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Reading Inspires is Reading Is Fundamental’s new podcast celebrating the power of books and the joy of reading. Each episode invites educators, librarians, families, authors, illustrators, and all who champion children’s literacy to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you? Through engaging conversations and storytelling, Reading Inspires bridges the gap between research and real-world practice—showing what literacy looks and feels like in classrooms, libraries, and homes. Grounded in evidence yet open-ended in approach, this is a space for curiosity and connection. Whether you’re an educator seeking fresh ideas, a parent hoping to spark a love of reading, or simply a lifelong bookworm, you’ll find inspiration, practical insights, and stories that remind us all why reading matters—and how it changes lives.
Erin Bailey: Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading is Fundamental.
I'm your host, Dr. Aaron Bailey.
This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.
In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question.
What does reading inspire for you?
Through stories, research, and real world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes.
We explore what literacy looks like and why it matters.
Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here.
Let's get inspired.
Today I'm chatting with Dr.
Jennifer s Goggin and Hannah sne, wind Founders of Trusting Readers.
Welcome, and they also have this book, trusting Readers.
Oh, there you go.
Powerful practices for independent reading, which I will be sure to link in the show notes below.
Welcome.
Thank you for being here.
I'd love if you would each start with just a bit about your journey into literacy.
What drew you to teaching and how did this eventually read to lead to you writing the book?
Trusting readers.
Jen Scoggin: Okay, great.
Well, first, thank you for having us.
We're so excited to be here and to get to talk to you.
About some of our favorite things, but I come from a family of teachers.
So my mom was a teacher, my uncle's a teacher, lots of people in my family.
So I grew up in an elementary school classroom, hanging up bulletin boards for my mom.
And then I was lucky enough to have some really great professors in college, despite the fact that I said I'd never go into education.
I took an education class and got hooked.
And so I, out of college, I started teaching in Harlem, New York.
I taught first and second grade.
And I think it, a lot of it is luck.
I worked with some amazing colleagues.
I had this really fantastic principal who encouraged me to pursue my doctorate, and so I did that.
And then I met more fabulous and interesting people who introduced me to Pam Allen.
Pam Allen was my mentor for a very long time.
She guided me into literacy consulting.
And taught me the ropes.
And so I made that next step.
While I was there, I was lucky enough to meet Hannah and I began talking and collaborating a lot first as consultants.
And then it naturally made sense for us to start something to together because our conversations led us to the ideas that are the basis of trusting readers.
But I'll let Hannah talk a little bit more about that.
Hannah Schneewind: Yeah, so like Jen, I actually started off teaching first and second grade.
I was teaching in Brooklyn, New York, and I was lucky enough to teach at a wonderful school full of.
Absolutely fabulous teachers.
So as a brand new teacher, when I was struggling with something or I didn't know how to do something, I would walk next door and I would
knock on Connie's door and I would say, hi, may I watch as you do your independent reading, or May I watch as you do writing workshop?
And Connie would say, of course.
And then the next day I would go to the other side and ask that person.
So I taught there for 10 years and I was just so lucky to have.
So many fabulous teachers from whom to learn.
I had a professor in college who always told us, you can decide that you want to teach 25 students to read, or you might decide that you want to teach 25.
Teachers to teach 25 students to read, and she said, you know, both are fabulous.
I had always kind of carried that with me, and so after being a classroom teacher for 10 years, I decided I did want to go ahead and work with adults.
But I was really lucky because after doing that for 10 years, I went back to the classroom and taught first grade for another five years.
So I think one of the things that is so fabulous about teaching is that it's very flexible.
You can be in the classroom, you can be out of the classroom, you can have different roles, and they're all really interesting.
Jen Scoggin: And
Erin Bailey: I really love
Jen Scoggin: and I, oh, sorry.
For, I think when we were all those experiences, just to get to what led us to trusting readers in particular, I think all of those experiences led us to see that at times there is a level of mistrust.
Just systemically like trusting teachers to be able to do the work of teaching 20 22, 25 individual.
People how to grow as readers.
There's a lack of trust that independent reading is enough that it is robust enough to support kids as they're on their journey to read.
And then the idea that we can't trust students like actually want.
Do the work without a lot of handholding that that they wanna do that.
And we saw that repeated kind of unconsciously, not intentionally, but over and over again, and that we kept having the same conversation about this idea of trust.
And that's what really led us to write the book and then to start our own consulting group.
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Thank you.
I appreciate that so much.
I mean, certainly I've been a teacher in the classroom and face those issues of trust and I think we see that a lot now, for better or for worse with a lot of mandates and scripted curriculum.
