0:01

You're listening to . Melissa and Lori Love Literacy

0:03

. Today we'll be talking to kindergarten

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teacher Casey Jergens about the big

0:08

changes he experienced moving

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from balanced reading to structured literacy

0:12

. He'll share what's changed in

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his overall literacy block , then

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get into the nuances of small group instruction

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. We also have returning

0:21

guest Natalie Wexler with us

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to uplift some research about small

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group instruction . You might

0:28

be surprised about the way we consider

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approaching small group time . We

0:32

can't wait to keep learning together today

0:34

. Welcome

0:37

teacher friend . I'm Lori and

0:39

I'm Melissa . We are two literacy

0:42

educators in Baltimore .

0:44

We want the best for all kids and we know

0:46

you do too Our district

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recently adopted a new literacy curriculum

0:50

, which meant a lot of change

0:53

for everyone , lori and I can't

0:55

wait to keep learning about literacy with you today

0:57

.

1:01

Hi everyone , welcome to Melissa and

1:03

Lori Love Literacy Literacy Podcast

1:05

. Today we are so excited because

1:07

we are talking to a teacher who we met on

1:09

Twitter . Thank you to the Twitterverse for

1:11

this connection . He caught our attention

1:14

because he dares to be different

1:16

about his approach to small group instruction

1:18

and it really resonated with us , so we wanted

1:20

to learn more .

1:21

Yeah , so our guest today is Casey Juergens

1:24

, and he's a long time first grade teacher

1:26

, but he's new to kindergarten this year

1:28

, so , but he'll talk to us about

1:30

the changes in his instructional block and specifically

1:33

around small group instruction , the changes

1:35

he made on his journey as he learned about science

1:37

of reading . And

1:39

Lori didn't even mention we also have a special

1:42

guest . I do , Natalie , that's

1:44

all for you to say . Our old friend , natalie

1:46

Wexler is here with us again

1:48

, so she'll be popping

1:50

in to give some information about small group instruction

1:52

that she wrote about in a recent article

1:55

, and , if you don't know , she's the author of

1:57

the Knowledge Gap , which we've talked about a

1:59

million times , so I can't imagine that you wouldn't

2:01

know .

2:02

Yeah , and co-author of the Writing

2:04

Revolution . We can't forget that one , because we love that one

2:06

too . Yes , that's great . I see some of

2:08

them both on my desk at all times . So thank

2:10

you , natalie , for those books .

2:12

So welcome Casey , welcome Natalie .

2:15

Yes , thank you .

2:16

Thank you , great to be here .

2:18

Yes , thank you very much .

2:20

We're so glad you're here and I think

2:23

, casey , I think we want to

2:25

kick off a little bit by sharing

2:27

your journey . So

2:29

we know that there were big changes

2:31

from guided reading to moving

2:34

from guided reading to science of reading and

2:36

I guess maybe even we should be saying structured

2:39

literacy . I feel like there's a lot of debate now about

2:41

the terminology , so I want

2:43

to make sure we're using the right stuff . Can

2:46

you share a bit about the

2:48

big changes you experienced ?

2:51

Yeah , of course . So , like I said

2:54

, I've taught first grade for quite

2:56

a while and kind of at the beginning of

2:58

my teaching career student

3:00

teaching everything was really

3:02

centered around balance , literacy and

3:04

guided reading , which I know is very typical of

3:07

a lot of people's stories . And

3:09

so I was kind of thinking back to even my student teaching

3:11

and how we structured the day in

3:13

an ice cream , taught in a first grade classroom

3:16

, and we really structured it through this

3:18

lens of small group instruction

3:21

. Everybody was in a guided reading group

3:23

, a lot of mini lessons , no

3:26

time for science and social studies whatsoever

3:29

. And so then when I began

3:31

teaching , I taught in an urban

3:33

district for a while and

3:36

I taught in a first grade classroom . So I just mimicked

3:38

what I had seen , right , I trained everybody

3:40

to do these wonderful centers and I had

3:42

put everybody into a level guided

3:44

reading group and I thought , oh , this is

3:46

just so great and

3:49

it really did it . The data

3:51

was horrible , management

3:54

was a mess , and that was really the first

3:56

couple of years I was teaching . And

3:59

then our district trained us all in

4:01

Orton-Gillingham , which

4:04

really started kind of

4:06

that shift of oh

4:08

, maybe there's a little bit of a different way to do

4:10

this . So , kind of the next couple of

4:12

years , we really started implementing

4:15

a foundational skills block into

4:17

our day . We were asked to do that

4:19

using the Orton-Gillingham methodology

4:22

, but we still kind

4:24

of clung on to our guided reading and

4:27

so it was like , well , we can do both . Right , we're

4:29

going to still do guided reading and all these

4:31

small groups . But , yeah , we've got Orton-Gillingham

4:34

and it was just , it was a learning

4:36

process . So each year I think

4:38

I can really see a change of where

4:41

oh , now I've learned a little

4:43

bit more and we can implement another little

4:45

change and slowly kind

4:47

of phased out the guided reading because

4:49

we saw there wasn't a need for

4:51

it and it wasn't really being as impactful

4:54

as what we were doing in our foundational

4:56

skills block . And then slowly

4:58

we transitioned something that a

5:00

lot of teachers will do or

5:02

at least a lot of teachers I've worked with kind

5:05

of transitioned away from the guided reading groups

5:07

and your Fountas and Pinae levels

5:10

into now we're going to put everybody into a skills

5:12

group . So I tried that for

5:14

a while too , and it

5:17

still was leading to a lot of gaps

5:19

for a lot of students . Right

5:21

, it was great that we were focusing on skills

5:23

, but then it was still leading to

5:25

, those kids in the lowest group were

5:28

never catching up . So then

5:30

it was like , well , let's think about this another way . And

5:32

so over the past three or four years I've

5:34

really focused on the

5:36

whole group aspect and then thinking

5:38

about small groups in a different way , where

5:41

I'm really focusing on the

5:43

students who need that extra dosage

5:46

or going back and backfilling gaps

5:49

for students . So that's kind

5:51

of where we're at now .

5:53

Yeah , thanks , euphir . The big

5:55

picture definitely appreciate it . I want to

5:57

dig in a little more . Can you take

5:59

us back to guided

6:01

reading ? And for those who might not

6:03

know exactly what that looks like

6:06

, or they never taught it , they don't know what the FMP

6:08

levels mean , can you just go into

6:10

a little more detail about what that really

6:12

looked like in your classroom ?

