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Why Kids Can't Read
1.7k Plays2 years ago
In this episode we are talking about the crisis in America. Understanding balanced literacy, books kindergarteners are reading, phonemic awareness, how learning to read starts with your eyes closed and what parents of babies should be doing as well as what parents of elementary school kids need to know about demanding a change in their schools reading instruction and why it's the most solvable social justice issue of our time.
Disclaimer: The information on this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not replace working with a clinical diagnostician. None of the information in this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, education or treatment.
Watch: The Right To Read https://www.therighttoreadfilm.org/
Read: NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/us/science-of-reading-literacy-parents.html
Listen to Sold A Story: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sold-a-story/id1649580473
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Transcript
Introduction to Play On Words Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Play On Words Podcast. As promised, today I have an easy to digest lesson for grownups, parents, teachers, admin,
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the grown-up space to hang out. I have a bunch of videos for kids. This is not going to be about that. If you want more of my lessons specifically for kids, go to bigcityreaders.com.
The Importance of Early Literacy Development
00:00:31
Speaker
But this podcast, the Play on Words podcast is all about all things early childhood development, early learning, and literacy development.
00:00:41
Speaker
And if you have a baby and you're tuning in, you might be like, oh, we're not at the learning to read stage. That's not really us yet. But I'm here to tell you why it is you, you with a six month old, you with a 10 month old, you with a 15 month old. This is the most crucial time.
America's Reading Crisis
00:00:57
Speaker
So today we are going to be talking about the reading crisis in America, how you are a part of it and how you can help your child
00:01:07
Speaker
Be a child that learns how to read the right way. So as a reminder, this is not a replacement for An assessment for your child. This is not a replacement for school All of these things are necessary and you as the grown-up It's your discretion on what you do with the information that you hear here here so I a little bit of background about me I I
00:01:34
Speaker
specialize in early literacy development. I was a preschool, kindergarten, first grade teacher. I really love the science of behavior and of learning to read and it all kind of goes together.
00:01:52
Speaker
So sorry, my dog is near me. I'm going to get you out of here. Um, she's working on the bone and I do not want you to have to hear it like I am, but, um, all of those things led me to go on to study, um, and get my, you know, learning behavior certificate and my literacy background in the science of reading, which both of those things, um, I would say happened beyond my,
00:02:19
Speaker
degree in becoming a teacher, which is why I built this company. One of the reasons why I built my first company, Big City Readers. It's why I'm here because I learned pretty quickly in the classroom that I was not prepared for two of the most important things that I needed to be prepared for.
Phonics vs Balanced Literacy
00:02:39
Speaker
And that was learning how different kinds of brains work, that every child's brain is uniquely made.
00:02:48
Speaker
and they need different supports. And then also the big one is teaching kids how to read. So this podcast will be a support. It will not just be here's the facts, be afraid, but it's really is serious that kids can't read in America. And we have a huge crisis to fix.
00:03:14
Speaker
Um, and so hopefully this information can empower you because we know that nothing changes without parents. And I want to start by talking, I'm going to tell you a couple of the headlines I'm going to be breaking down. So in the New York Times, two thirds of kids struggle to read. Um, another New York Times article is kids can't read.
00:03:37
Speaker
the revolt that is taking on the education establishment. And there's dozens others. You might have heard of the podcast Sold a Story.
Impact of COVID-19 on Literacy Awareness
00:03:47
Speaker
This is Emily Hanford, I think is the journalist that reported on this, talked about how
00:03:56
Speaker
recently, this is not new information, but recently, such as like as recent as 2020, parents started noticing that their kids aren't being taught how to read. And if you think about what was happening in 2020, it was because we had to switch to e-learning a lot of us because of COVID. So parents got a first front row seat of
00:04:21
Speaker
what was happening. And they were learning that their kids didn't know how to read. And it's not the kids fault. And it's not even the teacher's fault, unless the teacher does know the information and is choosing to ignore it, then we've got a bigger problem. But we learned as with anything, if we want to make change, it takes parents to get loud. So let's dive right in. Usually I will keep this as lighthearted and
00:04:49
Speaker
Easy action items as possible, but we have to talk about what is happening because it
00:04:56
Speaker
is a doozy. So if you feel triggered, and I honestly had to wait because every time almost every day I get triggered about this, but if you feel triggered, that's good. You should be screaming. You should be livid. You should be mad as hell because this is unacceptable that we are failing children and we have a solution.
