Teaching Struggling Learners How to Read | Sara Osborne

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Sara Osborne, the author of Reading for the Long Run: Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life and Assistant Professor of English and Director of Classical Education at College of the Ozarks in Missouri. They examine the claims that classical education is elitist and explore how classical schools can position themselves to challenge that perception. Sara shares her journey teaching her children how to read and some of the challenges that come with meeting different students’ needs. They dive into anecdotes and insights from her book, including the importance of viewing literacy as an individual journey. 

Transcript

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:01.032)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Schwab, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we are joined by Sarah Osborne. Sarah Osborne is the author of Reading for the Long Run, Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life. And she currently serves as assistant professor of English and director of classical education at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, where she has taught for nearly 13 years. She's the mother of four classically educated children.

Sara Osborne (00:11.226)
So, that's what I was thinking.

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:30.278)
one of them now a freshman at Covenant College and three who currently attend School of the Ozarks, K-12 school. Prior to her current post, Sarah taught ESL at the University of Louisville and launched the ESL program at the University of the Cumberlands. Alongside her husband Rusty, Sarah has lived and adventured with her family on three continents where they have served as missionaries engaged in theological education. When she isn't teaching,

Sara Osborne (00:33.262)
And think it's a true story. And I think a true story. And I think it's story. And true And I think it's true I think it's a And And I a a And I And think story. And And I a true And it's And true And true story. And

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:55.858)
In the classroom or at home, Sarah enjoys writing for a variety of venues on topics such as classical education, theological reflections on literature, nature, and travel. And we're so delighted to have her on the podcast today. Sarah, welcome.

Sara Osborne (01:08.974)
Thank you so much, Soren.

Soren Schwab - CLT (01:12.02)
We always start the Anchored podcast by talking about our guests own educational journey. So talk to us a little bit about your own education K-12.

Sara Osborne (01:21.184)
Yeah, so it's a little bit of a unique story. I am the youngest of three children and a bit of a surprise to my parents actually, as some others probably were. I have one of those myself. But because of when I came along in my parents' lives, my dad was already a college president when I was born. So I spent my entire childhood and educational years as the daughter.

of someone leading in higher education. And at the time of my birth, he was the president at a small Christian work college in Eastern Kentucky. It was a very isolated rural mountainous region and the school systems were terrible, such that it was difficult to get faculty to come and teach at the college.

When I was in kindergarten or kindergarten age, my dad actually started a private K-12 school on the college campus for the purpose of offering a better educational option for his children. Interestingly, it started with the grades of his three children. My brother was in the first graduating class, but also for faculty and staff who really just were out of options at that time.

I don't think at the time homeschooling was really something that my parents or others were doing there or even maybe knew that that was an option. So this was really an alternative to a failing public school system that was ranking probably at the rock bottom of national standards in that area. When I was eight years old, we moved to Point Lookout, Missouri, where he became the president at College of the Ozarks.

where interestingly that is now where my husband and I work. I left after high school, never really saw myself coming back to the area and the Lord had other plans. But here I attended public schools. But I would say that because I was living on a college campus in the liberal arts tradition, my K-12 education was pretty uniquely different to most of my peers.

Sara Osborne (03:38.742)
I was surrounded by the arts, internationally acclaimed speakers. I was meeting a lot of interesting people and donors. I was just surrounded by a very enriching educational context. My father also has a PhD in the sciences and my mom leaned more towards the humanities, was an English major. So I also feel like they were just striving for sort of

a well-rounded education is the phrase I heard a lot growing up. And then another facet I think that's interesting about my K-12 experience is that even though my dad was the president of colleges that were in the liberal arts tradition, they were all what we call work colleges. So the students work for their education. The schools are funded through donors.

