that in your class?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:22:18 So show what you know is basically my spelling assessment. And instead of calling it a test, I call it show what you know, because that's what the students are gonna do, um, on Fridays, is they're gonna show me what they know and I'm gonna take, you know, the phonics skill that I have explicitly taught them. And the, and I'm not gonna tell them the exact words that are gonna be on this, uh, show what, you know, at the end of the week, but I'm just going to give them the words at the end of the week to see who knows that concept and who needs more help. And I'm not putting this on parents because a lot of times that's what I have seen. I've seen a list of words that go home and the teacher doesn't do anything to teach them and it's their parents' responsibility.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:23:09 And I've experienced this as a parent myself. And then if they don't know them on Friday, well then it must be the parent's fault <laugh>, right? And we need to do the heavy lifting. Like, so I am just giving them words with phonic skills in them that I have explicitly taught. And then I'm gonna make a note of who, you know, who is missing those digress. So this student, we need to work on ch with this maybe there's a group of students and I know the next week that I'm gonna be working with them on that. If the majority of the students, you know, really struggled, then I know, ooh, okay, I gotta focus, I gotta, you know, redo this in my classroom, whole group. Yeah. So it gives me a lot of information. And so, uh, I love it because it's just much more responsive and, you know, helps inform my instruction.
Kate Winn 00:24:04 And so efficient because it's done whole class, it just takes a few minutes. I mean, obviously the marking time on, on the other end, but like, you get so much information from it to help you, as you said, to move forward. So mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, yeah, I think those things are, are great. Move number three, we are talking about teach decoding strategies, not cueing strategies.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:24:22 Yes. <laugh>. So if you're unfamiliar with three queuing, that is the idea that students use multiple cues to figure out a word. And there's actually no research behind this. This was really hard for me to learn, be, uh, to realize because I felt angry, I felt guilty, I felt sad, um, I felt offended, <laugh> all the different things. And this is, you know, that idea, you know, I, I talk about those Beanie Baby strategies because that's how I see it being applied a lot of times. Oh, oh, skip over the word, read the sentence and then figure out the word, look at the picture. Does it be, and the first letter of the word. And does that help you? You know, help give you a clue. And really these are strategies that poor readers use, not good readers. And the research tells us that good readers can read words and isolation. They don't need context, they don't need pictures to figure out the words. So when we teach students to read words using cues like this, we're literally teaching them to read like a poor reader. And so that this was probably the biggest move to make was abandoning three queuing and three queuing, you know, takes students' eyes off the word and we want their eyes to stay on the word and match the sounds they hear with the letters they see.
Kate Winn 00:25:53 Yeah. And this is one for me, the same thing. And for a while after I learned about issues with 3 cueing and trying to move forward for a while, like my face would actually get hot, like with kind of that embarrassment, whatever feeling when I would remember things I had done, like sending home letters to parents with those level books, which, you know, we're gonna talk about. But, um, you know, like, and you know, if your child has trouble with the word, just tell them, use their eagle eye and look at the picture and what do they think? And it's like, I can't believe I'm past the point now. I don't feel, uh, hot in the face anymore when I think about it. But I was, was definitely doing that. And I think I'm hearing some people kind of push back. Like we were never told to make children guess.
Kate Winn 00:26:32 I don't know that anyone with authority ever said to me, Kate, have your children guess when they're reading. However, with the material, and again, we'll get to that in a moment, if that's the only option they had cuz they can't decode, then of course that's going to be what you go to. Right? Well use the picture. Yeah. Or just use the first letter or use the context. Try to just, just take a guess because they couldn't do anything else. They didn't have those decoding strategies. Um, but I do wanna tell you, go ahead. Yeah.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:26:57 Okay. Well just along those lines, I get really frustrated because I do hear more and more, you know, people putting it on us. I feel like they're gaslighting teachers and saying, oh, well the teachers are using it wrong. You're just supposed to analyze the three cues. And, and then what I, I don't even understand what they're trying to say, but, um, you know, I had, you know, a purchased something or something with their curriculum and literally had the game in there. Guess the covered word? Yeah, that's what it was called. It was with a poster. It had these steps for the, for <laugh>, for the whole process of putting a post-it note, then you would unveil the, the first letter and then you'd unveil the whole thing. And so I'm just like, you guys can't put this on us. We were literally trained Yeah. <laugh> to have them guess.
Kate Winn 00:27:44 Yeah. That that's, that's what they had to do. Um, we had Lyn Stone on the show actually for our first episode, and then when we were done recording, she's just kind of asking me who else is going to be on. And when I said your name, she got so excited because Decoding Dragon is in this chapter of the book. So in like moving away from Eagle Eye and all of those Um-huh. Non-evidence based. Lynn has a nice little graphic with some better, better prompts that
Lindsay Kemeny 00:28:06 Actually promote decoding. So Yes. And she was so nice, um, to let me use that in, in the book. And you know, so in each, in each chapter there's, you know, a list of just kind of things to do. So in this one there's, I have, you know, several different things to do. Uh, you know, decoding strategies basically instead of the three queuing strategies.