Literacy as a Social Justice Issue
00:05:21
Speaker
I believe it was Maya Angelou, I'm not sure. It was referenced in the documentary, The Right to Read, that literacy is the most solvable social justice issue of our time.
00:05:34
Speaker
So we have to ask the question, why aren't we solving it? We have the answers. So let's back up a bit. If you are like, what are you talking about? What is even happening? So there has always kind of been a swing in the learning to read process and the curriculum that schools use. You might have heard of something called balanced literacy. So for the last
00:06:00
Speaker
Several years, there has been a focus on balanced literacy, and that's largely because reading gurus have said this is the way to do it. The balanced literacy looks a lot like telling kids to use their best guess at a word or to look at the picture and guess.
00:06:22
Speaker
So I have a video on social media. So if you want to message me asking for this video, I can send that to you breaking down these books. But I'm going to talk to you about a book that focuses on balanced literacy. So that would look like in kindergarten when kids are learning to read. So around age five, we have these books that follow a specific pattern. And if you have been here, you know, I've talked about this for a while.
00:06:46
Speaker
Oh, hello. My dog just came in in case you heard those little paws. So the book that we want to look at and take a look if you have a kindergartner or a preschooler if these things are being sent home, but the book will have a specific
00:07:03
Speaker
pattern or it will just have really easy to follow pictures for the child to learn how to tell the story. Now, I think I've mentioned this before, but it's okay if they're doing this for building confidence and starting to have fun. But if you are seeing this as the reading instruction, this is where we know we went wrong.
00:07:28
Speaker
So it might look like a book about bears and the book will be will say you know white bears like fish and it'll be a white bear with a fish in its mouth. Then the next page might say brown bears like trees and it'll be a brown bear next to a tree. So you can really follow what's happening and so it seems like kids can read.
00:07:51
Speaker
But what we really want to see is phonics and phonemic awareness and phonological awareness based books that are decodable. So that means that we can sound it out. And I'm going to break down what sounding it out means and why I don't really say sound it out in a minute. But we want books that kids can read, even if there aren't any pictures.
Effective Reading Techniques
00:08:16
Speaker
So I just had a call with a parent. I do consultations two days a week. And I had a call with a parent who was struggling because she has been teaching preschool all her life. She has her master's in education, master's in reading. And so she was, but she realized when her almost four year old came to her, she didn't know how to start teaching her to read. So if you feel lost, remember that there are people that have gone to school for years and years and years and paid thousands and thousands of dollars and still didn't learn. So,
00:08:47
Speaker
Don't feel bad about that. But we're going to change it. So I was telling her, this is my biggest tip. If your child is reading the pictures, and they are at the stage where they're ready to learn to read. So I wouldn't necessarily do this with a three-year-old, but four-year-old, five-year-old, six-year-old. They're learning to read. They know all or most of their letter sounds, not just the letters by recognition, but their sounds.
00:09:15
Speaker
If they are still looking at the pictures and guessing, here's what you can do. I'll take two post-its and cut them up and cover up the words and say, okay, let's read the book and let's read the pictures first. So I let them read the pictures while the words are covered.
