Reaching All Readers

We have a summer bonus episode for you!
Shannon and Mary have Anna Geiger, the Measured Mom, join them in the lounge again to discuss the best evidence based practices that teachers can use to reach all readers. Anna's new book provides teachers and parents with a consolidated understanding of the Science of Reading findings.

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6.19 1st summer bonus episode Reaching All Readers with Anna Geiger, the Measured Mom

Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. Come join the conversation with other curious teachers as they discover teaching strategies and resources to reach all of their learners. I'm Shannon.

Mary Saghafi: And I'm Mary. And together, we bring an honest and experienced point of view to the topics we cover to shed light on best practices.

Whether you're a new teacher seeking guidance, a seasoned pro looking for fresh ideas, or a curious parent, Our community offers something for everyone, so grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and cozy up in the virtual lounge with us and eavesdrop on our professional conversations.

Shannon Betts: Listen, learn, and immediately add to your bag of teaching tricks.

Find what works for your students with us in the Reading Teachers Lounge. Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. You thought we were done with our sixth season, but we just had so many wonderful educators that we wanted to speak with and share some interesting resources with [00:01:00] you that we decided to Continue the season for a little bit longer and give you some bonus content.

And so this is one of our bonus episodes and we're so happy you're here with us and it's Mary and me and also a special returning guest.

Mary Saghafi: Yes. Yeah. Let's welcome Anna Geiger, better known as the measured mom on social media platforms and in the internet world. The Measured Mom, Anna Geiger has created many, many free resources and also incredible paid resources and a membership program.

She does a lot speaking to the science of reading and her journey has taken her a very long way. And we are happy to promote a new book that she has coming out called Reach All Readers. And we are just so excited to have you here. Thanks for coming, Anna. Thank you so much.

Shannon Betts: We had you on last season season five on Fun Fact.

That episode about orthographic mapping is our most downloaded episode ever by far. That's [00:02:00] amazing. Yeah, you beat out Wiley Blevins for a long time. His episode, well, let's go and see what sequence from season four was the highest. And then yours just started to passing it and surpassing it and surpassing it.

And

Mary Saghafi: you also have your own podcast as well. Triple R. People are teaching which is such a great resource as well. I'm sure that many of our listeners also follow that podcast too. So it's great to collaborate with you today. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do in the world of literacy.

Anna Geiger: So I was a classroom teacher in the early 2000s and I was very much a balance literacy teacher, very much. I taught 3rd, grade first, and then 1st and 2nd mostly combination. And when I ended my classroom time to raise my children, I started a website in 2013. So 11 years ago now, mainly as a way to keep myself accountable for the learning activities I was doing with my younger kids.

Cause I was really on top of it with my first two, but as our family grew, you know, things got busier. So I called it The Measured Mob because I was trying to be more thoughtful, more [00:03:00] patient. At the time I had a little girl in kindergarten. She had three little brothers and things were pretty crazy. But very quickly I realized I really preferred writing about teaching.

So it became a teaching website, but I did keep the name and my kids are, of course, a big focus of my life. We have six kids and our oldest is just turned 17 crazy and our babies in second grade. As I said, I was very balanced literacy all the way through teaching and through a long time in my website.

So I had created a course about teaching reading the balance literacy way. And it was really jarring. When Emily Hanford started publishing her work, In particular, her third article was actually when I first became aware of her because people were bringing it to my attention since it was all about the problems with 3Qing.

And 3Qing was foundational to how I taught reading. So that was quite upsetting to say the least. I didn't really take it too seriously at first, but this noise was getting louder. So then I started looking into it myself and realized I had to make a pretty major pivot into how I approached teaching reading and how I encouraged teachers to teach reading.

So that's, that's where that came from. I I had just started my podcast, so I [00:04:00] had to do a, basically took some time off of it so I could really make sure what I was sharing was accurate and eventually re recorded the first 30 episodes so that they were not going to confuse people. And then I took a year off and studied and then completely revamped my course, redid the whole thing.

And then then this, I took some continuing education. I was Orton Gillingham certified and I got a science of reading graduate certificate. And then I had an opportunity to write a book from Josie Bass and I thought this would be a great way to. Speak to teachers who were in the same position that I was, people who really felt confident in balance literacy, but in a non judgmental way, help them to see how many of the practices that we might hold dear are actually not backed by research at all.

So it's certainly a book for those people, but it's also a book for new teachers who are trying to sort through things. So I think some new teachers are still learning balance literacy. Many of them are learning that in their colleges and universities, and then they're getting into workplace and their school may or may not support balanced literacy.

And they need to learn that this [00:05:00] these are the practices that we might be expected to do, but these are the practices that are actually backed by research.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. I felt so I felt such a parallel line for when I started reading the introduction of your book, where you speak to the balanced literacy foundation that you had and Shannon and I come.

definitely from that exact point of view and the pivot that we've taken. And I think that one of the points that you make that is also carry over in what we try to share with our listeners too, is that, you know, you, you may not be comfortable reading the research. Maybe that's something that you didn't understand.

You, maybe you didn't understand the difference between evidence based and research based and how evidence based actually You know, promotes what works and how to actually look at research. And so when you when you break it down for teachers in this book, I think that it, it helps share that you know, that it's not an argument, it's not a position to take it's, it's a pivot that we all [00:06:00] have to kind of make professionally right now.

And I have to really applaud the book because I think that it's very concise. It's very clear. Shannon and I have been practicing and trying really hard to understand and learn and pivot our own practices as well. And so, you know, along this same journey, your language is so clear. I feel like it's very easy to pick up your book and read through each section and, and see what is the most important takeaway that I need to take from this.