6:14

Yeah , so at the

6:16

beginning of the year we'd get out

6:18

our Fountas and Pinae benchmark assessment

6:20

system box and

6:23

do all these running records , see where everybody's

6:25

at . Okay , we've got our level A's , our

6:27

level B's , our level C's , and

6:29

that's really how we organize

6:32

students . We were

6:34

not doing any diagnostic

6:36

screeners . We

6:38

were not . There was no focus on phonemic awareness

6:40

or phonics . It was really centered

6:42

around these levels . And

6:46

then it was also so I would have

6:48

upwards of five or six different groups

6:50

at a time and

6:54

then also thinking about what the other kids were doing

6:56

. So when I started teaching , something that was

6:58

really big at the time was what we

7:00

would consider the daily five right

7:03

. So which is just an approach

7:05

to how you would structure your literacy block

7:07

. And if we just have kids do these five things

7:09

while the teacher is working with small groups

7:12

, then just magic is going

7:14

to happen . And

7:19

we even had a kit for our

7:21

guided reading where , let's say , I

7:23

would have a level B group . I didn't really

7:25

know anything about these B's and

7:28

I would just start with the first B book in the

7:30

set and we'd work our way through the B's and

7:32

when we were done with B's we'd move on to the C's and

7:35

we just kind of got as far as we did

7:37

and there was

7:40

really no purpose

7:44

to why I was meeting with that group

7:46

. I didn't really . It wasn't closing any gaps

7:49

, and then what the other

7:51

students were doing was kind

7:54

of sporadic and chaotic as well

7:56

. What kinds of things

7:58

were they doing ? So you

8:00

know , one of the things that we would do , if you were

8:03

thinking about the daily five

8:05

or other models you know , we would think

8:07

about students doing independent reading , reading

8:09

with partners , doing word work

8:11

, working on writing and

8:14

doing some sort of listening to reading or

8:16

kind of a computer center . So

8:19

all the kids would be spread out throughout the room

8:21

and I'd spent all this time and money

8:23

making these centers

8:25

and so we'd train them how to do

8:28

read to self . Well , almost

8:31

none of my kids could read , so

8:33

they're going over and this is where , at

8:36

the time , we were putting them into their just right

8:38

books . So our classroom

8:40

library was , you know , here are the A's , here are

8:42

the B's , here are the C's , and

8:44

you're a level C , so you're going to pick five

8:46

books from this C basket and

8:49

then you can also pick , you know , a few other special

8:51

books or something like that , and then we would

8:53

train them to build stamina and

8:55

really all they were doing was sitting and looking

8:57

at picture books , right , or making

9:00

up stories . And then after a few minutes

9:02

kids are rolling around

9:04

, they're wearing half or books on their head

9:07

and talking to their friends . So

9:09

that we're talking about first graders , right , first graders

9:12

, yeah . And then you

9:14

know , we would have we had for reading to

9:16

partner . We would train them

9:18

how to sit next to a partner , read with a

9:20

partner , when neither students

9:22

could really read and

9:24

there was . There wasn't a lot of strategy

9:28

to how the partners were laid out , it just happened

9:30

to be who was in your group . And

9:32

for this we would do big books , right

9:34

. So we had this big book center and

9:37

students would pick a big book and then they'd look

9:39

through it together and they were supposedly reading

9:41

, right . And then

9:44

I had a writing station

9:46

where we just had this great , you know , vocabulary

9:48

wall with pictures

9:51

and all sorts of different writing things and

9:53

students would go over there and

9:56

it was a time for them to write about whatever they want . You

9:59

know , and I remember my first year of teaching , I had this

10:01

boy who wrote every day of the

10:03

writing center he wrote I love my mom and

10:06

then drew a picture Sweet , it's

10:08

nice , but for 180 days

10:10

that's what he wrote and

10:13

I had no idea how to move

10:15

him out of that , you know , and in my

10:17

mind it was like , well he's , he's busy

10:19

over there doing that , so we're just going to let

10:21

it be right . So

10:23

a lot of drawing , a lot of somewhat writing

10:26

, and then word

10:29

work is always an interesting one , because

10:31

this is one I see a lot

10:33

still where this is really

10:35

, where , like websites , like teachers , be

10:37

teachers come in , where we

10:39

were buying so many things

10:41

cutting and gluing and there

10:43

were words , swords and activities

10:45

that kids were doing , not

10:47

a really a ton of accountability . And

10:50

the problem with things like a cutting and gluing

10:52

activity is kids would spend that 15

10:54

minutes cutting and gluing and

10:57

that was it , and then they may

10:59

be not , they maybe didn't even do anything else except

11:02

cut and glue , and then it's time to move on to the

11:04

next thing , and

11:06

so that was just kind of I call it like a hodgepodge

11:09

of whatever activities we could find , and

11:12

I think we tried to align it to

11:14

our phonics , scope and sequence in

11:16

a way , but it still really

11:18

wasn't meeting what kids needed

11:20

. And then the last center that

11:22

we would have kids do was a listening to reading

11:25

center , which kind

11:27

of ended up being you

11:29

know , we go on the iPads , and they

11:31

would just use whatever apps we could find for

11:33

free . So whether they were actually doing anything

11:35

on these iPads I don't know . So

11:39

, and then that allowed me to pull

11:42

all these groups , so I would usually see five groups

11:44

a day and everybody would go do these

11:46

center activities , and that really took

11:48

up the majority of our literacy block

11:50

. So that's really what

11:52

it looks like at the beginning .

11:55

Yeah , I have so many thoughts

11:57

on that and I do want to get Natalie involved in the

11:59

conversation , but I feel like I want

12:01

to name that we're talking

12:03

about a lot of different things here . We're talking

12:06

about vocabulary

12:08

instruction . We're talking about writing . We're talking

12:11

about reading . We're talking

12:13

about foundational

12:15

skills . We're talking , I mean , I

12:17

think every plus classroom management , like

12:19

every , I think , avenue

12:22

for literacy instruction is

12:24

what we are seeing in this conversation and

12:27

I think you're illuminating it through this smog of time . We're

12:29

talking about old practices , moving to new practices

12:31

. I

12:34

kind of want to make sure we

12:37

all are normed on that . Like what

12:39

is guided reading ? And like

12:41

, because you've thought you've said guided reading , leveled reading

12:43

, and we're kind of also talking

12:46

about the shift to some

12:48

teachers pulling small groups for

12:50

foundational skills and I think

12:53

those are two different things , right ? So what we're

12:55

talking about guided reading , we're

12:58

talking about focusing

13:00

quote on comprehension through leveled

13:02

books and there's

13:05

not a ton of foundational

13:07

skills instruction within that time . Is

13:09

that right , casey ?

13:11

That's right , and I think I personally

13:13

I use guided reading and leveled

13:15

reading really synonymously , so , which

13:17

is kind of a mistake I

13:19

should do .

13:20

No , no no , no , I

13:22

just wanted to call it out , not because you

13:24

did it , but I think , like we have , we hear

13:26

often about leveled libraries , right , but

13:29

then we also hear often about this practice called

13:31

guided reading , and those

13:33

two things are kind

13:35

of connected because we're using a leveling

13:37

, like a leveled book system , to

13:39

execute guided reading , where you're

13:42

talking about , like student start in the B books

13:44

and then move to the C books and move on , but then

13:46

we also may have leveled libraries in

13:48

classrooms as

13:51

a practice that we know is now ineffective

13:53

through this body of research called the

13:55

science of reading . So I think that's like , I

13:58

just think it is going to be used interchangeably

14:00

because of the way that guided reading

14:02

is using the leveled

14:04

materials . Like I think in conversation

14:07

I've heard teachers use that interchangeably

14:09

. I've used it myself . When I was what

14:12

you said , casey , I was like having so many

14:14

pictures in my mind of when I was a second grade teacher

14:16

, when you were like the books on their head and they're rolling around

14:18

. I was like , oh my gosh , right now , yeah

14:22

, I really see that . But

14:25

I guess I would love to hear a little bit from

14:27

Natalie , like before we even kind of

14:29

dive into your the piece and the connectedness

14:32

of it , like what are your initial reactions right

14:34

now with all that you know ? As someone

14:36

who's not been a teacher

14:38

, you know .