And so there was very much an attitude of this partnership between the head, heart, and hands. So even though I never heard the words classical education growing up, my education was not virtuous. And it was not without an attitude towards service of others. So I think those are really formative elements looking back on sort of how I viewed the education of my own children.

even though I did attend public schools from third through 12th grade. Just having sort of the impact of both the liberal arts tradition and the aim of cultivating character and serving others through what I was learning and through what the students around me were learning. And as a child, I had amazing experiences like...

traveling with college groups overseas, I think beginning when I was 10 or 11 years old. actually, even my high school graduation took place in the lobby of a hotel in Italy, because my parents were supposed to be chaperones of a college trip, and they knew it was my high school graduation date. And so lovingly, they offered to stay here, if that's what I wanted, or they would take me with them.

Sara Osborne (05:59.104)
And I sort of looked at them and it took me about five seconds to answer that question. But then I later discovered that they had tucked away my gown and cords and diploma. And there was a brass band that was part of the choir tour and they were playing, you know, pomp and circumstance when I came through the hotel lobby and my dad presented me with my high school diploma. So, I mean, who would trade that, right?

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:02.458)
I was gonna say,

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:26.238)
Fascinating. Yeah, that might be a first. I have not heard that story. So you mentioned, you talked about being surrounded by the arts. You talked about being well-rounded. You used the term liberal arts. All things that I think when people are trying to explain classical education to others without.

Sara Osborne (06:31.754)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (06:43.212)
Thank you.

Sara Osborne (06:49.848)
Sure.

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:50.014)
getting too detailed in the exact definition, which there's arguments about that. I'm sure you've heard many of them. And so maybe in terms of the terminology, you did not, quote unquote, receive a classical education. But it certainly seems like it was not that much different from what now most people would consider that. Is there a time that you can point to where you first kind of heard the term classical education or?

Sara Osborne (06:55.19)
Right. Yes.

Sara Osborne (07:04.866)
It's good.

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:17.619)
this is a distinctly classical school.

Sara Osborne (07:20.758)
Sure. It was not until I was a parent of my own children, actually. So I have four children. And when my oldest was about four years old, she was a fairly precocious child. And I was losing my mind trying to keep her attention and give her things to keep her fast mind moving. And so I just started doing what I do, which is just researching things.

my family members and friends would chuckle at that because I usually have, you know, sort of a 10 point defense for any decision that I'm making. So I was looking for, you know, what's the best way to go about this? I have no idea. This is my first child. And so I just explored different pedagogical practices, different philosophies of education and came across Susan Wise Bauer's book, The Well-Trained Mind.

And at the time, I think that was sort of one of the first books that sort of broke into homeschooling classically. And everything about it just made sense to me. I love to tell people that I didn't come into classical education because someone sold it to me under that title. I embraced it because it made sense of everything I already knew to be true about what it means to teach and to learn. And so as I was reading,

And, you know, putting those things into practice with my own child, it just made so much sense. It brought a lot of joy. It gave purpose and direction. And we sort of just used a hodgepodge of curricula, as many parents do, or certainly at the time did before we had a lot of classical publishers, you know, offering more sort of whole packages. But so I taught her to read at age four.

using the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. And then my second daughter, I also followed in the same vein. My oldest ended up going to a classical university model school for a year. And then we went back to homeschooling for a couple years after moving locations before School of the Ozarks opened.

Soren Schwab - CLT (09:36.36)
That's fascinating. And we're going to talk about the other three kids as well, especially I think your youngest. But yes, we hear that a lot. In fact, our vice president of operations, Kimberly Farley, she homeschooled all the way through K-12, all three of them. And it didn't look the same because the kids are not the same, right? And so.

Sara Osborne (09:41.432)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (09:56.183)
Yeah, absolutely. Right.

Soren Schwab - CLT (09:59.708)
is certainly and classical education is not a monolith and this is the one way the one way you're gonna you're gonna do it but sometimes the perception is kind of that classical education is not for everyone and that it's potentially even elitist and really only for You know the suburban middle upper middle class families. then you talk to homeschool families many of them sacrificing a lot You know going down to one income to provide this kind of education doesn't seem

Sara Osborne (10:25.452)
Mm-hmm.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:28.818)
the leadest from the outside. So have you heard that as well about classical education? And if so, what can we do to change that perception, especially as it's gaining momentum, you know, with a lot of the school choice legislation and just classical education being more of a brand name?