And as a classroom teacher, I think that this is a really valuable book. So I have to commend you on that, but also thank you for being honest in how you have kind of approached this and how it is a bit jarring and frustrating after you've received your degree and you realize that, Oh, I, I knew how to teach reading, but I didn't know how to teach non readers to become readers or proficient readers.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. That's exactly it. And I can thank Josie Bass for the the word count helping me stay concise. I didn't really have a choice. [00:07:00] Well, you brought

Shannon Betts: receipts because one of my best grad school professors told me that Before I read anything, I need to check the bibliography to make sure that that person knows their sources and you cite the bibliography at the end of every chapter and you know, your sources.

And I really appreciate that. And then also, like Mary said, that like, it gives you the most important takeaways and then early in the book, you explain even how to read research and how to understand it, like effect size and things like that. And I appreciated that foundation in the front of the book, because then I was able to even.

understand when you were talking about the best practices, and then, okay, well, the research shows that this practice has an effect size of this. And the research shows this practice has an effect size of this. And then it sort of even helps you decide how to navigate this as a teacher. Cause you even say that it's like, it's up to the teachers to decide how to put this research into practice.

Anna Geiger: Yeah, exactly. And I, You know, when you talk about figuring out what [00:08:00] effect size means and all that, I heard Lynn Stone say once that she writes her books to help her understand things better, something like that. Like that was for me too. Like you, there's nothing like having to communicate something to somebody else that requires you to really figure it out.

So I, it was, it was about a nine month process, but it definitely wasn't, okay, now I'm just gonna write everything I know it was, I need to look into this myself so I can explain it to other people.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Shannon Betts: Well, we say that with students, right? That like, if they know what they can teach it to their peers, or if we want them to know it better, like help them have them help their peers.

And that sounds like what you're saying.

Mary Saghafi: So I feel like if you are a listener who is still getting comfortable with the idea of the science of reading, and you need, you know, some really good takeaways and, and the understanding points reading the first part of this book is really would be very, very beneficial.

The second piece that I really enjoy about your book is that then you talk a little bit about the science of learning, where you spend a lot of time talking [00:09:00] about what are the important aspects of what teachers do to ensure that learning is occurring in the classroom. And so you talk a lot about what are some Shifts that teachers can do to optimize instructional time or provide students with opportunities to increase their responses or how to provide frequent feedback and scaffolding instructional activities.

So I this for me, this was kind of the unique chapter that I really appreciated following. Okay, here's the science, but here is. Some really important implemental changes. So can you just tell us a little bit about and highlight some of the important ways that you would optimize instructional time?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. So first of all, I have to give a shout out, of course, to Anita Archer from whom I'm learned. I've learned most of this and I love watching the videos of her actually teaching and I've been able to see her present in person. And she, not only does she teach teachers how to teach, but she. uses these practices when she's teaching teachers.

So you watch her in action, you know, asking for coral responses and all that. [00:10:00] And in the last month or so I was able to visit about 15 classrooms and record videos of myself teaching as part of a course that will be offered in the future related with the book as a textbook. And this was a really good chance for me to implement a lot of the things that she's taught, because that's not how I taught as a teacher.

I was very much, you know, ask a question, raise your hand, and it, it, The lessons could have dragged. No, I talk really fast. I always have. So that probably helped a little bit, but learning, learning so much from her, I've learned things like doing coral responses as much as you can. So for example, if we're doing blending, the sounds are what's the sound, what's the word, you know, put your hand out.

Everybody says it. Cause why would you call on somebody to do that when everybody should know how to do it? Right. And. Also choral reading. I did a lot of that when I was in the classrooms and that was a really great way to keep everybody on track. Not everyone was a hundred percent on track all the time, but if we're doing round robin, they certainly aren't as well.

Right? So this idea of moving quickly by leading, leading the reading, helping, helping kids to be on track with [00:11:00] you. Those are important things to keep your pace perky as Anita Archer would say. I think another really important was one is instructional routines. And I don't know why, but for some reason I.

Maybe I just wanted to be flexible, even though that's really not my personality. But as a teacher, I kind of resisted routines. I don't know if I thought they were boring, but I've learned how, as a mother, how important routines are for my kids. There's less questions. There's less, I mean, less questions is a big one, right?

Like who, who wants too many, who wants a million questions from everybody about what's happening next when your kids know what to expect, whether that's this is how we pass out letter tiles. This is how we put them away. This is how we do our review at the beginning of every phonics lesson. All of those things.

Make your optimize your time because there's no questions. You just move quickly and not only do they make your time optimized But they're also comforting right? So when kids know what to expect, so I learned that as a mother apply that back to my teaching and then Teachers should never do what I always did which was when I was done with my materials to put them in a pile [00:12:00] So, and I never could find what I needed.

As a mom of six kids, I've definitely had to figure that out because I've got a million notes from school and things I have to keep track of. So having a system not only for storing materials, but for putting them back, I think are all really important things. And just those few things can really make your lessons move more quickly because every teacher knows we always need more time.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I, and I think that the way in the book, how you sort of describe, you know, these are some routines that I have. It's really easy to implement these into your classroom and here's how you teach them. Like it's very directly stated too. So I feel like whether you are a teacher who needs to just kind of like, Snap up and get your routines a little bit more like tight or if you are a new teacher and you're still learning classroom management, I feel like this is a really useful way.

I also found that when I first started, especially with my Orton Gillingham lessons there's so many manipulatives that we need to use for our students. We want to utilize multi sensory learning as [00:13:00] much as possible. Yeah. And we want to make it meaningful. And so in order to do that, you have to kind of have your lesson flow.