Kate Winn 00:28:27 Yeah. Perfect. On now to move number four, use decodable texts instead of predictable texts with beginning readers. So tell me kind of about that shift for you.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:28:39 Yes. So as I mentioned before, these, you know, these predictable texts are the ones, you know, they're written specifically for this purpose to use the three queuing system, which we were just talking about. The only way for students to read them is either to memorize the pattern or to look at the pictures. It's usually a combination of both. It's like we cleaned up the garage, we cleaned up the kitchen, you know, and so that is huge because even if you say, okay, I'm not gonna use three cueing anymore, thank you very much. But then if you give students these predictable, repetitive texts that these are our most fragile readers, right? <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're gonna have to rely on the pictures and the context in order to read that. So we need to give these beginning readers decodable texts so that they can put, uh, those phonics skills you're teaching them to practice. And like I was saying before, they need a lot of practice. They need a lot of application and decodables help them do that.
Kate Winn 00:29:38 Yeah. And the assessment piece of that as well, right? That's what we're giving them for practice, but we also should be assessing them based on what we've taught them and what they've been practicing with. Like I'm thinking of PM benchmarks or the F & P BAS, like those things. Kids can't get a level one or a level A without using a guessing strategy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're not able to get those levels by fully decoding. And so it's just not even fair, right? It's just setting them up for failure or setting them up to use those strategies of poor readers. So, um, yeah. So really important. I'm going to move now to move number five, embrace a better approach to teaching sight words. Now do you want to define how scientists, what scientists mean by sight words and then what you're talking about?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:30:20 Yeah, it's different because, um, you know, researchers use sight words as any word that the student knows instantly. Not that they have memorized it, but that they have connected the sounds they hear with the spellings they see and with the meaning of the word. So when they have orthographically mapped, uh, that word then and, and any word can become a sight word because any word that we orthographically map and we can recognize automatically that has become a sight word. Uh, in teachers, we generally use this word as the list, uh, as to describe the list of words, like maybe on the fry list, um, high frequency words that quote unquote cannot be sounded out. And, and this is really common to think, oh, these are words that cannot be sounded out. Um, which is not exactly true, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. <laugh>, yeah. So, um, there's a limit to how many words we can memorize visually. So, you know, it's, we want students connect the sounds and the spellings. We don't want them to look at the words as a whole.
Kate Winn 00:31:30 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I love you talk about the heart word approach in your, in your chapter, which is what I use as well, because we want 'em to connect whatever sounds and spellings they can. And then just maybe the little pieces that aren't what they expect or that they haven't learned to code yet. Perhaps if we're trying to get a few high frequency words in there, like the, so that they can actually start reading some interesting texts. Um, yes. But they'll eventually learn, uh, learn later. Um, and I do love, like I, I learned something new in that chapter, like you've got a bit of a more robust routine for introducing heart words than I do. I follow UFLI. And then when we get to, um, a certain heart word from there, I, I like to use the Really Great Reading videos if I can, if there is one for that word. But I don't think I work them with it enough. Like I don't have them necessarily write it at the same time as it's introduced. And so I did get some great ideas from your, from your book, just to make it a little more robust in terms of that Yes. Introducing a heart word routine.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:32:21 And throughout the book there are QR codes, um, that go to different things and a lot of them go to videos. So you will see that, uh, there's a QR code, uh, and you'll see me teaching using that process. Uh, in the video, I think I, I have two different words just to kind of give you two different ideas of how to do that. And it's based on, uh, the way that I learned from Nora Chahbazi who is, uh, the founder of the EBLI program, um, with, you know, I do it a little differently, so I will put that out there, but I link to the way she does it in, in the book. So,
Kate Winn 00:32:59 Great. Move number six is focus on meaningful fluency practice. So how has that been a move for you or what does that look like?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:33:08 You know, I think before I kind of thought fluency developed on its own and now I'm just so much intentional, so much more intentional about it where we need to provide these meaningful practice opportunities. And a child who struggles with fluency, that's not gonna get better if they're just silent reading. They're, they're uh, it's just gonna become inaudible, right? And so lots of practice opportunities. We can think of fluency on the letter level, on the word level, on the phrase level and on just your connected text. So, uh, I described some different ways to do that here. I described partner reading, paragraph shrinking. I know we've talked about that. Yes. And we both presented on that's a great intervention for fluency and just some other things. I think I talk about the issues with round robin reading mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and alternatives that you can do to that with that.
