Understanding the Implementation of the Science of Reading: Preschool Through Doctoral Level

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Dr. Amy Murdoch:

The most important thing you can do with your preschooler is talk to them, read to them, expand their world. So, provide them opportunities through books to explore things beyond their own community, to learn about their world, whether it be the planets in the sky or the plants on the ground. Really foster that love of having enjoyment with reading, and remember with preschoolers, the expectation is not that they are reading. The expectation is that they are hearing language, they are engaging in language, they are learning new things by somebody who loves them, reading to them and talking with them and listening to their ideas and expanding their ideas.

Narrator:

You just heard from Dr. Amy Murdoch, assistant dean of reading science in the School of Education at Mount St. Joseph University, 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 literacy expert and science of reading advocate, Dr. Amy Murdoch, who is the founding director of Mount St. Joseph Center for Reading Science. Under Dr. Murdoch's leadership, the Reading Science Graduate Program became one of the first programs in the nation to receive accreditation from the International Dyslexia Association® and began a reading science doctoral program. Dr. Murdoch also worked in Cincinnati Public Schools as a director of several large reading grants, including the Reading First Grant. Her research and service work has focused on helping schools and families implement research-based practices in reading instruction, intervention, family involvement, and assessment. Her current research work includes projects focusing on the early identification and support of children with dyslexia within an MTSS framework. Welcome, Dr. Murdoch.

AM:

Thank you so much, Pam. It's so wonderful to be with you.

PA:

Oh, my goodness, such a long list of accomplishments and your experience is amazing. I feel like we're going to learn so much from you today, thank you. First tell our listeners a bit about your experience as a reading consultant, supporting those at-risk readers, and what led you to create Mount St. Joseph Center for Reading Science.

AM:

Yes, so I began my career actually as a reading consultant and mental health consultant. I had a dual title which I think is always interesting to put reading and mental health together. As we know, they do go together. But yeah, my title was reading and mental health for Head Start many years ago. So, I got started working at Head Start Preschool, working with families and teachers to help support development in general, but a real focus on language and early reading acquisition. And then, from there I, as you mentioned, worked with Cincinnati Public Schools and I got to work on a number of different really fun grants that we worked with schools to change their reading instruction from core instruction all the way through intervention, so within an MTSS framework, and my focus has always been prevention and early intervention. So, I had a couple different roles within Cincinnati Public Schools preschool, kindergarten through third grade mainly.

And, as you mentioned, the final role I had in Cincinnati Public, and the biggest one and definitely a highlight of my career, was I had the honor of being the director of their Reading First Grant, which involved working with the highest poverty, lowest-performing 11 schools in that school district to really change how they do reading instruction. And then, from there, I had a career move where I worked for a regional resource center where I worked with districts. So, in those other roles, I worked more directly with children, so I did intervention as well as working with teachers around coaching and professional learning. Then, I worked with the Special Education Regional Resource Center in Ohio. That organization's role was really to help school districts more at a higher-level systems view than previously, where we really helped school districts think about their MTSS system for reading and how do we create systems of support for children, preschool again through third grade, that role did stretch me. I actually worked all the way up through high school and so that was a really wonderful opportunity as well.

And then. Mount St. Joseph was starting a reading science program and they were looking for a director of reading science, and so that was let's see, I've been at Mount St. Joseph now 16 years and I was hired to begin their, or create their, reading science graduate program, which was really a dream job because it was helping to train teachers in their graduate and undergraduate programs the science of reading from the beginning, because so often in my work before that, I came across teachers who had not been trained in the science of reading, and the things we were asking them to implement around evidence-based practices and core instruction and intervention were brand new, and so it really was a dream job to be able to think about. How do we prepare teachers early on at the undergraduate level and then also support people who are in the field and getting their graduate degree?