So it's not a just pull it off on the fly kind of lesson. These, these really do need to be very intentional. But the way to do that, I think is what you had just stated before is with those instructional routines. So I think that's really helpful.

Shannon Betts: And we've said that on the podcast that like the more the routine is understood by the students, you know, then they don't have to focus on the directions.

They can focus on the content you're teaching. You know, it's like, where do we want the students to be

Anna Geiger: remembering all

Shannon Betts: the steps that change every single day or remembering what we're teaching them?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. That's a really good point that I didn't just mention. It's the, then we talk, I talk about that in the book too, this idea of working memory and you know, overloading if, if they're constantly wondering what's next, what's next, where do I get this versus she's going to say the sounds I'm going to write them, I'm going to spell them, you know?

Yeah. Really good point.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. And I think that the [00:14:00] next flow, so I feel like many of the books that we read then flow right into the most important parts of you know, of language, of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and you speak of all those, but before you do, you speak about the oral language within the classroom and how oral language development is so essential for students and I, I think that it's often acknowledged when we first talk about this, but sometimes it gets glossed over.

So I'd love to spend a little bit of time talking about some essential Oral routines that can benefit teachers, especially our upper grade teachers. I think kindergarten first, some second grade teachers are pretty good with the oral directions and oral language routines, but we can't bypass that once.

You know, it's really important for upper grades too.

Anna Geiger: Yeah, so I think the reason that oral language gets passed up a lot is because it's hard to write about because it's just, it's not like we have this oral language scope and sequence. So I know it's important because I know that when kids especially get to read longer words, they need that word in their oral [00:15:00] language vocabulary to get to the word, right?

If it's, you know, especially if it's got a schwa and all that in there and they, you know, they don't, there's no, you know, specific way to pronounce it. There's different options. So that's one reason. And then of course, if they don't. If you don't understand words, then comprehension is going to suffer. So it's important for both parts of the simple view of reading.

But in terms of how to actually improve students oral language, I think the first thing a teacher should really just sit and think about, and I look back to my own teaching, how much time in the day do I give my students to actually talk? And not just answer my questions, but to actually talk. And if I would look back, I would say probably not enough.

Or if I did give it to them, it wasn't very structured. So they maybe didn't know what I was expecting from them. So I might say in your group do this activity, but it might not have shown them how to do that. So, you know, when I was in Like I said, in the last month or so, we did a lot of turn and talk and I was really, really, really pleased by how well it went, even with really little kids.

And one thing that really [00:16:00] helps, which you can do in high school too, is when you have them turn and talk with a partner, give them a sentence starter, you know, start by saying, you know, three causes of the revolutionary war were, and then, then they can finish it, give them a, that scaffold is helpful even for older kids.

And then I think also, you know, like you, you mentioned older students. You know, when they're doing writing work, which is hard for some kids, especially the, I think it's very useful to articulate what you're going to write, say it out loud before it gets on paper, whether that's with a partner, whether that's, you know, if you're working with a student who's struggling, have them, Articulate that sentence before it goes on the paper.

I think those, just those couple of things can really help. And just again, a reminder to the teacher that I need to be making, I need to be providing opportunities for this. I, I don't know if you guys have seen the new books, strive for five by Kabul and, Or Cabel, because it rhymes with Scrabble, she told me.

Sonia Cabel. And I think Zucker, I think, is, is could be, I think that's the one she wrote with. I [00:17:00] have not interviewed her yet. But it's really, really good for building oral language with little kids in conversation. So when they talk about Strive for Five, this came out after pretty much submitted my draft, but they talk about, you ask a question, the child responds.

And typically what happens is what we say, good job, or they get it wrong. And then we call on somebody else. So that ends that's two turns, but instead of, you know, ending the conversation after two turns, we can either extend the conversation. So if they've answered it correctly or appropriately, then help them to expand on their answer, or we can scaffold our question, whether that's repeating it or breaking it down or helping them start their answer to extend it so that there's at least five parts to the conversation.

It's teacher, student, teacher, student, teacher ends it by affirming or whatever. And I thought about that as I was meeting with students and it was not easy. It's not an easy thing to break out of, but in the book they talk about, you don't make a, make a goal to do two of those a day, you know. But slowly it's, it's [00:18:00] really a frame of mind for teachers.

How can I give my students more opportunities to talk?

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, I think that's excellent. And I think the more we are learning about the science of writing as well, and what happens at that developing these like more thoughtful, more descriptive sentence level conversations with our students and giving them the ability to try using new vocabulary.

Once they try to use their own vocabulary, they're more likely to use it outside of the context of the classroom. And that's really what our goal is, is for them to own that word, right? And that's. So once they own that word, it becomes part of. their ability to read and recognize that word too. And that is exactly what we want for our students.

If we are just doing all of the talking or reading for them, they're not necessarily owning that. So I love, especially the choral reading, the talk in turn and expanding sentences. And you have some really great examples in the book too. So I think that's really helpful.

Shannon Betts: And [00:19:00] you mentioned we were just talking about working memory, but you also mentioned like how important it is to work on memory retrieval and spend more time even doing that and that authentic practice.

And it doesn't always have to be something written. It can be just the conversation as well can be part of that memory retrieval practice. I think teachers are scared of doing it. Maybe like, especially those upper grades, it's like you expect to hear a pin drop or something. And that might be the expectation of the school, but.

If you manage it well, you know, it's exciting when the students talk. And like Mary was saying, whoever's doing the talking is kind of doing the thinking and we want the students to do the majority of the thinking.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. And another thing with the turn and talk that I like too, is having the, the kids turn and talk like maybe, and assigning them a number I found is really.

