A Conversation with Timothy Rasinski

Dr. Timothy Rasinksi talks to us about teaching reading fluency, having fun with words, and the art and science of teaching. Tim is known for his work in reading fluency and word study, reading in the elementary and middle grades, and supporting readers who struggle. Dr. Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and the director of its award winning reading clinic.

To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2021, Jan 12). A conversation with Timothy Rasinski. (Season 1, No. 10) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/DF32-CDF2-AA89-7CB6-5793-F

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Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:11

Education Research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. Each week I invite a top education researcher to sit down and talk with teachers about what they have learned from years of study. This week, Dr. Timothy Ransinski talks to us about teaching reading fluency, having fun with words and the art and science of teaching. Tim is known for his work and reading fluency and Word Study, reading in the elementary and middle grades and supporting readers who struggle. Dr. Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and the director of its award winning Reading Clinic. You can learn more about Tim at the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite morning drink. And join me your host, Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Tim, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Timothy Rasinski: 1:20

Thanks, Lindsay. Glad to be here. And thanks for the invitation.

Lindsay Persohn: 1:23

So, from your own experiences in education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Timothy Rasinski: 1:30

Oh, glad to do and as many people know, my area of interest is reading fluency. Which back in the day, nobody heard about. And it was back in the day when I came across reading fluency. I was working as an intervention teacher outside of Omaha, Nebraska, working with elementary kids who are having difficulty in reading and I was doing what I thought was a pretty good job. I was doing everything the book told me teaching them phonics working on vocabulary, building comprehension. And still many of these kids were not making much progress, the progress that I was hoping that would they would make it was really obviously quite, quite frustrating. Fortunately for me, I was working on my master's degree at the time, and professors had us reading some of these articles that were just beginning to appear on reading fluency. I think recall one being Dr. J. Samuels, great piece, the method of repeated readings. And then there was one by Carol Chomsky, I love the title. It was after decoding, what do you teach kids about phonics, but they're still not making progress? What do you do then? And her answer was reading fluency. So I started reading these things, they started to make sense to me. And I began to apply some of these methods that were, they were talking about the idea of repeated readings, having kids read something more than once to they reach a point where they can read it fluently and also assisted reading, or they read something and they hear it read to them at the same time. So they're hearing fluent rendering of the same text, and oh, my gosh, so many kids just began to make progress. And it was really quite, quite amazing. I mean, these kids were pretty much flatlining. And now all of a sudden, they started to really make some substantial progress, not only in terms of their reading, but their confidence as well, as they began to see themselves being able to read, you know, pretty much as well as their classmates, who were the more proficient readers, they just had to work a little bit more at it. So that really was the turning point for me. And then, of course, I decided that's what I wanted to work on. In my doctoral degree, I, you still, I still remember, Richard Ellington's piece that came out in the early 1980s, reading fluency, the neglected goal of a reading program, or something to that effect, and, and so that, so that was I thought, I could carve myself out a little piece of the territory, and then add it now for over 40 years or so. And then, you know, we're just most recently, I have been working in our reading clinic for many, many years now. And what we find is that most of the children who come and I'm talking about first graders through for the most part, elementary grades first through fifth, we find that reading fluency is a significant issue, not only fluency by these foundational reading competencies, fluency, but also word recognition vocabulary, you know, like, I can't read if you can't decode the words, and you can't read if you don't know what the words mean. And so working on that also, for many of our struggling readers just has been a has been a godsend. These children come to us with problems in comprehension, but when we take a closer look at it, it seems to be some of these foundational skills. So that's, that's kind of been, you know, my my path for the past 40 odd years. And, and I think we're seeing some some fruits of that now. We're beginning to recognize the importance of foundational reading competencies.

Lindsay Persohn: 4:49

Well, certainly fluency has been an under highlighted aspect of reading, I think, and in fact, in the courses I teach, we tend to read the What's Hot List too, and in particular, we read the article about fluency being hot, because I find that my students often don't have a whole lot of experience with fluency practice. It's almost like it's this thing that's supposed to be absorbed from the world rather than actually practiced on our own.

