EDVIEW 360
Podcast Series

Understanding and Recognizing Dyslexia: Leveling the Playing Field With Intervention

Barbara Steinberg
Literacy Expert & CEO, PDX Reading Specialist, LLC.
Barbara Steinberg
Barbara Steinberg

Barbara Steinberg has been educating, mentoring, and inspiring students, educators, and parents for more than 20 years, first as a classroom teacher and now as a dyslexia and educational consultant. She is the founder of PDX Reading Specialist, LLC., an organization with the mission to inspire individuals to become CONFIDENT and CAPABLE learners.

She is a nationally recognized speaker, delivering keynote speeches across the country. Steinberg is passionate about training educators about how to deliver evidence-based instruction, equipping them with tools to be successful, and inspiring all to believe that we can not only overcome reading challenges, but prevent them from taking hold...if we act early.

Learn more about Barbara Steinberg
Release Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024

Dyslexia represents the most common and prevalent of all known learning disabilities and impacts approximately one in five individuals (National Institute of Health). A teacher who understands dyslexia can be the one person who saves a child from years of frustration and anxiety. In this engaging and informative podcast, literacy expert Barbara Steinberg will translate research into practice, providing teachers with the knowledge, tools, and strategies to help students with dyslexia become confident and capable readers. 

Our conversation will cover: 

  • Myths and misconceptions about dyslexia
  • Characteristics of dyslexia
  • The power of early intervention
  • Characteristics of effective intervention
  • Accommodations that level the playing field
Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Barbara Steinberg:

Technology and accommodations are the lifeline in the classroom, because every student is a Gen Ed student first and those students who are being pulled for intervention, they're in the classroom. The other, you know, 95% of the time, and those accommodations give them access to grade-level content and that becomes more and more important the older students get in school.

Narrator:

You just heard from Barbara Steinberg, a dyslexia and reading advocate and the founder of PDX Reading Specialists. Barbara Steinberg 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 literacy expert and dyslexia teacher, Barbara Steinberg. Barbara Steinberg has been educating, mentoring, and inspiring students, educators, and parents for more than 20 years, first as a classroom teacher and now as a dyslexia and educational consultant. She is the founder of PDX Reading Specialists, an organization whose mission is to inspire individuals to become confident and capable learners. Ms. Steinberg is a nationally recognized speaker and is passionate about training educators on how to deliver evidence-based instruction, equipping them with tools to be successful and inspiring all to believe that we can not only overcome reading challenges but prevent them from taking hold if we act early. Welcome, Ms. Steinberg.

BS:

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

PA:

All right, let's dive right in. First, tell us a little bit about how you're advocating for students with dyslexia. What does that effort look like for you? In your own words, of course.

BS:

Well, I think that my journey to advocacy came from my own experience. I have a quote in my office that says, “This isn't what we do, it's who we are.” And, it's who I am.

I was a struggling reader, and it's not by accident that I decided to become a classroom teacher. I wanted to change that experience for kids in my classroom. But it wasn’t very long before I recognized that I had students year after year after year who were struggling to learn how to read, even though they had tremendous strengths in other areas, and although I was highly trained and had these, you know, certificates and endorsements, I felt like I was lacking both the knowledge and the tools to be able to help these students and the tools to be able to help these students.

And so I knew that, more than anything, the social, emotional well-being of our students is of equal importance to whatever we provide academically, and it led me on a journey of reshaping the narrative of both how we think about our smarts, how we, of course, teach reading and how we help shift the mindsets of students, who start to develop a really false narrative about what it means to be smart. And that is my why. In a lot of the work, you know, we focus on what we do and how we do it, both myself and teachers, but the why is that every student we know from research, 95% of students are capable of becoming skilled readers, and our students need to believe that, and so that's really at the heart of the advocacy work.

PA:

Oh, I just absolutely love it. You know my heart is just pounding. I'm connecting with you, the idea of that success happening. It first happens at school and that social, emotional, well-being. How students feel about themselves begins there. And to be smart. I have to tell you there's a term I use with my students all the time, “We're going to get smart, we're going to work on getting smart, because you can catch that smart, you can get it.” And, of course, it's based on the knowledge and the skills. Thank you for sharing your journey. I just love hearing that. Now, in your opinion and based on your experience, and you shared a little bit already, I know you can dive in a little deeper, why is it necessary to reshape that narrative for your kiddos?