The best way to go. Otherwise, sometimes you'll just have them kind of look at each other and not know what to do. So, you know, ones answer the question, but then you, when you have them turn back to you, you say, I need a two to tell me what they're one said, you know, I love

Shannon Betts: that. Cause then it's [00:20:00] really teaching them to attune to the conversation and summarize what someone said.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. It trains them to be listening. It's very effective.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, I agree. I love these these tips and tricks I think are Are fresh. And it's something that we haven't chatted about in just a little while, I think. And I think these are the, this is how your bag of tricks as a teacher kind of expands.

And they can be applied

Shannon Betts: to every subject, not just literacy. And it's also a way to build content knowledge. Like, especially if you do these practices in science and social studies.

Mary Saghafi: I find that I am more likely to emulate really good teaching practices when I see them. And so I really like to, you've also embedded some videos and you give some good resources to Anita Archer.

You know, within the book too. That's helpful. That's very helpful.

Anna Geiger: I think you're talking about my learn more. Yeah. So I don't have any videos of myself teaching embedded in the book, although that will be in my course, but yes, I do. In every chapter, there's a learn more section directing people to sometimes see these strategies in action.

Mary Saghafi: Yep. Yep, that's exactly what I'm speaking to. But you

Shannon Betts: [00:21:00] modeled also early in the book, like that A I A Y lesson using the gradual release, and I loved seeing that lesson, just piece by piece, because I could just picture it happening with the students, but it helps to see, you know, an example of that and not just talk about, you should do this, but this is how to do it.

Mary Saghafi: Thank you. I think this is really helpful too, especially for teachers who might have had some foundational OG training or some really good, you know, new lessons with multi sensory systematic explicit instructions and how, how can you, how can you change some of the routines to fit a little bit more Friendly way of of approaching your, your new phonics lessons, your, your reading block in general.

And I think that's where we're kind of coming from the reading block. So I wanted to give a little bit of time to expand on some of the other areas of reading that you focus on in the book. So. There's a whole section on phonemic awareness and phonics, [00:22:00] fluency, comprehension, specifically linking reading and writing.

And I was sort of you also give some strategies for implementing this in the MTSS and RTI process. And so I think that this is really beneficial to our teachers too. So let me know how, how can we best start to address some of these big topics in your book?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. Well, so I wrote the middle section you know, the big five plus oral language as really to give people an overview of what the research says and doesn't say, or what maybe we'd like it to say, but it doesn't say yet, or at least there's not a consensus.

And then, then the application piece. And like you said earlier, I talk in the book about how, you know, most of what you do Yeah. Yeah. isn't, isn't, maybe I didn't say this exactly, but Steve Dykstra has said that there's not enough from the science of reading to fill the school day, right? So your job is to know the research and make the best teaching decisions in light of it.

And so that was my goal to help teachers see, this is, this is a summary of what we know. Here are the references if you want to look them [00:23:00] up and here's how you can apply it. But I also know that. Just knowing what you have to teach, as in what phonics knowledge is important, what what comprehension strategies are worth teaching, not everybody's going to get it right away.

And so it all comes down to systems. I had a, I was telling someone, I went to a presentation a few years ago with I think, I'm just, I think it's Angie Hanlon. She was in, I think Missouri or maybe it was Mississippi. It was an M state and it was a very low performing school. They, in fact, a majority of the kids were actually in foster care.

So it was a real challenging situation for these kids and their scores were terrible. And, She gave this presentation at this conference I was at about how they turned everything around and pretty much 100 percent of kids were reaching benchmark or above. And she never told us what programs she was using.

And at the time I was thinking, come on, come on, what's the program? And she kept saying the word system, system, system. And I thought, what does that even mean? I really didn't know. Then I took some [00:24:00] online courses about MTSS and began to understand that. And I realized I understood what she was talking about now, because it's more than knowing what you have to teach.

It's knowing what to do when someone doesn't. Understand. And it's not like I used to think with balance literacy that, you know, it's because, you know, the kids weren't being read to enough, or, you know, they weren't doing enough practice. It's because I need to rethink my instruction. How am I going to give the extra repetitions this child needs?

How am I going to, but it's not just up to me, it's up to my school. So for this to really work you have to figure out a way to make this work in your school. And so I talk about that. for teachers. And also I go into detail about how your reading block might look, how you might differentiate your phonics instruction.

Because I'm really, I'm really liked the details. And so I wanted to provide that in the book, the overview plus the details.

Mary Saghafi: I think that's really accurate. And I think after looking through each of these sections too, it's really clear about what we know right now and what, what is you know, maybe not, [00:25:00] It's something that's sort of like that continued wives tale about what we need to teach our students.

But it's really what, what, what is the dose that that particular student needs? And the way that we figure that out is looking at our data and having a next step plan. And I think that that's, you're right. That's sort of where it kind of crumbles at the institutional level sometimes, because the plan is not as clear for.

The, the classroom teacher and maybe the classroom teacher is juggling so many things at the moment and, and maybe like I did in my earlier years too, I wasn't as organized as I you know, probably needed to be, but when you don't know, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what to

Anna Geiger: organize.

Right. You don't know what to keep track of that. I would say that's very true. Like.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah.

Anna Geiger: Yeah, I had no idea what I should be assessing and how that was going to help me make instructional decisions. So I hope I've laid that out a little bit.

Mary Saghafi: I think that, I think that that's very true. Yeah, I, [00:26:00] I think that having the systems in place and, and understanding and having those hard conversations where you can have a conversation and say, so, and so, you know, is really struggling with their fluency and not having the teacher perceive it as you're doing something wrong, because I think that that's a very different It's this student will need an extra dose of more instruction, and the way that it's often perceived in school is, well, so and so does it better than you, or you're not doing enough.