PA:

What a unique journey through the educational field. Always, it seems, your focus has been the whole child. I was thinking the whole kit and caboodle, not only the child but the family and the school. School, and then working with the teachers in undergrad. What a wonderful opportunity. I have to tell you, I would love to learn more about you, and I know our listeners do too. We know that Mount St. Joseph's is one of the first programs in the nation to receive that accreditation, as I mentioned before, from the International Dyslexia Association. That is quite an honor. With that in mind, what would you say are those critical aspects of literacy instruction for those learners with disabilities, regardless of their age? You worked with the really young kids and you talked about stretching to those 12th-graders as well. What is it they need?

AM:

Yeah, well, here's the really wonderful thing, the students who have disabilities need the same thing that all children need. It's just the level of intensity and the specification of instruction needs to make sure it hones in on their specific areas of concern, to make sure we're supporting them. But if we think more broadly about what do all children need in order to enter the world of reading successfully and then make sure they stay on that path of reading success, I think the International Dyslexia Association has done the field a great service by putting together the knowledge and practice standards which nicely outline what we need to make sure our teachers know in order to support reading education in our schools. So, those essential components of reading instruction, so phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, fluency, comprehension, all of those things that I bet your listeners know really well. So, both kind of the what we teach, but also how we integrate those essential components together within instruction. So, for example, we know that instruction that teaches phonics, phonological awareness, spelling, handwriting and fluency all together within an instructional routine is far more powerful than instruction that is siloed and that, “Oh, here's our phonemic awareness time and then we switch and here's our phonics time.” No, we know there's great power in integrating those components together. So it's not just, “Hey, am I teaching the essential components, but how is that integrated within my instruction to leverage the power of those components and how they work together?”

I think also thinking about making sure teachers have the understanding and tools to be able to do database decision-making, so really using assessments to guide instructional decision-making. Thinking about, within my core instruction, how do I differentiate that to make sure I'm meeting the needs of all learners. And then, crucially, for children who are struggling, how do I design intervention that's connected to my core instruction but provides chances to have more intensity, more practice opportunities, more explicit instruction to make sure that they're growing at the same rate that our students who don't have reading challenges are growing. So, it's kind of like the what of reading, what are the things I should be targeting, how those should be put together, how is my instructional delivery also impacted by the science of reading? So, we know a lot about effective instructional delivery.

Instruction needs to be explicit, systematic. We need to make sure we have error correction. We need to make sure we have lots of active student responses and appropriate practice opportunities based on the skill that we're working on. And then, finally, I know I'm kind of doing big buckets now the final big bucket I would say is how do we set up schools as a system to meet the needs of all children, because it's not that classroom teacher by herself or himself, it's really the whole school and how we're set up to meet the needs of students. How do our specialists push in and support instruction and intervention? How does our principal make sure that they are leading effective reading instruction and effective instruction in general? And how do our assessment systems set up to make sure everybody's on the same page, moving toward that same goal in supporting our children and bringing in their families and making sure they're supported as well?

PA:

At the beginning of your response, you began, Dr. Murdoch, with the idea of schools. Students enter school and we want them to be successful and we want to build up the success and quite often I've said this is the first place where kids are successful. And it lends me back to what you said before about your first position, when you were working with reading, but also mental health, and that can be a layer that helps support students' confidence in themselves. The whole idea of that integration what instruction should look like, what it should sound like we know all about that right now, and you focused in on some examples of what some of those things may be, listing an understanding of what that science of reading is, and you even mentioned the fact that you know what we have to hone in on where kids are. Is there an area of literacy where we find, when we are looking at our students, who are striving, who are at risk, where they may need more attention, or does that vary?

AM:

I think, when we're talking about our youngest students, so as they're entering the world of reading. We know from research the majority of children who struggle do struggle in the area of word-recognition concerns, so the decoding piece is tricky for them and they need more support. We know that's the biggest group of struggling readers, but there are absolutely also children who struggle with language comprehension. So, we can't forget those children and make sure that we also have supports in place for those children.