BS:

Yeah, I mean there's multiple component pieces here. We know from decades and decades of research that a student who starts behind stays behind, and that gap continues to widen. And of course we quantify that with test data. But the thing that we don't talk about is the impact of years and years of persistent challenge and, eventually, reading failure.

And the most commonly shared characteristic with illiteracy is juvenile delinquency. And when I say illiteracy, I'm not talking about kids who can't read. All kids can read to a certain point, but I'm talking about kids who get to a point where now they can't access grade-level content, and when that happens is different for every child, but it happens at a certain point. And, then, we have monumental challenges. We have a growing academic divide, we have children who are faced with a choice in life, “Where is my path going to take me?” And if we want to be able to reshape that narrative, it has to start really early with both early intervention, you know, preventative, intervention.

But it also has to start with what we were talking about earlier, which is that we have the ability to rewire our brains, and that is in the power of both the educators as well as the children. And, so, that messaging of when I work with you. We are rewiring your brain because all of our brains have these construction zones we call them that need extra work, and your construction zones are learning how to translate speech into print, and I have the tools to be able to help you, and that belief system is foundational to, as well as the instructional methodologies that we're going to utilize, and I don't know that educators have the language to be able to help students buy into that belief that they have the power to rewire their brains.

PA:

Belief and the skill to rewire the brain. I love the idea of the construction zone because there is something that you can do, something that you can practice. So, the skill of the teacher, that practice, that direct instruction. It really lends itself to guiding toward how some students learn differently, as we know now, don't we, Barbara?

BS:

Yes, yes. It is not a right or wrong way of learning to read. We are all wired in different ways and we just need a little bit of a different approach and a more intensified approach.

PA:

Definitely. You know there are many myths out there and misconceptions about dyslexia in general, and there's a lot of debate about the characteristics of dyslexia. Can you talk about the truths and tell us exactly what dyslexia is and how it manifests for our readers, whether they're beginning readers or readers who are striving and attempting to, you know, gain that knowledge wherever they are?

BS:

Yes, and I want to start by saying that for every educator listening to this, there has to be a no shame, no blame, if you're learning this for the first time, because when I was a classroom teacher, it took eight years before somebody finally said to me, as I'm describing the characteristics of these students, “You know, it kind of sounds like dyslexia.” And I naively just said, “No, they're not reversing their letters and numbers,” because that was my understanding of dyslexia, even though I had a master's degree. At that point, nobody had spent time educating me, the educator, in the most common and prevalent of all known learning challenges. So, if you are 15 or 20 years into your career and this is new knowledge for you, no shame, no blame. You know what Maya Angelou says, “When we know better, we do better.” So, the first thing I want to say is that letter reversals are not the defining characteristic of dyslexia. All beginning readers and writers reverse their letters and numbers and even if they're persistent, it still isn't the primary characteristic. Dyslexia is characterized, and that keyword is characteristics, because it's a cluster of characteristics and while every individual is, you know, as unique as their fingerprint, there are some characteristics that are somewhat universal and they are difficulties with accurate and automatic word recognition. Word recognition is the ability to come to a word that we've never seen before. It could be a content-area word, it could be a nonsense word, and being able to, with relative automaticity, translate those symbols into sound. And how does that happen? It happens through direct, explicit instruction, where those symbol combinations get planted in the brain so that we can come to a word we've never seen before and know what it says. When you have difficulty recognizing words with accuracy and automaticity, again our readers can do it. But it's like those words are taking this long trip through the brain and it makes decoding really slow and inaccurate. And while beginning readers can sometimes keep their heads above water and they can comprehend, the older you get, the more complex the vocabulary, the more complex the sentence structure. Now, all of a sudden you can't comprehend because of the difficulty with decoding.

The opposite of decoding a word is encoding a word which is spelling. To translate sound into symbols requires knowledge of how sounds translate into symbols and the foundational skill to be able to hear sounds in words, to be able to spell the word teacher, requires mastering that skill of phoneme awareness. You know we don't speak like this. But to be able to decode and encode you have to break words down into their individual phonemes and that's something our brains aren't naturally wired to do. We have to be taught how to do that, and all the time I will look at beginning reading and writers and I will see sounds that are missing or inserted or out of sequence, and that is a revelation that they're not processing all of the sounds in the words.

Decoding and encoding challenges are the primary characteristic of dyslexia and we see those manifestations of those lower-level challenges in reading fluency. We see it in older readers with difficulties with reading comprehension. But the difficulty with reading comprehension is not because they don't have language, it's because they can't decode, because reading comprehension is an outcome. Now, of course, you have to have language, right? Language is at the heart of learning to read. If you don't have the vocabulary and the background knowledge and the syntax, then you can't make meaning. But dyslexia, at its core, is a difficulty with accurate and automatic word recognition, as well as spelling.