14:40

Well , I haven't been a teacher , but

14:42

I have spent time in class . In

14:45

fact , when I was researching the book , one

14:47

of the classrooms I followed through school year was the first grade

14:49

classroom , and Casey's description is

14:52

pretty much what I saw , and

14:54

I think I mean that's . I

14:56

guess the first thing that struck me when I walked into this

14:58

classroom was that there were all these tables

15:01

and there was this kidney shaped table

15:03

in the corner and the teacher . So there are

15:05

20 kids and teachers working with like five at

15:07

the same time . And I

15:10

have to say my first impression was of noise

15:12

. This was a class that happened

15:14

to have 14 boys and six girls and

15:16

there was a lot of noise and one

15:19

teacher . Basically sometimes she had

15:21

a sort of grandmother helper , but

15:23

I just it

15:25

was like a three ring circus . It just didn't seem like

15:27

there was any way one teacher . These

15:29

were six year olds and they were supposed to be directing

15:32

their own learning , and this is leaving aside

15:34

whether there was anything worthwhile that could

15:36

have been going on at those centers , given what they were supposed

15:39

to be doing . But they weren't often

15:41

even doing what they were supposed to be doing

15:43

. And so

15:45

, you know , I was like what's going

15:47

on here , like how does

15:50

this work ? And it took me a while to

15:52

sort of figure out where this came from

15:54

, and in fact there's it's not sort

15:56

of grounded in evidence , I think this

15:58

system it seems like , oh well , this

16:01

is just the way it's always been and this is the way

16:03

we do it . And of course it's got to be better

16:05

than having kids all set at desks

16:07

and rows , because that's like from the 19th

16:10

century or 20th century , and

16:13

actually this did come in and a lot or part of the 20th

16:15

century , and I think it was imported from the

16:17

English what was called infant school

16:19

and the idea was there . It was very

16:22

, you know , progressive . There was a lot of progressive

16:24

, constructivist stuff going

16:26

on between England and the United States . I

16:29

don't think either country really benefited from

16:31

it , and so

16:33

the idea of the infant school is that , you know , kids

16:35

just wandered from station

16:37

to station or center to center at

16:39

will . There was no set curriculum

16:42

at all . They did whatever they wanted

16:44

and that morphed into and

16:47

that was maybe for the whole school . That

16:50

fortunately went by the wayside . But what we are

16:52

left with is this legacy of let

16:54

kids move around

16:56

from center to center and sort of direct

16:58

their own learning , although it's much

17:00

more restricted now because there

17:03

are levels of the . You know you can't just choose anything

17:05

to read . You know you have to choose from your level , etc . So

17:07

it seems more scientific , but

17:09

in fact there's still no real

17:12

science behind it . If I could just , I guess , summarize

17:14

what science there is , there

17:18

are studies showing that kids do benefit , as

17:20

you might expect , from like working in a small

17:23

group directly with a teacher , right , of course

17:25

, it kind of depends on what they're working on , but that

17:27

seems to be canceled out by the

17:30

majority of their time being spent without

17:32

any teacher's guidance , doing

17:34

things that may not have much educational

17:37

value .

17:38

Can I ask Casey really quick ? Natalie , I was

17:40

curious about that , like how much time were they with

17:42

you versus how much time were they out in the centers

17:44

?

17:45

Yeah . So I actually had to go back and

17:47

work this out and do it and

17:49

you know , if you have a typical two hour

17:52

literacy block , you might say

17:54

our rotations usually were about 20 minutes

17:56

times five . So if

17:58

they were in one group they were easily

18:01

working independently for 60

18:03

to 80 minutes a day and

18:05

in some classrooms that might be a lot less . But

18:08

that was kind of typical for

18:10

my first few years of teaching . The

18:13

less whole group time was

18:15

what we were told was better .

18:18

What like stands out to me about that being a parent

18:20

is I cannot even imagine like if

18:22

I were a parent who had three kids , pulling

18:25

one over to the side and being like let's

18:27

read this book together or whatever we're doing

18:29

, and the other two are just causing chaos

18:32

in the background . I mean , I'm

18:34

just thinking like times that by by

18:37

what five . Imagine all those

18:39

kids in your , your house .

18:42

And you're an hour like chaos , laurie

18:44

. It's like how much is actually like

18:46

going on ? What do they really do , even if they're

18:48

like , yeah , hey , babe right

18:51

, I know , I know we interrupted you , natalie

18:53

.

18:54

That's okay . No , but you're

18:57

. You're right and I . But

18:59

what I was gonna say is that the net result

19:01

seems to be that the kids who

19:04

are the In the higher reading groups

19:06

, who are already doing pretty well , they

19:08

benefit the most from small

19:10

group instruction and the kids who , if

19:12

they're supposed to be benefiting the most the

19:15

ones at the lower reading groups , they

19:17

don't move up , and so this practice

19:19

seems to actually widen the gap between

19:22

the highest and lowest achieving readers . Obviously

19:25

not intentionally , but that seems

19:27

to be the net effect . And

19:30

if I I mean there's . There's one other thing that I can

19:32

mention here , which is what struck me first , was that

19:34

the noise level in these classrooms

19:36

, and More recently

19:39

I was reading a book by a woman

19:41

named Annie Murphy Paul , who's an education

19:43

writer , called the extended mind

19:45

, and she was writing you know , it wasn't really

19:48

that much focused on K through 12

19:50

schools . She was writing about open plan

19:52

offices and all these studies showing

19:54

that the noise level in open plan offices

19:56

Is really distracting and interferes

19:58

with productivity . One

20:03

would think and it

20:05

was . It started in the 50s . It was cheaper just to

20:07

tear the walls down and there was this theory that it would

20:09

lead to Collaboration and

20:12

increased productivity . But no , the

20:14

opposite really happens . And

20:16

I just I wondered well , what about these classrooms

20:19

, these sort of open plan classrooms , where there's this

20:21

fairly high noise level and even when

20:24

it's not that high , the teachers always

20:26

talking to this one group and and

20:28

it turns out that their studies showing that

20:30

Children are even more sensitive

20:33

to background noise and be distractible

20:35

as a result of background noise than it then

20:37

adults . So we're hard , we're a hard

20:39

wire to be distracted by , especially

20:42

the sound of human voices .

20:44

I also . I because , casey , when you did your overview

20:46

you , you said that basically there's like a step

20:48

in between when you are now and I'm . I

20:51

would love to hear that . That like basically you kind of kept

20:53

, like you kept the small group structure but

20:56

changed to science of

20:58

reading . I'd love to talk through like what

21:00

you learned during that period too , before you got

21:02

to the like what really works .