Sara Osborne (10:32.214)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (10:40.288)
Yeah, absolutely. Now that's a great question. My short answer to the question is classical education elitist is no. But I would add the caveat that perhaps some classical schools are. I think we have to sort of.

engage in an honest assessment. Certainly, as you'll hear soon when we talk about my book, we wrestled with that as parents of a child who didn't seem to fit sort of the mode of teaching and learning that was happening in our school. And while homeschooling, you see such a variety of students and you tailor everything to one particular student.

we may see less of that perception with classical homeschooling families. But I think maybe unintentionally even in the early days of the classical renewal, we saw more of this sort of elitist mentality. And I say unintentional because I think, as you know, many of these schools started in church basements. They're small. Their resources are small. Their teaching staff is small.

They don't have extra resources, both financially and staff-wise, to deal with some of the problems that we maybe all knew were coming, but early on, you were tackling the big things first, right? So I do think that we've seen a lot of change.

in the perception of classical schooling as being elitist. Certainly we now have classical schools operating in urban centers, scholarship-based, need-based. We have creative models. We even have schools that are exclusively tailored to students with special needs being educated classically. I think we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Cheryl Swoap.

Sara Osborne (12:52.664)
who is the author of Simply Classical, who really paved the way, I think, for not just thinking financially about how not to be elitist as schools, but thinking just in terms of the kinds of student needs that we can meet, and maybe even the kinds of student needs that we should be meeting, or the kinds of students we should be including. So I do not think that there's anything inherent to classical education that is elitist. In fact, I...

I make the argument both in my book and in several other places that I've written, including recently the latest issue of Forma with Searcy. I basically make the argument that not only is logo-centric learning possible for students who have these special needs, especially in the area of reading, but it's actually the means by which we lead them into their cultural and spiritual inheritance.

And who doesn't want to do that, right? So I think that vision is being cast bigger and bigger and we're seeing more and more schools make it a priority, which I think is going a long way to combat that perception of elitism.

Soren Schwab - CLT (13:48.926)
All

Soren Schwab - CLT (13:56.564)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:00.56)
For sure. And for our listeners, we did have Cheryl Spope on the podcast, think a year, a couple of years ago. So go back and look for that. What an inspiring story and just really a heart for students with special needs, which you do too. And I want to talk about that. And I remember a conversation I had with a parent, was probably a year ago. And I asked her, where do you kids go to school? And she said, this kid goes to this classical school and this classical school.

Sara Osborne (14:07.53)
Absolutely, yes.

Sara Osborne (14:14.296)
Thank you.

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:28.924)
And then this kid goes to the public school and then the fourth one goes to the classical school. And I asked, you know, what was the reason? He said, well, you know, the third kid is special needs. And so it wasn't it wasn't a fit for our classical school. And that kind of broke my heart a little bit. Right. And those are obviously students that are just as deserving of a classical education as everyone else. But like you said, right, like in the early days of this movement and maybe we're now in the third generation of classical schools. I mean, there's some debate over that. They are small. They're

Sara Osborne (14:33.998)
Mm.

Sara Osborne (14:38.03)
Thanks.

Sara Osborne (14:43.425)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (14:55.659)
Okay.

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:58.534)
limited resources, but for a lot of them that's no longer the case, right? And we're kind of growing up putting the big boy pants on and I mentioned earlier with some of the school choice legislation, the education savings dollars, right? So if we want to be ready to serve all students, if classical education is for all, then it has to be for our students with special needs as well. And so your book, Reading for the Long Run, Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life addresses that and it's partly

Sara Osborne (15:02.552)
Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sara Osborne (15:08.885)
Absolutely.

Soren Schwab - CLT (15:28.34)
Biographical, autobiographical, right? You're talking about your own kiddos, so I don't mind asking you about that. But talk to us a little bit about kind of your own life, raising of your kiddos, and what prompted you to write the book.