PA:

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. A few years ago, you started this doctoral program focused on the science of reading. Tell us a bit about this program and you gave us a little bit of inkling for why you started it. Give us a little more information, please.

AM:

Yeah. So, I think the biggest reason around the why and it's really the why for I think, my whole career and definitely the work at the center as well as the work in our graduate program the ability to read, we know, is crucial and it leads to happy, successful lives and all the good things that come with access to literacy. Yet, we have I mean, I actually get choked up when I say this sentence. We have devastatingly large numbers of children right, devastating, who are experiencing reading difficulty. And even more horrific to me is that there are significant gaps that exist along economic and racial lines. We know reading education is this crucial tool for closing that opportunity gap that exists in our nation, and the earlier we begin, the more possible change becomes. And, so, why we started the doctoral program and really all of our programs at Mount St. Joseph is we want to see this is going to sound grand, but we want to significantly change reading education. We want to create leaders and teachers and change makers who know the science, because there's no reason for the devastatingly large numbers of children that we see struggling. And it's such a changeable thing, right? It's something we as adults have control over. We can change instruction. We can't change economic realities, we can't change, sometimes, home situations and those things. But reading education, that is in our power, that is our work, that's our job. And, so, to me it's such a keystone behavior that we can focus on as adults that have wide reaching impacts.

And, so, our mission with starting the doctoral program specifically was we wanted to find those leaders in the schools doing the amazing work already and provide them more credentials. Having a doctorate, people listen to maybe a little bit differently. But also the knowledge, the skills, and the community of other amazing leaders that can truly impact the nation. Because it's not just the individual student who comes to our program that we're trying to impact. We're trying to create a network of amazing leaders and thinkers across our nation that can work together, can help each other.

I'm working in my community but I'm going to call up my colleague and say, “Hey, I don't know about this, but you do because you're in my network and I know this is your area of expertise.” So, I know it sounds a little grand, but that really is our mission. We talk about creating this leadership network so that we can impact social justice by changing the educational system and how we teach reading. We want to change higher education. We want to make sure teachers are trained correctly in the first place, and then we want to make sure that they're entering school systems and districts that support their continued development and understanding of the science. And keeping up with the science and just simply valuing science Like science is our way to understand how to improve our practices, and so that was really our big goal, and I'm happy to announce that our first group of 19 trailblazing doctoral students graduated in May. So, we have 19 new doctoral doctors out there in the world right now doing amazing, great things.

So, it's humbling to be part of this work because they are also amazing. I often think, “Gosh, am I? Am I smart enough to teach these people?” Because they are also amazing. But we all really make each other better by kind of understanding our different contexts and bringing our different areas of expertise together, and I have an amazing group of faculty members that I get to work with that I'm so privileged to be able to be part of this faculty.

PA:

I am just so excited to hear you share. To me, I think, about what you are doing is you are empowering the educator and then the educator will go and expand this knowledge and it will be shared, it will expand, and it will make an impact and it will change students’ lives. Thank you for all that you're doing.

AM:

Yes, thank you for your kind words.

PA:

We are huge fans of Dr. Anita Archer, author of REWARDS®, and we heard that you spent your summer co-teaching a doctoral class with her. Tell us about that.

AM:

Yes. So, Dr. Anita Archer is one of my reading idols and she has done so much for our field and I can't even put into words what an honor it was that she took an interest in our doctoral program. I mean, it was just one of those mind-blowing moments of my career where Dr. Archer wanted to be part of our program and wanted to be involved. So, she began last summer just coming to our summer institute. We had her as a keynote speaker, but she spent more time with our doctoral students, even after her talk with them and just really got to know our students and our program. And it was all the students, they just won her over and she wanted to be part of our faculty. She said how can I be more involved? And so we invited her, of course, again back for this past summer institute. So, each summer in our doctoral program, I should step back for a second.

