[00:00:00.670] - Speaker 1
As a proud partner of the Reading League and the Science of Reading Coalition, Lexia Learning is excited to announce Letters Literacy. Professional learning is now available through Lexia. Lexia joined forces with Voyager Sopress Learning Learning to exclusively offer letters developed by renowned educator Dr. Louisa Moats and other literacy experts. For more information about how letters is part of Lexia, visit Lexialarning.com le T-R-S. That's Lexialarning.com. L-E-T-R-S. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Teaching, Reading, and Learning, the TRL Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Stewart. The focus of this podcast is to elevate important conversations in the educational community in order to inspire, inform, and celebrate contributions to teaching and learning. And today, my guest is Dr. Jan Hasbrook, someone I celebrate as a teacher, a truly great teacher. I have learned so much from Jan over the years, and so I'm just thrilled to be able to speak with her today. So I'd like to introduce her to you. If you don't know who she is, but I'm guessing most of you do, but I'm going to introduce her to you. By way of her biography, Dr. Jan Hasbrook is a researcher, educational consultant, and author. She served as executive consultant to the Washington State Reading Initiative and as an advisor to the Texas Reading Initiative.
[00:01:43.890] - Speaker 1
Dr. Hasbroke was a reading specialist and literacy coach for 15 years before teaching at the University of Oregon and later becoming a professor at Texas A and M University. Dr. Hasbroke has provided educational consulting to individual schools across the United States, as well as Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, and Germany, helping teachers, specialists, and administrators design and implement effective assessment and instructional programs targeted to help low performing readers. Dr. Hasbroke earned her BA and Ma from the University of Oregon and completed her PhD at Texas An M. Her research in areas of reading fluency, reading assessment, instructional coaching, and English Learners has been published in numerous professional books and journals. She is the author and coauthor of several books, including Conquering Dyslexia, Reading Fluency, Student Focus, Coaching, and Educators as Physicians. By the way, all of those are must reads. She's also authored several assessment tools, and in 2019, she helped found Reed Washington, a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide professional development opportunities based on the science of reading. So every student becomes a skilled and confident reader shared mission right there. She also enjoys volunteering at her grandson's K, a school in Seattle.
[00:03:07.530] - Speaker 1
And we might be able to hear a little bit more about that from Jan. So Jan welcome so much to the podcast, so we're just going to jump right in. Jan, what is a quote that you live by and return to that was.
[00:03:31.950] - Speaker 2
Easy to come up with. I studied as anybody who knows me finds out really quickly that I had the amazing opportunity to study with Zig Engelman at the tail end of my bachelor's degree as a very young prospective teacher. Ended up connecting with his team who was teaching direct instruction and then stayed on to get a master's degree with him. And anybody who knows Zig or has worked with him or read anything that he wrote, his belief in our responsibility as teachers is just paramount. What I have here is a framed copy of the cover of the program from his Memorial after he passed away. And there's a photo of him. But right at the top is the quote that we all know, if you work with Zeke, if the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught. And I get chills, just say that out loud. But he drummed that into all of us, that if you take on this responsibility of being a teacher, he would never allow us to say anything. It's not the student's fault in any way. They're not trying hard enough or something's not right with them or any previous teacher or anything.
[00:05:07.680] - Speaker 2
It was you're, the teacher. If the student's learning, that's your responsibility, and you get to celebrate that. But if they're not, you have to change what you're doing. And that inspired me as what was it? 19 years old? 20 years old until today, all those decades later, I take this role of teacher very I hold it as a high responsibility and a treasure, because when you are teaching something important and the student does learn, you've at least played a role in that. And that has fed my soul for 50 years now.
[00:05:48.050] - Speaker 1
Oh, that's fantastic. And how true. And again, you were just this young, eager teacher candidate to be inspired by that. It's just so true. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. So speaking of that, being a young teacher, Candace, tell us about yourself. Tell us where you started. What made you decide to go into education?
[00:06:10.570] - Speaker 2
Well, I was a product of I was raised in the 1950s for young girls and women. Even though my parents were very open minded and not rule followers in any way. Somehow I figured out that the message for me was I could be a teacher or I could be a Secretary, or I could be a nurse. And that was kind of it. And my mother worked part time as a Secretary off and on, and I didn't think that was for me. She always had various bosses that maybe shouldn't get along with all that well. And I think I wanted a little bit more autonomy. Teaching was always there. I grew up on a farm, Laura, in a real rural area of Oregon, so there weren't a lot of houses around. But that didn't deter me in the summer. I remember, particularly summer of fifth grade and 6th grade, another girl who lived in a nearby farm. She and I went around and it was a big deal and rounded up a few kids and had summer school. So even way back then, teaching was something I was at least contemplating. But I thought before I completely commit to this choice.
[00:07:30.810] - Speaker 2
I should try medicine. So my cousin, who was living with us at the time, she and I went through Red Cross candy striper training, and it was pretty involved. And we did all that training. And to this day, she and I are still very close. We talk about that first day when we went to the local hospital and showed up in our little candy striper uniforms. And she went one way, and I went another. And at the end of our shift, we got back together, and I said, I'm never going to do this. This is not me. And she just recently retired from a 40 year career in nursing. So it was exactly the right thing for her. It touched her soul that day. She said, that was the day she said, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And she did it. And I said, okay, I've committed to this thing. I'm going to do what I have to do, but I am not going to sell teaching.
[00:08:30.540] - Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. So, Jan, first of all, I have to tell you this is so interesting because I grew up on a farm, and my mother is a Secretary, my sister is a nurse, and I'm a teacher.
[00:08:45.590] - Speaker 2
We're like, there you go.
[00:08:46.870] - Speaker 1
Triumvirate of female occupations of the day. Right.
[00:08:51.950] - Speaker 2
Other ways that we are connected. Yes.
[00:08:54.010] - Speaker 1
We were both candy stripers. My sister and I motivated her in that direction. Motivated me in this direction. Isn't that funny?
[00:09:03.010] - Speaker 2
It's hilarious. Yeah.
[00:09:05.750] - Speaker 1
But thank you, Destiny, for bringing you to us in this field. So other than the anti candy striper, what are some early influences that led you into your work? And you mentioned Zig Eagle. You mentioned Zig. Yeah.