You should try harder. You, you, your bar is too low, fill in the blank, right? Those, those messages that we as adults who care so much are trying to reach students. I think that a lot of teachers who are unsure about the systematic process say those things to themselves. And so I think if you can really Bring data to your administrators and say, here's where I'm struggling and where I need more support.

Those direct conversations go a long [00:27:00] way in, in supporting other teachers in your school, too.

Anna Geiger: Yeah, and to your point, we should not expect that really great, Instruction for everyone looks the same, right? So what, what I'm doing for my whole class is going to be enough for some of my kids, but I should expect that it's not going to be enough for others.

Cause that's just the way it is. They're not all that the kids aren't all the same. Some of them need extra repetitions and how am I going to get those in? Or they're gonna need extra scaffolding. I'm going to break this down more. I need a slower pace, but. In addition to that slower pace, a double dose of instruction.

Right. So we don't slow them down unnecessarily and working with the school will help us figure that out.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, I definitely agree. That's great.

Shannon Betts: I appreciate your like focus on these systems too, because that gives more creativity and agency back to the teachers. I'm going to be real frank. Like you mentioned the direct instruction program in the book and like, I had a very bad experience with that program because we did it for everybody.

In the whole [00:28:00] class and really that program is like best for like the kids that are like the utmost read on the reading, you know, letter of reading writing, but we were doing it to the whole class. And so some of our kids that were more gifted and were like higher achieving were like bored to tears and we couldn't veer from it at all.

Yeah, that was frustrating. And so. I ended up kind of coming up with my own approach to teaching phonics explicitly because I was like, I can do it better than

Mary Saghafi: this. Because you want to do best for your kids. Right.

Shannon Betts: And so just because it didn't promote metacognition, it didn't promote a lot of comprehension.

There were just, there was a lot of things that bothered me with that program, but, but I get it that like that program did show that explicit instruction is best. And I did get that from that. Are you talking

Anna Geiger: about project follow through? Yes. Yes. Well, I think that goes to something else I did address in the book, which is differentiating foundational skills.

And I know this is a big controversy in the science of reading world right now. There are plenty of people who say, You should just give whole group phonics instruction and then do a little differentiation after if you need to. [00:29:00] And that works for some people. It definitely does. But I, I'm, that's not my camp.

I really think that because of like what you said, the kids are so different. I mean, when I taught first grade, I had kids reading chapter books at the beginning of the year and kids who didn't know their letters and it didn't make sense to me to teach them all at once. But with that said, and I addressed this in the book, that's where that's working with other teachers comes in.

So you're not spending an hour. I'm teaching small groups while kids over here aren't getting your time. So yeah, that's, it all comes down to meeting the needs of everybody, not just kids who are struggling, but also kids who are excelling, accelerating, and then having systems in place for your classroom and your school to maximize your time.

Shannon Betts: And that's when your data comes in that you can justify those decisions because yeah, not everybody needs the same amount of synthetic phonics instruction.

Anna Geiger: Yeah.

Shannon Betts: And something that's kind of getting lost in the science of reading movement is that like everybody's getting large doses of that. And then we're maybe spending less time on the language comprehension side.[00:30:00]

Yeah. I think that's where like a lot of adjustments are going to happen in the next few years. As more research comes out, as more teachers, you know, learn about this and develop those systems, you know, for themselves.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. What,

Shannon Betts: what do they need to do? What, these are all the different tools that are in place from the science of reading.

These are all the best practices. Okay. Now the students that I have in front of me right now that are in my care this year, what do I need to do for them?

Mary Saghafi: Yeah.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. And that's where the art of teaching comes in. We have our program. We have, we understand what kids need to know, but in the moment, how much practice do these kids need?

The skill looks like we know it. Let's just move on versus, Oh, this only gives me a day, but I can tell my kids need extra work.

Shannon Betts: But then our review and bring it back around to do that memory retrieval.

Mary Saghafi: Yep. Yep. And the way that it's described with OG training is through prescriptive lessons. And so I think like, if.

teachers can generally think of lessons as the prescriptive amount that each kid needs. It [00:31:00] kind of makes that a little bit more clear and concise because as a special education teacher, I had done my elementary ed training at a liberal arts school and I had a fantastic education. And I came in thinking I was the most creative teacher that had ever come out.

And then I was told in my special education program, you're going to need to do direct instruction. And I went, Wait a minute. Excuse me. I just got a nice degree from this nice institution. And what do you mean? I need to, you

Shannon Betts: know, Mary and I were both like steeped in constructivism, just like you mentioned.

Well, it's the time that we

Mary Saghafi: all, you know, kind of came about in our careers. So you know, but I was really, I actually, I'm still genuinely really appreciative of the professor that I had because he said, How can you prove that your creative lessons work? I can prove that this direct instruction works.

And you know, it hit harsh, of course, with my big ego in my [00:32:00] twenties, because, you know, that's kind of the age of things, but it has made me develop a new appreciation for direct instruction and also having even my own students, my own children now who, don't necessarily need the same amount of direct instruction I'm providing to other kids who are their peers right now.

It's really, it's a variation, and it makes me appreciate the prescriptive nature of, you know, kind of this practice that I have right now. And I think that it's okay to apply that to general education in the context that the teacher is supported enough to have differentiation in their classroom.

Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Betts: I like thinking about this prescriptive because like you're not gonna, you're not going to treat a 99. 9 degree fever the same way you're going to treat 103 degree fever.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Betts: Right. You're going to prescribe a different dose. They might both get Tylenol, but different amounts. Exactly.