Timothy Rasinski: 5:17

Well, you know, it probably is if you are a normal to above normal achieving student, you develop fluency through practice. And you know, kids who are pretty good readers, they read a lot on their own. So they develop that largely on their own, but it's those kids that we worry about, you know, they're not very good readers. So they probably are not inclined to read a lot on their own. And so of course, it's just that that snowball effect where, you know, the rich get richer and the poor get poor, the Matthew effect that that Stanovich talked about. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the what's hotlist? Well, I, I've been a respondent to that for many years, where Jack Cassidy is called people up, and of course, and every year for, I don't know, 2010 to 2016 or so it fluency, he always was not hot, is identified as not hot. And so actually, that's the reason why I tell people kind of pissed me off. So I wrote an article called Why reading fluency should be hot. There. But guy, and it's not even mentioned now, I think in some of the more recent, so what's hot programs that articles that have come out? So yeah, we still have a lot of work to go in that in that area.

Lindsay Persohn: 6:27

It's actually your article on why fluency should be hot. That's the article I was referring to that my students read, because like I said, I think thank you, thank you for that. It's been extremely influential in shaping students thinking about why fluency is important. And it leads really naturally to conversations about setting a purpose for fluency practice. You know, if we just sit a kid down and tell them to read the book over and over again, that's not real likely to increase their fluency, it might increase their boredom. But if we say you're reading this in order to rehearse it, so you can get better at reading it. That makes seems to me to make all the difference. But I would love to hear a bit more about your experience with fluency practice.

Timothy Rasinski: 7:08

Yeah, you're absolutely right. We know that, you know, repeated readings works. And we also know that a way of measuring one component of fluency, the automatic word recognition is by speed of reading how fast kids read in a minute's time, you know, the dibbles, or AIMSweb, or whatever many teachers use, and it's actually not a bad measure. But it's when we flip that and we turn that into a method of instruction, where, as you say, Read this five times. And so you can read it 120 words per minute, you know, kids are gonna roll their eyes at we're in real life, do we actually do that? And, you know, I think one of the things we need to do as teachers is ask that question, how can we make things authentic for kids, and simply telling kids to read something repeatedly isn't very authentic? And actually, what that led me to was to ask the question, why would anybody want to repeat, read something and rehearse it. And of course, the word rehearsal opens me up to the whole notion of performance. If I'm going to perform a poem or sing a song or could be part of a play, there isn't a reader's theater script, I'm going to rehearse. And rehearsal is, you know, is a form of repeated readings, but it's not aimed at reading fast. It's aimed at practicing to the point where you can render that text in a meaningful way. So our audience will find satisfaction in it. And meaning. Oftentimes, when I tell my students we talked about reading aloud, and how reading aloud to kids can be a does so many great things, builds knowledge and builds vocabulary, comprehension, but it also can model fluency for kids. But what I sometimes tell my own students graduate and undergraduates is next time you reach your students read as fast as you can, in a monotone voice. And you know, you don't go go very far before they're looking at you with wandering eyes. What are you doing? And of course, the the response that we should have to our students is if I read this way, and you don't like it or understand it, well, how can you read your own in your own way fast and without expression, and enjoy it and understand it? Sometimes I think kids need a good model of what fluent reading is, and also what not so fluent reading is,

Lindsay Persohn: 9:18

right? It takes that sort of tuning of the ear. And then I think the difference in you know, whether it's monotone or speed reading, for students to go, Wait a minute, what are you doing there? And then you can connect it to what they're doing themselves?

Timothy Rasinski: 9:32

Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Lindsay Persohn: 9:34

Tim, what would you like teachers to know about your research?