[00:09:25.650] - Speaker 2
One was just school was my home from the very beginning. I had good teachers, and I had less than stellar teachers. And I can look back. And even as a child, I think most children know this is a good teacher. This isn't such a good teacher. I can remember that. But it didn't matter. Every single day I was eager to go to school. It just felt I got what we were supposed to do. I valued the learning. I liked this sense of order and rhythm. I liked the rules. I liked being with other kids. It just felt like home. And particularly my fourth grade teacher, whose name was Jan, that probably had something to do with her name was Jan Eckenroad, and she was the first one that really inspired I could be a teacher like Mrs. Ecken Road. Looking back, it was a little embarrassing because I was so clearly, obviously a teacher's pet. She favored me in many different ways and would be really kind of embarrassingly overt about it. But it felt wonderful to be loved like that. And I knew she valued me and she loved me. She opened doors for me.
[00:10:49.740] - Speaker 2
The next two years, she left the classroom and worked as what we call back then, the resource teacher. But it was a talented, gifted opportunity. We stayed in school, but we went I don't even remember once a week or twice a week, we went to a special room and worked with Mrs. Eckenroad on creative projects. She made sure I got into that program, and that was really fun. So Mrs. Eckenroad played a big role. But there was a moment and it happened in high school where things really solidified for me that ended up really played a role in me ending up where I am today. And that was a conversation I had in the spring, probably in my senior year with an English teacher who was not my teacher, but she was an advisor in a club that I was in. And I just liked her a lot. And I remember this day, end of school, I had committed to going to the University of Oregon. I was going to be a teacher. I knew that. So I went up to her. Her name was Judith Little, and I have spent many, many years trying to find her.
[00:12:02.970] - Speaker 2
But hunting down somebody with the name of Judith Little is really challenging. So I never did. But I wanted to tell her what an impact she made that day when we had this conversation, because I went up to her, I was kind of nervous. But I said, Mrs. Lil, I want you to know that I've decided that next year after I graduate, I'm going to be, you know, and I'm going to be a teacher, and I'd like to be an English teacher like you. And what she said at that moment, which I know she wouldn't remember at all if she's even still with us. But she looked right at me, and I have no idea if she just had the worst 7th period class ever or she had a bad headache or what, but she looked right at me and said, oh, Jen, no, you don't want to be a high school English teacher. She did. And then she went on, she said, she said, you'd be really good at it. But this is some variation of what she said. The world already has a lot of high school English teachers. We don't need more high school English teachers.
[00:13:16.340] - Speaker 2
What we need are people. So there's too many kids here who just don't know how to read. What we need are more reading teachers. Literally cross my heart, that really happened. And I kind of being at that vulnerable stage, it's like, okay, I'll teach reading. It never occurred to me because it just never occurred to me. But she planted a seed anyway. I didn't just say, okay, now I'm going to be a reading teacher, but she planted a seed. Yeah.
[00:13:47.960] - Speaker 1
Isn't that amazing that both those women had such an influence on you? And even, I mean, to this day, that's Crystal clear for you. You said you weren't able to find Mrs. Little, but we're able to keep in touch with Ms. Ekan Road?
[00:14:05.460] - Speaker 2
Yes, I did. Through my mother continued to live in Eugene, and there was some connection that she had with the Eck Androids. Her husband, Jan's husband was a principal, and my mother was a Secretary at the school district for a while. So she knew district people. And yeah, she stayed in touch with Jan and let her know some of my accomplishments. And I did visit her at one point sometime after my master's degree, I.
[00:14:33.640] - Speaker 1
Think, oh, I bet she was so proud.
[00:14:36.810] - Speaker 2
I think she probably was.
[00:14:39.270] - Speaker 1
Now, were you in school? Were you a good reader, Jan?
[00:14:42.160] - Speaker 2
Yeah, I was one of those kids. When I think of Nancy Young's latter. I was one of the kids in the green. I don't remember not reading. And I have two younger sisters, and I was reading to them when I was in kindergarten, maybe earlier, but yeah.
[00:14:59.320] - Speaker 1
So you were playing teacher right from the start?
[00:15:01.970] - Speaker 2
Yeah, it was inevitable, I think.
[00:15:06.080] - Speaker 1
Well, I think about when I was reading your biography and the many hats that you've worn in your career, a reading specialist and a coach and a professor and a worldwide consultant and a researcher and an author. Of course, you're a mom and you're a grandma. What has been the throughline of your work? Has it been reading? Has that been the through line, or is there something else in all those roles that's really just been that common thing, reading?
[00:15:38.860] - Speaker 2
Certainly, because either thanks to Mrs. Little or the subsequent experiences I had, I do deeply value the skill of reading and know that those who don't have access to it have limited access to so many things. So, yes, being able to teach others to read, but I think more specifically, a throughline is really just the children. I want children to thrive and have every advantage and have the emotional the social and emotional stability that being a skillful reader can provide. I know more and more as the years go by and the evidence continues to Mount that we can provide that for almost every child. So I think of children and their needs and their desires and then the role that Zig instilled in me way back when is the role of the teacher so always wanting to support and help and guide and inspire and connect teachers so that the best and the brightest go into teaching and stay in teaching and excel in teaching. That's probably why the coaching role intrigued me and intrigues me so much. But those teachers, I always imagine them with children, and it's really not just the young children, although that has become sort of my specialty area is the K to two development in reading.
[00:17:29.290] - Speaker 2
But when I think of adolescent readers and teenagers, in fact, one time I was just thinking about this the other day I was with a friend of mine who was also a teacher. She was a high school English teacher. We were out somewhere in public, and I was thinking about the kids that I work with. And I turned to her and said, I just love teenage boys. And I was thinking about it as teaching those young men get in the classroom, and then looked around and said without any context, Jan, you should be careful about saying, I love teenage boys. Yeah, right. I love teaching. And I love teaching young children and adolescents. And yes.