Our doctoral program is fully online during the school year because we do have people all over the country in our program. We have live meetings, but they do not come together during the school year, but in the summer, we have this really special time together. We have a week-long summer institute and they all come on campus and they stay in the dorms. And these are all adults, these are all people between the ages of 30 and like 60. So, they relive their college days and they come on campus, they stay in the dorms and it's a really intense week-long of learning, but we do have fun together. Actually, Anita Archer, she emailed me recently and said I want to know the Summer Institute dates for next year because I want to know when I have to come to be the camp counselor. So, we jokingly and lovingly call it kind of reading science camp for nerds. One of our doctoral students called it that and it caught on.

So, Anita wanted to come again and she said I also want to do more. So, what else can I do? And I said timidly I said would you like to co-teach a class with me? And to my delight and surprise and a little bit my nervousness, she said, “Yes, I'd love to do that, Amy.” What can I do? And so she and I co-taught a class.

That was over the first part of summer, so over May, and then the class culminated with the Summer Institute coming together and that class it's a two-part class and this is the first part of it, where we focus on getting our students ready for teaching in higher ed and, as part of that, also build their presentation skills and think about effective professional development, effective leadership, effective communication skills, and how to think about explicit and active participation within a higher ed setting.
So who better than Anita Archer to talk with us about how to do engaging lectures and engaging presentations? So, she co-taught with me across the seven weeks before the Summer Institute and then at the Summer Institute she spent the whole week with us teaching, listening, engaging, just being part of our group, and, as you can imagine, it was a huge highlight for our students and all of our faculty. We've been very blessed by her presence and her attention. You know there's something about Anita when you're talking with her. I don't think I've ever met a person who so fully gives you her attention and when you are talking with her it's like you are the most important person in the world, and she does that with everyone, right? And so, what a gift to give to doctoral students that they get this. And she wanted special time with each of them to make sure she could connect with them, hear about their research interests. She loves talking about their dissertations and gives them great ideas and advice. So, yes, we are fortunate to count her now as part of our faculty.

PA:

Awesome, all of the attributes you listed for that class. You were focusing on creating effective leaders. Dr. Archer is the epitome of it all. So, I know that this is indeed a blessing for your summer program, your Summer Institute. Thank you so much for sharing.

AM:

Yeah, and, if I could just add, we have actually been very fortunate.

I mean, Anita has been the most involved with our program, but we have been so fortunate to have a number of amazing reading experts connect with us to review early syllabi and talk with me and give me advice and support.

So, that's one of the lovely things I think about our reading science community is those who are at the top, if you will. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but those who we all look up to, are so invested in this work. It's not about them, it's about the work and they want to pull everybody else up and it's like it's their legacy. And so I've just been just so amazed and touched by the kind of the level of support that we've gotten from lots of wonderful experts in the field. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan came the summer before and spent some time with us. Dr. Julie Washington did. So, we're just so, so lucky to have a lot of great support for our program because we all want more leaders in the science of reading that help us move our country forward.

PA:

Well, in the end, all of these wonderful literacy leaders, these researchers who've been out there, they want what you want, Dr. Murdoch, to expand this knowledge. So, they don't want to have it hidden under a bushel. And it's so wonderful to hear that you've had these connections and that we're building, because it's going to make a difference in the schools, it's going to make a difference with teachers. As you continue to expand and expand that knowledge, it will grow wide and very far. 

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PA:

Let's take a little shift right now. So, let's talk about the implementation of the science of reading. I know our listeners will be very interested in knowing that. Is this a new concept for preschoolers? You mentioned working with Head Start, our youngest learners, we're thinking about right now. What are the important components of early reading instruction that should be part of a good preschool program?

AM:

Yeah, so, this is my absolute favorite topic, Pam. So, thank you for talking about this. No, it's not new, just as it is not new in elementary school. We know. We have decades of research, decades and decades of research on the science of reading, and we do for our earliest learners as well. In 2007, the National Early Literacy Panel put together a report that didn't get as much press as the National Reading Panel. So, as your listeners I'm sure know, the National Reading Panel focused on elementary school reading. Super important report. We're so glad it was done and it impacted our field in a profound way. For sure.