00:09:32
Speaker
and say, oh, that was such a great way of reading the pictures. Nice job. Now let's cover the pictures and read the words. So you're going to want to make sure this is a decodable reader, and I'll tell you what those will look like. But then you cover the pictures and say, now let's read the words. So we want to empower them that they have figured out a great strategy
00:09:54
Speaker
for life, not for learning how to read. So I try to avoid saying, you know, like, oops, no, you did it wrong. Try it without the pictures. It doesn't ever feel good to anybody to be quizzed like that. We want it to be a good meaningful relationship, especially between parent and child. And so if they're feeling like you're just quizzing them or trying to like,
00:10:16
Speaker
prove them wrong or prove like they have to prove it to you, we're taking the joy out of reading. So if you've listened to the Soul to Story podcast or any read any of the articles around talking about Lucy Calkins or Marie Clay, or any of these balanced literacy
00:10:36
Speaker
programs, you'll know that a lot of these people said like reading should be a natural process and it should bring a lot of joy to a child. And then we missed, then we missed teaching kids actual phonics instruction and actual reading skills. But there's definitely a way to do both. So we can say, yes, that's right. We're looking at the pictures. Now we're covering the pictures. We're looking at the words. So we can do both.
00:11:05
Speaker
both can exist together. And I like to take away, if you are teaching your child to read, I like to make it less about these books and more about real life experiences.
Building Foundations for Reading
00:11:21
Speaker
So that means you might be driving down the street and you see a stop sign and you say, ooh, there's a stop sign. What's a word that rhymes with stop?
00:11:35
Speaker
And then you might be stuck at a red light. And you could say, red light. How many words did I just say? Red, light, two words. And then you might see a railroad crossing sign, or you might see a train coming. And you say, choo, choo, there's the train. And what sound do you hear at the end of the word choo?
00:12:00
Speaker
And we would be looking for the child to say, ooh, these are games you can start playing with your toddler too. You don't have to have them say the ooh sound, but just helping them listen to the sounds in their environment is going to be a really meaningful part of learning to read. Sorry about that. It was just readjusting the mic. So here's what we know about learning to read.
00:12:31
Speaker
Learning to read starts with babies and it starts with your eyes closed. When we look at brain scans of what happens in the brain when we're learning to read or when we're reading, it is closely connected to the language that we have heard and processed. So learning to read starts with our eyes closed. So that means we're not just saying sounded out when we get to a word that we're looking at,
00:12:59
Speaker
We're starting with babies and toddlers and we're saying, ooh, there's a train above us. You know, you might have your baby in your baby carrier and you're on a walk. There's a train above us. Choo, choo. It's so loud. Ooh, do you feel the wind? Whoosh. So when we start processing and analyzing the sounds in our environment, this is the very beginning of learning to read.
00:13:29
Speaker
not knowing your ABCs, this right here. Then when we start to read familiar books and we start to recognize patterns, like, ooh, there's, let's say brown bear, brown bear. There's animal, animal, animal, surprise. It's a person at the end. Spoiler alert if you've never read brown bear, brown bear. But those things, these are the building blocks of learning to read. When we say,
00:13:57
Speaker
Do you want your bunny? And we go slow or we pause before saying those words when we're playing with our babies and toddlers, or we say, do you want more bubbles and turn on the bubble machine? They're understanding that their language has meaning and the sounds that they make can produce words that have meaning.
00:14:22
Speaker
So then when we do get ready to process how we hear sounds, like we say bubble as a toddler and then your preschooler might say bubble. Yeah, that's the first sound in bubble. Then your four year old might notice bubble is the last sound. Then we can start to play with syllables and
00:14:49
Speaker
with our three and four year olds and clap the word double. Two parts. So noticing how the syllables break down. Remember, we're doing all of this just while we're playing in our regular environment, in your backyard, in your bathtub, wherever you have conversations with your baby or toddler is where you are laying these foundations. Then when they are ready, then we introduce recognizing letters.
00:15:16
Speaker
So then we introduce, this is the letter B, the sound is buh. Can you think of a word that starts with buh? Bubble, that's right. So then we introduce that. So before phonics comes phonemic awareness and that's playing with the sounds without the letters in front of us. Then phonics is matching the sound to the letter. So the reason we focus on sounds and not letters is because there are 26 letters in the alphabet.