[00:18:17.840] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Somebody just been overhearing that. It might have been misconstrued. So what? Yeah. I'm with you on the teenage boy thing, though. I'll tell you what, they make me laugh. I mean, I remember saying to my son, I can get so mad at you, but you always just make me laugh. Lucky for you. Yeah. You mentioned that teaching virtually all of our kids to read. You were the first person I heard, and this was years ago. You were the first person I heard that really talked about that we can teach 95% of our children to read. And at the time you had this handout and you had all these citations around that supporting that idea. And I remember emailing you shortly after that, and I asked you if I could borrow those citations because I would get so many people what I would say. I don't think I said 95%, but I would say things like we can teach virtual to everyone to read. And people would say, well, back that up, because it kind of felt like the accepted idea was that a third of our kids were going to shine, a third of our kids were going to need instruction, and a third were just they're going to fall through the cracks.
[00:19:33.810] - Speaker 1
And that seemed to be accepted. Did you experience that, too?
[00:19:37.770] - Speaker 2
Well, yes. That notion of the Bell shaped curve, some of us are going to excel and some of us aren't. And in many human characteristics. That's true. But the evidence Zig just told us, and that didn't come from a lot of evidence in it was his experience that he just rarely failed teaching kids. And he had figured out a way to do this, and he wanted us all to know it. They can learn. They can learn. If they're not learning, do something else. They can learn, they can learn. So it was more of a belief system. But then as the evidence, I would read an article and I would jot it down on that document, which is a living document, Laura. I still have that. And as I find yet another article where somebody Stephanie Alerteva or Barbara Foreman or Patricia Mathis or Carolyn Denton or Jack Fletcher or others, Joe Torcheson do studies that show really close to 95%. For years, that document actually said 90 to 95. And that's in most of the books I've written. I used that as my conclusion. But just recently in the last few months, I have changed that to 95%, that the evidence to me is finally sufficiently compelling that that's the number.
[00:21:05.610] - Speaker 2
And we don't know exactly because we're talking about human beings, but it's about 95% of human brains have the capacity to be taught to read. And I always make that because people will paraphrase me and say 95% of kids can learn to read. No, they can be taught to read. They have the potential of learning, but it's not going to happen for a whole lot of them if they aren't taught.
[00:21:34.310] - Speaker 1
That's a really important distinction, because we don't want the takeaway to be that 95% of kids are going to just learn to read, that we want the takeaway to be how important instruction is in ensuring that possibility.
[00:21:48.970] - Speaker 2
That's right. It's the teaching. There it is again. It's that teaching.
[00:21:56.050] - Speaker 1
One thing that always sticks in my mind, too, is Stanislav Dahan talking about how there aren't a million ways to learn to read. I mean, we all have roughly the same brain that offers, like you said, we've got this brain that's capable of learning to read. It has the same physiological makeup and the same constraints that require a very similar path of learning, which requires a very similar path of teaching in order to ensure the largest number of our students can learn.
[00:22:26.770] - Speaker 2
And the mission of the Reading League is to get that information about what that is out into the hands and hearts and minds of teachers, because that's the challenge.
[00:22:41.000] - Speaker 1
That's exciting work. So speaking of exciting work, is there an era with all those different hats you've worn, all those different roles you've played? Is there an era in your work in which you have felt or maybe feel the most invigorated the most energized, just in your groove, really enjoying your work? What would you say that is?
[00:23:03.730] - Speaker 2
Without a doubt it is right now? I think for a variety of reasons. One is in general, my life is much less complicated than it ever was before. When I started teaching, I was a teacher for just a couple of years before my first child was born. So all those early years of teaching, I was also raising children, so I couldn't devote all the time to teaching. And then in my coaching years, I was also drawn into a doctoral program. So I was teaching, coaching part time in the schools and working on a doctorate and then a career. Then I had my tenure track position at Texas A and M University, which was very demanding and still finishing raising kids and all kinds of things. But now I feel like I have a lot more control over what I do with my day, and it is still very full and sometimes overly full, but it's not the demands of a family. I'm very connected with my family here, including my grandkids but I don't have to be thinking about what am I going to feed them for dinner tonight or what are we going to do with their time this week?
[00:24:29.060] - Speaker 2
Somebody else takes care of that, and I can just dive in a little bit. And I'm energized by today not only because of schedule and responsibilities, but we know so much. We're continuing to learn. Research continues to happen, and it's fascinating. But to a certain degree, a lot of the research, at least that I'm reading is confirmatory. I don't know that we're going to have some findings that take us in a really different direction that may happen, and we have to be open to it if it happens. But it's more confirmatory convergence of evidence that is saying that we really do know what we're doing. So I want to get that evidence out there with my interest in supporting and helping teachers, helping kids. It's just like there's not enough time in the day to get all the status information digested and prepared in a way that I can help teachers get it and do it skillfully and successfully.
[00:25:41.640] - Speaker 1
Well, Amen I mean, two things you brought up that I 100% agree with. One is the gift of the grandparent time of life, right? That's just like the best. But secondly, this sense of hopefulness, I feel it, too, and I sense it from you. I find you to be very optimistic and enthusiastic about your work, and I think we're there. I feel that hopefulness, too. I really do. And when you say you're constantly thinking about what you can do to help teachers, I find you and I've told you this before, I find you to be one of the clearest, most eloquent teachers that I have had the pleasure of learning from. Is teaching your gift. Do you see teaching as a gift? And if so, is that your gift?
[00:26:34.530] - Speaker 2
Well, I do feel it's a gift that's been given to me, not one that I inherently had. I think I certainly was shaped by tremendous teachers themselves who helped me figure out what teaching is and how to do it really well. But I will own it, but I do think I do it well. My daughter just recently, my 47 year old daughter with Dyslexia, who works with children, too, in a slightly different way. She's a nanny of young children, but she has watched my progression as a teacher and a professor and all of this over the years. And she said the other day to me, Just accept it, mom, you are really good at what you do. And I thought, okay, not that she's not biased, but I do take a great deal of pride in what I do, and I get a lot of joy and satisfaction from what I do. I'm always eager to do it better and better. I mean, just the medium of teaching these days, Laura's, you know, the PowerPoint and never in my life. Have I yet presented the same PowerPoint twice in a row? Because I'm thinking I need to talk about this in a slightly different order or I have 15 more minutes with these people than I did when I presented previously.
[00:27:56.530] - Speaker 2
So how am I going to spend that extra time? So I put a lot of time into it, but it's tremendously satisfying work. So I feel teaching was the gift that was given to me, and I'm eager to share it with them.