Exactly.

Mary Saghafi: That's a good analogy. That is a good [00:33:00] analogy. So linking all the instructional elements together and laying this foundation for essential reading instruction you know, you've, you've kind of gone through this process. What are some, what advice do you give to novice teachers or teachers who are trying really hard to change their practice a little bit?

Anna Geiger: Yeah, so it'd probably be different for novice versus. Brand new teachers and the novice. It probably depends what they learned when they were in college, but yeah, so boy, that's an interesting question. When I think back to my first few years of teaching, I just remember being completely overwhelmed all the time.

But I think cause I was trying to do it all myself. I didn't, I didn't like the programs that I was given and they weren't very good. They were bloated basils back from They were old. They were probably from the early 90s. So they were old at the time. And but what I didn't have in my head was here's what I need to teach.

And here's how I need to teach. And here's why I need to teach that way. I think if I would have understood that I would have been able to make better instructional decisions. And I think that that's where teachers need to start. Figure out what you need to teach [00:34:00] and why and how. So the book will tell you that.

It will tell you here's what kids need to know for phonemic awareness, phonics, etc. Here's why they need to know it. Here's how it's going to make them a good reader. And here's how you can do it. And then once you have your basic foundation there, that will help you make in the moment decisions. But we need to have that foundation.

Shannon Betts: I agree with that. I would say also, like, as soon as they can internalize that, like, how, why to try, even though it's so hard as a beginning teacher, but to try to take the focus off of yourself and like what you're teaching and put the focus on the students learning.

Anna Geiger: Yeah. As soon

Shannon Betts: as I started doing that, that's when, like, the learning happened in my class, like, and really my lesson plans kind of became real fluid, you know, because as soon as I noticed in the moment that they were getting it, I'd pull stuff out of my file cabinet, I'd print stuff in my printer, I was constantly making adjustments because I was paying attention to the learning in the moment, the learning short term, [00:35:00] the learning long term, and making these really adaptive lessons and units.

Based on the responses from the kids.

Anna Geiger: And that's a really good point. That was actually something Angie Hanlon talked about in her presentation too, that the focus went off teaching and went on to learning. Of course, the teaching has to happen for the learning to happen, but I think that's probably something novice teachers might think I probably did.

Well, I taught it. Well, I taught it. I don't know why they don't know it. I taught it. They must not have been paying attention versus what can I do differently as a teacher to make sure everybody gets this?

Shannon Betts: Well, you can teach to an empty room,

Anna Geiger: you know, but I think

Shannon Betts: that that's also like, all the stakeholders, that's the only thing they can mandate and have is like non negotiables, is like all these things around the teaching.

But I also like, I got real constrained at my last public school because they were mandating so many controls around my teaching that it was actually starting to affect learning. Yeah. And that's when I started pushing back because I was like, I can't spend all my energy on all [00:36:00] these arbitrary teaching things that aren't actually impacting learning.

Anna Geiger: And unfortunately, that is where some places are going now, I think and it's, it's very tricky because I think we need to restrict things that we know are bad and aren't based on research. But when you start trying to mandate everything a teacher does, you can't even do that and say you're teaching according to the science of reading because as we said, there's not enough

Mary Saghafi: to tell you

Anna Geiger: what to do every second of the day.

You have to give your teachers some autonomy in some areas, but how does that work in practice? I think it's tricky. Schools have to figure that out. Yeah.

Shannon Betts: Well, I think also we'll get more curricular resources in the next few years as the science of reading is like trending and, you know, becoming more widespread that I think that hopefully that will help as well.

I didn't mean to interrupt you, Mary.

Mary Saghafi: I was just going to say, I think that as administrators and teachers and more adults are really understanding the science of reading and how we can actually teach children to efficiently map things within their brain and decode [00:37:00] words using You know, English as actually a, a decoded system, something that we can actually most of the time predict.

We can say, why is this word spelled this way? Right now, many adults can't give the answer to their children. And so I think that there leaves this gap between. Okay, so it's not that important or I don't know it. I feel uncomfortable with it. And so that uncomfortableness just kind of like sits there. And I think that as administrators and teachers and more adults become more familiar with rules of phonics and And then also, why do we do orthographic mapping techniques?

Why are we putting such an emphasis on phonemic awareness? Why are we putting an emphasis on, you know, really writing and spelling slowly and, and mapping words out carefully and ensuring that students writing is you know, matching what they are also learning and [00:38:00] processing? I think that that becomes it will come, but it comes with a A lot of time.

Shannon Betts: Hey Reading Teacher Sounds community, it's Shannon here and I'm excited to let you know that tickets are on sale now for Educate and Rejuvenate. This is an event we took part in last summer and it's happening again this summer. It's a virtual teacher and homeschool parent event hosted by wife teacher mommy.

This year it'll be happening on July 16th We choose to take part in this event because Educate and Rejuvenate is a one of a kind experience designed to help you learn new teaching skills, manage stress effectively. And improve your overall health and wellness with a diverse range of workshops, sessions and activities.

You'll have the opportunity to explore various teaching topics, a lot of literacy related ones. In addition to helping you with mindfulness, self care, communication and more. Join us for our session about literacy, scope and sequence, and we'll also be participating in the live events [00:39:00] and the panel about literacy.

Mary and I know that the past few years have been challenging for many of us in teaching, and that's why this event is more important than ever. It's a chance for you to take a break from the daily grind, rejuvenate your mind and body, and connect with like-minded individuals who share your passion for growth and learning.

You can check out the link to purchase your ticket and find more about the event in our show notes on your favorite podcast app. Or you can go on our website at readingteacherslounge. com backslash quicklinks and you'll find the information there. We look forward to seeing you in July.