Not as many people know that there was also a National Early Literacy Panel that was done a number of years after the National Reading Panel and basically it was a follow-up to that or a companion to that and it said what about before school entry? What about that birth to age 5 range? And really most of the research that was reviewed in the National Early Literacy Panel did focus on preschool for obvious reasons, and they were reviewing research, like the National Reading Panel, from a number of decades previously, through the current time, and they did come up with kind of the essential components of early reading preschool instruction and then just recently or not too long ago I think it was 2021, there was an IES guide. So, the Institute for Educational Sciences, they have these lovely guides where they put together all the research in a nice way to let us know kind of what is the research saying about an area. There was an IES guide around preschool and they very much confirmed the findings from the actual early literacy panel as well as had some additional kind of nuances and understandings from the research since 2007 to 2021.

And what we know for preschool. So, first of all, it's not new. We do have research to guide us, but we don't have as many resources in preschool. We don't have as many instructional programs or interventions in preschool. We have some but we don't have as many. We need more because it's such an important time.

We know reading is a language-based skill and the No. 1 most important thing to do in preschool is to focus on language comprehension skills, listening comprehension, oral language, those are the real, you know, powerhouse skills to work on in preschool. So, preschoolers really should have if you want to think of percentages like 95% of their day really focus on those language-kind of skills. And then, we absolutely also want to teach children about letters and sounds and how to form letters and beginning writing skills. Not that we're having preschoolers write and read. That's one of my worries.

The goal of preschool isn't to read and decode books at the end of preschool. That's the work of kindergarten. The work of preschool is to get that foundation as solid as possible. So, oral language, listening, comprehension, reading books, talking about books, language play where we're working on having fun with language but also building those dynamic awareness skills, building their knowledge of the world. So, they have interesting things to know about and to talk about and we wanna do this.

The science of reading tells us for preschool these are all super important things and it tells us we want to do this in a way that is fun and developmentally appropriate for certain, but also is intentional and is explicit and systematic. So, I always say when I talk to preschool teachers, the child should feel like we are just having fun and school is the most wonderful place to be. I'm loved and I get to do wonderful activities. It is the most wonderful place to be. But as a teacher you should have a clear, intentional plan, just like a first grade teacher would, and that I want to take these students through some clear activities that are good for them and that will build those language and early literacy skills that will deliver them to kindergarten ready for formal reading instruction, where we work on decoding and spelling and reading fluency and all of those kinds of things.

I worry a little bit right now with some of the focus that people maybe are misunderstanding the science of reading, that it's really kindergarten pushed down to preschool and it's really not. And those lovely language experiences should continue into kindergarten. We're not done with those. Those continue all the way through. We know the science of reading also focuses on oral language, listening, comprehension all the way through elementary school. But in preschool that's the powerhouse. Let's really focus on building knowledge, building language, building the listening comprehension house.

PA:

You've made it very clear. You focused on what the expectations are for preschool and the use of oral language. That language comprehension, that play with words, and that purposeful opportunity to have fun with language is that focus of preschool and all of that. Could we say that it's preparing the brain for that next step, when they get to instruction in kindergarten? So, we're not taking kindergarten skills and adding them to preschool. We are really preparing students with those powerhouse skills and strategies. Can you name them again for us one more time, Dr. Murdoch?

AM:

Yeah, so I'd say listening, comprehension, oral language skills, definitely, phonemic awareness in the concert of language play and connected to letter sounds and learning letter names and early writing skills in terms of like formation of letters. And again, doing these things in concert together are going to make them more effective and more powerful. So, if I'm teaching the name of the letter A, I can also teach them how to form the letter A and work on handwriting skills and thinking about the integration of skills is crucial in preschool, just like it is in the upper grades.