[00:28:12.700] - Speaker 1
That's a great way of putting it. And have you noticed a difference in yourself over the years as you approach teaching, like when you think about as you started as a teacher versus now the way you approach the art of teaching?
[00:28:29.010] - Speaker 2
I don't know that I have changed that much. Certainly we all had to do big pivots around how we're teaching. I'm used to teaching face to face. I do remember when I was a professor at A and M at that time working with undergrads and Masters and doctoral students. My Department head came to me, asked me to come to his office and said, we need to do what was then called remote teaching. We need to put you in a room with a television camera and do remote teaching. And I said, Absolutely not. You cannot teach over. If the kids aren't. If the students aren't in the room, I'm not going to do it. And he was thinking, thinking of how we could broaden the impact and make money. I'm sure that's what he was thinking. I said, you find somebody else to do it, because I don't believe it can work. Well, now I have to eat my words. I know we can. So that certainly has changed. But this notion of that teaching is and I can hear Anita Archer's voice in my head. I can certainly hear Zig Engelman's. Teaching starts with an objective or a goal.
[00:29:37.610] - Speaker 2
You're not just spending time. What do you want to do at the end of this ten minutes or 15 minutes or 15 week semester? What do you want your students to know and be able to do? Whether you're dealing with a little six year old or a room full of undergraduate preservice teachers, you've got this amount of time. What's your goal and what is the best way, the most systematic, the most explicit, the most engaging? You've got to connect at the heart level. You want that six year old to be excited about what you're doing and to like you and trust you. And you want that room full of preservice teachers to trust you and like you and get excited about what you're doing. And you may not do that with everybody, and it is harder to do through the camera, but that hasn't changed. I just think I keep modifying it and adjusting it for who my audience is, what I know because I learn more. We tell teachers all the time the reading when you know better, you do better. I'm changing my statement about the 90 to 95, but no, it's 95.
[00:30:56.040] - Speaker 2
I'm quite convinced there's sufficient research to say that I am making another adjustment on calling the oral reading fluency measure oral reading fluency. There is a group of us some folks took the lead on this, but it should have never been named oral reading fluency. You've heard me say that before, but now there's some momentum for actually changing, trying to it's a very branded thing. So it's going to be hard to change. But I'm no longer calling it oral reading fluency, but instead oral passage reading at the measure OPR, which was back in 2016, actually, John Hosp and Michelle Hosp and Ken Howell, that's the second edition of their book, the ABCs of CVM. And in that book, they said we don't use Orph anymore. We are calling an oral passage reading to move it away from suggesting incorrectly that it's a measure of reading fluency because it's not right.
[00:32:11.710] - Speaker 1
It's a measure of words correct per minute, essentially.
[00:32:14.850] - Speaker 2
Yeah. That's what we're measuring. It's a measure of automaticity. It's an essential thing to measure and to use for monitoring progress. It's a fabulous tool, but it's not a measure of the complex orchestration of foundational skills that we call reading fluency.
[00:32:35.790] - Speaker 1
And I've heard you speak to that and talk about why that's a misnomer. Let's just try to move that aside and put something in its place. But it's hard to do. Right. It's like sight words.
[00:32:52.110] - Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. Like sight words.
[00:32:58.270] - Speaker 1
Do we try to push forward with auto words or do we just keep trying to reframe sight words? I don't know.
[00:33:05.770] - Speaker 2
I don't know either on that one. I take one rebranding at a time, I think.
[00:33:10.630] - Speaker 1
Well, no. In education, it's especially hard to rebrand stuff. Don't you find?
[00:33:15.370] - Speaker 2
Say that again.
[00:33:16.020] - Speaker 1
In education, it's especially hard to rebrand things.
[00:33:19.400] - Speaker 2
Oh, I don't know if that's especially true in education, because we all use terms like Kleenex and Scotch tape and others where. Yeah. Those aren't the terms that like Uber calling Uber. That's true. Or Google that. Google that. Yes.
[00:33:39.070] - Speaker 1
Well, I want to return to something you mentioned earlier about your family. I know that you have a deeply personal connection to Dyslexia, and that comes through really beautifully and eloquently in your book Conquering Dyslexia, which I think is an amazing book. Can you tell us about that?
[00:34:01.850] - Speaker 2
Well, my daughter has Dyslexia. I have two children, of course, now, both grown up people. And back when she was in school, she was born in 1980. So when she was in kindergarten, she's the younger of the two. And my son was more like me, one of those precocious readers reading pretty much everything was easy for him. And I just really didn't give it much of a thought, even though I was many years into being a reading specialist by the time she was in school. The fact that she just didn't really care for books and all of the kinds of things that just that's okay. She's a different personality. And kindergarten wasn't very academic back in those days. She actually did go to kindergarten, but it was more of a play based, and she thrived in that. But she didn't thrive in first grade. But it was a confusing time, too, because her father and I were going through a divorce. And so there was just a whole lot of stuff made first grade is an extra challenge. But by the time she got to second grade, it was clear that this just wasn't clicking at all.
[00:35:18.890] - Speaker 2
But still, we weren't using the term dyslexia. In fact, some of the people who mentored me were very dismissive of this idea. You can teach anybody, don't worry about labels. You can teach anybody, don't worry about that. So it was in fourth grade where a friend of mine who was a special Ed teacher, I showed her a sample of my daughter's writing. I think she was a camp. And she wrote a card to us and I showed my friend and she said, Jan, she has a learning disability, and it's just like the curtain lifted, the clouds loaded away. Yes, that's what's going on. This really smart, eager, creative, deeply skilled in so many things. She can't read, she can't write, she can't spell. It's a learning disability. But now I am very comfortable. She ticks all the boxes on Dyslexia. So that's what she and I have come to call it. Right around that time, I started doing a deep dive into what we knew at the time, Sally Sheawitz booked the first edition of that book, Overcoming Dyslexia. I bought two copies of it, one for my daughter and one for me. And we both read that together.