21:04

There were a couple of years where there

21:06

was like a shift right , that big shift

21:08

where we were training on Gillingham . So

21:11

then it was told , we were told by our district you

21:13

need to have a minimum of 45

21:15

minutes whole group where we're

21:17

teaching . And that's really where I started learning

21:20

about what I'm doing now . But

21:22

then we probably had it was probably less time

21:25

than it was , I think maybe

21:27

a 45 minutes when we would see like

21:29

three groups and then the kids would

21:31

go to a couple different activities or centers and

21:33

then we still were doing like readers workshop

21:36

and writers workshop . So

21:38

this was taking , you know , the majority of

21:40

our day , right , hey , and

21:43

no , no time for content

21:45

. But when we were doing the skills-based

21:47

approach , we started using

21:50

, like the corphonic survey or

21:52

screeners , and that's how we put kids into groups

21:54

and you know

21:56

I might have a group that's working on learner sounds

21:58

of , another group is learning about Magic E

22:01

and another group is learning about , you

22:03

know , our controlled vowels and then

22:05

maybe in our whole group time we're

22:07

learning about digraphs , right . So

22:09

now you're kind of all over the place based

22:11

on this and I think what

22:13

it led to it sounds really

22:16

great because you're pinpointing oh

22:18

, these kids are ready to move on to this

22:20

, but it didn't always tell

22:22

you like all the holes that they

22:24

might have . And Then

22:26

it also there were a lot of

22:28

like rules of things . So like an example

22:31

might be you know the CK

22:33

rule after a short vowel

22:35

. A lot of kids didn't know that

22:37

. They maybe knew how to read those words

22:39

, but did they know how to spell them ? No

22:41

, but we just moved them on anyway . So

22:43

we were still creating all these holes and

22:46

kids were really confused because then

22:48

what we were working on at whole group time Was

22:51

not aligned to what they were doing in small group time

22:54

and then maybe what they were asked

22:56

, being asked to do at a center time

22:58

was even something else different . And

23:00

it just it was hard , it was hard

23:03

to implement . So it sounds kind of really

23:05

nice Theoretically , but it was hard

23:07

to implement .

23:09

And it sounds better than like the level

23:11

B , where you're like I don't even know what we're doing , we're just

23:13

pulling out the level B bugs , like at least

23:15

you were like okay , I assess them , I See

23:18

where their gaps are , I'm gonna do something about

23:20

that . So it seemed like a step in the right direction

23:23

.

23:23

Yeah , and I think it was . And I think it was . And

23:27

then I think the kind of the

23:29

shift after that was actually when

23:32

the school district I was working

23:34

for previously , we adopted

23:36

a content building curriculum

23:38

EL education was

23:41

the one we did and we adopted

23:43

their the

23:45

content strand and they also

23:47

have a skills block strand . We chose to continue

23:50

with the work we had already previously done

23:52

and that's where it

23:54

was like , well , where are we going to fit in this hour

23:56

of content

23:58

literacy ? And you

24:01

know , it kind of replaced our reading and writing workshop

24:03

. But we also then , you know , we

24:05

kind of went back and forth and that's

24:07

kind of when we developed the

24:09

model of like , well , maybe we

24:11

don't need to be seeing you

24:14

know five different groups , because

24:16

we also weren't seeing kids every day . So

24:18

some kids were being asked to spend 45

24:20

minutes or an hour Away

24:22

from the teacher , never being seen in a group

24:24

. Oh , we don't have to worry about them , they're

24:26

at grade level kind of thing

24:29

. And so that's where

24:31

we went through and said , let's think

24:33

about this a little bit different . We've already got this really

24:35

great whole group I set

24:38

up . And then , what is right

24:40

after we teach this , you know , 45 minutes

24:42

or an hour of whole group . We then

24:44

just really meet with the kids that

24:47

need the extra dosage

24:49

, and there were , you know , there's a lot

24:52

of things that I can add to that of how we

24:54

like made those groups

24:56

and decided what whole group we were doing , and

25:00

that's kind of . Then we were using that data to kind

25:02

of really inform those instructional

25:05

pieces versus just opening

25:07

up you know the scope and sequence says we're

25:09

going to start here , so this is what we're going to work

25:11

on this week , and

25:14

that's really where what we're doing now

25:16

kind of evolved from .

25:19

Can you dig into those details a little ? I'm ready .

25:22

Yeah , yeah , yeah . So kind

25:25

of what ? The literacy block ? Sometimes

25:27

I don't always like that term right , we can do

25:29

that literacy all day . But if you're

25:31

thinking about a two hour literacy block

25:34

, really about half of the time is devoted

25:36

to that decoding piece , your

25:38

foundational literacy piece , and

25:40

then about half of the time to your content literacy

25:43

piece , and

25:45

most of that time is done whole group

25:47

. That doesn't mean we're sitting

25:50

in rows , that doesn't mean we're just sitting

25:52

. You know it's very . You know I'm teaching

25:54

kindergarten that we're switching up every

25:56

five to six minutes throughout those blocks

25:58

of time . It's very

26:00

engaging and interactive , but

26:02

I am with the kids all the

26:04

time . And

26:07

then we , for

26:09

the foundational skills hour , we would teach

26:11

for about 45 minutes and then the last

26:13

15 minutes I would just pull

26:15

the students that really

26:18

needed gaps filled in

26:20

. Now , if there were years where

26:22

I would , you know , my class would start 30%

26:25

of kids on grade level , 20% of kids

26:27

on grade level . So then what does that look

26:29

like ? I'm not going to put 80% of my

26:31

students in a tier two intervention

26:33

. So that's really where we leaned on

26:35

those diagnostic assessments , our universal

26:37

screener assessment , but then also our

26:39

diagnostic assessments , and that's where we

26:41

would go through and go okay , where

26:44

do we need to begin at

26:46

? Whole group , what's our data

26:48

telling us for whole group ? And then

26:50

who are kind of the outliers that may

26:52

need something on top of that ? So

26:55

, for example , you know , one year we

26:57

do . We always start with a letter sounds assessment

27:00

in first grade and the letter sounds assessment

27:02

was just all over the place . There were so

27:04

many gaps . So my team was like you know what ? I

27:06

think , even though it's first grade , we

27:09

need to go back and reteach letter sounds

27:11

. So we took 26 days

27:14

to have a letter sound , a day with formation

27:16

letter names started into CVC

27:18

words . And if we hadn't done that

27:20

or the whole rest of our year , we would have

27:23

just been fighting a battle . We went back

27:25

and said , okay , whole group , this is where we need

27:27

to go . And then at the end of those 26

27:29

days it was like , okay , now

27:32

who is still not quite mastered those

27:34

, we're moving on to the next thing . But

27:37

oh , these four kids still have

27:39

some gaps in their letter sounds . Great , there's

27:41

my small group that I'm going to see . And

27:43

you know , until they've mastered those

27:45

, then we can kind of move on to the next thing . And

27:49

so that really changed how

27:52

we looked at that foundational skills

27:54

block or foundational skills power

27:56

.

27:57

So then you have about 15 minutes , you said , for

27:59

pulling the very targeted

28:01

yeah , our groups . What are the

28:04

other students do during that time ?