00:15:45
Speaker
But there are, I believe, 42 phonemes or sounds. So there's a lot more sounds than letters. So we want to focus on sounds. That's going to be doing your toddler and preschooler so much, so much more than just recognizing letters that they see. We have to be able to recognize letters that we see. But of course, before that, we want to see a strong foundation in understanding and processing how language works.
00:16:15
Speaker
So how is this connected to the reading crisis in America and how I believe the most recent article I read said that 80% of kids in Chicago aren't reading proficiently, which is terrifying.
Consequences of Illiteracy
00:16:29
Speaker
When we look at the statistics of how illiteracy is directly related to incarceration, it's directly related to happiness,
00:16:41
Speaker
illiteracy is connected to depression in teens it is it's just Unimaginable that we have a solution and we're not using it um well, which is why I started this company eight years ago because I was mad I was livid and I'm so so grateful that it is being brought into the light and we are nowhere near as
00:17:08
Speaker
And don't you worry because I will not stop until every child can read the right way and is taught and so every teacher Gets the recognition that they deserve and the support that they need in order to teach and support every single child so trailing back a bit to these people Lucy Calkins and Marie Clay their focus Was on
00:17:39
Speaker
having fun and just using your environment. And a couple episodes ago, Millie, I'm on a podcast. Wow, this is so embarrassing. I know at least one person listening is gonna be judging me about my dog, but I'm just trying to find the time that I can in between all of my calls today to take this. And unfortunately we had to skip her walk. So yeah, you should feel bad for her. Anyway, these women focused on
00:18:08
Speaker
having fun, which yes, that's important, and using our context clues around us to kind of guess. They kind of thought that phonics and phonemic awareness slowed us down, which if you look at it in like a typical lesson, it seems like it takes a lot more time, but it's just the same thing as training for a marathon. You know, if you feel like it's a waste of your time to run three miles when you want to get to 26 miles, well,
00:18:38
Speaker
you're right, except for you're not going to do as well in running the race because you don't have the foundation. Anyway, these women focused on skills that helped a certain socioeconomic status of family succeed because they had enough background knowledge and they probably have
00:19:06
Speaker
the resources to get an outside tutor. So when families started getting tutors, their kids did fine. But what about the kids that their parents can't afford a tutor? Or what about any other child? Why aren't we just teaching them in school? That's what they're there for, to learn how to read. So let's
00:19:32
Speaker
go back a bit to that phonics based instruction that we were talking about a little bit ago. So we need to teach all of these things. We need to teach vocabulary. We need to teach that reading is fun and we need to teach explicit systematic phonics instruction.
Science of Reading and Structured Phonics
00:19:51
Speaker
This is known as the science of reading, this explicit systematic phonics instruction and
00:20:00
Speaker
Previously was just used to teach people with dyslexia how to read, you know It's so funny every time I post about the science of reading or like that We shouldn't just memorize words like sight words. You might see kids like being told Oh, that's just a tricky word. Just just memorize it. That word is what or that word is because That is the most pointless thing you can do I'll probably stand by that. I'll probably say a lot of things are pointless but
00:20:31
Speaker
the science of reading takes a look at what actually happens in the brain. So our brain is not wired to learn how to read, but it is wired to learn how to talk. So if we see that the language pathways are being lit up when we are processing reading, then we can take a deeper dive. And I'm not the researcher that's done this,
00:20:58
Speaker
realize that language is directly related to reading. So if we don't have strong language development, i.e. baby and toddler development around language, then it's going to be a lot harder for us to learn how to read. So if I
00:21:16
Speaker
Okay, so I don't like to say sound it out because I've realized that unless a child has worked with me at Big City Readers and done the science of reading direct instruction around phonemic awareness and phonics, if I just say sound it out when a child has typically not been taught how to play with language, it doesn't really make any sense. Think about it. We're looking at the word dog. Sound it out.
00:21:45
Speaker
Well, we're looking at letters, we're using our eyes. But if we don't have any words in front of kids and we say, let's stretch out the word dog, we want them to say the word slowly, dog. So they can hear and they should be able to tell you before you ask them to read or write that word dog, they should be able to tell you that there's three sounds in the word dog. If they can't tell you that, then they can't read that.