[00:36:39.630] - Speaker 2
And then understanding that at least a subset of these children that we call learning disabled for reading have a particular neurobiological disorder that they're born with, that they quite possibly inherited, that there is something very real called dyslexia. And that's what I want people to know and to talk about. But the challenge of that when we talk about the instructional side, is that Zig was right and all those people dawn and Mark Seidenberg and Jack Fletcher, who says, yes, there's Dyslexia. There are definitely kids born with this thing that's going to make reading, writing and spelling more difficult. But at the end of the day, no matter why reading, writing and spelling are difficult, we teach them the same way. We might need to teach more intensively, but that's really the difference. It's not that we need to pull out a whole bunch of different tools and strategies and do things a different way. There is one way to become a reading brain, even if you're born with Dyslexia. And we need to start as early as possible. But that's true for all children. We need to be very intentional, explicit, systematic. But that's true for all children when we use multimodality instruction, not the now kind of questionable multisensory activities that we believed in for so long.
[00:38:13.010] - Speaker 2
But all kids benefit from multimodality. If we're going to talk about a word, let's look at it, let's say it, let's write it, let's manipulate the letters and the sounds. That's good for all kids. Some need very little of that. Children with Dyslexia need years of that. But yeah, that message that, yes, Dyslexia is real and we need to pay attention to it. But let's not let labels get in the way of providing the optimal, powerful instruction that works.
[00:38:51.010] - Speaker 1
I just have to pause here for a minute. So just to kind of bring together some things you've said, which has just been great. So going back to just like good teaching. Right. What is your goal? What is the best way to get there and infuse your heart into the relationship with that child? And then with instruction, optimal instruction is good for all kids. Intentional, explicit, systematic, multimodal, and realizing with our children who have a learning disability, who have Dyslexia, it might need to be more intensive. It might take more time. I always go back to Joe Targuson time, intensity and focus. Right. But all those things are good for all of our learners. Really? Yeah. I love that. And I've heard you I know you did a webinar for us at one of our symposia. And when you talk about that, good instruction, and I remember you saying good instruction is good instruction. Right. And that must be really reassuring for parents. It must be reassuring for teachers to hear that message.
[00:39:58.750] - Speaker 2
Well, I think it should be. But then there is the challenging reality, Laura, the public school where you have to if you don't have that label, you don't have access to that good instruction, or that instruction labeled instruction for kids with Dyslexia might not be the best instruction. It sounds so straightforward when you synthesize it and share this. But the reality of schools and I say public schools, but it's all schools. It's not the private schools have this all figured out. It's the systems that we have in place in schools where I think particularly challenging to public schools because they have so many laws and regulations and policies. But knowing what we should be doing for kids, it should be reassuring for all of us. But it's just so hard to get kids connected as early as they should be or it doesn't even matter early. Just get them connected with that instruction, regardless of label. It's an interesting challenge. There are many challenges for us in teaching. One of them is getting that information into the hands of teachers, but the other is implementation in real world school.
[00:41:23.750] - Speaker 1
Settings and getting it into the hands and minds of teachers early on, right from the get go. Right. With their teacher preparation program I know you and I, all of our colleagues have talked about teachers that are heartbroken and they cry and they say, why didn't I know this? And of course, I can understand that completely. You know, I came up as a teacher during a time when it was very much whole language and very much balanced literacy. And I didn't know this either. I wasn't available to this information. And knowing what I know now is so empowering. But we also have to overcome that feeling of guilt that many of us have.
[00:42:11.610] - Speaker 2
Yeah. Yes. I would wish for everybody that they would connect with the information that we have as a 19 year old like I did, where by absolute chance I connected with these folks. Looking back, they didn't have it all figured out. There's much that I've discarded from my early learning. But there was a foundation. There was a foundation of belief in the power of teaching. There was a foundation. It has to be systematic, it has to be explicit. It has to be intentional from the very first day of my training. So I've had to let go of less than I think most of my teacher colleagues have. But I continue to learn. I look back and say, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I had said this differently. I wish I had. When you know better, you do better.
[00:43:08.730] - Speaker 1
Yeah. And like you and I talked about, we've come a long way. We're feeling hopeful. We're feeling like we're coming a long way. What do you think is getting in our way of making all these pedagogical choices, just everyday common occurrence in classrooms? What's still getting in our way, do you think?
[00:43:33.330] - Speaker 2
Well, I think that there's a lot of discussion these days, and I think I know Margaret Goldberg was one of the ones that got me thinking about that notion of social psychology, of confirmation bias, that it's just easier to do what we've been told is correct and what worked for us. And when we do look at the statistics, I have full confidence in the statistic that somewhere around 95% of children can be taught to read, but the statistic that only about perhaps 40% of children are going to learn to read easily, but there is a 40% or 50. And in some communities, it may be as high as 60 or 70% learn to read easily pretty much no matter what we do. And that can become a false confirmation bias, a false information loop that these kids are reading. And the others we've given teachers and school leaders and communities excuses to say, well, those other kids have this, their parents, their parents don't value literacy so much at home. So therefore, all of those are real challenges to get past to help convince teachers and teacher educators and school leaders about that 95%. That's what people say to me all the time.
[00:45:08.950] - Speaker 2
Can that really be true? So belief that it can be true belief in what Zig Engelman said. You can teach these kids to read. You can do it. It's going to be hard sometimes. So there's systematic barriers, there's historical barriers. There's the intractable challenge of what's going on in way too many universities. There's money publishers who are publishing materials that do not align with anything we understand to be evidence are making millions of dollars selling these programs. They're not very inclined to say, oh, let's not do that anymore. So there's a bunch of reasons.
[00:45:54.270] - Speaker 1
Yeah. It is kind of a tangled thing. You can untangle 1 KT, but there's another one. Right. And I think that's one of the things we're trying to do here at the Reading League with that defining movement is saying we're all stakeholders. How can we prepare, support, empower teachers, administrators, parents, teacher preparation, program publishers, so that we're all rowing in the same direction and we're all working with the same body of evidence and same body of knowledge, and there's a lot of work to be done.
[00:46:29.090] - Speaker 2
Yes, there is.
[00:46:30.630] - Speaker 1
And also my heart is especially and I know you have a heart for teachers, too, because we as teachers, we have strategies and materials and methodologies that have worked for many, if not most of our kids. And so we're hesitant to pull that and try something else because we think, but what if this something else doesn't work? This is something like Margaret says, this is something I've been doing. It's kind of easier to keep doing it, but I'm also doing it because I feel like I've reached a lot of kids over the years. Yeah. I think that's taking a leap, it's having enough knowledge and enough support to feel powerful enough sometimes to take a leap.