Sara Osborne (15:30.722)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (15:35.382)
Yeah, sure.

Sara Osborne (15:44.974)
Yeah, so the short answer to that is this is the book I wrote to me at the starting line. My first two daughters, I mentioned I taught to read using Susan Weiss-Bauer's Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. They took off with lightning speed. It was as if just one day a switch flipped, you know, and all of a sudden the building blocks of language were available for the task of reading.

My third child was very different. He had eye surgery at one year old. He had another one a few years later. He had a lot of eye patching, visual therapy. He did not love sitting in my lap and reading stories. His attention was different. And we obviously that those things happened early enough on in his life that we had our eye on them. No pun intended.

as we were moving towards his schooling years. And so we just sort of never had enough red flags to feel like he couldn't sort of proceed like our other children had with kindergarten and then onward. But everything about the experience, it was like the whole thing was just stamped different.

and we were just really struggling. We didn't know why it was different. We didn't know what the exact problem was. All we knew was that things weren't happening that we thought were supposed to happen. It was a really, really difficult time as a parent. It was difficult emotionally. I was frustrated intellectually that I didn't have answers, frustrated by the lack of insight even from professionals.

that there wasn't some particular diagnosis or, you know, strategy that was just going to fix everything. And it just became clear throughout that process that his journey was going to be a marathon. And so the title of the book, Reading for the Long Run, is playing on a metaphor there of training for a long distance race. And in God's kind providence, he took

Sara Osborne (18:04.27)
something that had become sort of an old friend, a means of stress relief and just a means for me to endure a lot of other hard things in life, my running life, and helped me make sense of my son's journey through just seeing connections right and left between the kinds of practices that were going to be necessary for us to pursue the same end goals that we had for our other children.

And I like that you mentioned that there are families that have, you know, the three children who go to the classical school and then there's the one who doesn't. I saw this happen over and over. I saw it happen even at our own school. I saw families leave and it was because of the reading challenges in particular.

And I think that's for obvious reasons. You know, our classical Christian schools are logo centric. They're great books oriented. Reading is fundamental. And so naturally, as our child struggled with that, the questions loomed of can we even do this? Is this a feudal endeavor? Are we just trying to make this child like the other ones? Are we just trying to keep him at the same grade as his peers? Are we just

doing this for selfish reasons because this is the kind of education that we love. And the answers weren't always clear just right away. There was a lot of soul searching, a lot of wrestling. But I can say with no hesitation now looking back that I have zero regrets about pursuing a classical education for my son. His journey has looked so different than his siblings.

It has looked so different from his peers. It has required an intense amount of commitment and time from us as parents. So for six and a half years, I went to the school four days a week and took on the role of teaching reading to him. I think one of the beautiful things about classical Christian schools is the partnership with parents.

Sara Osborne (20:15.214)
And it is true that I don't work full time so that I could do that. So, you you mentioned that earlier as well. And I know that that may not be an option for some parents, but the parent teacher or parent school partnership just offers so many creative opportunities to address special needs in the classical school. I'll also say that while initially

I think my mentality was I want my child to have what everyone else is getting. You the focus was on I want him to receive the fruits of this type of education. It didn't take that many years before the Lord really showed me that in many ways he has become our teacher. My son has become our teacher. And I think my perspective has changed from we need to

give this kind of education to students with special needs too, to our schools actually need these kind of students in the school community for the sake of the other students and teachers. We like to talk about how the aim of classical education is to cultivate wisdom and virtue. It's very difficult to cultivate virtue in a community of sameness.

We're not pressed towards learning patience and compassion and empathy. We miss out on pictures of courage and tenacity and humility. So I think that, first of all, let me just say I didn't come to any of these lessons willingly.

Soren Schwab - CLT (22:01.436)
I'm sure.