28:06

So I think one important thing to note

28:08

is you know kind of your most

28:11

high needs students

28:13

are not get really getting this

28:15

independent time right . They're with

28:17

me in that group or we're in a whole group

28:19

setting and that doesn't mean they

28:21

never have downtime to , you

28:24

know , read or draw or whatever

28:26

. The rest of the students

28:28

were really working on targeted

28:30

tasks aligned to

28:33

our current skill . So

28:36

if we were working on you know AI

28:38

and a why that we , then

28:40

we would go through and pick really targeted

28:43

skills . So , for example , I

28:45

might have students rereading

28:47

decodable readers you

28:49

know what for fluency , and

28:51

they were so much more engaged in that

28:54

because they weren't just picking

28:56

self selected books , they could

28:58

read them and

29:00

they really liked practicing

29:02

those . And you know you could add in some

29:04

different ways to motivate them

29:06

. And then last

29:09

year in first grade I would do like I'd give them

29:11

a decodable passage they'd have to go through

29:13

and highlight all of our you know the

29:15

words with a why . Then there were maybe just

29:18

be a few like basic comprehension questions

29:20

that I would ask . And you

29:23

know the nice thing about that was they

29:25

were doing was there was a accountability

29:27

piece to it , right , and it was

29:29

routine . They knew how it worked . It

29:32

was much quieter . Students were working

29:35

maybe at their tables or desks

29:37

. They may be on the floor , but it was

29:39

wasn't all over the place with

29:41

materials . And then

29:43

occasionally we add in some writing

29:46

tasks , either , aligned

29:48

to the skills , so

29:50

I might give them a word bank of words with

29:53

a why , and then they would have

29:55

to use those words in their writing

29:57

. Okay , and then the other

29:59

thing we would do was tie it

30:01

to our whatever we were working on in content

30:03

. So if we were in first grade , one of our

30:05

big units was on birds . So

30:08

then we had already built all this background knowledge

30:10

about birds , and then I would kind of give

30:12

them , you know , a writing template

30:15

about birds . And then they just went crazy

30:17

with their writing because they actually had

30:19

something to write about . Right , they had

30:22

knowledge about this topic and

30:24

it wasn't just write about , you know

30:27

, whatever you want , kind of thing

30:29

.

30:29

Right right , I love my mom for 180

30:32

days . Right yeah , Natalie

30:35

, I'm wondering if you want to add anything or share

30:37

anything that you might be thinking

30:40

about . What Casey is ?

30:42

Yeah , I mean , I guess one thing

30:44

that I've been thinking about is that

30:47

we're talking about both structure

30:50

and also sort of content

30:52

, and so

30:54

it would be possible to have whole group instruction

30:57

. That doesn't work very well because

30:59

you're not teaching things that are actually

31:01

meaningful . So I just , you know , I think

31:03

we might want to clarify

31:06

the distinctions here

31:08

. And the other thing that occurs

31:10

to my mind is , you

31:12

know , when I've seen guided reading and using

31:15

small groups , it's been

31:17

mostly , I think , focused on comprehension

31:19

skills with like oh

31:22

, you're having trouble reading that word , let

31:24

me help you , like read that particular word

31:26

but not so much on

31:28

decoding and

31:30

also and so Casey's been referring to skills

31:33

and often I think there's some fusion

31:35

between decoding skills , or

31:37

foundational skills , and comprehension

31:40

skills . So I just feel like

31:42

there's a lot of different things that are

31:44

being discussed here . That and I hope

31:46

that it's not confusing to

31:48

listeners .

31:50

No , please . Yeah , I'm sorry , I think

31:52

. I agree . I think anytime we can clarify that

31:54

is important and I'm wondering

31:57

, casey , if you have anything to to share

31:59

and reaction to that , like clarifying

32:01

skills and things like that .

32:03

Yeah , I definitely I can

32:06

see what you're saying about that , I think when I'm

32:08

talking about I mean in my reference so

32:10

far , when talking about skills really has been

32:12

on like those foundational skills for

32:14

anemic awareness , bonnet , fluency

32:16

, those types of pieces . And

32:19

I think something interesting to note is

32:21

like when a lot of this these

32:24

ships happened in how I Structured

32:27

the small group time was really

32:29

when we shifted away

32:31

from , like our comprehension

32:33

skill of the week , which a lot

32:35

of times then we were asking kids to do something

32:38

with at their independent time , because

32:41

now we had this whole hour where we were really

32:43

digging into , instead

32:45

of a comprehension skill or task , it

32:48

was now focused on our content

32:50

and then that's kind of removed

32:52

away from the foundational skills lock

32:54

.

32:55

So I don't , I don't know if that really

32:57

clarifies a little bit

32:59

, but and

33:01

I think , well , I think there are a lot of classrooms

33:03

that are not really trying to teach any

33:06

content in the literacy block , and so

33:08

you could have . I Guess what I'm thinking is

33:10

well , you , you could take away from this discussion . Well

33:12

, I could do , I should do a whole class

33:14

instruction on comprehension skills

33:17

and strategies for an hour , and that's

33:19

probably not going to work very well either

33:22

, because we know that

33:24

you know those kinds of skills and strategies

33:26

of limited value and that what

33:28

is really key to comprehension

33:30

, especially comprehending more complex text

33:33

, is Building background knowledge

33:35

, building familiarity with the complex syntax

33:37

of written language and those things . And

33:40

I do think that that Kind

33:42

of content focused instruction really lends itself

33:44

very well to whole

33:46

group All you know , whole

33:48

class instruction , and one of the advantages

33:51

of it is it gives the kids who Maybe

33:54

are not as advanced and they're decoding

33:56

their foundational skills . It gives them access

33:58

to rich content , complex

34:00

text and to participation in class

34:03

discussion about that content . And

34:05

all of that is going To help them

34:07

absorb and retain vocabulary

34:10

, familiarity with complex

34:12

syntax . That is going

34:15

to kick in when their foundational skills

34:17

Catch up to where their

34:19

oral language skills are and

34:21

they're listening comprehension is . It's

34:23

going to enable them to read at a higher

34:25

level Once they can decode

34:28

Fluently , because they'll have they

34:30

don't they'll have the background knowledge stored in

34:32

long-term memory , and we know from

34:34

studies that that is

34:36

a real boost to comprehension and and

34:38

, of course , to writing as well . So I just wanted

34:40

to get that in there .

34:42

Well and I'll like . I think , when we're talking

34:44

about , like , some of the shifts that I made

34:47

, it has kind of brought some of that back

34:49

. You know , one of the

34:51

things we did not want to give up when we were working

34:54

with level text was

34:56

Because we were saying , well , we're

34:58

also working in comprehension . This is where

35:00

students are working in comprehension and reading

35:02

for meaning . But we would

35:04

go through , let's say , our skill of the week was

35:07

, you know , finding the main idea . That Then

35:10

I'd go through all five of my groups and

35:12

I try to pick a text . That

35:14

was like working on finding the main idea . But

35:17

that's really hard or

35:19

impossible to do when you're reading a

35:21

level , a book . You know

35:23

I mean , that's just you're not doing that . But

35:26

we were like , can you ?

35:28

see why . Why is that hard to do ?

35:30

Well , let's say , you're reading , you know , at the

35:32

park and it's . You know , I like to swing

35:35

, I like to slide , I like

35:37

to run , and then you know what's the main

35:39

idea of this book .