PA:

You know I often say decoders are encoders and encoders are decoders that reciprocal scale, there. 

BS:

That's right. 

PA:

Absolutely love your phraseology and your analogies. The pictures in my brain have been amazing. I love the idea of planting a symbol and, I thought, a pattern in a brain for easy retrieval and taking a look at understanding what's happening in these students' brains. It's a long trip through the brain. That's why they hesitate, that's why they pause. Oh, my goodness, thank you so much for sharing that in such a vivid-explicit manner, Barbara. I'm sure many of our educators out there appreciate that. So, we're not looking at, “Oh, reversing those letters.” We are really focusing on what's happening in the brain for accurate decoding and encoding of words. Yes, all right. So, tell us about identifying dyslexia. You know how many kids are impacted by it?

BS:

So, prevalence rates are hard to nail down to a finite number. You know the prevalence rates have varied from anywhere from 5% to 20%. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the common number is, you know, one in five. And the reality is, when we think about quantifying students who struggle, we're looking at the number of students who are identified in special education and what we know is that 80% of students who are identified under the eligibility category of specific learning disability are struggling because of this deficit in foundational skills, right? Decoding, encoding, phonology. So, it's a very, very large number.

And because we know that early intervention is essential for preventing later reading difficulty, one of the best things to happen in the time since I've left the classroom is that many states now have a legislative requirement for early universal screening, and early universal screening, which some people call the dyslexia screener. It's really a screener for later reading difficulties, including dyslexia, but because dyslexia is the most common and prevalent reason that you know capable students struggle, everything that is to be screened are indicators for later reading difficulties. And I often use an analogy of a track race. You know when kindergartners line up at the start of a track for the start of kindergarten, even though they come with five-plus years of history, in kindergarten it's like a clean slate. We screen them and we see down the track lane of every single one of our children. Which ones will hit a wall in reading development if we do not provide explicit, systematic Tier 1 instruction, as well as Tier 2 preventative intervention.

Kindergarteners are not readers yet. What we're screening for are the warning signs. We don't see the outcome of our instruction in kindergarten until first grade, but what research shares with us is that a child who fails to read adequately in first grade has a 90% probability of reading poorly in fourth grade. What we do in kindergarten, at the beginning of kindergarten and what we do from that point forward, is all preventative and we can mitigate and minimize you know the impact, the neurological pre-wiring of students who might have full-blown learning challenges, by providing that incredibly rigorous core and Tier 2 instruction so that we don't end up with a child in third grade who now is a referral for special education.

Dyslexia is, of course, a learning disability identified in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), but we're not looking as educators to identify children for special education. We want to go back to core. We want to then have those interventions that intensify the instruction, and Sally Shaywitz has this great quote where she says the intervention for individuals with dyslexia is no different from the type of instruction that all students need to learn to read, but the intervention has to be relentless and amplified so that it penetrates and takes hold. The individual with dyslexia needs so many repetitions so that it sticks in their brain, so that then, when they come to the word that has that pattern, they're able to retrieve it.

PA:

Such wonderful information. I love the imagery in the example of warning signs, because quite often we do delay that assessment, the screeners, to figure out we want to prevent the struggle through that direct instruction and give students what they need. Thank you so much. I appreciate having that information. I know our listeners appreciate hearing that as well, even if it's a confirmation for what you already know. So, what's the biggest challenge right now for educators, for our teachers and administrators, to not only understand dyslexia but how to apply the research into practice?

BS:

Oh, that's such a big question. You know, my heart aches for anybody who works in the schools because the challenges seem monumental and, of course, when we learn something new. I mean I believe educators want to do what's best for kids and sometimes some of the challenges are out of our hands. That being said, learning what dyslexia is and learning the language for how to help a student understand why these difficulties exist can completely change the trajectory of the mindset for that student, and that information, whether it's a podcast or a video or a TED-Ed, is accessible. And, so, I encourage every educator I can. I share a multitude of resources to help gain a little bit of that verbiage for us to share with students. I can definitely send a student on a new trajectory.

From a systemic level, teachers do not have enough time, dedicated time, for their own professional learning. Louisa Moats says teaching reading is rocket science. It truly is. And even I am, you know, regarded as an expert. But I find that the more I learn about something, the more it reveals what I don't know, and so we always need to be growing our learning foundations and school districts sadly don't often devote the time to be able to do that and to bridge the gap between knowing and doing.