[00:47:16.530] - Speaker 2
Well, there's the power of social psychology, too, where a teacher and it may be a younger teacher or it may be a teacher who somehow got inspired, tries doing something different, and it's working and it's working well, that proselytizing or the effect of that teacher next door who is trying something new and it's really working, or those where I've seen it at data sharing meetings, whether it's under an MTS framework or whatever, where a team of third grade teachers is sharing data, there's more collection of good data happening in schools, and they don't always know what to do about it. But here's this one teacher with the same kids that everybody else has doing really well. That's more powerful than some research article or some guru telling you to do something. It's like, oh, my colleague that I trust is having an effect, and she's trying this thing called Phony mix something or other. I want to try that, too.
[00:48:22.490] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, I think, I think we've talked about this in our little peace mix group. Right. That we can't just club people over the head with research and studies. You know, it's really about story. It really is about stories.
[00:48:38.260] - Speaker 2
It is.
[00:48:39.130] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we're in the business of relationships and teaching and learning, and that's so much better. Carried through a narrative, through a story of real teachers, real kids in real time. Yeah. So tell us, what are some of the greatest lessons you've learned in your career and all of the different roles you play? Tell us some big lessons or a.
[00:49:12.360] - Speaker 2
Big lesson that's easier. A big lesson. The biggest lesson, I think, across all the work that I've done is the value of collaboration. And maybe a piece of that is humility and curiosity. Okay. There's the three things. The belief that what we're doing is so important drives my curiosity. This is so important. And the humility to say there's got to be a way I can learn to do this better, the curiosity to figure out what that is. And then because I'm as lazy as it comes, I want to collaborate with others. I don't want to reinvent the wheel by myself. I want to turn to fabulous colleagues like Deb Glazer that I've had the opportunity to work with, like Carolyn Denton, who helped write my first two coaching books with me, like Jerry Tindall, who launched me and continues to be a mentor to me, to Margaret Goldberg, who has agreed to co author a book with me to these people, Nancy Young with that latter, which has inspired and informed my thinking in so many ways. Collaboration keeps me going and inspires me and makes me better because by myself, I couldn't be doing anything that I'm doing without the collaboration of others.
[00:50:46.600] - Speaker 2
Find another smart, passionate, committed person who's also curious and humble, can change the world.
[00:50:55.880] - Speaker 1
Love that, Jan. I love that humility, curiosity and collaboration that will take us far in many fields, many arenas of our lives, right?
[00:51:10.100] - Speaker 2
Yeah. In many arenas of our lives, yes. How can we do anything alone? No, it's got to be a combination of those things will take us far. You're right. Absolutely.
[00:51:20.970] - Speaker 1
So what are the hopes you have for the work that you've done or the work that you're doing now? What are the greatest hopes? You have the greatest hopes.
[00:51:30.180] - Speaker 2
Hopes. Well, you said earlier that you've figured out that I'm an optimist. I am to the level of craziness. I have had people wiser than me say, tone it down a little bit, Jan. It's good to be enthusiastic, but we got a long way to go, and we do. And I know that, but I just have an innate optimism. So I see a shift, and I want to see that shift, but I do that growing group on Facebook of the science of reading what I should have learned in College. But every time I look, I mean, they're going to be at 100,000 probably.
[00:52:09.350] - Speaker 1
They're very close to 1000. That's a major city, Jan. That's a major city.
[00:52:16.890] - Speaker 2
Filled with curious teachers who are seeking to collaborate with others, like, I want to learn day after day after day. I don't spend a lot of time on that website, but I go every once in a while, see if can I be helpful to somebody who's looking for some resource or some idea? And every day there's somebody I'm just getting started. What should I read? Where should I go? So that the hunger and growing awareness of teachers that they may have been kept from a body of knowledge that's going to make them do what they want to do, which is teach children. It's going to make them better at doing this. And I do see it spreading a little bit at colleges. A couple of weeks ago, I did a full day work with some professors in Ohio, and I went in prepared to tell them what I thought was the truth, not bash them over the head, but simply say, these are the ways we've been doing it, and this is what we're getting, and we've got to change. And I don't know if I touched the heart of everybody, all of the professors in that group, but I got a lot of positive feedback and gratitude for sharing.
[00:53:37.510] - Speaker 2
So if College professors can join this journey, that's great. And also, I do work with a number of publishers, and I see publishers, they are not going to ignore what's going on in the world, and they're not. I work with publishers who would be open to this, but I see them very eagerly embracing. We have to do things differently. So I have hope.
[00:54:10.790] - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's all terrific. I have to mention that your optimism is very appreciated by me. But when you said you said optimistic to point of crazy. Yeah. One of my kids one time said to me I was Opta crazy. There you go. But honestly, I think in education, to be in education this long, we kind of have to be opted crazy.
[00:54:39.510] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. Oh, yeah.
[00:54:42.530] - Speaker 1
I had somebody recently, we were talking about publishers, and this person said kind of cynically that, well, they're just changing based on business. And I said, I actually don't care. I'm okay with that.
[00:54:59.150] - Speaker 2
Fine with me.
[00:55:00.390] - Speaker 1
Yes, I'm okay with that. I really want to make sure and I'll put all these things in the show notes. I really want to make sure people are really tuned into your books. Conquering Dyslexia, Reading Fluency Student Focused Coaching Educators as Physicians What are you working on now?
[00:55:20.910] - Speaker 2
Well, actually, The Educators as Physicians was a book I wrote as a single solo author, which I don't like to.
[00:55:30.640] - Speaker 1
Do very to collaborate.
[00:55:32.950] - Speaker 2
I don't. And the book itself became outdated, and I wanted to do a revision of it. So it is no longer in press, in print. It's not available. But I was working on the beginnings of a refresh of that, an update, and I shared some of the chapters with Margaret Goldberg and asked her for her opinion. One day, I think it was at a peace next meeting that she said something about that she was doing some work in her district with assessment, and that's what that book is really all about. So I thought she's interested in assessment. I'll get her feedback on this. And I told her upfront. I said, based on this feedback that I get, I may do some revision of the book or I may ask you to be a co author. And her comments were just so spot on, you know, how amazing she is, how bright and connected with the real world. So I did ask her, would you come on and write that with me? So we just had a conversation that this summer we're going to try to get that book rewritten and updated, and it's going to be so much better with her.