And, you know, I've had this conversation with many colleagues that some teachers, they.
They appreciate scripted curriculums because they really want to focus on their teaching, the art of teaching itself.
So not having to go out and write their own curriculum takes away one burden for them, whereas others, myself included, are a little bit more on the creative energy side.
They wanna write their own curriculum.
So, having these kind of mandates of you have to follow the page by page guides leaves us feeling a little stifled and with.
Less creative outlets that we wanted when we went into teaching.
Jen Scoggin: Yeah, absolutely.
Erin Bailey: So you talked a little bit about this, but you started this organization trusting readers.
What were those core needs in literacy education that you were hoping to address through the your organization?
Jen Scoggin: Well, we knew that after we wrote the book, we really wanted to partner with schools in ways that.
Emphasized independent reading.
I think in both our professional experience working with teachers as consultants, but both in the classroom, like you were saying, it feels like, there are a lot of different ways that teachers approach teaching.
Whether it be you'd, like the curriculum feels safe for you or it.
You know, the curriculum is something you wanna write yourself.
The research on independent reading, is it, there's just too much of it.
It's just too clear about how beneficial it is for children.
We also see it as beneficial for teachers because it allows us insight to see how our students are doing when they're actually applying all those skills and strategies to something that has meaning and purpose in their mind.
So, you know, we really wanted to push that agenda in schools to really.
To promote that message and then to support teachers in feeling like it is enough.
This is what you do, this is what it does, this is what your kids can do inside of it.
And while we were doing all that work in schools, this idea of reading identity.
Was something that we were interested in, but just like sparked all kinds of conversations with teachers.
We'd go to conferences and it was a piece of our presentation, but all anyone wanted to talk about, and when we were in classrooms and we mentioned it, it really seemed to resonate with people in a way that we weren't in.
Anticipating we were excited about it.
But this idea of really thinking through both the the cognitive and the affective, like the skills and strategies and the emotional part of teaching, really resonated.
And so we spent a lot of our energy on looking into that, both from the research standpoint and like, what does that mean in terms of practical application in the classroom to make reading instruction better?
And so from there, our work kind of took on a new direction.
We started talking about it and presenting on it and, it felt a little bit at times in recent years, kind of in contrast to some of the scripted mandates that teachers are facing, that they didn't feel as if there were, there was space for that.
It felt like there was a tension.
And so naturally our work has morphed a little bit into some of the pre-K space where teachers are looking for more support, but there's a little bit more freedom and people wanna have that foundational piece of like.
What does it mean to grow somebody who's confident enough to tackle something that big at that age?
And so now in addition to working in elementary and middle school classrooms, we're spending a lot of time in pre-K classrooms.
Hannah's in pre-Ks in New York.
I'm in a non-profit nature-based pre-K outside all day with.
Little ties and and that's also brought us into work with other nonprofits like Read To Grow, that's based here in Connecticut that's focused on getting books into the hands of parents and caregivers.
So.
Oh, it's a long way of saying that this idea of reading identity has really brought us into classrooms in new ways.
It's changed the way we research and talk at conferences.
It's brought us in front of parents and pre-K teachers and really has kind of taken on a life of its own in our work, in our organization.
Erin Bailey: Amazing.
I wanna join your outdoor nature program.
That
Jen Scoggin: amazing, you know.
Erin Bailey: Hannah your philosophy emphasizes trust.
Can you unpack trust a little bit for us?
And why is trust so central to your approach?
Hannah Schneewind: Sure.
So when Jen and I first were working with teachers and then doing research for our book, we heard from teachers a lot that even though they knew the importance of independent reading.
They were always a little concerned about doing it in the classroom.
They were afraid that an administrator would walk in and to an administrator.
It might look as if they were just sitting on the floor next to a child, or they were just sitting with two children having a conversation.
In reality, what had happened was that the teacher had.
Very explicit plans about what she was teaching.
Those students, she had looked at data, she had looked at what she had taught them previously.
She was being very clear about what the students needed and what they, she could teach them, but it didn't necessarily look like that from the outside.
So that's when we started realizing, oh wow.
So that's kind of one crisis of trust, which is that administrators have pressure put on them and then they in turn.
Might put pressure on teachers inadvertently.
And so then teachers didn't necessarily trust the admins to see what was happening.
And then it led the teachers to not necessarily trust their students.
So again, the teachers knew that independent reading was so important.
They felt as if they had to have a lot of accountability measure.
It's like you have to write a certain number of post-its in your book, or you have to fill out this reading log.
Even when they sometimes knew that maybe kids were faking it.