PA:

Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think our listeners will appreciate hearing that distinction as well. What can elementary school staff do as an outreach to our local preschools, because not every elementary school has a preschool program and maybe there are some preschool programs surrounding their community or their neighborhood. How can we get them engaged in that early literacy?

AM:

Yeah, that's a wonderful question as well. I think one of the things and I've had some success with this, with a few of our partner schools, is to educate the principal about the power of preschool. A lot of time, our elementary school principals, a lot of them, aren't necessarily early childhood people. Some of them are, for sure, but a lot of them aren't, at least in my experience and particularly below kindergarten they don't have a lot of knowledge. No fault of their own. That just wasn't part of their training or their exposure. So, I first of all would encourage listeners to reach out to that principal and help them understand the power of a strong preschool program, with bringing children into kindergarten ready for kindergarten, because we know a lot of kindergartners come into kindergarten well below benchmark, well below where we hope they will be, and that makes the job of the kindergarten teacher much harder, which makes the job of the first grade teacher much harder, and so forth. So, I think, starting with the principal and educating the principal or instructional team about just the power of preschool, so that they will want to reach out to those preschool directors or preschool teachers and thinking about how can we include them maybe in professional learning. I've had a couple of partner schools where they've done that, where they've invited their preschool partners to come to the elementary school professional development around the science of reading, because we need to know kind of what we're preparing our students for. So, preschool teachers do need to understand what happens in K–3 and vice versa. Those elementary teachers do need to understand what our preschool teachers can do with those foundations. So, including them in professional development can be very powerful. I also think sharing data can be very helpful and powerful.

A lot of times, preschools don't have strong assessment systems. They do more informal systems and sometimes those are very important and can have a place. But preschool also needs to have some database, decision-making, and problem solving tools to help them again prevent a small problem from becoming a big problem. The earlier we can understand needs and take care of those needs. It's so much easier to have a successful school career versus waiting and seeing if it's going to compound into a really serious problem in second or third grade.

We want to understand a concern right away. So, helping our preschools understand the power of universal screening and there's not a ton of great universal screeners out there, but the one I like is PELI, which is an Acadience® product which the schools I've worked with where they've included preschool. If the school's using Acadience and then the preschool's using PELI, which is also an Acadience assessment system tool, really wonderful conversations can happen because the kindergarten teachers they often aren't familiar with PELI assessment data but it speaks their language. If they know Acadience for kindergarten, they can understand Acadience for preschool, and that's a really nice similar set of data that people can understand and then we can say, “Oh gosh, look, there's an area of great strength here. This will really help our incoming kindergarten.”

PA:

Thank you so much. That will definitely be helpful If we could take a look at the connections, see what those expectations are and work together. That collaboration is so important between educators. Again, that word empower comes to mind when I think about that. Yeah, you know, you've listed all types of instruction that should be included in the science of reading. You mentioned phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, the writing, the vocabulary, fluency, all of those things. But you also used the word integration. Can you give us an example of what that integration might look like, because we do teach those in silos quite often, and I think I heard that this was a powerhouse when we integrate all of these literacy skills. Can you give us an idea, some example of what that might look like, what that might sound like, in the classroom?

AM:

Yeah, I can point to the easiest place and then I can tell you about a need I see. I think the easiest place to point to where I think our materials are helping us is in the area of word recognition. So, I think we have some nice options for word recognition that do a nice job of teaching phonics and spelling with handwriting and phonemic awareness, and then have a decodable text fluency piece connected to it. That's really integrating all of those kinds of pieces of word recognition that help all of them develop and work better. So, I feel like as a field we're doing a decent job in the area of word recognition. Not that we can't always do better, for sure, I do see needs there sometimes too. But I think the area that I hope we can see more work in is in the area of language comprehension and particularly the area of writing and comprehension and the integration of those two. So, just like spelling and phonics are kind of two sides of the same coin, same thing with comprehension and writing. And what I see in schools and what I hear from teachers is they're really hungry for some good writing instructional programs that are integrated, that aren't the separate, because we do have some nice separate writing pieces, but then when we try to integrate it it gets a little clunky and we make it hard on teachers. I think we're making it hard on teachers right now in terms of trying to integrate these things, because I think people have gotten the word that integration is key but then they say, “OK, Amy, that's great, but here's the seven programs I have,” right? So, how does this all fit in together and also fit into this amount of time, because I also have to teach math and social studies and science. So, I think that's an area of need right now.

