Evidence-Aligned Reading Instruction: Transforming Your School or District

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Dr. Heidi Beverine-Curry:

The more people that we can help to find a path to literacy, the better our world's going to be.

Narrator:

You just heard from literacy expert Dr. Heidi Beverine-Curry, co-founder of The Reading League, who is our guest today on EDVIEW360.

Pam Austin:

Hello, this is Pam Austin. Welcome back to the EDVIEW360 podcast series. We are so excited to have you with us today. I'm conducting today's podcast from my native New Orleans, LA. Today, we are excited to welcome a respected trailblazer, champion, and expert in reading education. Dr. Heidi Beverine-Curry is the co-founder and chief executive officer of The Reading League, where she has dedicated her life and career to helping every student learn to read. Dr. Beverine-Curry delivers educator learning opportunities for over 70 partnering school districts across the country and speaks all over the world about the science of reading. Before working for The Reading League, Heidi spent more than 20 years working in public schools. She is passionate about evidence-aligned literacy instruction and has led a number of successful reform efforts. There is so much more to learn about Dr. Beverine-Curry and the important work of The Reading League. So, let's get started. Welcome, Dr. Beverine-Curry.

HBC:

Thank you so much for having me, Pam. What a lovely introduction, and I didn't know you were in New Orleans. How exciting.

PA:

It's a fun place to live. That is a certainty. Today, we're going to have some fun really diving into the science of reading and learning more about your journey there. So, before we really get into the nuts and bolts of our topic, when we talk about school and district reading transformation, I'd like to talk a little bit about you and The Reading League and your role in this organization that's helping schools to achieve better literacy goals through instruction. Tell me about what The Reading League does and why they do it.

HBC:

Yeah, so we are a non-profit organization, so we are strongly mission-driven. Our mission is to advance the awareness, understanding, and use of the scientific evidence base in reading. What's funny is when we started, 2015-2016 is when we were conceived, we weren't using the term science of reading. That just hadn't really hit the zeitgeist like it has since. So, we tend to use evidence-aligned reading instruction and paying attention to the scientific evidence base to inform reading. But, of course, once that science of reading term took off, we couldn't really fight it now, could we? 

PA:

Not at all. 

HBC: 

So, at The Reading League we provide professional development partnerships with school districts and those are long-term professional development partnerships. They start out with working with the administrators. First, we work with the administrative team and then that's kind of like a first date and in that administrative day we talk about not only what teachers will learn and what the research says, but what our expectations are of the administrative team and how we really do count on them and that the success of this initiative really lives and dies with the leadership of the school districts. So, we really want to make sure that the admins that we're working with are excited to learn themselves and that they are ready to put themselves up there during the professional development experience and say, “Hey, I'm learning this stuff too,” and just be a real champion for the movement. We ask them not to “pop in” to PD sessions or to schedule other meetings and so forth. So, we really believe in that partnership with the administration to make sure that their investment of time and other resources into this transformational work is successful.

PA:

Oh, I'm so excited just hearing you speak, that going to the administrators. It's not something being done to them, it's something that they are working through and gaining that knowledge as a leader. Oh, my goodness, I love it. And there was another term. You used long term. It's not going to happen overnight. Excellent, I love what The Reading League is doing. What incredible work. How did your early work? Because it just didn't happen overnight for you, I bet. How did your early work as an educator lead to what you are doing today?

HBC:

Well, my early work in teaching…My first job was a self-contained special education job and after doing the inclusive education program for my undergraduate, I wasn't super prepared for that job and I found that I could be a better inclusive educator being the general ed teacher inviting special ed in, rather than being the special education teacher trying to knock down doors that maybe weren't open to me in the early 90s. So, then I moved on to an inclusive education classroom where I was the general education teacher and there was a full-time special education teacher that I worked with and I did variations on that job in fourth grade for the next eight years, and what I noticed is that as students were coming up to me in fourth grade every year, it seemed like, wow, there are an awful lot of students who are not reading where I would expect an entering fourth-grader to be reading. So, what's that all about? And sometimes I would go back to like the third grade teachers and ask, “Wat's up with so-and-so?” or “Do you have any pointers for me on this?” And there was always a story, there was always some lore about oh that group, oh that group. And I started thinking after a number of years like there can't just be this story every year. It can't always be. Oh, that group. Every year, like something's up systemically.