00:22:12
Speaker
If they can't tell you that, then they can't write that. If they don't know that there's three sounds in the word dog to read it and write it, and then they do read it and write it, then they've memorized that. And that memorization is just the same thing as knowing that a shoe is a shoe or a sock is a sock and not knowing what to do with it. They just have memorized the shape of that word. They've memorized the shape of the letters next to each other.
00:22:38
Speaker
they're going to struggle when they get to second and third and fourth grade. So let's get ahead of it and teach them the right way. So I like to start by talking about the sound. So you know, I might say what are the how many sounds you hear in the word dog dog three. What's the first sound? What's the last sound?
00:23:02
Speaker
What's the middle sound? The middle sound is usually the last one to come. Usually it goes beginning, ending, middle sound. But when we teach kids to look at the picture or to memorize words or guess, it seems like they're going a bit faster.
00:23:22
Speaker
but they actually don't have any knowledge of what to do when they come across a word they don't know. This gets a little bit tricky because not everybody will agree with this, but as always, hot takes only over here. If your child can't read a nonsense word, such as, I'm trying to think of one like, I'm only thinking of real words. Let's take the word like SEP, S-E-P. If they see that word,
00:23:52
Speaker
and they don't know what to do with it, then they don't know how to read. So I never ever introduce sight words or high frequency words or bigger words with irregular patterns until the child I'm working with can confidently read and write three letter words
00:24:11
Speaker
consonant, vowel, consonant. So that is the gist of it.
Legislative and Advocacy Efforts in Literacy
00:24:20
Speaker
The science of reading was originally for people with dyslexia. And so whenever I will post about it, people will say, no, I have to memorize words. I'm dyslexic.
00:24:30
Speaker
But here's the thing, this is actually originally made for people with dyslexia. And parents of kids with learning differences have always been advocating for this once they learned, you know, they went outside the school to get a
00:24:48
Speaker
a tutor or you know some support and then they the ones that have gotten the science of reading instruction and then their child is able to read they have been demanding for years that the school change why isn't the school teaching the kids how to read the right way well now a couple of decades later we have so much research that shows us
00:25:09
Speaker
that every child benefits from structured phonics instruction. So it doesn't make sense that we're not doing it. At this point, it's summer of 2023, when I'm recording this. At this point, a few states are changing legislation around literacy.
00:25:30
Speaker
Not many, I believe we have three right now. And I've worked with teachers in some of those states just this week, and they're like, it's not really changing over there doing some things, but we're still not getting the support that we need.
00:25:44
Speaker
Um, so we have a long journey to go, but when I was reading about how parents of kids with learning differences were the first advocates of this, it made me think of this story I've heard. I think it's, I think I heard it from like Glennon Doyle, but, um,
00:26:04
Speaker
This is the image I got when I was thinking of these parents. It's a story of a canary. So I haven't looked up if this is true or not, but it's still a good story. So canaries, apparently, she says, were used in coal mines because they were the most sensitive. So they would send them into the coal mine. And if the canary would come back, then it was safe for humans to go in. If they didn't, then they would know it wasn't safe to send humans in.
00:26:34
Speaker
to work there. So she always talks about how canaries are like she sees people that are canaries, and they just feel more deeply in the world. And it's like if you have kids that are canaries, they, they feel really deeply and it's like
00:26:55
Speaker
They have a gift. It's special. They can sense things and feel things more than most people or sooner than most people. But it feels a bit overwhelming if you don't see it that way. It just feels like, oh my gosh, why am I feeling so much?
00:27:10
Speaker
But it's actually a gift. And I felt that. I got this image of the canary when I was reading about how the parents of kids with learning differences were the first ones to advocate. They felt it so acutely, what needed to happen and what needed to change.