35:40

I like to do things at the park .

35:42

I don't know , you know , I mean it just you know

35:44

you're not , and then we were like well , that's . We're working on

35:46

comprehension , though , and it's yeah

35:49

, that's , that's what I saw too .

35:51

I mean , I remember observing one small

35:53

group , I think was a level C book

35:55

, it was brown bear , brown bear , what do you see ? And

35:58

the skill that was supposedly being taught was

36:00

, I believe , main idea . And I said to the teacher , like

36:02

what's the main idea here of

36:04

brown bear ? She said well , I'm gonna

36:06

just try to get them to see there's this pattern and

36:08

that's . I mean , it was like Right

36:13

.

36:13

So I think if we can kind of shift

36:15

now , what do you , what do you see in your

36:17

students with a ? Because you've taught using

36:19

a knowledge building , content

36:22

rich curricula , what would you see students

36:24

like ? For example , you want to run with that bird

36:26

idea without the bird content

36:28

idea .

36:29

Yeah like .

36:30

Can you tell us a little bit about what

36:32

you see , or what you saw in

36:34

students as they like ? What does it truly

36:36

look like to to

36:38

teach you know and comprehension

36:42

, which I kind of use that

36:44

loosely to say that so ?

36:46

Well , especially in kindergarten and first grade

36:48

, we're now focusing on the listening

36:51

comprehension piece . And that's

36:53

not that we never transition

36:55

kids into reading their own texts

36:57

and comprehending those

37:00

texts . Obviously that's our goal for reading

37:02

, but Students

37:04

aren't always able to

37:06

read those high quality texts

37:08

that really lend themselves to these great comprehension

37:11

pieces on their own . So

37:13

now I'm reading aloud those books which

37:15

are usually above our

37:17

, our grade level , which we never would have

37:19

done before , and Everybody

37:23

is has access to that . Just because

37:25

you don't know your letter sounds or

37:27

you're in whatever group , you can still

37:29

listen and comprehend what

37:32

we're doing , and then you can apply that to your

37:34

writing , you can apply that to our , our

37:36

discussions we're having in class , and

37:39

and so on and and so far

37:41

. So like it really creates

37:44

this access to

37:46

content and

37:48

comprehension for everybody in the class

37:51

when

37:53

we weren't doing . I mean , that just wasn't happening

37:55

before and students

37:57

really just never got the opportunity

38:00

to move past those low-level

38:02

stages . And

38:05

I think some of the things that really changed

38:07

my mindset is when I saw some of those students

38:10

who maybe were struggling readers

38:12

but they're telling me facts

38:14

about birds and they're you know , they know

38:16

all of these things , and it's like , oh

38:19

, and this is really going to help you later

38:21

on too , after you know , when

38:23

you do know how to decode and read

38:26

, and so that's

38:28

Kind of what

38:30

I would add to that .

38:33

I'm super curious about this question , how

38:35

you both would answer this question , because you're

38:38

taking me back , casey , I actually taught EL just for one

38:40

year , but it was in sixth grade and

38:42

I remember very distinctly I had

38:44

an administrator who said that she wanted me

38:46

to start doing small group instruction . Mind you

38:48

, I had like a 45 minute block

38:51

. It's a teach to students EL , and I was supposed

38:54

to also do a small group instruction . So it

38:56

was a lot . But I also struggled with the

38:58

how do I do

39:00

this With ? There's sixth graders

39:02

, so we're not really talking about

39:04

. Some of them probably still did need some

39:06

foundational skills , but I

39:08

didn't have the assessments for it . I didn't have the time

39:11

to do that within my own classroom . So

39:14

if I'm looking at the EL curriculum , I'm looking

39:16

at more comprehension . I

39:20

struggled with exactly like what do I do ? I

39:23

don't want to do ? Oh , so they

39:25

took this assessment , they got this inference

39:28

question wrong , so now I'm working on inferences with

39:30

them . That didn't make sense to me . I

39:33

think what I did do was like I think they're

39:35

not getting this text that we're reading right

39:38

now . So I was trying to help them through with that

39:40

specific text . I don't even know if that

39:42

was the right way to go with it . But I'd love to

39:44

hear what you both would say , especially Casey , from in

39:47

the younger grades . Do you do any small

39:49

group instruction with the comprehension

39:51

side , the knowledge building side

39:54

, of your curriculum ?

39:56

So I wouldn't say it's really

39:59

like a set small group

40:01

. There were times when

40:03

maybe we

40:05

were working on an independent writing

40:07

task , there

40:09

might be some kids that I would pull over to

40:12

provide more support to

40:14

or like a scaffold to for

40:17

whatever that was . Maybe those students got

40:19

additional writing prompts or

40:21

I had , you know , you had to kind of guide them along

40:23

a little bit because they weren't as

40:26

independent with their writing skills and

40:28

some of that came with , like with the

40:30

comprehension piece too . I taught , you

40:33

know , my class was always , you know , 50 to 60%

40:35

of students were multilingual learners

40:38

, so there was a lot of those vocabulary

40:40

pieces . So sometimes

40:43

, you know , we would , in conjunction with

40:45

my like multi-label

40:47

partner teacher , she might come in

40:49

and pre-teach some things and her group

40:52

right that she knew we were going to talk about

40:54

. So those were kind of the ways

40:56

we approached like the small group piece

40:58

. It was really just as needed for

41:00

students , but there was no structure

41:02

to it per se .

41:04

Yeah , Can I ask you see when she

41:06

would come in and pre-teach ? Would

41:08

she come in and do

41:10

something like today we're going

41:12

to be doing inferences here's

41:14

what an inferences and then bloody , bloody blah

41:17

. Or would it be ? Today we're

41:19

going to be learning about and here are some vocabulary

41:21

words you might see , or something

41:23

of this sort . I'm just curious what it looked like to really

41:25

be specific here , so that

41:27

when we talk about , like pre-teaching or

41:29

front loading , how that could look for our students

41:32

who might need more support . Quote in comprehension

41:34

.

41:35

Yeah , it was always tied to the

41:38

content . So we'll go back

41:40

to the birds piece . It might be , you

41:42

know , if she's taking them . You

41:44

know , let's build some background knowledge even

41:46

beforehand about just some vocabulary

41:49

that we might talk about , maybe just looking at a diagram

41:51

of a bird and talking about , you know

41:53

, the beak and the wings and the feathers , and

41:56

then you know , in whole group , those

41:58

students were like oh yeah , I know a little bit about

42:00

this too , which just kind of helped . I'll

42:03

also add some of that that those pre-teaching

42:06

pieces were also just so beneficial for

42:08

all students , right . So

42:10

, but it was just a way to kind of bring those

42:13

kind of two groups together . And

42:16

I think something important to note that

42:19

I honestly struggled with when moving

42:21

to the content building curriculum was moving

42:24

away from the comprehension

42:26

skill of the week . Right , it

42:29

was like , okay , I'm teaching this unit on birds

42:31

and today we're asking questions

42:33

and now tomorrow we're going to retell

42:35

some facts about this story

42:38

and then the next day . But

42:40

it was because we had

42:42

moved away from that piece and

42:44

it was more about the content and

42:48

I don't think we had to teach kids . You

42:50

know , this is how you make an inference . It

42:53

just kind of lent itself to that right

42:55

as you're reading these high

42:57

quality texts and asking

42:59

the right questions , right . So

43:03

it really truly moved away from that

43:07

comprehension skill piece .