And again, I didn't know that there were scientific fields studying reading in my undergrad prep and in my master's work. It was very heavy, with Marie Clay, Lucy Calkins, Fountas & Pinnell, and the Goodmans, Ken and Yetta Goodman. A lot of whole language, a lot of balanced literacy, and very little in terms of knowledge about any scientific evidence base to inform what I was doing in the classroom or the minute-by-minute decisions that teachers have to make around student literacy all day. So, I just kept digging into the resources that I had deeper, trying to do it better. And then at some point it occurred to me this stuff just doesn't work. This is just not effective. There has to be more out there. There have to be answers. I didn't know what they were and I didn't know what to call them, but I figured there had to be more. So, I had my son. He was 18 months old when I decided to leave my teaching job after nine years in public school teaching and I started a doctoral program because I figured well, if there are answers, that's where they probably should be. And yeah, so that's what I did. I started the doctoral program and, very much by accident, Pam, I signed up for a course called the Cognitive Psychology of Reading with Dr. Benita Blachman. Now, the only reason I signed up for this course was because I needed an elective and it fit with my child care schedule. So, that was my very first doctoral seminar that I walked into was the Cognitive Psychology of Reading, and notice that I said it was an elective. At that time, and I think maybe still at the institution where I received my Ph.D. in reading education, any courses that dealt with what we would call now the science of reading were electives. There was no required coursework. What do you think of that?

PA:

Oh boy, it's surprising but not surprising, thinking about the journey and where we've been. That's why it wasn't working, right?

HBC:

And so that was 2006. And that very first night is when I met Maria Murray. I sat next to her in the class. So, she was much further along on her journey than I was. But that was the beginning of the rest of my life, right there. Right? If I hadn't taken that class because it fit with my child care schedule, if I hadn't sat next to Dr. Maria Murray, who knows if there'd be a Reading League today.

And that first semester with Dr. Blachman really blew my mind. It was a challenge. It was not easy. I had to unlearn everything that I thought I knew about how reading works and relearn it. I was held to a level of academic rigor that I had never been held to before, and it was challenging. It was a grieving process. It was not an easy semester, but when I came out the other side, I had a really strong motivation, passion, commitment to keep learning more about this. This knowledge had been there the whole time and I didn't know, “How did I not know this? How did I not know this?” And we hear that story over and over again at the Reading League from teachers who say, “How did I not know this? How did I not know this?”

So, when I finished the doctoral work, I felt like, “Hey, I did the best I could my first nine years of teaching, but now I know so much more I need to go back to public school.” So, I just felt like I needed to right my karma and go back to public schools. So, I went and did another nine years in public schools as a literacy coach, which was fantastic. You know where I was really able to apply my learning. I was able to meet people who, and I know this is not always the case, but I was able to meet and work with people who were willing to listen and learn and change, and it was great.

PA:

Oh, what a marvelous story. That seed was planted. Well, first you started digging. If you hadn't begun the digging, there wouldn't have been a space for that seed to be planted. I said there were no coincidences. You think you kind of stumbled on that. Everything was aligned for you in order to grow and it's just so wonderful to hear your story. Thank you so much for sharing. 

HBC: 

Sure.

PA:

So, thinking about where you are now. So, on a daily basis, right now you're currently continuing what you began as that literacy coach, but growing into helping schools and districts. You're making those literacy transformations. How rewarding it's just wonderful to know. We've heard you say that school change is hard. Oh, that's the truth, but it can be done. For every administrator out there who's struggling right now with where to start, tell our listeners what it takes to begin to take that first step forward.

HBC:

Yeah, sure. Well, that work that I did in my second nine years of working in public schools really helped to develop how The Reading League approaches professional development and approaches this transformative work, because we saw that it could be done and we also saw that it was hard and it takes a while. It doesn't happen overnight. So, the first step is that admins need to learn knowledge building for school leaders. The administrative team is the first step. That's important. We don't start immediately with teachers and, as I mentioned before, the leadership is what makes or breaks the success of probably any initiative in schools, but absolutely this one. So, we spend at least a full five-hour day with administrators talking about the ins and outs of the partnership and what is possible and our expectations of each other as kind of a first date, and then they decide if they want to put a ring on it or if maybe it's just not time to settle down with The Reading League just yet. And if we do put a ring on it, the next thing we do is start meeting with the teachers and building their knowledge.