And when I say that, I mean a professional learning model needs to be. I'm going to teach you about this body of knowledge, in this case dyslexia, so that you can understand what's happening both in a neurotypical brain and a neurodivergent brain, and I'm going to share with you what explicit, systematic instruction looks like and sounds like and feels like. But now you need a model. You need somebody to come in and work with your children to show you what that looks like. Because so often I will train in a professional learning model and then teachers go back to their classroom and they're not able to successfully bridge that gap between knowing and doing. And, so, we've seen in states that have, like Mississippi, is such a prime example where states have said we're devoting a full, throttled effort to investing in our educators, and that's what I believe needs to happen. We all understand the science, we all know the importance of the science, but the knowledge-to-doing bridge has to be connected, and it needs to be connected explicitly and systematically for teachers if we want to see the outcome in our students.

PA:

So, professional learning doesn't stop at the knowledge base, correct? They need the tools, they need the strategies, they need that application in order to impact their students and whether those students have been identified as having dyslexia. This is going to support all students. Am I correct in saying that, Barbara? 

BS:

Oh, 100%.

Voyager Sopris Learning:

Voyager Sopris Learning's evidence-based programs are founded in the science of reading and incorporate systematic, explicit instruction. Our programs include LANGUAGE! Live® by Dr. Louisa Moats and REWARDS® by Dr. Anita Archer. Learn more at voyagersopris.com/reading.

PA:

So, when we're thinking about teachers acquiring those skills, you mentioned having that support, having someone to come in, where do the administrators come in on this?

BS:

You know, administrators will often say, vulnerable administrators, will often say, “You know, I didn't get this knowledge either.” And when professional learning happens, every stakeholder needs to be at that training because everybody teaches literacy, art is literacy, music is literacy, and all of us are always communicating with students, both verbally and non-verbally. And if we truly want to understand our students then we all need to have a common shared knowledge and vocabulary. Administrators, you know, are the pilots of the airplanes in schools and they are the decision-makers. And I've, you know, sidebarred with so many teachers during training who say I really want to be able to implement this evidence-based, you know, systematic curriculum, but my school uses fill in the blank. Help me, and the help has to come from I need to have administrators at training, whether it's separate training or it's part of the teacher training. That's an essential component,

PA:

Wow. And that would be a way that administrators can help and support their teachers by gaining that knowledge base and being there, just being there, to understand together as a team. Thank you. I think that's a wonderful suggestion. You know you mentioned the core having to have a good, solid core. You just said having that common, shared language. That would be understanding that core, right?

BS:

Yes.

PA:

But for our students who are striving readers or students with dyslexia, students we've identified, we know that they need a little bit more of that intervention. Can you give us some idea of what are those characteristics of effective intervention?

BS:

Yes, absolutely. You know, in an RTI, MTSS system everything builds on core. But we know that we have students in every grade level, all the way through secondary, who do require intensified instruction. And, as I said earlier, one of the big misunderstandings is that what's happening in Tier 2 or Tier 3 or special education is vastly different than what's happening in core. And that isn't the case. But what intervention is based on is a skill deficit. It has to be differentiated to meet the skill deficit. So, it's not a review of core. It's not meant to teach grade-level standards. It's meant to say if this student is struggling with reading fluency, and or language comprehension, then I need to identify where in the progression, let's focus on since dyslexia is our focus and fluency and phonics is the deficit that we need to focus on, where in the progression does this student need to start intervention? If that student is a fourth-grader and they don't know short vowels, then we need to go back and teach short vowels. We need to build up from short vowels because even though fourth grade standards say the student should be reading multisyllabic words, intervention is to meet the student. As students get older, we want to shift our focus into morphology because morphological awareness helps older striving readers get to the same end goal of becoming accurate and automatic at word recognition, while also supporting their need for vocabulary development and multisyllabic words. And there are specific interventions that target both the lower-level phonological and phonics work and the morphological awareness like I think about REWARDS, right?, as an example for the older student.