But they felt as if, oh, well, can I really trust my students?
And again, all of this is inadvertent, but it just is what we noticed was happening.
And so we trust teachers.
First of all, teachers have an extraordinary amount of expertise, right?
Teachers keep up with all the research.
They follow their curriculum or they follow standards.
They know a lot about children's literature and they know the students in front of them.
So we trust teachers' expertise to make those decisions.
We also have to really trust the students.
So Jen said we do a lot of work in pre-K.
I will talk to three and four year olds.
They have a lot to say about what they want to read.
You know, they have favorites.
They have books they don't like.
They have books they think are boring, and they're three and four.
So we also have to trust that no matter what age students come into our classrooms, they have a lot of opinions about themselves and what they want to read.
And so we need to.
Trust their view of themselves.
We need to trust their opinions about reading and we need to trust that at independent reading time they really are reading.
So trust goes, you know, plays through a lot of aspects of this work.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
I'm wondering, Hannah, if you can also share a little bit about independent reading.
'cause that is the topic of your book.
What is it, what does it look like in the classroom, and what does the research say about independent reading?
I.
Hannah Schneewind: So if you are in a room of a hundred teachers, a hundred researchers, and you say, what is independent reading?
You are gonna get a hundred different answers and so that's why I love your question so much.
There's no agreement about what it is.
So that's why interesting readers, Jen and I actually start the book by defining independent reading.
And so we define independent reading as using the principles of.
Time choice talk and teacher support.
So children need time to talk about books, right?
I always get a little nervous if I'm in a classroom and the classroom is too quiet, right?
That's weird.
Kids want to talk about their books.
They do need to be able to choose what they want to read.
And when we talk about choice in independent reading, we are really talking about guided choice.
So it's not that you could choose literally anything.
We do need to support kids.
So that they are choosing some books that they can read with accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
And then they're choosing other books that they just want to read because they're interesting.
They love them, they heard another friend read them.
But again, the teacher is very involved in that.
They need a lot of.
Teacher support.
So that's one of the misunderstandings that we find about independent reading.
So we always say independent reading without teacher support is not independent Reading.
It's kids with books.
And kids with books is also important, right?
We know that there's some students who don't have access to books at home.
That's why your organization is so important.
But independent reading really is an instructional time, and so the teacher is very involved.
In independent reading.
So it is that time plus choice, plus talk, and then teacher support that really make independent reading.
So important.
Erin Bailey: Thank you.
That's so helpful, Hannah.
And I think what I'm noticing is it's that word independent even that people have various definitions of, so as you're describing, independent reading is not children just sitting by themselves and the teacher and I think there's some models out there.
In which all the children are reading and the teacher is reading by themself too.
And what you're saying is not that, it's that the teacher during this independent reading time is actually teaching as well.
And there's a lot of thought and planning that goes into it to meet each student what they're working on in their individual reading needs during that time.
Jen Scoggin: Yeah, very well said.
Yeah, exactly right.
Erin Bailey: Great.
So let's chat about the book a little bit.
So your book, the title, which again, I'll link in the show notes, trusting Readers, powerful Practices for Independent Reading has resonated with so many educators.
What was the reason that you wrote this book together and what impact has it had and do you hope that it will have.
Jen Scoggin: Well, I can't imagine writing anything without Hannah, so I feel like the two of us at this point, we share a brain essentially.
On these things.
So for the two of us, I mean, again, it's so feeling so passionately about independent reading and wanting to give I think to see that, to see independent reading as central and not an afterthought.
I think that's another thing that we saw over and over, is that independent reading would happen when there was time left over from all these other.
Things that needed to get done in a literacy block rather than that being the central piece.
And the other instructional tools, which are very important, like small group instruction, the read aloud, shared reading, whole group instruction,
all of those things are very important, but they're all in the service of, in independent reading rather than it being an afterthought.
And in the schools in which we worked, we saw that shift start to happen and teachers.
I think it's trusting independent reading, but also sometimes trusting themselves, like trusting themselves.
And that trust may have been taken from them for various reasons.
Just to trust, like, oh, I can do this.
Like I, I can inspire my students to do that.
When they aren't reading.
'cause it's not just because you say it's time to do independent reading doesn't mean they're all going to magically do it.
That we are able to create an environment or a community where the kids do want to do that.
When we put those principles in place that Hannah was talking about, so we do feel like that has been a really positive impact on students in classrooms.
And the other thing I think in our book is that it was very important to us that independent reading and the way teachers implemented it and the way that they talked about children was incredibly asset minded.
So when we're looking at independent reading in a classroom.