Sara Osborne (22:02.55)
Yeah, so this is certainly not to say, you know, we just came in with this wonderful perspective and isn't it great? This is the hardest, probably the hardest experience I've ever gone through in my life is leading my son through this. I just can look, I can look back now with enough perspective to call out to other parents and teachers and administrators and truly believe that not only is classical education good,

for students with particular learning challenges that make a classroom experience difficult. But it's actually fundamentally good for the whole school. Teachers, administrators, and all. So that was sort of a lengthy answer to your question.

Soren Schwab - CLT (22:45.426)
Yeah. it's I love it. And there's so much to unpack, but you're unpacking it all in the book. So obviously I want all of our listeners to to buy the book. Was it published by the Searcy Institute? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, we'll put it in the we'll put it in the show notes for sure. And I'm sure some of these, like you said, these realizations probably took a few long runs, not just not just not just one or two. And I'm

Sara Osborne (22:52.024)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (22:57.482)
It was, yeah, in 2023. Yeah, you can, you can find it on their website and their store.

Sara Osborne (23:10.123)
yeah. Absolutely.

Soren Schwab - CLT (23:14.088)
kind of training for I have marathon right now. And I say kind of, it is not my favorite, but there's something that it teaches you, right? Was there...

Sara Osborne (23:16.781)
Yes.

Sara Osborne (23:20.142)
Yeah, absolutely.

Soren Schwab - CLT (23:26.888)
Was there a moment, and I'm not saying that the marathon is finished, right? It's probably still an ongoing journey. But was there, is there a moment that you can point to in your son's reading journey that you can say, wow, I think we've come such a long way, or, you know, this is all worth it.

Sara Osborne (23:31.532)
Yeah, no, you're right.

Sara Osborne (23:44.61)
Yeah.

Yes, and God's kindness, he has given us a few of those. And you don't have to worry about asking that question because they are burned in my mind. And one in particular that I mentioned at the close of the book is sitting in the office. You come to realize through the course of the book that there is a particular doctor, he's actually an optometrist, but he specializes in helping children with learning challenges.

who really became not just a doctor, a professional, not even just a mentor, but truly a friend. And I can remember sitting in his office, this was several years ago now, but we were just there for sort of a six month checkup. And every time we would go, he would put a short reading passage on a little stick and hold it in front while he's looking at my son's eyes and have him read it.

And you know, over time, the difficulty would increase and he would tell me what grade level he was holding up for my son to read. there was one particular visit where I just sat in the room with my eyes closed and listened. And it was just like hearing music. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard as he just read fluidly through this short few sentence passage. And I think maybe to help

listeners understand the gravity of that moment. There were months and even years of flipping through phonogram cards where one day it would be there and the next day it just wouldn't. And I had no explanation as to why the difference. And you know there were things that we labored at just for years, you know, and the speed was so, so, so slow. So to get to a point where I could hear that

Sara Osborne (25:44.928)
and just sit in gratitude. It just felt like a miracle and certainly an answer to prayer. Another one that comes to mind actually happened just this past week. My son is 14 now. He's in seventh grade. My husband and I host a college student Bible study in our home on Sunday nights. And our...

Second daughter is 17 and oftentimes will sit in on the Bible study. Our two boys usually end up finding something else to do and kind of staying out of the way, which is probably good for all of us. But last Sunday, my oldest son just decided to sit down next to some of the guys in the Bible study. We were doing a study on 1st Corinthians. And at one point, my husband asked if someone would volunteer to read a passage and no one.

immediately volunteered. So my son raised his hand and said, I'll do it. And if I'm honest, even now, I mean, this was probably seven or eight verses. He does have, he uses the ESV super giant print Bible, which is like the largest text I've ever seen in a Bible. But, you know, there was still sort of

my stomach sort of dropped and I thought, no, is this, I mean, we didn't even talk about him sitting in on this Bible study. Like now he's volunteering and he wants to read and this is going to be a complete disaster. Is he going to be embarrassed? What are we going to do? Are the students going to feel uncomfortable? And he just read it. He needed help on maybe two or three words and he didn't just read the words correctly. Like the sentences had the cadence they were supposed to have.