Anna Geiger: Well, and to your point too, It is so important that administrators know this stuff and I don't know how much that's happening.

I, I gave an interview with Cliff Jones unfortunately off the top of my head, I cannot remember what district he was at, but he was a district leader and someone in it, maybe it was the superintendent had said to him, so, you know asked him how the, what he believed about teaching reading. And his [00:40:00] answer was, Oh, you know, I'm a balance literacy guy.

And he listed all the things. And then the, the superintendent said, I want you to read this. And it was basically the, yeah. national reading panel report. And that opened a door for him. And he's really educated himself. And he's the one making a lot of those helping to make a lot of those decisions. Next week, I'm speaking to a group of administrators here in Milwaukee and through the collaborative classroom about a lot of things we've talked about here, like how to support teachers so they can differentiate instruction.

Like it, it requires a lot of buy in. And, and I hope that's happening. I hope that administrators are educating themselves. Because I think part of the reason we got into the balance letter CMS is because administrators, and this was my experience. We're just like, well, you know, best. Well, I thought I knew best, but I didn't.

So it requires everybody to understand how to teach reading, not just the classroom teacher.

Shannon Betts: Yeah,

Anna Geiger: I think that's I think the

Shannon Betts: media is helping with that like it's becoming like like the Emily Hanford report and then I'll give you a short story, my para was sharing with me just yesterday she's had lunch with her PTO [00:41:00] friends.

The other day, and they said, and they had as a PTO a couple years ago had spent a ton of money on like Lucy Calkins, P. D. for all the teachers to attend. Which is the school our kids attend. And the, one of the parents said to my para, what did you know? I just read an article on the New York Times saying that like Lucy Calkins is like actually not best practices.

Like, you know, we spent all this money on it for the school. Did you know that? And my parents like, Actually, I do know that it's called the science of reading, you know, kind of reiterate the stuff I had taught her. But I thought that was interesting that this group of moms were talking about it. And the, the only entry into that knowledge was from this New York times article.

Yeah. But as long as it's coming from podcasts and New York times and all these other places and some of these documentaries that are, you know, coming out and like the right to read and things like that. I think that will start to, you know, fall on the right years, you know, because this allows you to control money, you know, to [00:42:00] then lead to PD that led to practice.

It's

Anna Geiger: interesting. Yeah. That's interesting.

Shannon Betts: Yeah. Yeah. It

Anna Geiger: is important for everybody to hear it. I agree.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. And I, I spend a lot of time speaking with parents and educating parents as well, too. But I, I will tell you find a mom with a kid who, with dyslexia, who is now well educated about the science of reading and what the expectation is, and they are a force to be reckoned with.

And you know, I think that it's, I, I think that changes are happening and I think it's. It's been a really long battle, but I do think that like the future is looking much brighter than it did five years ago. So I will, I will plug that for sure. And then speaking of dyslexia, a little bit, the last chapter of your book outlines some myths and best practices for teaching students who have specific learning disability which can be, you know dyslexia, but it can also be there's other specific learning disabilities, but [00:43:00] what could help the general ed teachers or other paraprofessionals who are working with students identified with dyslexia to find empathy in patients?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. So first of all, I just like three things that misconceptions that I had was were dyslexia is rare. Not rare is something that I can't understand and it's something I can't do anything about. Those were all things that I thought. And so I, I just, I don't, I thought dyslexia is not for me.

That's for some specialist over there. If, if we think that's here, there's nothing I can do about it. So I wrote the chapter on dyslexia to equip teachers to know that if you have read and digested and practice what's in this book, you can teach. All kids that doesn't mean they're not going to need extra help and dyslexia is on a spectrum, but many kids with dyslexia, if it's a mild, their needs can be met in a classroom with a strong structure, teacher giving a strong structured instruction along with tier two of needed or, but that's the number one thing to remember to teaching kids with dyslexia.

They need what everybody else needs. They just need more and they need maybe better in terms of more scaffolding [00:44:00] and they benefit from all the science of learning things, right? Like explicit, systematic review You know, spacing, interleaving, all those things. So a teacher doesn't need to be afraid of dyslexia, but another thing to, you know, in terms of the empathy piece, there was an article that talked about how.

Kids with dyslexia, it seems that they're using like five, five times the amount of mental energy that other kids are using to complete the same language tasks. So we need to be sympathetic and respectful of that. And also I know there's, I'm not sure how true it is. I don't mention it in the books.

I'm not sure if it's backed by research at all. I kind of think there was, I just read about it once. I don't remember where the numbers came from, but it was something like a typical learner needs this many repetitions and so on. And whether or not those numbers were correct, the main point is. Kids with dyslexia need a lot more repetitions and we don't know how many they are, and it's very tempting to be frustrated.

I taught you this. I taught you this. You knew this yesterday. If we can just. Change our mindset to realize the learning. Just because I taught it doesn't mean they've learned it. Mm-Hmm. , [00:45:00] I've gotta find another way to get this to them. And then you're not done until

Shannon Betts: the it's been learned.

Anna Geiger: Exactly.

Exactly.

Mary Saghafi: And we have to teach our students how to feel sure about that concept. Yes. So I think that a lot of times, you know, I, I do have a student who is a very bright student who has dyslexia, and he says I remember this. My teacher taught it to me. Okay. Show me what you know. And he is very unsure at that point because it has not been completely broken down.

And so when you have a student who's unsure, breaking it into smaller steps and chunking your information, then doing another gradual release so that they are able to independently do that. And I think part of it is what is What does mastery look like? And I think that mastery looks different in a general education classroom than it does, you know, in a tutoring session or something like that.