Knowing it will not go beautifully.
The first, that's insane.
Like of course it's not going to go.
You snap your fingers and it's like a picture perfect.
But that the way to create that community is by noticing what it is your students are doing, what they are interested in, where they do exhibit strength and building upon that.
And that's where we had a lot of success.
That's a shift from a lot of schools, which are encouraged to look at data.
And of course data is important, but a lot of those data conversations tend to be deficit oriented.
What aren't students doing?
Where do we have to bring up our data, our numbers?
And I understand why that conversation happens in that way when you're looking at numbers, but when you're looking at kids in a classroom.
To say, oh, well they're not reading right now.
They are not able to sit at their desk, is not necessarily, it doesn't give you a pathway to changing that.
So what is that child doing?
How can we name that strength to build their personal confidence to change the kind of the air that we're breathing during independent reading and to bring everybody into community around that.
That's been, I think one of the things that's made us the happiest in seeing that is our contribution.
Erin Bailey: Yeah, thank you.
I, and it's maybe surprising for some of those who are listening, but you share this stat in your book and it's also one that literacy coach shared with me when I taught first grade, but there are many classrooms in this country where children are reading.
A book for less than 20 minutes a day.
Imagine that, and then think about if.
There's a child in a situation where they don't have books at home, or they don't have a space in their home where they can read.
That means they're also not reading at home.
So their entire reading is happening for less than 20 minutes a day in the classroom.
I think it is our responsibility as educators to provide.
A space and a time for children to sit down and read.
And I've noticed this, there's a lot of shift to whole group instruction.
And not saying that's a bad thing, of course we need to do whole group instruction and it's very effective.
But you have to think if you're instructing children to do something, when are you giving them the time and the opportunity to actually practice what it is that you are teaching them.
Jen Scoggin: Exactly right.
If they don't get to ever put those skills when we're really into acquisition of skills and introducing kids to skills whole class one, does everyone need what that skill is in that particular moment.
And then two, if they don't apply independently and kind of transition from that place, like, I'm gonna practice this thing, but now I'm gonna put it into practice independently.
Those are two very different, that's a big shift for kids, so you're exactly right.
Erin Bailey: And that's where your concept of trust comes in, because it's easy to sit everyone down and do a whole group lesson and say, okay, I hit this.
Skill 'cause because I taught it.
But then releasing and you know, we talk about a gradual release of responsibility.
The word release is key there.
Right?
Releasing children and trusting them to be able to practice and apply that skill on their own does take trust and time, like you said, you don't snap your fingers and it happens.
You may even start, I would.
Say two minutes a day.
You know, you're thinking you're very young.
Readers, kindergarten, first grade, how long can they sit and read a book independently and start small?
I would say I.
Hannah Schneewind: Absolutely.
So Jen and I also say quite frequently that we like to live in the world of.
And that is to say sometimes there is a dichotomy in education and people feel as if you are either teaching a whole lot of phonics or you are giving them independent reading, right?
You're either teaching whole class or you're doing all small groups, and it's a both, and of course, whole group instruction has a lot of merits.
Students also need that tailored personalized instruction.
Of course, we know that children need direct instruction and phonics and fluency and decoding comprehension, and there's also a lot of research about the role of choice and motivation and engagement, and so.
One of the reasons we do trust teachers is that it's really only the classroom teacher who can figure out in their classroom what, how to do both over the course of a day and a week.
Jen Scoggin: I would add on to that to say all that instruction absolutely has a place, these are all tools that we're calling upon because reading is complicated and kids are complicated, so we needed.
Robust set of tools, but with accountability in mind since that's such a big consideration, education.
We really think that the only way to be held to account to see that, that instruction from whatever, if it's whole class, small group, however you're delivering it.
The only way for us to know that instruction is working is to see it in independent reading.
It is not to test it in discrete ways.
Again, that serves a purpose.
To have an exit ticket or to ask kids to, to write a short paragraph or to do a fluency test, those things have merit, and when we don't see those transferred into independence, when kids are reading something that they feel is purposeful.
You have to question whether or not like that was actually taught to independents or just taught to kind of to jump through a hoop.
And so that we also see independent reading as like the ultimate assessment of how well our instruction is sticking.
And then that's how we can decide, do I need a whole group?
Do I need a small group?
Do I need one-on-one?
Is based on that kind of assessment.
Erin Bailey: Yeah, and I think you hit on a key point there.
It's more than can a child read, it's do they want to read as well.
And that's something that you can measure if you're interested in quantifying it through.
Independent reading.