Timothy Rasinski: 9:38

Well, first of all, obviously, that reading fluency and foundational skills are really important. And especially for our kids who struggle we need to spend time and first for some kids, you know, it needs to go beyond second grade. And but the key is to find that notion of authenticity. I have actually been using a different term More recently, the art of teaching, you know, Anybody who's been following reading for the last 10, 20 years, ever since the National Reading Panel came out with a report knows that we've been focusing on the science of reading so far. Right. And clearly, that's important. I'm not denying that's important. But what we need to do is find ways of teaching the science in artful ways. And that's where, you know, the example that I shared earlier that repeated readings doing it through authentic rehearsal of material that's meant to be performed. Here we are, right now in November. And it occurred to me, for example, that was in November 1863, when Abraham Lincoln gave that famous speech at Gettysburg. And it's, you know, why not have kids visit history and learn to actually perform Mr. Lincoln's famous speeches only 180 or so words easily can be practiced and performed. And if even if that's too challenging, maybe just the fruit that let that last, that last line government over the People By the People for the people shall not perish from this sort of thing. That certainly is something very important this in this day of age where we're having these political differences. But that's the challenge for teachers I think, is to be calm, that art is not just the scientist, if you're going to be a good teacher, you have to be both a scientist and an artist. And that sort of that creative part comes up. If I might be a little self indulgent I, you know, we talked about word study, and that's another area of mine. And so I find it interesting. And I think a lot of kids, justifiably so are kind of turned off by phonics and spelling, because it can be actually taught in, you know, well meaning but really quite boring, boring sorts of ways. Well occurred to me several years ago, actually. I have four children and they live in different parts of the country. And of course, we get together over the holidays and one one of these holidays occurred to my wife and I, that after after we would have dinner we would get go back to the dinner table and get out of board game. And we were putting all these games back in the closet after the kids left and my wife noticed he's noticed something she said Tim, do you realize every game we played last week was a word game we played Scrabble Boggle Balderdash Wheel of Fortune, Password Buzzword Taboo, Wordical, Bananagrams. And on and on. And it just occurred to me yes, if you and I like to play games in so many these games are working so I want children well, it can we make word study feel like a game. And you know, there are a variety of ways of doing it. The one I'm I've gotten a little bit of notoriety has been in your these these word ladders, the Word Ladder is actually been shown to be a scientifically validated approach to teaching phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling and vocabulary. And it's, you know, what I did was I turned it into a game. Basically, it's an activity where you guide kids from making one word to another by either changing one letter one sound at a time. But the way I did it was to make it a game is the first word in the last word go together in some way. So more just recently, I did one word, the first word was kin k i n, for the means family. And then we worked our way down in the last word after 10 words were made was pumped. p when p no probably asked, what do those have together? Well, if you put them together, you get pumpkin, which of course was, you know, very good for Halloween, which we of course, we just celebrated here in the States. So yeah, that that's the challenge is can we make our instruction that way for our students, you know, engaging and fun and enjoyable, school should be fun. And, you know, I'm not sure school is as much fun as it used to be for kids and, or for teachers that matter. And that's the challenge to all of us to be those be that artist as well as the scientist.

Lindsay Persohn: 13:47

I love what you're saying here, Tim, bringing back the idea that teaching is both an art and a science. I know I have always felt that way that that thought has always just really resonated with me from the very beginning of my teacher prep program. And I think that is one way that we get back to having a bit more fun in schools with teachers should have fun at school and so should students. And of course, if if teachers aren't, then students probably aren't going to either. So you know, it really is a community of learners and and when that community involves some fun and creative aspects, I think everybody benefits.

Timothy Rasinski: 14:27

Oh, for sure. And teachers too, for that matter. And then schools, classrooms should be joyous places. Because,

Lindsay Persohn: 14:33

yeah, I think that's how we really achieve that sense of community. And

Timothy Rasinski: 14:37

Yeah exactly. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And then, you know, if you think about it, why do we have things like patriotic songs, and, you know, they bring us together, and poetry and so on. They develop that sense of community, which is a pretty important piece of our classroom goals beyond just literacy.

Lindsay Persohn: 14:56

And thinking about the not only the Civic aspects of classrooms but also civic aspects in our world, your example of, of reading a speech on the anniversary of that speech for fluency practice is such a great way to bring in social studies topics, and really all different kinds of contexts into the classroom, particularly, I think, where we we may envision spaces where there seems to be less flexibility or less room for social studies and science and art space topics of fluency really gives us some space to work with some key passages and some really interesting kinds of text.

Timothy Rasinski: 15:37

Yeah, you know, it seems to me, and maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like we have focused so much on narrative and informational texts, which clearly are important. But we've kind of pushed off to the side, some of these other kinds of texts, the oratory or speeches, the songs, code poetry, I mean, I think there's so much value in these kinds of texts that are, they can be used instructionally. For Kids, as you said, connecting just to social studies. I'll mention one other thing. And we are we are taping this on week week of November 10th. I believe it is, well, obviously, tomorrow is Veterans Day. And one of the things I'll be doing later this week is sending out a fluency text, which is something that is a text that probably everybody knows if you're an American, God bless America. And the reason I do that is because there's a story behind that song, it was actually written by Irving Berlin, and performed for the very first time on November 11 1938, on a radio program in NBC, there's actually you can look it up. And I'm going to be sharing that on my Twitter feed. So, you know, it's those stories, I think that that we learned by in their stories behind songs, that interestingly enough, the follow up to that Woody Guthrie did not particularly care for God bless America, he thought it was too over the top. And so he wrote his own song about America, and not long afterwards. And of course, everybody knows what that song is, This land is your land, this land is my land, more from the common person's perspective. So, you know, when you can make those kinds of connections, I think it's so powerful for kids that are developing fluency and, and, you know, social studies, content and so much, such so much more.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:21

And it just creates so much interest around a text also, whenever you understand the backstory, and you understand that one song was a response to another song, because it's what it's what kids are doing now, you know, in the way they're they tweet and retweet and, and reappropriate other kinds of texts into their own videos and shared conversations. So I think it's neat for kids to understand that that has a you know, it's rooted in history. It's, it's, it's what we've always done as humans is to make these connections and to respond to each other three different texts.