We have a whole sequence of ongoing professional development content that we share, as well as different methods of supporting the application of their learning in the classroom. One of the services we offer are flexible consulting hours. Locally, here in Central New York, we have in-person coaching that we offer, and across the nation we have a virtual coaching service that we offer as well. So, it's not enough to just do the PD. We have to figure out how do we apply that new learning in an ongoing job-embedded way.

PA:

Wonderful. You're impacting leaders to sustain the impact you're making on teachers.

HBC:

Yeah, you know you had asked me what it takes and what admins need to know. Another thing that admins need to know is that we have to be collecting the right data and knowing what that data tells us. So, we help the administrative teams in the schools to better understand the universal screening tools they're using. We perhaps guide them to the decision that maybe they need to be collecting a different kind of data depending on what's going on there, and we help them to analyze that data and we have a relentless focus on core instruction.

If we're looking at that data and we're seeing that, by and large, most kids are not doing well with reading, the answer is not to hire more interventionists, find more interventions to add to the list. The answer is to really take a look at that core instruction and make sure that it is as aligned with the science as it possibly can be, because then we're going to precipitate fewer kids into needing intervention services and, ultimately, special education referrals. So, yeah, admin knowledge building, teacher knowledge building, and ongoing PD with classroom support, making sure we're collecting the right kind of data and we know what it tells us, as well as relentless focus on core instruction. Yes, of course we want strong interventions delivered by strong interventionists, but that's not the answer to a transformation. Usually, what it's really about is making sure that we get that nice, solid core, and then, finally, we want to make sure that we know how to recognize backslide and correct it.

PA:

All right. Excellent. Very encompassing support that The Reading League provides there. The idea of really focusing on that core to reduce the need for intervention because some kids will, but if we've got that strong core instruction, I love that focus that you have on data and guiding teachers there.

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PA:

So, what you're saying is that single schools, as well as entire districts, can transition using science-based reading instruction, right? That they can improve literacy overall. It can happen.

HBC:

Absolutely, absolutely. We've seen it happen and it is just delightful. At the school where I was working doing my second nine years of public school, full-time experience as a literacy coach my partner, Stephanie Finn, who is also The Reading League's board chair and a co-founder, she and I had the perfect storm of administrative support and teacher enthusiasm and stamina from everybody all around to really make that happen and we have used that model as our basis for our professional development structures here at The Reading League. And, time again, we see our partner schools really turn around the culture of practice and student achievement in reading. We have decades of research to show that if we use the science as our guide, up to 95 percent of our kids are going to learn to read well and if we don't use the science as our guide, maybe 30 percent to 60 percent of our kids are going to learn to read well. 

PA:

Consistently using this model, right? Over and over again. We see those transformations. It's just wonderful to hear. We hear so much negativity about education and it's wonderful to hear you talk about the transformations and the changes that you've seen. So, you know, sometimes people hold back a little bit.

HBC:

No kidding.

PA:

A little bit careful, a little bit leery of moving forward into a situation that maybe they feel like they don't have control of, and maybe it's a fear. What are some of the fears that keep educators from making this transition? Let's talk about some common obstacles that might be in the way, these obstacles, of course, that they can overcome right.

HBC:

Absolutely, yeah, and there are three big ones out there.

I'd say the biggest one is that admin teams are afraid that the teachers are going to be upset, that it's going to hurt their feelings, because by, you know, insisting on new learning and insisting on changing business as usual, there's an implicit message that they're doing it wrong and that this is going to hurt their feelings.

And sometimes that happens, but most of the time not. Most of the time what happens is teachers will go through sort of an uncomfortable period, but then they start to feel a lot better about their teaching because they feel more prepared. And in the end, we have to believe that what teachers want is the best for their kids and that teachers want students to become as literate as they can be. And, oftentimes, once folks start learning about what the science can tell us about what is more likely to work for more students, they see those results and that motivates them to keep learning and keep trying to apply their new learning and keep seeing those results. So, yes, initially there is sometimes a fear among administrators that teachers are going to be upset and there's going to be some sort of massive revolt, and that never actually happens. You know, we just get maybe a handful of teachers that might need a little extra care, but for the most part teachers want to learn and are happy to do what it takes to make sure that students succeed.