But the key to success is knowing exactly what you're working on. I'm not pulling a small group for Tier 2 or Tier 3 and saying we're working on quote/unquote reading. No reading is the whole pie. What piece of the pie are you working on? And remember, fluency and reading comprehension are outcomes. If we want to improve those outcomes then we need to work on the skills that lead to those outcomes, mainly for word recognition. For fluency, that's phonological awareness, that's decoding and encoding and that's sight recognition of familiar words. And sight recognition of familiar words doesn't mean memorizing high-frequency words. That is not an evidence-based practice. It means having enough practice and repetition, using decodable books to be able to get to the point where I see words and I recognize them automatically. Then, when we measure fluency, we'll see the outcome of those efforts, which is our direct instruction.

PA:

So, that was perfectly laid out. When we think about fluency, so quite often I'll say, “Oh, my students are having trouble with fluency, so I'm going to get them to read more” when we need to look at the foundational reason phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, focusing on targeted sound symbol correspondence to be able to decode those words, and then building that outcome. You said a number of times the outcome might be fluency, the outcome might be reading comprehension, but there are so many layers that lead to that outcome. Thank you for definitely honing in on that idea because I think our listeners will appreciate that, and want to have targeted instruction for our interventions. Is that what you're telling me, Barbara?

BS:

Absolutely. And I want to circle back for a minute to the you know, looking at fluency, and say once again, like no shame, no blame, when I taught fourth grade and I was asked to administer a one-minute oral reading fluency assessment and I listened to my student read and you know, his rate was so low, so low, but his accuracy was really high and he could do a retell and all I knew at that time was, “Wow, kiddo, you know what? You read those words with accuracy. You did a great retell. You know what we need to work on. We need to work on your rate.”

And what I didn't know then that I know now is the reason the rate was so low is because he couldn't decode the words. He was using every strategy in his tool belt context and visual cues and all of those skills that we know we bring to the table to kind of hide the fact that he couldn't decode. And, so, I look back with such regret because I didn't know better. But now I know, when I look at a fluency assessment and accuracy is low or rate is low, either one or both I have to ask the question: Why is the accuracy low? Why is the rate low? That leads me. That question then leads me to what I need to work on.

PA:

Exactly Asking the why leads you to that targeted skill. Thank you so much for reiterating that and sharing that example. You talked about having years, for your eight years, I had 10 before I truly knew what I needed to do, so I understand where you're coming from and many of us educators are in the same shoes, you know. I want to talk about the word accommodations because quite often we hear about accommodations and these are, you know, specific things that we have. We could probably go through a list of what accommodations might be and they're meant to support students. Can you give us some ideas of what accommodations would be supportive of also taking a look at building those student skills when we think about students applying that learning?

BS:

Yeah, and I want to say that accommodations are as essential as interventions, especially as students get older. They really level the playing field and you know it's a top-down, bottom-up approach where intervention is building. It's that direct, systematic, explicit instruction, filling in gaps in learning, and accommodations are tools to level the playing field and they're tools that are important at the point of performance, and at the point of performance means when the stakes are high. So, will this child, will this student learn how to decode? Absolutely. But when we want them to study a novel or a nonfiction text where understanding is the goal, then they're going to need accommodations at that point, because the goal of that task is to comprehend.

When we think about high-leverage accommodations for individuals with dyslexia, two big ones come to mind. The first is, of course, audiobooks. You know, audiobooks used to only be available through recordings for the blind and dyslexic and now audiobooks are used by everybody and we need to think about how we communicate reading with our eyes versus reading with our ears. The words on the page and the text itself is really just, you know, representation of learning or story, and how we take those words off the page and get them into our brain. It can be with our eyes, it could be with our ears. Both are a means to an end. The reason most neurotypical individuals choose to read with their eyes is because it's just more efficient. We can read text and process text quicker with our eyes than by listening to it. But it's not inherently better. And when we present accommodations to students, it needs to be with the message that this is not because you quote/unquote can't read. It's because the goal of this text is to understand, and I know that the best way for you to get those words into your brain is through your ears. And, of course, access is not the obstacle to using accommodations anymore. It's belief systems, it's messaging. Of course, the opposite of getting words into our brain is getting words out of our brain and onto the page.

Writing is a complex linguistic process, just like reading, and so often our students with dyslexia struggle with the lower-level transcription skills of writing, handwriting, spelling, spacing, and so if I want to tell a story or write a response to literature and I have to slow down and think about how do I form that letter, how do I spell that word, it disrupts the flow of what I want to say and how I want to say it. And we can't just put speech-to-text technology in front of students. They need instruction in how to frame their ideas, but when it comes to actually transcribing their thoughts, we're going to get so much more if we allow that student to get the words onto the page using speech-to-text. Then, we can revise and edit.