Is it something, and you talk about this in your book and you share some rubrics for evaluating, is a child motivated to read, how do they describe themself as a reader?
What kind of books do they gravitate towards?
So I think that's the can and want to are.
Two different sides of the same coin.
So I wanna transition.
We talked about class reading in the classroom, independent reading.
A lot of families listen to our show as well.
So I'm wondering what are some practical tips you can give to families who want to cultivate joy and independent reading habits with their children at home?
Jen Scoggin: That's a great question and we are so excited to expand into the parent space.
Like that's such a, those are such, it is such a joyful time when we get to work alongside caregivers who really are like, they just wanna see their kids love to read.
I've never met a caregiver who isn't really invested in that.
So, and you said it beautifully, is that.
We really believe a caregiver's essential role.
Is to create that foundation of joy.
We think as teachers, often we think of the foundational skills as phonics, fan awareness, like all of these skill-based.
We would argue that the real foundation is love and joy of reading and seeing rated as purposeful.
And if you don't have that real foundation, it's hard to build skills upon that because kids don't see the purpose behind it.
So that's where parents are.
Huge support systems for teachers in schools.
And just a few, you know, one of the things we do, we talk to parents about how can you have a cost effective home library?
Where does that library live?
You know, having books on a shelf versus like, where are the places in your home where you can scatter books?
So it's kind of woven into the fabric of your day versus like this formal place.
That, you know, exist only at bedtime.
Even though bedtime's great, there are lots of times and re reasons to read throughout the day.
We talk to parents about different routines for, building kids' vocabularies.
How is the conversation that you have around the dinner table and the back and forth with your kids?
How can you use that to build up the vocabulary and the conversation that helps kids make meaning inside of books?
We talked to parents about following your kids' natural interests.
To guide you towards what kinds of books and what kinds of reading do you have in your house?
Is it an audio book?
Are you nonfiction?
Do you have magazines?
Like how do we diversify what it is that your kids offer?
And a lot of times we spend time with families talking about how do you take an exhale when it comes to the anxiety you might feel about making sure that they're ready.
To learn how to read at school and really maybe de-emphasize you know, let's work on letter sounds and names and we've gotta be sounding things out.
And instead, like, how can we take a more playful approach towards like, rhyme and alliteration and a playful stance that builds all of those beginning skills.
So that's a lot of the practical stuff that we do with camp families and caregivers.
Erin Bailey: I. So much and guilty of all of those.
There isn't a room in my house that doesn't have books in it.
And I really appreciate also what you mentioned about diversifying, what we conceptualize as reading.
And, you know, I'll give some examples of what I do with my own children.
Of course, I have books all over my house.
I you know, they're coming out of every, everywhere at this.
Point, I get them sent to me all the time and I share them with my children.
But recently we also started reading magazines.
So Riff had a partnership with Story Time magazine, which is based in the uk.
And so now I've been able to expose my daughter to magazines.
We also have something called a Yoda Player, which is considered a screen free device.
Storytelling.
So oftentimes before bed, my daughter and I will listen to folk tales and fables, which are meant to be oral storytelling in nature on this Yoda player.
And then of course, eBooks.
I know a lot of families out there are very weary of screen time but.
The research is now showing that if you treat eBooks the same way as a print book, there are equal benefits to reading eBooks as print books.
So RIF has a ebook platform called skyr.
It's a award-winning platform, and I've.
You know, been using that with my own children for years as they get old enough, you know, the recommendation is not screen time before age three, I also have a 1-year-old and
a 2-year-old, so we're not quite there yet, but with my daughter, she very much enjoys sky skybar and we can do the same types of things that you would do with a printed book.
You know, talking about the characters.
Looking at the problem and solution, asking some questions along the way, talking about our favorite parts, all of those things that we do with our printed books, we can do with our eBooks too.
So, just wanted to share some examples for families out there who are looking for ways to diversify their literacy approaches in their house.
And a lot of these can be cost effective too.
You know, you can rent books from the library and have them audio books or onto your Kindle or other devices like that too.
Jen Scoggin: And that's great.
Those are great suggestions.
I mean, Eva, especially if you travel a lot or in the car and you're, you know, you have a middle kid who's always waiting for the older kid to finish some sort of sports practice or.
You know, you're at the dentist or they're waiting.
I mean, an ebook is an easy way.
I mean, I think we grab it, you know, grab our phone.
But handing an ebook or talking over an ebook, it is the same as having a book in your purse.
And also audiobooks.
I think some families are wary of an audiobook.
Does that count as real reading?
My child likes to listen.
And we know audio books like the work that our Brains are doing.
No, you're not doing the decoding work.