[00:56:44.930] - Speaker 2
It's going to be really good. So I'm working on that. And I'm also another collaboration, Nancy Young, who I've mentioned a few times here, she proposed to me last spring that she would like to take that notion of the reading ladder and write a book around it, really explaining more in detail about how to get our kids up to the top of that reading ladder. So she and I are in conversations with a publisher. We exchanged some emails today. So that looks like another project we'll probably work on.
[00:57:23.260] - Speaker 1
Oh, that sounds amazing.
[00:57:25.650] - Speaker 2
Yeah.
[00:57:26.790] - Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh, Jane, those both sound like such great projects. And I'll be excited to see how those unfold. And I will, as I mentioned, I'll make sure to put Nancy's reference to her work on the show notes. And also for those of you who are listening, Mark Goldberg's right to read project, I'll make sure to connect everybody to that.
[00:57:50.980] - Speaker 2
Excellent. Yeah.
[00:57:51.780] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Good. All those are great projects.
[00:57:54.150] - Speaker 2
Yay.
[00:57:56.610] - Speaker 1
So what gives you great joy? What propels you to jump out of bed every day?
[00:58:02.930] - Speaker 2
Jan hasbroke those teachers and those kids. Today I have a deadline. I am preparing two book studies for some folks in Ohio. They're going to do a book study of conquering dyslexia and a book study of Deb Glazer in my book on reading fluency. So I'm finalizing the PowerPoints and the books book study guides for that. So thinking about those teachers and how they will use those books to help them help kids, that's what gets me out of bed these days. Deadlines, deadlines.
[00:58:42.970] - Speaker 1
Deadlines.
[00:58:45.810] - Speaker 2
For sure. But the idea of more projects, I know summer is a precious time to get a lot of things done, so. Yeah, that's what I'm doing.
[00:58:57.250] - Speaker 1
Yeah. And you're volunteering.
[00:59:00.210] - Speaker 2
I am. Yes.
[00:59:02.310] - Speaker 1
We have to know about Felix. We have to know about that.
[00:59:04.550] - Speaker 2
Oh, yes, dear. Felix, my grandson, who is now, as he and I talked about this, the term is a rising fourth grader. He had half a year. Well, a third of the year of second grade and his full year of third grade virtual impacted by the pandemic. And I supported him that for both second and third grade. He lives about 2 miles from me. So he came to my house twice a week and did second grade and third grade from my dining room table. And luckily for him and everybody is that he's academically very fine student in this pandemic. He managed to continue to make progress. So that's really good. But I do continue to volunteer with that school. My role there has been primarily sitting in on their elementary NTS team, which meets every week, and we used to meet in the building, and then we now meet on teams, which is the format that they use. But we held our last meeting about two weeks ago, and it will start up again in the fall. And we share the data that they're collecting. They are using words correct per minute fluency data three times a year, and they're really paying attention to that data and trying to make some good changes.
[01:00:30.130] - Speaker 2
So I support that work whenever I can.
[01:00:34.890] - Speaker 1
How fortunate are they that your grandson.
[01:00:38.810] - Speaker 2
Goes to the school?
[01:00:41.610] - Speaker 1
That's the gift that keeps on giving right there.
[01:00:44.350] - Speaker 2
It's it is so mutual because I just love being connected in a real way with those teachers who are every single day doing the work and doing their very best and watching the challenges that they're facing and sitting there being just part of the team, not the guru that they turned to, but just one of the team. Like, what should we do next? We don't have enough time. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough people. The reality is what do we really do? So I'm truly honored to be doing that work with them. So pleased to have that opportunity.
[01:01:24.630] - Speaker 1
That's so nice. I feel the same way. Jan. I was with a group of teachers last week, and I just said, you humble me because you're the boots on the ground. You're the one in the classroom. You're the one with the kids. And anything I can do to support you, I want to do that. But please know you are in a Noble profession and you are doing such important work. And we are all just so grateful for that. And I have to say, I'm really grateful to you, too. I love the thank you for the work you're doing with Reed Washington.
[01:02:00.090] - Speaker 2
Yes, that's wonderful. That group of teachers who approached me to say it was really their idea, we should do a nonprofit. We need to get this information in the hands of teachers. Would you like to join us and help us? Yes, absolutely. In fact, Saturday, that's what I'll be doing. That's what's going to get me out of bed. Saturday is Reed Washington's hosting part two of a free presentation by Carolyn Denton. She did part one on Dyslexia. Much of her research career was working with Jack Fletcher, and so she has a lot of knowledge in this area. So part one was two weeks ago on just background and research about Dyslexia. Part two on Saturday is going to be about the practical application of what should you do in the classroom with kids with Dyslexia. So we'll be sponsoring that. I think we have close to 1000 people signed up for that all over the world. So, yeah, we're continuing to do our little part up here in Seattle to get the best information that our next presenter is going to be Anita Archer. Before that, we had Dave Kilpatrick.
[01:03:16.330] - Speaker 1
In The Wealth, and I'll make sure to put that in the show notes, too. So people who want to connect with Reed Washington can connect.
[01:03:22.380] - Speaker 2
Oh, yes, please.
[01:03:23.580] - Speaker 1
Especially educators in Washington.
[01:03:26.530] - Speaker 2
Yes. But now, of course, we have opportunity to go beyond our borders.
[01:03:31.330] - Speaker 1
And I guess that's one of the lessons we've learned over the last year and a half. Is it's wide open in terms of being able to reach a lot of people. I know we feel that we're in the reading League. We feel like we've been able to reach so many more people in this virtual space. So there are some good things that have come of that. And I did want to give a shout out to your book, Reading Fluency with Deb. I mean, you know this because you guys have taught me so much about Fluency, because I remember I had to pull together that webinar on Fluency, and I was just tapping into that so much. And I just really appreciate that book. I think it's so well written, so clear. It's a wonderful resource.
[01:04:13.630] - Speaker 2
Thank you, Laura.
[01:04:14.770] - Speaker 1
You bet. Okay, now closing questions. Jan, are you ready? Closing questions. Okay, so the first one is who's your favorite teacher growing up and why? And I think you've already shared with us the wonderful Miss Eckenroad and the lovely Miss Little, who were your favorite inspirational teachers.