Timothy Rasinski: 17:56

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And there's so much of that available, poetry, songs, all that stuff.

Lindsay Persohn: 18:01

Now, Tim, there's something I wanted to ask you about specifically, since you have done so much work in the area of fluency. I know I get a lot of questions from my students about silent reading fluency because it certainly seems like an underdeveloped and maybe understudied field, can you share with listeners, any information or anything that you have learned about silent reading fluency? Or even how do we make that transition? We always talk about oral reading fluency and practicing that, but how do we get to silent reading fluency?

Timothy Rasinski: 18:31

Yeah, there's I think that was part of the problem with fluency back in the day we often associated only with oral reading. And of course, you know, as we progressed, as a culture, silent reading began to take more precedence. But I think it's pretty well documented number one that students who when they read orally read with good fluency, when they read silently, they read with better comprehension, there's a strong correlation between the two. And several studies have shown that. And the other thing that I often mentioned is that most of us, when we read silently, we hear ourselves, even, you know, said internal voice. I mean, so I heard some buddy argue that, even when he read silently, there's vestiges of movements in our vocal cords, which indicates that maybe there is actually no such thing as silent reading in the pure sense. But I do think there's that sense that, you know, if you read something silently, you generally hear yourself, the others that internal voice, they did rehearse, you want to develop that. And of course, I think the way to develop that is through oral, you know, oral speech, oral rendering of texts for students. There's a there's a famous quote by Maya Angelou, who talks about that she says that words by themselves don't carry all the meaning they have to be infused with the human voice, to get to the different various shades of meaning that the author tries to convey. And that's such a powerful, powerful message. It's not just the words it's the way you say the words even And when you say those words silently. So you know, I think one of the things we need to do is help students develop that what that that connection between oral prosody or oral expression in silent reading silent reading fluency too

Lindsay Persohn: 20:15

thank you for that. Because I do feel as though even if in our classrooms, we get to oral reading fluency. Often I think we miss that connection to how that translates to silent reading fluency. Yeah, what happens when reading becomes a, you know, a purely internal process, I think that that's something a lot of teachers struggle to really understand. There's no one outward way of conveying our our reading processes, once it becomes silent reading,

Timothy Rasinski: 20:40

all you have to do is read a text, it has a lot of conversation, and you'll find yourself almost, you know, intuitively changing your internal voice, when you go from one character to the next. And you know, it's just, it's something that I think is developed through just lots of opportunities to play around with your own voice orally, then kind of internalize it as you become a more proficient reader.

Lindsay Persohn: 21:01

Tim, given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?

Timothy Rasinski: 21:07

I think the important important message, from my perspective, is that notion of claiming the artist in you that you're not just the scientists accept the science, but also recognize it's the craft of teaching that turns it into an art, we have to teach phonics and vocabulary and fluency and comprehension. But how can you do it in ways that are authentic, and that can change from teacher to teacher, we don't all have, you know, we've gotten into this notion in the last several decades that if you just read the script, in the teacher edition, you know, you're doing, you're doing what you need to do. And it's not that at all, you have to be that artist, I am not a disbeliever in standards, but sometimes I wish that we could just tell teachers, this is where your kids need to be by the end of the school year, in terms of say fluency or word recognition or comprehension, it's up to the teacher to get you there will supply you with material and ideas and professional development. But how you create that curriculum, you know, to a large extent is up to you. And I think we've gotten away from that we don't trust teachers, and I think we need to trust teachers to be that artist as well as scientist,

Lindsay Persohn: 22:18

the the micromanaging of teachers certainly has taken over, as you say, in the last couple of decades. Yeah. And, you know, this idea of here's, here's the script, it really does remove that opportunity for authentic engagement with students.

Timothy Rasinski: 22:36

Yeah, you know, it's that sense of ownership. If I have ownership of something, I'm gonna make sure it works as well as possible. But when the principal or somebody else owns the curriculum, and I just have to go through the motions while then I'm less invested in it, I have less incentive to do my best to make it work for kids. Because it doesn't belong to me. I can't be I'm not responsible, if it doesn't work. Teachers want to be responsible, they want to take, they want to take a curriculum and make it work for themselves and for their kids.