But your brain, in terms of the comprehension, the research is showing us you're doing all that same work to make meaning from that text.
And so that's another great way for kids to access books.
And you're right, like, you know, you can do audio books like through Prime, but you can also.
The app, Libby, or all of our public libraries they have great free ways to do that.
And that's reading too.
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I love those examples at the dentist when you're waiting at sports practice for your other kid.
And it's true I've spoken with other parents about this and even on the podcast spoken about this, it is difficult for children to wait sometimes.
And I think in our society, the tendency is to.
Open up our phone and pull up YouTube, but why not a book?
For those parents who are transitioning, just challenge yourself.
Maybe swap out one ebook or audio book for a YouTube video per day.
I think you'll be amazed with the benefits that you will see.
Jen Scoggin: And I would also are like, you know, if you are a parent of a young child and you can't take the the music, do you know what I mean?
Like the.
Jump, jump Johnny Giraffe or the wheels on the, like, if you've just had it with that music, those audio books at the library, you pop that in, you know, you can in the car ride.
I mean, that saved my sanity.
But also I think what you're talking about though, the bigger concept is creating a habit of reading.
Reading is a habit.
It is a habit that we have to practice to turn to a book in those moments of downtime when we're eating a meal, when we're alone before bed, and so you can't
start early enough with kind of modeling those habits and then practicing those habits together so that they can compete with all the distractions that we have.
Erin Bailey: Absolutely.
Hannah Schneewind: Yeah.
I also would just like to add.
When I work with parents, I always talk to them about you reach your child in the language that you feel the most comfortable in.
You know, sometimes parents are thinking, well, you know, I want my child to learn English.
Do I need to be reading them in English?
No.
Learning two languages, growing up with two languages we know is so phenomenal for our brains.
That's such an asset to have, and so please read to your child in whatever language is most comfortable.
For you, that's so important for children who are grown up bilingual, multilingual.
Erin Bailey: That's an amazing point, Hannah, that I try to emphasize all the time as well, and what I want families to realize is a lot of the skills that your child is learning.
They transfer from language to language.
So things like book handling skills, concepts about print, even the flow, you know, story structures, narrative, story structures, beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, character setting.
Those all transfer from one language to the next mo, you know, most almost all of the time.
So it's great for building those early literacy skills that they will need when they get to school.
So going back to the book, you have four components of independent reading, time, choice talk, and teacher support.
Can you walk us through why each of these elements matter, and especially how Choice, 'cause that's critical to Rifs mission as well works alongside the others to create such a meaningful and sustainable independent reading experience.
Hannah Schneewind: Sure.
So I mentioned a few of these before.
But each one of these components, it's important to know, is backed up by a lot of academic research as well as being backed up by what we call the wisdom of practice, right?
Teachers who are in the classroom.
So students do need uninterrupted blocks of time to read.
We know that there is a. A correlation between how much students read, how long they read, and how good they get at reading.
And so we need to be able to provide that time in school.
It can't be something that the teacher is able to kind of move in if she has five extra minutes.
It can't be something that is only done on Friday.
It really needs to be a regular part of.
Schedule.
So choice.
We know, again, the research behind the connection between choice and engagement and motivation is huge.
One of the questions we often get from teachers is how do we motivate our students?
How do we engage our students are so much happening in the world and.
So many distractions.
Well, giving students choice is really one way to do that.
Talk, as I mentioned, it's odd to me if classrooms are quiet.
So think about yourself as an adult.
When you see a movie, what do you want to do?
You want to turn to the person next to you and say, can you believe that just happened?
Or, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen next?
Right?
And so kids are the same.
I love it.
If in the middle of reading I'll see.
You know, a first grader scoot over to her friend and say, look at this really gross part.
You have to see this disgusting thing.
You know, or I have kids who will be reading something and then will jump up and say, oh my gosh, you won't believe what just happened.
You know, like kids want to talk and share, and so they need time to talk to their peers.
They also need time to talk to you because you, as this.
The teacher can be a model partner for them.
You know, how to have really sophisticated conversations.
And then as we mentioned, there is that teacher support.
I can't say it enough times that one of the biggest misunderstandings of independent reading is that it is just kids.
Reading.
And Aaron, you referred to this, there was this thing called drop everything and Read, and the idea behind it was that everyone in the school building would be reading, but we know that is not actually impactful.
You have to have the teacher there being really involved at all levels from how to choose books to what strategies are you using as
you're reading, as you're actually reading and decoding to how to read fluently to how are you, what do you do at the end of a book?
So there's teacher support at all levels.