We had a project through a federal OSEP grant Office of Special Education Programs where we were helping a school and it was a lovely school to work with.

We continue to work with them, but we were helping them kind of build their whole MTSS system and that was the biggest puzzle to solve with how do we get writing, vocabulary, comprehension all done in a nice integrated fashion within the timeframe that we need? And we did. We ended up pulling a couple different programs and integrating them together, which worked really nicely and they're getting some great results with that. But I do think often gosh, we make it hard for teachers and I'm hopeful that maybe some additional curriculum work can come along that will help really do the integration and even more powerful. Let's integrate language comprehension and those word-recognition pieces as well, because I think there's some crossover that can happen and be really effective. So, I'm hopeful that we're on a road to see even more things that can do that, because I do think that is a tricky piece for a teacher or a school to figure out on their own.

PA:

All right, so really good so far at that word recognition where the words we read are the words we write and spell. But we need to focus on that language comprehension where quite often, maybe responding to text that we read in the way so that we are comprehending or showing that comprehension. That is wonderful. If we had more programs like that, I think that would be helpful for teachers. It's a big job out there, but integration is that powerhouse that we talked about before. I want to ask you what advice would you give to beginning teachers of reading, those in their first years in the classroom, when it comes to this implementation of the science of reading? They hear science of reading. We don't want to make them nervous. We don't want to make them fearful of it. What advice can we give them so that they can be comfortable learning about the science of reading, what it entails?

AM:

Yeah, that's a great question because it is overwhelming for a new teacher. It's overwhelming when you're a new teacher anyway, and then right now, I feel like there is a lot of information coming at teachers. I think a couple pieces of advice. The first piece of advice I would give is find a mentor, find a trusted resource that's both positive and knowledgeable who can help you, because teaching can be very isolating or it can be very collaborative. I've seen both and I think with our young teachers, I want them to find their community and I want them to find a collaboration, adopt a model of practice that invites others to support you and to give you ideas to build your practice, especially when you're new. Don't be afraid to say I'm not sure about this. Can I run some ideas by you and find those trusted, knowledgeable people to support you?

I think right now, with the science of reading, we're very fortunate that we do have some wonderful organizations that we can turn to get some trusted, you know, professional learning pieces or web resources. International Dyslexia Association, as we've already mentioned, is a wonderful one. The Reading League is a wonderful one that has lots of great resources for new teachers to help fill gaps that they may have had from their teacher preparation program. I love Reading Rockets. That's another great one that has lots of great information and classroom examples. So, that's a big thing is find some community, get the support. Don't be worried about saying I don't know this and I need support. Welcome that in your practice. I know it's intimidating and not an easy thing to do because you're supposed to be the knowledgeable teacher at the head of the class. But you know, find those collaborators to support and help you grow.

PA:

So, be open and ready to learn. We don't know everything. I know that I always learn. And just a little tidbit. I was at a conference once with Dr. Louisa Moats and I was just sitting down taking a break and she got up because it was time to go to a session and she said I'm going to learn. And I looked at Dr. Moats and went, “Whoa, yes, there's always something to learn.” So true. Thank you so much for sharing that. And the core is the heart. We need to remember that. All right, Lastly, let's talk about parent engagement. Is it reasonable at the preschool level to expect parents to become invested in literacy learning? You talked about the expectations for our students. How can they get involved with helping their kids be prepared for kindergarten and their whole career in school, because it is a career, isn't it? Perhaps use decodables or other resources? What would you suggest?