43:11

If I could jump in . It reminds me of when

43:13

I was following this second grade class , and they were using

43:15

a curriculum called Core Knowledge , language Arts , and

43:18

they would be making inferences and

43:20

predictions and comparing

43:22

and contrasting right and left in

43:24

the context of Athens

43:27

and Sparta and the War of 1812

43:29

. But this school , this class , they were also

43:32

still doing leveled reading , and they

43:34

had a time set aside for comprehension

43:36

skills with level text . And these

43:38

same kids who I had just seen comparing Athens

43:41

and Sparta , they were not getting

43:43

the difference between the Canadian

43:45

Thanksgiving and American Thanksgiving

43:48

, that they're in different months , and it wasn't , you

43:50

know . And so was that because they couldn't make inferences

43:52

? No , maybe they were bored by

43:54

this little text about Thanksgiving or whatever

43:57

. So I do

43:59

think , though , it is important

44:01

to make sure that students have a

44:03

literal understanding of the

44:05

main points of a read aloud . There

44:08

are different ways to do that . I think . With older

44:10

kids , writing can

44:12

be brought in as a very effective way of

44:15

not just teaching writing

44:17

skills , important as that is , but as a

44:19

comprehension check , and you can do sentence

44:21

level activities . They don't take long

44:23

and , you know , often kids are not going to raise their hand

44:25

and say you know , hey , I didn't understand

44:27

, like whatever . But

44:29

if you give them a quick writing activity

44:32

and it's well designed , you find out very

44:34

quickly who did not understand what you

44:36

thought they understood . And then of course you

44:38

don't want to stop with literal questions

44:40

. But I think often teachers have been trained

44:42

to think we don't want to waste time on just literal

44:44

comprehension , we want to go straight to those higher

44:47

order thinking skills synthesis , analysis

44:49

, etc . When eventually

44:51

you do want to get there but you can't get there unless

44:53

you first make sure that kids have literally

44:55

understood what you think they have understood

44:58

. So a good curriculum , I think , is going to be

45:00

structured in such a way that it'll

45:02

start with the teacher asking questions

45:05

that test literal comprehension

45:07

and then move on to more

45:09

higher , like let's make , you know , not let's

45:11

make an inference , but a question that implicitly

45:14

requires kids to make an inference

45:16

or draw a conclusion or whatever .

45:18

Yeah , I think that's helpful . Natalie , I think it's

45:20

where I was going with my , where I wanted my

45:22

small group instruction to go . I don't know that I was ever successful

45:24

with it , so don't don't look at me as

45:27

a model for it , but I think that's

45:29

. You know , I kind of was thinking well , if

45:31

they're not understanding the key points of because

45:33

we're reading a whole novel right in the sixth grade

45:35

, so if they're missing things at the very

45:37

beginning that are just the literal understanding of this

45:39

, I'm losing them for a whole quarter . So

45:42

I wanted that's where I was , instead of , you

45:45

know , just doing random practice on different

45:48

types of questions . It was like I

45:50

want to make sure they understand this text so that they

45:52

can do that more difficult work

45:54

as we keep on moving .

45:56

Well , I'm wondering is there anything that you both

45:58

have to say that you haven't said yet

46:01

, that you'd like to share

46:03

or add to any thoughts that you've maybe

46:06

previously started and hadn't finished , or you just

46:08

really want our listeners to know about

46:11

what we've talked about today ?

46:12

I'll add that I think , when

46:14

you're making these shifts

46:17

in small groups because I

46:19

was one of those people that was so

46:21

set in my

46:23

way , you know , and I know I've been teaching you for a few years

46:25

, right , so I was like I know that this is what

46:27

we have to be doing and this is what you

46:30

know , in our whole day was really built

46:32

around these small groups of instruction

46:35

and

46:37

I think a lot of people this is where we start

46:39

with we start by moving to

46:41

, you know , structured literacy or

46:44

, as you know , set work , where we're kind of trying

46:46

to move away from just calling it science

46:48

of reading , because now

46:50

I see a lot of classrooms are like well

46:52

, we do science of reading and I can still do

46:54

my small groups in science of reading , but

46:58

it really also needs to add in

47:00

that knowledge piece . Right

47:03

, they go hand in hand because

47:05

you know , my first four years of teaching

47:07

, we almost taught no science or social studies

47:10

or it was , you know , just integrated

47:12

through a read aloud that we did . And

47:15

then , as we moved away from the small group

47:17

, it allowed me more

47:19

time for science and social studies

47:22

, right , like I teach kindergarten

47:24

this year and we have a dedicated science

47:27

block with content literacy

47:29

and a dedicated social studies block

47:31

with content literacy that these kids are

47:33

engaging in daily . If

47:35

I was still doing an hour or plus

47:38

of small groups , we would not have time

47:40

for that piece , so it really

47:42

does go hand in hand together when

47:44

you're making these changes and

47:48

I think that's just . It's been so beneficial

47:50

for the kids .

47:51

Yeah , such a good point . Thank

47:54

you for bringing up the whole day , not even just the literacy block

47:56

, but what it can do for the whole day . Thank

47:58

you .

47:59

Yeah , and I think , following up on that point , I mean

48:01

you know sometimes people feel like , well , I don't

48:04

have time to do all these things , that . But

48:06

we waste a lot of time in the current

48:08

structure . A lot of this time spent in small

48:11

group rotation is wasted

48:13

. So there is enough

48:15

time in the school day if we just use the time

48:17

more wisely . And I guess one other point

48:19

I'd like to make is the it's

48:22

going to be tremendously helpful for a teacher

48:24

if the school or the district has

48:26

adopted a good curriculum

48:28

that covers it does a good

48:31

job , covering both foundational skills and

48:33

the comprehension I would

48:35

call it , you know , building knowledge

48:38

piece , because it's not just

48:40

that we want kids to memorize

48:42

facts about content , but if you are

48:45

not giving them rich content to sink

48:47

their teeth into , they will not become good

48:49

comprehenders . And it's hard for individual

48:51

teachers to come up with all of

48:53

these things on their own . Plus , all

48:55

of these things , especially building knowledge , extend

48:58

over across grade levels

49:00

, periods of years , and only a

49:02

curriculum is going to be able to sequence

49:04

these things in a logical way so that kids

49:06

will have the knowledge they need

49:08

to learn the next thing the curriculum

49:11

expects them or the teacher expects them to learn . So

49:13

yeah , that's what I would add .