PA:

Oh, that's wonderful. I have to say, success builds success and it provides motivation, right? 

HBC:

Absolutely. 

PA:

That's what I'm getting from what you just shared. OK, that was number one. Yeah, tell me another obstacle.

HBC:

So, sometimes what happens is admin teams will tell us hey, we just spent half a million dollars on fill-in-the-blank with some sort of very expensive instructional program that is really not aligned with the science of reading at all, and they'll say, “So, can you tell us how to make this work?” And we say, “Well, no, not really. I mean, if you have core instruction that is fundamentally built upon ideas, beliefs, practices, materials that fly in the face of what the scientific evidence says is most likely to work for most kids, there really isn't a workaround.” So, we call that the sunk-cost fallacy. In other words, don't throw good money after bad, and sometimes we just have to let things go.

So, there's a psychological component to that. There's also a component around being responsible with taxpayer dollars, and there's also a component around scarcity of resources in schools, and every school is different, so not every school can just say, “Oh, we just spent half a million dollars on this, but we know it's not aligned with the science. So now, a year later, we're going to spend just as much on something new.” So, those are real obstacles and real challenges, but in the end we can start to plan long term for making decisions that are more in line with what the science tells us is most likely to work for students.

PA:

So, redirecting, creating a plan so that you can move away from this obstacle that came your way. I could see it happening. Yeah. So, how about that third one you mentioned?

HBC:

Well, sometimes it's personal pride. Sometimes, especially in maybe smaller school districts, you've got administrators who were teachers in that district and who were literacy coaches in that district and who personally built up the systems that are grounded in things like three cueing and balanced literacy and whole language leftovers, and they have a really hard time sort of coming to grips with having to say, “OK, we're going to change direction here.” And what I've found is that when school leaders do that, when they position themselves as a lifelong learner, that change is really successful because the teachers then look at those leaders and say, “OK, they invested a lot in doing it this way. When we look at our data, it's really not getting our kids where it needs to be.” And good on you admin, team, or person for saying maybe we really do have to shift directions here and then being that example of teachers and admins also being lifelong learners.

PA:

Yes, so recognizing when a shift is necessary. You shared with us the obstacles here. I'd like for you to share some examples of what is possible. You kind of gave a little clue here and there, but what are some of your real-life experiences in school? You don't have to tell me everything, because I think we could be here for hours, but if you could share a few examples, I really would appreciate that.

HBC:

Sure, so I'll just pick a couple of data stories, I guess, to tell you about. One I'm going to go back to again that last nine years that I had in public schools as an employee in a public school and there was a time where when I went into a second grade, end-of-year data meeting and there happened to be seven sections of second grade in that building and it was only my second year in that school district, so I didn't know all the principals super well and the principal showed their universal screening data and looking at, specifically, oral reading fluency and the number of kids who had met benchmark, and it was something like 23 percent at the beginning of the year and then maybe 38 percent in the middle of the year and then 52 percent at the end of the year. And that principal just said, “Look at this growth, isn't that wonderful?” And sent the teachers on their way to have a happy summer. And I went up to her privately after and I said, “Hey, Lori.” Her name was Lori, her name still is Lori. I said, “Lori, I don't know, I don't know if this is a celebration like this still means like half your kids can't really read.”

And that was a risk. And she had to kind of fix her face for a minute and I had to panic for a minute and she said, “Well, well, what should it be? And I said, “I mean, we can get it up to 95 percent, 80 to 85 if we're lucky.” Let's get started here. And she's like, “Well, how do you know that?” And I'm like, “Well, I've been studying this for a long time and here's some research.”

She said, “Well, what do you need?” She just said, “Let's do it, we've got to do it.” And I told her what we needed and she was so incredibly supportive and she recruited other building principals as well as district office-level administration, office-level administration, and created the resources and the space for Stephanie Finn, the other literacy coach, and I to embark on the journey of educating the admins about the evidence base, educating the teachers about the evidence base, looking critically at what our core was saying it wasn't up to snuff, choosing something that made the most sense. And then, four years later, we looked at that same set of second-graders and 87 percent of those students were hitting benchmark for oral reading fluency. So, that is possible and that is a real-life experience. And, then, with our partners, we have seen that same type of pattern be replicated.