And those two accommodations are the starting point to building a repertoire for students to grow, because technology has been a gift and it's not a substitute. We want students to become proficient at eye reading and, of course, you know keyboarding is a great tool to be able to bypass the lower-level handwriting challenges for students. But technology is not a replacement for instruction. But technology and accommodations are the lifeline in the classroom, because every student is a Gen Ed student first and those students who are being pulled for intervention they're in the classroom. The other, you know, 95% of the time. And those accommodations give them access to grade-level content and that becomes more and more important the older students get in school.

PA:

So, the expectations are still high, and we're looking at intervention and accommodations happening at the same time, because we are building our students up and we're also giving them an opportunity to be successful. Does that sum that up pretty good?

BS:

Absolutely, that's beautiful.

PA:

All right, awesome. Thank you so much for giving us such detail there. As we wrap up, I'd like you to share with our audience just a few actionable steps. What is it that teachers can do? Maybe? What is it that administrators can do? You gave us some ideas all the way along the way. But as a summary, as we close, what is of utmost importance in helping all students learn to read? You know? What can teachers and administrators do right now to make a difference?

BS:

So, if I were going to give three actionable steps that don't add hours and hours of work but could really reshape both the teacher experience and the student experience, I would say Step No. 1 is that there is a wonderful TED-Ed called, “What is Dyslexia,” that is less than five minutes in length. In five minutes, you will learn so much about dyslexia and my guess is for many listeners it will excite you to the point where now you're gonna wanna learn a little bit more and I think that knowing that in a short amount of time we can gain a body of knowledge that can help us begin our journey of understanding is profound. You don't have to go to graduate school. You don't have to read a 500-page textbook. You can, but you don't have to. That little bit of knowledge is going to be huge. That's for anybody who works with kids in any setting. Step No. 2 is when we are working with students who struggle, and students who struggle year after year after year, the language of, “I am so excited to be able to give you the tools to rewire your brain, because your brain,” and here, we can use that construction zone you know as a visual. “We can make that construction zone a super speedy road and I have the tools and I want to give them to you.” And when we phrase it in that way, it's just a tiny change in the way we present our instruction. It's so empowering for the learner and, of course, I say it's like giving a baby peas. You know they might reject you the first time and the second time and the third time, but just keep coming at them and giving them those tools.

And there is a proliferation of literature, children's books for teens that share the story of other students who struggle, because, of course, my hope is that every student is surrounded by what I call a Circle of Support and we, the educators, are part of that Circle of Support. But students, you know, they hear it from educators, from quote/unquote old people. They need to hear it from their peers, because it's their peers who bring them down. And when they are read a story where they see somebody else who also has walked in their shoes, it's so empowering. So, that would be action. Item No. 2 is how our language can change when we pull a small group with just a 30 second, “I'm so excited I have tools to help you reshape your brain today,” and maybe dropping in a picture book a little story of a student and there's books out there, so many books. That's been a huge gift to students today.

And then, of course, my Step No. 3 item is more concrete, which is that if school districts want to genuinely invest in improving student learning, then it has to start with professional learning for everyone, and it can't end with professional learning for everyone. That's step one. That is not a three-hour professional development that you check the box. It is ongoing with embedded coaching and modeling. It includes a commitment to looking at your assessments as well as your curriculum.

All of those ducks have to be in a row and it does take a systemwide commitment. We have had teachers who have taken it upon themselves to get training, to find curriculum for their students, and that I praise. But that, at its core, is an equity issue, because what one student gets in one classroom is different from what another student gets, and that is not fair. Learning to read is a civil right. Every child deserves a teacher trained in not only the science of reading but how to intensify instruction for those students, our students who have dyslexia, our students who are struggling for other reasons. And all of that starts with professional learning.

PA:

And truly equity is providing the students what they need, right? Giving them the education that they need. And now that we know better, we can do better. Oh, thank you so much for joining us today, Ms. Steinberg, and for sharing your unique expertise with our audience during Dyslexia Awareness Month. Barbara, can you share with our listeners a way that they could get in touch with you or find more out about you and the work that?

BS:

Absolutely. Well, my website, pdxreading.com, has lots of information, lots of free resources, and also has where I'll be speaking.

PA:

Awesome. Thank you, it's been a pleasure to speak with you. 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:

This has been an EDVIEW360 podcast. For additional thought-provoking discussions, sign up for our blog, webinar, and podcast series at voyagersopris.com/edview360. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts and to help other people like you find our show. Thank you.