00:27:31
Speaker
and have been talking about this for so long and it's it's only now that more and more parents are getting mad about this because we're seeing that almost every child is struggling and it's not just kids with dyslexia but we need to overhaul the entire literacy instruction in the United States. So
00:27:58
Speaker
Thanks to the Canaries, the parents of kids with learning differences that have been advocating and asking and begging and screaming and feeling like the squeaky wheel and getting pushed aside for decades, because hopefully we're getting somewhere. And I will link all of the articles about this and the other podcasts I mentioned.
00:28:22
Speaker
But what does that mean for you as a parent or a teacher? What can we do? What do we do about one in three children in the United States not being able to read at a basic level? What do we need to change?
The Role of Parents in Literacy Advocacy
00:28:40
Speaker
Who do we need to talk to? These are all great questions that people are sending me in my DMs every day. And I don't have all the answers, but here's what I can tell you.
00:28:52
Speaker
If your child is at a school that is using balanced literacy, speak up. You are not offending anyone. And if you don't stand up for your kids, who will? And if you have the privilege, the opportunity that you would be listened to, it is an honor and an expectation that you use it.
00:29:19
Speaker
If you, okay, so I know a lot of people, oh my gosh, this is probably like a great, if you ever listen to the podcast, Nice White Parents, this is probably a great topic for that podcast. But so many people say, I just don't wanna offend anyone. I just don't wanna offend anyone. I'm sorry, you have to offend everyone. You cannot worry when literal lives are at stake. Like when we look at the connections to literacy,
00:29:48
Speaker
It's, it's life and death and you can't be so worried that you're going to offend someone. But also I understand that we want to have a good relationship. That doesn't mean that you go into the school bulldozing, but if they aren't listening, then yeah, you do. But you can easily say.
00:30:08
Speaker
And you know what, I always like to remember like, I don't know everything. So I like to go in curious. So I would start by having a conversation with your child's teacher. Hey, I'm super new to this. This is my first child.
00:30:23
Speaker
I've been trying to educate myself around the learning to read journey. I listen to some podcasts. I follow Ms. Bath on Instagram. Can you kind of break down for me what a typical lesson looks like in the kindergarten classroom? It's really important to me that we are aligned at home and school, and I know that you're part of my child's team.
00:30:44
Speaker
And I really respect that and I respect your opinion. So I was hoping you could kind of help me understand it a bit better. And also let me know like how I can support you at home and in the classroom. Like maybe you need more help so you can do small groups. Like let me know I want to be a part of supporting you and the entire class. Remember that you're speaking up for every child, not just your child.
00:31:08
Speaker
and go from there. If you go with curiosity rather than, I read this and you're doing it wrong, it's not going to be received well. Your literally force is always met with resistance. So we want to be curious about what's happening in the classroom. And that is the truth is that we don't know all the things that are happening. You might see a site where lists come home. That doesn't mean that they're just doing balanced literacy.
00:31:35
Speaker
But I would ask for a really clear explanation of what is happening in the classroom. You are allowed to do that and that is not offensive or rude. If that doesn't work and you have to go to administration,
00:31:53
Speaker
Still be curious, say, hey, I'm a parent at this school and I care about every child that goes here. I want to make sure I know what I'm talking about. Can you please give us an example of a reading lesson in kindergarten, first, second and third grade? There is urgency around this. There is grief for thousands of parents and teachers that have learned this too late.
00:32:24
Speaker
It's overwhelming. I know. But we have to speak up. We have to get loud. We have to keep working at this. It is making a difference. I mean, for states to have to be changing is a huge, huge feat. So keep getting loud.
00:32:44
Speaker
go to the school board meetings, ask me your questions. There are no silly questions. If you're like, this is what they explained. I can't tell you how many of my friends send me screenshots of emails after they asked for an explanation saying like, what does this mean? Is this the science of reading or not?