Lindsay Persohn: 23:06

Right. They want their students to be successful and to find an opportunity to learn. In fact, that's a another thing that I always share with my students, when they go out to interview for their first teaching job. They've got to realize that they're interviewing the school as well. You know, is it a place you want to be? Is it a place where you feel like you will be respected to do your job and do it to the best of your ability with support, of course, but, you know, I think you can feel that when you walk into a school as to whether or not you have someone hovering over your shoulder telling you to read the next line, read the next line? Or if if you have some someone who is truly supportive and wants you to flourish as an individual,

Timothy Rasinski: 23:47

Right? Yeah, yeah. Just walk around and see what's posted on the walls give you a good idea of what that was, like.

Lindsay Persohn: 23:54

Tim, you mentioned earlier that that you were early in your studies, were looking to carve out a piece of the world of literacy or reading for yourself. And you have certainly done that, I must say, in fact, I want to congratulate you on your citation of merit award your your recent award. So thank you for that contribution to the world. It's just you've done such important work that I'm so glad teachers will have a chance to hear your voice and to hear you talk about

Timothy Rasinski: 24:24

Thank you. Thanks, Lindsay. That was quite a surprise for me because usually, I that a word that will you miss gray award tends to be given to people who are scholars, researchers, and so on. And deservedly so. I've never seen myself as a pure scholar. I've always seen myself more as a person who tries to translate research into practice. And I'm so so glad to have gotten that recognition because perhaps it's a recognition for other folks, other scholars who find themselves in that bridge between research into practice because I think we need more of that exact giving examples to teachers of how this research can actually be applied in, in real life classrooms and family situations.

Lindsay Persohn: 25:10

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for your time today, Tim, and thank you for your contributions in the field of education.

Timothy Rasinski: 25:18

Can I do a shout out before.

Lindsay Persohn: 25:20

Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.

Timothy Rasinski: 25:22

I do want to mention a couple of things before we sign up number one, I do a I've been posting three lessons a week, morphology Monday, word letter Wednesday, and fluency Friday. And I post that on Twitter. So if anybody's interested in following me and getting these lessons, my Twitter feed is @Tim Rasinski1. So T I M RASINSKI 1, or you can follow me on Facebook. And I post those as well. But it's been my little contribution to helping teachers during this crazy times we've been we've been going through. And if anybody wants to contact me my email address, hopefully you'll put it up on your blog. But it's trasinsk@kent.edu. I do respond to my emails. And I'm happy to always learn something new when I get in the conversation with teachers and others who have the shared interest in reading and reading fluency in particular,

Lindsay Persohn: 26:21

Thank you so much for sharing that resource. Three lessons a week could really do so much to bolster learning communities and schools and classrooms where they may be feeling like they need a little bit more of this work. So thank you so much for sharing that with our listeners.

Timothy Rasinski: 26:38

Oh, glad to do it. And actually, I'll add you to my list.

Lindsay Persohn: 26:41

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Tim. And thank you again for your time today. We appreciate your contributions.

Timothy Rasinski: 26:47

Thanks, Lindsay. It's been nice chatting with you.

Lindsay Persohn: 26:51

Dr. Timothy Rosinski is known for his work in reading fluency and Word Study, reading in elementary and middle grades and supporting readers who struggle. Tim has written over 200 articles and has authored co authored or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs on reading education. He is the author of the best selling books on reading fluency titled The fluent reader and the mega book of fluency. His research on reading has been cited by the National Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as reading Research Quarterly, the reading, teacher reading psychology and the Journal of Educational Research. Tim is the first author of the fluency chapter for the handbook of reading research, volume four, Tim served a three year term on the board of directors of the International Reading Association and was co editor of the reading teacher, the world's most widely read journal of literacy education. He's also served as CO editor of the Journal of literacy research. Rasinski is past president of the College Reading Association, and he has won the A B hair and Laureate awards from the College Reading Association for his scholarly contributions to literacy education. In 2010, Tim was elected to the international reading Hall of Fame. Tim is also the 2020 recipient of the William S gray citation of merit from the International Literacy Association. Dr. Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University, and the director of its award winning Reading Clinic. You can find him on Twitter at TimRasinski1 or you can follow Tim on Facebook. For the good of all students, good research should inform good practice and vice versa. listeners are invited to respond to our guests. Learn more about our guests research, and suggest a topic for an upcoming episode through this podcast website at classroom caffeine.com. If you've learned something today, or just enjoyed listening, please subscribe to this podcast. I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me.