Erin Bailey: I think the key there is the teacher is teaching during independent reading time.
And if you've ever seen a classroom where independent reading is done very well, there's often a teacher who observes first.
And I think you talk about this as kid watching in your book and making notes maybe on a clipboard of what each.
A student needs to work on during their reading.
That way the teacher can pull and have a conference with the reader while the other kids are reading
Jen Scoggin: Absolutely.
And I think that's a way to be really intentional about it and to diagnose what we were talking about earlier, to say, oh, is this, you know, someone's doing this well, but this isn't, you know, they might need support here.
Is that for this one student or there three students?
Do I need a small group or is it really the whole class like.
Really that independent reading time is where you start to see those patterns emerge, and that's how you figure out how to build your instruction during that literacy block is based on what needs are emerging and how frequent are those needs.
What are the patterns?
Erin Bailey: Seeing patterns almost like a detective.
That's what I loved about being a reading specialist, is it was a little bit like playing detective.
If you can figure out what it is that a child needs to work on, then you have all of.
These research based strategies that you can use to meet the child at the individual skill or need that they are working on.
Jen Scoggin: A hundred percent.
We always say that teaching is equal parts teaching and research.
You need to be doing the teaching, the work of teaching and exposing and supporting and whatnot, but then also waiting and watching and researching students to let you know what's next.
So it's like a very reciprocal process, like a detective.
I like that.
I like that analogy.
Yeah.
Erin Bailey: So I wanna transition just a little bit to talk about the connection between reading and writing.
You both recently did a webinar for us, which I'll also link in the show notes about using mentor texts, which are author, written texts to mentor children in their writing.
How do you see reading and writing as connected and from your.
Experience.
How does being a strong reader help someone become a strong writer?
Jen Scoggin: But that's a great question because we do call ourselves trusting readers.
We talk a lot about reading.
We also very much love writing.
We love talking.
I think writing with kids sometimes is just spectacular.
It's very fun to write with and alongside kids.
My mentor, who I mentioned earlier, Pam Allen once said that reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out.
That they're very much related to each other.
And that when we have kids who are readers, they're getting exposed to how language works, like on the sentence level, like how does the sentence sound, what is it?
You know, how do you end a sentence?
What does a story sound like?
How do people present information?
Why might they do that?
Kids are getting exposed to all these things that readers do that give them a sense of possibility.
I wanna tell you two quick stories, even though I know I talk too much.
There's two stories.
So one is from the pre-K world.
So we think of pre-K and the connection between reading and writing.
So for several weeks in this pre-K room, we had been reading aloud wordless books and looking at these heavily illustrated books and kind of telling that.
Story.
So kids, when they were reading those wordless books, were getting the practice of telling the story themselves.
So they got that feeling of what is it like to tell a story?
What does a story sound like?
'cause if kids can't really say it or tell it, it is much harder for them to commit that to paper to write it.
So that oral language piece is really important.
So we had read, and read all these words.
It blew their minds that books.
Don't have to have words all the time.
As little pre his little four year olds.
And this little peanut Graham came in on a Monday and was like, he held it up like a, he was like, I wrote a book.
And he was like, I'm an author.
And he had just, he had, we had read so many, we had told so many.
And yet he went home and he did an art project with his grandmother and he wanted to write that.
And he told this story and the idea that.
He saw that this is how people share.
Stories of their experiences, and then he was inspired to say, I can do that too.
It was possibility.
And then from there, the kids, you know, everyone and everyone's like, well, Graham can do it.
I can do it.
And so everybody is writing these wordless books.
And then naturally someone's like, well, I'm gonna try adding words to mind because all these books that you're sharing with us.
Do have words.
And so it just became this process where they were really inspired about what's possible.
And then when we have like fifth graders this is a story of my son who is a very reluctant writer.
He's very invested in.
The question is a hotdog a sandwich?
This is a big question in fifth grade, right?
And so there's a lot of debate and argument and he had recently completed a unit of study with his teachers at school around argument.
And they had read a lot of argumentative essays.
They had read a lot of opinion pieces.
And he realized through reading them that when something is important enough to you, you can share that.
In writing, it adds a level of, I don't know, like oomph to that like thought that you've been having for such a long time.
I know it's a hot dog sandwich debate, but he on a weekend and wrote this whole essay and brought it to school and then there was just a debate.
It was off and running and his teacher didn't have to do because she had done all the work with them as readers.
The work as writers was like that much easier.
Maybe she wanted them writing about something more robust than the sandwich, but like, I don't think ultimately that's what mattered to them.
So that's how we see in real time all of that work as readers.