Kate Winn 00:34:02 Yeah, absolutely. And then move number seven, improve comprehension by developing vocabulary and background knowledge. So are you telling me that that structured literacy is not just all about the foundational skills <laugh>, right? Tell me about this move.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:34:19 Yes. Um, it's just important not to neglect the other side of Scarborough's Reading Rope and comprehension is just, you know, it's just the set of, uh, there's so many things that go into it and one of the ways that, you know, I neglected it before was by, you know, not really considering how important vocabulary is with background knowledge for our comprehension. And in the, in the book, I give the example with, with my son, um, my son with dyslexia had this obsession with black holes and he would watch videos on black holes and he would read books about black holes and he studied them and he drew them and he was obsessed. And you know, I worked with him every day on his reading. And so he had asked me, you know, can we read a book on black holes for our tutoring sessions? Absolutely.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:35:11 We got one from the library and you know, we're reading it, he's reading it to me and I'm just, there's all these words like Quasars, Event Horizon. And I'm like, okay, what is going on? And I'd have to stop him and I'd have to go back and reread it. And I didn't understand, but he understood, he knew all those things. And so it just really showed me how important vocabulary and background knowledge is because I could decode better than him. But he was having better comprehension of that book because he had the content knowledge, he knew the vocabulary. Mm-hmm. And I didn't.
Kate Winn 00:35:49 For sure. And I think like when we're comparing balanced literacy to structure literacy, I think one area there might be a little bit of overlap is the rich read aloud idea, right? Yes. But before I learned what I know now, I was way more about the fiction and a lot less of like explicit vocabulary work. And now I'm more into like building text sets around a non-fiction area that the kids are interested in. Cuz I mean, I'm in Ontario and kindergarten, it's a lot of inquiry and we're kind of following student lead and that sort of thing. So we can pick a topic like at the very end of the school year right before Canada Day. There's never school on Canada Day here because the summer holidays have started, but we just did a three week little thing on Canada. And so it was like just some nice fiction stories that took place in Canada, but then also those non-fiction pieces, right. And just learning about the provinces and the territories and all of that stuff. I dunno if you know all that stuff about Canada, Lindsay, but, um, so just the idea of building that knowledge really intentionally. Right? Yes. I think is also that other important key of structure that is seeing, as you said, the other side of the rope because we know that both are so important.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:36:49 Yes, absolutely. That's great. Building text sets is a great way to do that and I love that you're including both the fiction and the nonfiction on that topic.
Kate Winn 00:36:58 Yes. All right. So we've come to the end of the seven moves. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or anything that you, uh, that you're just burning to, to share with listeners before we say goodbye?
Lindsay Kemeny 00:37:11 Oh, um, I don't think so. This has been so fun.
Kate Winn 00:37:14 I just hope everybody goes and gets their own copy of Lindsay Kemeny’s brand new book Seven Mighty Moves because it really is as good as I keep, uh, I keep saying it is I do not try to steer people wrong with book recommendations. And, and I mean some books, it's funny because I'll see on Twitter or Facebook of course, like, oh, what's a good book for a beginner? You know, if you're just starting this journey and somebody will say, oh, go with Speech to Print, go with um, Seidenberg. And it's like brilliant books. Absolutely brilliant. And those are both books that I read way too early in my journey. Like I had to read them again later. Yes. Right. Yes. I mean, do, I mean this is a book, I mean, I have read later into my journey and still learned more, but this is a book that somebody brand new where it's like, we have been hardcore balanced literacy, now it's time to move.
Kate Winn 00:37:56 What do I do? Like it's just, it's written in such a teacher-friendly way, it's all research backed. So you can kind of like, cuz sometimes it's the case of individual teachers trying to make these moves on their own. Yes. And it's not like someone's pushing it from top down. They're the ones trying to go to their principals or go to their leaders and say, uh, I think we need to do this. But your chapters, it's like, well, okay, here's kind of a citation and here's a bit of research on this. So it's not just, oh, this teacher in Utah says we need to do it this way. Right. Yeah. It's got, it's got that perfect, um, mix between the teacher practice and then No, no, this is actual science that that we're basing this on. So in case listeners have not gotten the message yet, that, uh, that I think they should get this book. I do think they should. And Lindsay, I'm just so excited that we got a chance to have this voice to voice virtual face-to-face. Yes. And, uh, congratulations on the new book. I hope it's, uh, as successful as it should be. And I hope we get a chance to do this again sometime.
Lindsay Kemeny 00:38:53 Me too. And thank you so much. And your words are just, I love them, so thank you, they mean so much to me.
Kate Winn 00:38:58 Thanks, Lindsay.
Kate Winn 00:39:01 Show notes for this episode with all the links and information you need can be found at podcast.idaontario.com. And you have been listening to episode four with Lindsay Kemeny.
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 new podcast. And 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 thismomloves. Make sure you're following the Reading Road Trip podcast in your app and watch for new episodes dropping every Monday throughout the summer.
We could not bring Reading Road Trip to you without the 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, 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 for another fantastic guest interview here on Reading Road Trip.