[01:04:34.660] - Speaker 2
And then at the University, Zig Engelman and his colleague, Wes Becker West was a social psychologist and taught me about the managing classrooms and behavior and the importance of the emotional connection where Zig was just pounding into me explicit, systematic instruction. If it's not working, just do more. Go back in there.
[01:04:58.630] - Speaker 1
That sounds like a perfect combination, though, right? Oh, it was because they were kind of like the science and the art of teaching.
[01:05:07.330] - Speaker 2
It was. Yes.
[01:05:10.930] - Speaker 1
What is a favorite book, either as a child or as an adult? Not the favorite book, but a favorite.
[01:05:17.380] - Speaker 2
Right. Thank you. That's not possible to say that as a child, I read The Little House on the Prairie, that series growing up on a farm, and my grandmother growing up really on a Ranch and pioneer. She had relatives who were pioneers. And all of that really just I immersed myself in that. And then my sisters and I played pioneer with our horses and out in the field as a child. That was a favorite book. And right now I am really enjoying and this came straight out of your podcast, this book of The Social Animal. Dave Kilpatrick said when you asked him that question about his favorite book, he said, well, at least one of them is the 12th edition of The Social Animal. And this Elliot Arring is the author. And this 12th edition is written with his son. So it's the only edition that I have read. But it just absolutely connects with me about the science, the evidence that we have about why we behave the way we do as societal creatures, as individuals. Why do we care so much about the things we care about? Why is social connection so important?
[01:06:48.210] - Speaker 2
Just answering so many of those human psychology. Why do we do this? Yeah, that book is really informing me and inspiring me right now.
[01:06:59.530] - Speaker 1
Interesting. So it's like a window into our behavior.
[01:07:06.450] - Speaker 2
The whys of so many of our little quirky things that we do these things, the importance of family. I mean, there are social psychological reasons for the reason family and bonds and those kinds of things are so important.
[01:07:22.170] - Speaker 1
Wonderful.
[01:07:23.490] - Speaker 2
So I thank Dave Kilpatrick and your podcast for that.
[01:07:26.940] - Speaker 1
All right. Way to go, Dave. Okay. What do you have on your desk that symbolizes you or is dear to you?
[01:07:34.950] - Speaker 2
Well, I kind of started with that right by my desk on a little stand. Is this Zig looking at me and inspiring me every day from this program, from his Memorial that I am. It was a life changing thing to go to Eugene, Oregon, to participate in that Memorial because this was back in 2019. So prepandemic, just before the pandemic. But I was at that time really in my mind, telling my family, telling my colleagues that I was in the process of retiring, I was semiretired on my way to full retirement and my life changed. Zig in more than one way changed my life. But sitting in his Memorial, when somebody shared that statement about teaching that if the students aren't learning, the teacher isn't teaching. And that speaker also says, Zig taught us that if you know how to teach a child to read, it's a moral imperative that you do it. And I thought, well, damn, there goes my retirement, because I do know how to teach children to read, and I know how to teach teachers how to teach children to read, which is even more powerful because more children benefit. So, yeah, that just destroyed my retirement right there.
[01:09:05.940] - Speaker 2
I can't morally obligated to keep doing what I'm doing. So I have that on my desk. And, Laura, I also have this little mug that was the first gift ever given to me when I was a teacher. So I was probably 24 years old teaching reading in Brownsville, Oregon. And this little child, I still remember his full name, but I will just call him Christopher he and his mother came, I believe it was probably at Christmas and gave me that mug. And I have it to this day. And for so many reasons. Partly just the honor of being a reading teacher getting a gift. The classroom teachers would get gifts, but the reading teacher was often forgotten. Plus the fact that this family, this little boy, Christopher, being raised by his single mother, didn't have $0.88, which I bet that's what it costs. Before the dollar store, there were 88 cent stores. I'm sure that that's where they got it. Or maybe Goodwill. They didn't have any money to spare, and yet they thought of me, and they spent some of their precious money on me to buy me this adorable little now kind of cracked but mug that I use for my important pens.
[01:10:31.880] - Speaker 2
So Christopher touched my heart. Maybe I touched his way back when, but those two things zig on one side and the child on the other inspire me. And so I keep them close to me on my desk.
[01:10:45.270] - Speaker 1
Oh, I love that. I just want to say thank you to that speaker who said, if you know how to teach a child to read, you have a moral impairment to do it, because that kept you going. And I'm grateful for that. We're all grateful for that.
[01:11:01.270] - Speaker 2
Well, my family, not so much. They were kind of hoping for retirement.
[01:11:05.890] - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's true. All right, last question, Jan. What are the greatest hopes you have for today's children?
[01:11:14.950] - Speaker 2
That they have a teacher who teaches them to read and inspires them in their belief in themselves to keep learning.
[01:11:25.370] - Speaker 1
Beautiful words. Beautiful words. Thank you for this time, really. It's just been a precious time for me to be able to speak with you. Jan. As always, I admire you greatly. And I know that those people who are going to listen to this podcast will certainly feel the same. So thank you.
[01:11:48.030] - Speaker 2
I'm grateful to have done it. I enjoyed the conversation, Laura, and I'm really honored to be one of the people in those amazing Reading League podcasts that you have. I'm just humbled to be among that group, and I listened to them all myself and enjoy them all. So I'll look forward to hearing who follows me, too.
[01:12:12.050] - Speaker 1
Oh, well, we're going to keep that top secret for now, jeans bro.
[01:12:15.480] - Speaker 2
Okay.
[01:12:17.010] - Speaker 1
Thank you so much, Manla.
[01:12:19.350] - Speaker 2
You are welcome.
[01:12:20.570] - Speaker 1
All right, take care. There were so many great takeaways from our conversation today when Jeanne talked about working with humility and curiosity and the value of collaboration. I know that just probably rang true to so many of us listening today. So if you have not already joined us at the Reading League, please do. We are really committed to bringing you conversations like this and content like this to enrich your professional journey. Join us at www.thereadingleague.org. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe. Please rate us. Please review, and most importantly, please share this with others because again we're just really committed to bringing you this level of expertise for your listening pleasure. So thanks for joining and look forward to seeing you next time.