Really kind of inspiring writers to see possibility.
Erin Bailey: Absolutely.
I love that story so much.
A hot dog sandwich, and I think it speaks to choice too, right?
Maybe.
The teacher had wanted them to write something more robust.
But the point is, were they able to meet the standards of argumentative, right.
Argumentative writing.
And if it was through a hotdog sandwich argument, then they met the standards.
Right.
It, is it something that choice gave your son an in, into the writer that he was going to become?
Jen Scoggin: I mean, it wasn't, you know, how do we conserve water?
But it was, you know, it, you're exactly right.
He was excited about it.
It got other kids excited.
And it started with reading.
So,
Erin Bailey: And I'll, I just wanna repeat that quote that you said too, because I loved it so much.
You said it was from your mentor, Pam Allen.
Reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out that it resonates with me so much.
You know, especially when I was working on my doctorate and writing my dissertation.
I was always writing in the evenings.
That's the only time I had to write was after I put my daughter to bed, and there were some nights where I felt so exhausted that I thought, I'm only going to read tonight.
I just need something more restorative.
I'm only going to read, but somehow miraculously, kind of like your son, I would start reading and something would spark for me and suddenly I would be writing and writing.
So it is a breathing in and breathing out process.
They are always interconnected.
Jen Scoggin: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And I think, you know, it is, like you were saying earlier about for families creating a habit of reading.
And I think the same stands for right.
Ralph Fletcher, who is also another brilliant teacher of teachers said that not all readers are writers, but all writers are readers.
And so if we can also think about what are the ways that writing can feel purposeful for our children?
What are ways that get them excited so that they have a habit of writing?
Like you're saying, you were almost processing the information you were taking in as a doctoral candidate.
And trying to put it together and understand it through your writing, right?
Like it, it was in, we are also trying to kind of wrap your head around some of the big ideas.
And that's a habit, that's a really lovely habit to create for students, whether it's journaling or writing a dissertation.
There's a lot of space in between there too.
Erin Bailey: So, absolutely.
We will transition here.
Speaking of reading to inspire you, as you know, this podcast is called Reading Inspires.
So I always end by asking our guests what does.
Reading Inspire for you and Hannah.
We'll start with you.
Hannah Schneewind: Sure.
Well, I am very lucky because I grew up in a family of readers and when I think about reading, what I really think about is how I am always inspired by connection and characters.
So when I am reading, I am there with the character.
You know, we always say to children, put yourself in the character shoes.
But I did that before.
I knew that was kind of a thing we were supposed to do.
So I will cry when something bad happens to the character.
I will cheer when something good happens.
I will yell at the character when they make a bad decision.
So for me it is really all about that connection to characters.
And I always respond really emotionally to books.
So when I taught first grade, I never could read the end of Charlotte's web aloud.
There's something about reading aloud that brings the emotions to the surface.
And I remember like by six year olds looking at me and saying, Neeland, are you crying?
I'd be like.
Nope, I'm not crying.
I'm, we can read this, it's fine.
But again, it's that, you know, that connection to characters, that's what I always hold on to.
Erin Bailey: Absolutely.
Jen Scoggin: And I would say like to, it's about connection for me too, I think.
Yes.
I also cry every time I read the, I don't know if we have ever talked about that, Hannah, but I also cry every time I read that and will friend Gordon McDonald
Hannah Schneewind: Oh,
Jen Scoggin: by me.
I can't read it out loud.
But for me it's always about Ben.
Reading is about connecting to people in my life.
So if someone is recovering from an illness, I'll send them a book.
My friends and I are always sharing books.
I'm always interested in what other people are reading, and I think that is created conversation and connection amongst friends.
I.
Like I mentioned, I, my kids are now in seventh grade and 10th grade.
I think reading maintains a connection between us.
I just recently stopped reading out loud to my daughter at night and she's a 10th grader.
That is a place of connection for us, and now it's about sharing books and reading them side by side.
And so for me, reading is always about connecting with the people who are most important in my life.
Erin Bailey: I that I'm sure that was.
Very bittersweet as someone who has a five-year-old daughter, I, you know, that'll be me someday.
And I'm sure that will be a bittersweet moment, but connection reading inspires connection.
I think I heard that throughout our conversation today, and maybe the word independent reading is a bit of a misnomer because it really is about connection because how do you build trust?
It's through connection teachers connections with their students.
Thank you so much Hannah and Jen for sharing with us today.
And thank you everyone for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading is Fundamental.
I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas, meaningful connections, and a renewed love of reading.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a fellow literacy champion, and join us next time as we continue exploring what reading inspires.