00:33:01
Speaker
demand and be prepared to be part of the solution, but demand that your school and every person in the school be trained in the actual science of reading, not just familiar with it, not just the curriculum brought in, trained, hands-on experience. And be prepared to be a part of it if
00:33:19
Speaker
you know, whether that means, okay, we need some support so teachers can have one-on-one coaching once a month. Okay, great. Let me see. Should I organize the parent volunteers? Should I be in charge of making sure that everyone has their background checks? What do we need to do? Be prepared to be a part of the solution as you ask everything. And here's a red flag. Do not accept
00:33:46
Speaker
Anybody saying, do not accept anybody saying, oh, there's always a swing. There's always a swing. And this is just, you know, classic curriculum change. The reading wars was a thing 20 years ago and it'll be a pendulum swing back. No, do not accept that answer. That is the biggest red flag. And I will say then you go kicking and screaming.
00:34:10
Speaker
And that is just not true. We've had this science, we've had this data, we've had this research for over half a century. It's just now getting the attention it deserves because parents got a front row seat to it. So I'll say it again, nothing changes unless parents get mad. And it's really unfortunate because I know many teachers that have been
00:34:37
Speaker
advocating and begging for this for decades. So we need the parents to get mad. We need it. We need it to happen.
00:34:49
Speaker
And nobody, it's not like a competition. It's not a contest. It's not like I'm right. You're wrong. This is literal science is literal facts and it's literal children's lives. So let's remember this is history that needs to be changed. Um, and that when you speak up, you're speaking up for all children and future children and the future of the United States truly.
00:35:18
Speaker
Um, not to sound too political, but it is political. So I know it's a hard pill to swallow. I was a teacher who was teaching incorrectly. I had to admit that and ask for help and be trained in the science of reading. And I'm lucky that I got to, it's so hard to admit we were wrong. It's hard for a school board to admit they chose the wrong curriculum or a principal to admit it or for teachers to admit it. But let's just.
00:35:49
Speaker
know that we will do better when we know better. And I find it so admirable when principals or administration are able to swallow their pride and admit that they made a mistake. And it's not anyone's fault. You know, we had trusted researchers, we had trusted researchers that said, this is what we do. This is what you should do ditch phonics and
00:36:17
Speaker
dishvenemic awareness. This is what we do. But it's, it's just so frustrating. I'll save you. I'll spare you. Do not listen to any interviews with Lucy Calkins because she feels no remorse. I had, I had this moment where I was like, you know, she did her best. But then it was like, she's still not able to admit that she was wrong and has an in a huge team and she has researchers. So no, now I'm mad. I'm mad again.
00:36:46
Speaker
So if you feel mad a lot, you're not alone. I'm with you. But here's the good news. Here's the good news. Number one, it is not too hard and it's not too late.
Resources and Hope for Literacy Improvement
00:37:02
Speaker
My classes are available in video lesson, starting with babies, toddlers, and big kids. They're as reasonably priced as my team would allow them to be, but I still offer 20%
00:37:16
Speaker
um, of our families enrolled discounts every month. So if you, if you're in need, always reach out. If you can't afford something, if you really need help, please reach out. Um, I don't want you to have to do this alone. And there's tons of resources and I'm, I want to help you help your kids and to help your classroom because enough is enough. We can't have, we can't keep failing kids.
00:37:48
Speaker
So the good news, it's easy to fix if we just get started with the science of reading. We have the research, we have the data, and it's getting talked about. What you can focus on if you are a parent at home is these foundations of language development. And I'm going to share
00:38:17
Speaker
a podcast all around that in a couple more episodes. But I do have a free download of, it's like eight pages of how to help your child's phonological awareness. So if you need that, I will link it in the show notes as well. Or you can always email or DM hello at bigcityreaders.com or just bigcityreaders on Instagram.
00:38:43
Speaker
I'm here for you. We got this, but we're not going to get this if a lot of people don't get mad and loud and demand change for every child. We're not stopping until every child can read. We're just not.
00:39:02
Speaker
OK, that's all I have for today. Let me know if you read these articles or listen to the Soul to Story podcast. I have a summary of the Soul to Story podcast. I will post it after this episode. But thank you guys for listening. And let me know if you have any questions. I will see you next time.