49:15

Yeah , we get a lot of questions about that too , Natalie

49:17

, in our inbox . Like I don't have

49:19

a knowledge building curriculum , what

49:22

do I do ? And I always think it's

49:25

fairly impossible to build

49:28

the knowledge in the sequential way across

49:30

the grade level and within the

49:33

grade level and then across the grade levels , across the grade

49:35

bands , in the way that a knowledge

49:37

building curriculum would and

49:39

does . So I think what

49:42

I think this conversation is making me think so much

49:44

about I wrote it down is

49:46

that tier one is so , so important

49:48

in terms of what happens in structure

49:51

and content . I think that

49:53

that is like the biggest takeaway for anyone

49:55

listening and how we're thinking

49:57

about maximizing that instructional time

50:00

and

50:02

, Casey , I think your journey really illuminates

50:05

that for our listeners .

50:09

I think , like what you're saying about tier one

50:11

I think that is where you

50:13

know when my shifts happened that's

50:15

because I saw in tier one

50:18

that that's where we could close those

50:20

gaps for students in foundational

50:23

skills and in our content and

50:25

comprehension skills . So

50:28

because before we were just trying to almost

50:30

over differentiate for students

50:32

and it wasn't working

50:35

the way we thought it was . And

50:37

I still see a lot of this

50:39

happening in our schools where it's like

50:41

, well , I have to see all these kids in group and

50:43

well , oh , you never see those higher readers

50:46

in a group . You

50:48

know I have to see them and work on these things and

50:50

it just never felt like a good use of

50:52

time . It never felt like , you

50:54

know , it's like there has to be a way we can do this together

50:57

. And if I look back at data

50:59

, you know , from the first four years of teaching

51:02

to the next couple , and you

51:04

know , last year in first grade , you

51:06

know I saw I had 95% of kids

51:09

at grade level at the end of the year . This year

51:11

in kindergarten , you know we got we are 100%

51:14

of kids meeting the winter benchmark in kindergarten

51:16

and I truly attest because

51:19

it's because of tier one , it's not

51:21

because of you know , I

51:23

put everybody into a specific group . I

51:26

also would add you know , I think about some

51:28

students that I have this year . If I would have started

51:31

them in a group , let's

51:33

say working on letter names , for the first six

51:35

weeks of school , and not allowed

51:37

them the opportunities to engage

51:39

in anything else , they would

51:41

not have probably met that winter benchmark

51:43

, they would not be as far there along . And

51:46

it's because I was using

51:48

a really high quality tier one

51:50

whole group piece and

51:53

then just focusing on the specific needs

51:55

for those specific students in a small

51:57

group setting very sparingly

52:00

.

52:01

I'm so glad you said that . I mean , I think it's

52:03

a general misconception that

52:05

if we're closing any gaps

52:07

, we're looking at tier two , tier three , right Small

52:09

groups or one on one . That's where that happens

52:12

. So I'm just really glad you brought that up , that

52:14

it can happen and can happen

52:16

very well in tier one

52:18

instruction , maybe even better and better

52:21

use of time .

52:22

Yeah .

52:22

Yeah , I actually saw a

52:24

piece yesterday that I knew we were having this conversation today

52:27

and I was thinking , oh my goodness , like I saw the

52:29

headline and I thought this is why I

52:31

think , like teachers and principals are confused

52:33

, and it was in the

52:35

74 and it was about how we

52:37

were trying to , I

52:41

guess , repair the or fill

52:43

in gaps from the COVID

52:45

learning loss through tutoring

52:48

and small groups . And that to

52:50

me , I was thinking well , what about

52:52

if we just fix tier one first , not

52:54

first ? Maybe we fix tier one and , right

52:56

, casey , like you just

52:58

described , have a strong tier

53:01

one in place and

53:03

fill in gaps as needed . So

53:06

I think if we miss that tier one , we're completely

53:09

missing the boat for all

53:11

of our kids . And

53:14

that just struck me , and so I'm so glad that you're

53:17

here today to have this conversation . I'm so glad that you

53:19

shared it in the way that you did , with

53:21

such clear examples for everyone , and that

53:24

Natalie shared what

53:26

the research says and all of this

53:28

important information about your experiences

53:31

in classrooms too . To just kind

53:33

of illuminate that , it's bigger than Casey's

53:35

classroom . Right , I'm sharing it happened in my classroom

53:37

, melissa's like oh , I didn't really know what was going on

53:39

either . So thank

53:42

you for both for being here .

53:45

Of course , my pleasure .

53:46

Thanks . Can we wrap with a couple

53:49

rapid fire questions ? Do you have time ? I

53:51

know we're a few minutes over . Do

53:53

we want to escape without that , or would you

53:55

like to ?

53:56

No , that sounds good .

53:58

Okay .

54:00

Melissa , I'll turn it to you . All right , we're

54:02

going to start with one for Natalie . You may

54:04

have done this before . I

54:06

don't remember what your answers were . If you did , so , it's okay

54:09

. What do you love to read ?

54:13

Well , I love to read fiction . I

54:15

mean , that's what I read

54:17

for pleasure , and I don't often

54:20

get enough time for it , but I will

54:23

see Right now I'm reading a book that

54:25

this happens to me . I've had a book on my shelf for

54:27

like 15 years . It's called the Dive

54:30

From Claus and Spear and I'm really

54:32

enjoying it Nice .

54:34

Casey , what do you love to watch ?

54:39

Oh , I think it really depends . There's

54:41

a lot , but I tend to . There's a lot

54:43

of true crime and

54:45

a lot of dramas . Currently I'm on a rewatch

54:48

of all 19 seasons of

54:50

Grey's Anatomy , so that's

54:52

been filling up my time

54:54

, so All right .

54:57

Natalie , what do you love to listen to

54:59

?

55:02

I love to listen to well , all

55:04

sorts of things , but mostly I

55:07

like to listen to sort of jazz that's

55:09

, but not just really from the American

55:11

songbook , like popular

55:13

songs from the 40s

55:16

, but not with words

55:18

, because I remember this background

55:20

, not his distraction . Like

55:22

I , often I'm cooking or reading the newspaper or whatever

55:25

, and so I don't necessarily want to get

55:27

distracted by the words . So

55:29

that's what I like to listen to . I get that .

55:30

All right .

55:33

Last question for you , Casey why

55:35

do you do what you love for education

55:37

and literacy ?

55:40

I mean , I think most teachers say

55:42

this , but we're really doing it for the students . I

55:47

think my reason 10 years

55:49

ago was much different than

55:51

it is now . And I think so much of what I

55:53

continue to do and advocate for and

55:55

being on the podcast is because I've

55:58

seen what structured

56:00

literacy and building

56:02

students' background knowledge of an

56:04

array of content topics can really do

56:06

to close gaps and

56:08

provide opportunities for a

56:11

lot of times for our neediest students

56:13

who we've traditionally left behind . And

56:16

that's just where my passion is and

56:18

we'll continue to do that , moving forward

56:20

.

56:22

Yeah Well , thank you both so much . We've

56:24

linked your Twitter handles

56:26

and , natalie , we've linked

56:28

your article that

56:30

we referenced here today , and

56:33

so everybody can find you all on Twitter and beyond

56:35

, and we're just super grateful that you took some time

56:37

to talk with us . Thank

56:39

, you .

56:40

Thank you , thanks

56:42

for having us .

56:45

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56:48

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56:50

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56:53

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56:54

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56:56

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57:03

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57:13

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57:16

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57:18

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57:20

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57:22

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57:24

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57:26

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57:28

so glad you're here to learn with us .