AM:

Yeah. So, I think that's a great question as well, and I always say those preschool parents especially if it's like their first child, right? They're also just beginning their school career as a parent, and so it's also our chance as schools to welcome parents to be partners in education. And I think how we do that has to be thoughtful about what that parent's context is and their availability. Some parents work full time, some parents struggle with reading themselves, and so I think as a school, thinking about how can we welcome parents in, we really have to understand context and support them and just be so happy to have them come to school and partner with us and really try to encourage that and thinking of ways we can do that. And I think that starts with understanding our parents' context. So, not asking parents to do something that they themselves struggle with or don't feel comfortable with or don't value sometimes.

You sometimes, depending on what the activity is, I would say, if I was talking to parents generally, the most important thing you can do with your preschooler is talk to them, read to them, expand their world. So, provide them opportunities through books to explore things beyond their own community, to learn about their world, whether it be the planets in the sky or the plants on the ground. Really foster that love of having enjoyment with reading, and remember with preschoolers, the expectation is not that they are reading. The expectation is that they are hearing language, they are engaging in language, they are learning new things by somebody who loves them, reading to them and talking with them and listening to their ideas and expanding their ideas. So, really approaching it as a chance to connect with your child around language and learning and not, I think sometimes, especially those of us who are maybe in education and want our children to have all the opportunities, right? We get worried about, “Do they have what they need?” And those kinds of things and sometimes we unintentionally push maybe a little too hard and just remembering that preschool is the time to build those language skills, build those listening, comprehension skills, and that is done through building their knowledge, building their vocabulary, listening to them and helping them expand their own language. So, they say book and you say, “Oh, do you want a book? Oh, I see you want that book, let's get you that book. Here's the book.” Really talking about how to expand language and have fun with it.

And I would say stay away from decodables with preschoolers, because with you reading a decodable to them, it's pretty simple, non-engaging reading, and we wouldn't necessarily want them to be able to decode a decodable yet. Are there some preschoolers who can, for sure? So, this is not saying that's a horrible practice, and never do that. I'm just saying the No. ! powerhouse for preschool is oral language, listening, comprehension, building their knowledge, building their engagement with learning and their love of learning and books, hopefully, is what we're trying to promote, so that they have that solid foundation when they enter kindergarten.

PA:

All right. So, in Dr. Archer terms, if I would say examples, I would say talk, read, explore language, and listening. Non-examples for pre-K the quotables we're not going to use those right now. It's all about that language. I really love the idea of talk, read, and explore. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us today, Dr. Murdoch, and for sharing your unique expertise with our audience. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. Where can our listeners learn more about your program at Mount St. Joseph?

AM:

Yeah, thank you so much. Well, first of all, I've just really enjoyed our time together. Thank you so much, Pam. You make it easy to answer questions and to talk with you and your listeners. We have a couple websites. First of all, our Mount St. Joseph Reading Science Program website is just msj.edu/reading-science. And then our Center for Reading Science is readingscience.org.

On that center web page, we have three areas that may be of interest to your listeners, depending on their work. Our first is our preschool area. We have an open-source preschool curriculum, so everything is free, based on the science of reading. It was created by myself and two of my colleagues, Dr. Maria Aielli and Ms. Rosie Warburg. And then we also have a section around K–12 reading, which has lots of free resources as well. And then, finally, we have an area around higher education, which the goal of that area is to support those who are in higher education using the science of reading in their teacher-preparation or graduate program courses. So, we have a whole community around that as well. So, if those are of interest to you, you can check it out, and everything is free, and our hope is to just push out more great things that help our teachers and educational community.

PA: 

Thank you for sharing those resources. This is Pam Austin, bringing the best thought leaders in education directly to you. Please join us next month for another great EDVIEW360 podcast.

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