But we need to see what does mastery look like. And if we're, if our students are not meeting, meeting that threshold, what is our plan to [00:46:00] return to instruction and reteach or, or just give more practice turns? Because sometimes it does, they need to be jogged a little bit too, to kind of get back up to pace.

I love too that dyslexic minds are working five times harder. A common myth I know is that people see dyslexics as lazy and that just hurts my heart. It is so unbelievably Unhelpful to make a comment like that you can really destroy confidence of someone who is working at a really high capacity to say that they're not so I will

Shannon Betts: say that.

Oh, go ahead, Anna. No, you go.

Anna Geiger: Well, I'm just going to say that also we know that like ADHD, I think it's like a 40 percent comorbidity rate with dyslexia. So many of these kids, they're not just struggling with. Mapping sounds to letters. They have other things they're trying to work through. Which can manifest in behavior problems, which can make the teacher very frustrated and assume this kid is just a behavior problem.

I certainly put myself in that [00:47:00] position, making those assumptions. And I, I can look back and I certainly had kids who were well behaved and probably had dyslexia and kids who were very difficult in the classroom that probably had dyslexia. And both of them deserve teachers who, you know, Do database instruction.

So they help them learn versus think that because they've said it, it's learned.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, I think that's really great. That's really great. So we, we sort of heard tease that you have a course coming up. So can you tell us a little bit about what what's on what's next? What's coming next for you?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. So probably in September, I'll release my course it's reach all readers and the book will be used as the textbook for the course and it'll follow them.

The modules will follow the chapters of the book. And my goal is not with the course is not to reteach everything that's in the book. The book is very concise, but to show basically modeled a lot of things taught in the book with the classroom snapshots, and then also provide teachers with tools and resources to carry it out.

So there'll be a lot of teacher handouts with more information. I plan to go into more depth than I did in the past. in the book in some topics, like the [00:48:00] difference between print to speech and speech to print understanding morphology and how to teach that across the grades. Those are things I just touched on.

Maybe a little bit more about using kids spelling samples to understand where to go next in instruction. And then Oh, that's one

Shannon Betts: of my favorite things to do. Oh, okay.

Anna Geiger: You must be friends with Pam Kessler. Give me a spelling inventory, please. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to offering that in the fall.

But my, my current project is finishing up final edits. I need to return the comments on the index tomorrow, I think. So just things like that. We're wrapping it up. Fantastic.

Mary Saghafi: It's a, it's a really great book. I have been a member for more than a year of your measured mob plus membership, and I highly recommend that as well.

You have a huge variety of resources that are So fantastic reaching many different types of learners and I also highly recommend the full year subscription. So you have access to the monthly bonuses because I really utilize those a lot too. So I will say that I've been using a [00:49:00] lot of your materials this last year in my private tutoring practice.

And I just. I really love them. Just wanted to thank you so much. I appreciate that. Absolutely. Thank you.

Shannon Betts: You have great learning games and activities and decodable books on your site. You offer so much for free too, which is really generous.

Anna Geiger: Well, thank you. I'm glad to do that. I know that there's a lot of people who just.

Who just can't, who can't buy things. And so I know it's nice to have, I know that was my position years ago when my kids were little. So I'm glad I can help.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. So where can people find you online?

Anna Geiger: Yeah. So my home base is the Measured Mom website. And if people go to the homepage there, we've kind of, we revised it, so it's really focused in the science of reading.

So if they click on science of reading resources, I have my podcast index where I've indexed many podcast episodes, including some of yours by topic. So if people are looking for. episodes, for example, on teaching English language learners, they'll find a whole bunch right there. I also have an article index where I've that's a growing project, but I've indexed a lot of articles related to the [00:50:00] science of reading.

And then there's also some fact sheets where teachers and parents could print. They're meant to be really fast. So two sided Summary of the research, implications for teaching, list of references for the big five areas. And then social media, social media is the bane of my existence. I know I have to do it, but it's not my favorite.

So I am on Instagram and I'm an ex, I do participate there a little bit and on Facebook. But honestly, and then I have my membership, the Measure Mom Plus and my pod and did I mention my podcast? I don't think I did. My podcast, Triple R Teaching is weekly. I do like to I've been able to interview many researchers, which is really fun because I think of them as my teachers and this is my way to learn and then get that out to teachers as well.

And then also if anyone wants to reach out to me personally, I do answer my email. Hello at the measured mom. com.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, we'll make sure that we link the email address. All of these in our show notes as well. So if anybody wants to you know, link up with your resources or, or contact you we'll make sure that we do [00:51:00] that.

And I highly recommend the book. I think it's really great. I love your resources. So it's nice for me to pair them with with this book too. So thank you so much. We were

Shannon Betts: talking about like, you know, kind of. convincing administrators. I think that this book would be a really quick tool to share with some people.

Like if you're like a balanced literacy district or a balanced literacy school and that, you know, you know that that's not right and that makes you uncomfortable and you've got to convince some minds that this book is a quick tool to do that because it summarizes the research and you just really can't argue with the research.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. Everything is, everything is linked to so it's easy to go directly to you can.

Shannon Betts: You can just, you know, buy a couple copies and share them, leave them at people's mailboxes or something.

Anna Geiger: Oh, well, thank you so much for giving me the chance to talk about it and just talk reading in general. I know we all love to do that.

We love having you

Shannon Betts: in the Reading Teacher's Lounge. It's really good to chat with you [00:52:00] again.

Mary Saghafi: You're always welcome. So we'll have to chat with you another time soon. Thanks, Anna. Thank you.

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