PA:

But you know that involves taking a risk to clearly state the truth.

HBC:

Yeah, and the great thing is that Lori works for us now. Lori is a retired principal and she is one of our coaches. So now Lori works for The Reading League and goes in and supports teachers and administrators as they apply their new knowledge. So, she's just a perfect example of the kind of leader it takes to get this work done.

PA:

And what's more amazing is that you have been able to replicate this again and again for this transformation that we talked about. All right, so you gave us some examples here. We have an understanding of your journey. Tell us about your day-to-day work with partnering schools. We've got a broad understanding because we've heard about the transformations and how they happen. But what does a day in life look like for you, Dr. Beverine-Curry?

HBC:

No typical day for me, but I do spend a fair amount of days delivering professional development, consulting with school districts, and coaching. We do a lot of content development here, as well as recruiting and training our professional development specialists so that we can have more folks to increase our reach. And I also do a fair amount of speaking engagements at conferences and departments of education.

PA:

So students, schools, and districts all over are fortunate to have The Reading League, right? The Reading League is their advocate. As a champion for that evidence-based literacy instruction, we know that our students definitely need. Tell us who motivated you and helped light the fire. You told us about that first class and you've told us about the experience that you've had. Are there any other motivators that you have that keeps you fighting for literacy for all kids?

HBC:

Yeah. So, of course there's Benita Blachman, who really opened my eyes to this whole world of the evidence base that I didn't know existed, and also Maria Murray, who is our founder and CEO here at The Reading League. Due to Benita's class, I met Maria Murray and we founded The Reading League together along with a handful of other folks, and some of them were also in that course. So, during my second nine years of public school employment as a literacy coach, I did not carry a caseload. I didn't service students directly. However, I did end up with the opportunity to work one on one with a student for three years who showed up at our school as an eighth-grader who could not read and when I say she could not read, I don't mean she read poorly or she struggled with reading. I mean she could not read. So, I made a case to work with her for 42 minutes a day for three years, every day, and ultimately had to discontinue her because she was reading with fluency and comprehension of grade-level text. And the reason that this motivates me and keeps the fire lit is not about how she became literate, even though that is, of course, the best part of her story.

The story serves to remind me that this child did not have adequate instructional opportunity. She responded beautifully to evidence-aligned instruction in grades 8, 9, and 10, to the point where she had to be discontinued because she was reading grade-level text with fluency and comprehension, which means that if she had received evidence-aligned instruction in grades K, 1, and 2, she likely would have not had to spend the next several years up through middle school being illiterate and having to deal with all of the things that go along with being an illiterate child or adolescent. And, so, that keeps the fire burning. That keeps me going every single day. If we can prevent students from having to go through what she had to go through before she became literate by eliminating inadequate instructional opportunities, that'll keep me going as long as I can.

PA:

Prevention.

HBC:

Yep.

PA:

Excellent. Thank you so much. So, tell me what's next for you and The Reading League in upcoming months and years.

HBC:

Well, we want to grow our capacity so that we can take all this great work that we do and extend our reach to support more educators and children. The more people that we can help to find a path to literacy, the better our world's going to be.

PA:

Definitely true. This has been fascinating and so inspiring Dr. Beverine-Curry. How can our listeners learn more about The Reading League and pursue their own transitions in the science of reading?

HBC:

Sure, one of the things you could do is check out our website at thereadingleague.org. You could learn more about professional development partnerships. We also have an online academy option. That's not really for full transformation, but for individuals or lone wolves who just want to learn a little more about the science of reading. We have a journal that we publish three times a year. We have our annual conference. This year, it's going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina. We also have our defining guide document that can be downloaded for free from our website. That helps folks to understand what the science of reading is and what it is not. We have our curriculum evaluation guidelines and an accompanying workbook that you can download for free from our website. That helps to examine your current instructional program to see how well it's aligned with the science of reading and also to help you shop for something new if you find that what you have isn't quite up to snuff.

PA:

Excellent. Thank you for sharing all of those resources and where teachers, where educators, can move to find out more about The Reading League. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Dr. Beverine-Curry. This is Pam Austin, bringing the best thought leaders in education directly to you. Please join us next month for another great EDVIEW360 podcast.

Narrator:

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