And it was, you know, slower than my college students would read. But as I listened to him read that out loud and participate in community with people who are studying God's word, the most important gift to ever be read, it was just such a beautiful thing. And it was beautiful for me to witness him doing that, but it was also beautiful to offer the college students the opportunity to learn.

Sara Osborne (28:04.334)
patience, to learn to listen to a slow reader, and to see that as something as a valuable contribution to their experience.

Soren Schwab - CLT (28:15.38)
is so powerful and for him to have the confidence to and feeling that this is a safe enough space to because the thoughts that went through your head probably ran through his too. What if I mess up? What if I don't?

Sara Osborne (28:19.074)
Yes. Yes.

Sara Osborne (28:26.282)
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I have to, this is probably a good time for me to just give a shout out to his teachers in school. This is not something that happens just solo with me. There have been many years of, you know, teachers helping provide small opportunities to grow, encourage. There were times where my son wrote a book for a young authors competition.

and then a classmate stood up at the front of the room to help him read it to the class. There have been countless times where people have been patient and listening to his slow recitations. That's something that is best cultivated in community. That's where that courage comes from is, in fact, I remember a time, I can't remember what grade it was in the lower school, but there was a very lengthy scripture passage that he was going to have to recite.

And I was really nervous about how it was going to happen. And I talked to him about it after school one day and said, you know, how, how are you feeling about reading this? You know, would you like me to talk to your teacher about reducing it or doing it in chunks or coming up with another strategy? And once again, you know, the student becomes the teacher. He looked at me and said, it's okay, mom, if I need help, someone will help me.

And it was just this clear picture of a willingness to not try to hide weakness, but instead to look at other parts of the body of Christ to hold it up. Such a beautiful picture. And I'm so grateful for the teachers and classmates that have helped facilitate that for him.

Soren Schwab - CLT (30:14.652)
Yeah, it's really, beautiful. The. Yeah, yeah, I'm at a loss for words. I mean, it is. But but. Well, I usually don't trust me. My wife can attest. I just love that you wrote this book and that now families that might be going through something like this have this resource. But I'm also thinking, Sarah, this was your third child, right? If this had been your first child.

Sara Osborne (30:17.74)
Mm.

Sara Osborne (30:23.374)
I feel that way often. It's okay. You're in good company.

Soren Schwab - CLT (30:44.692)
And just the probably the doubt that you would have had your own abilities his abilities I mean, you know you already had to so you you kind of knew hey what I'm doing kind of works and Then it didn't right And so for for families that maybe experienced this and it's their first child right to give them that that courage and that hope Through through the book is it's really really important. So again, I encourage everyone to to purchase the book and

Sara Osborne (31:05.454)
Yeah.

Sara Osborne (31:13.214)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (31:13.716)
to start conversations at their school too, right? At their classical school. How are we serving all of our students and maybe especially the ones that don't quote unquote fit into the box, whatever that box is. I do want to ask one question. It's a bit more general question, but reading for the long run, you already mentioned you're a runner. But the second part is leading struggling students into the reading life. And can you talk a little bit about what you mean when you say the reading life? Because it's

Sara Osborne (31:24.886)
Yeah, absolutely.

Sara Osborne (31:34.082)
Yes.

Sara Osborne (31:39.65)
Hmm.

Soren Schwab - CLT (31:43.89)
You could have said, you know, learn how to read or be a reader, but you chose the reading life. Talk to us about that.

Sara Osborne (31:43.98)
Yes.

Sara Osborne (31:48.45)
Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that question. This is one of the most fun parts to talk about. That was a very strategic choice on my part. It's not there by accident. You're right. I could have said, you know, steps and learning how to read. I think there's probably several reasons behind the choice of language, but chief among them was

My son is probably never going to read exactly the same way that my other children do.

I'm not trying to make him into my other children. I'm trying to give him access to a certain kind of living. I spend some time at the beginning of the book, just unpacking different facets of the reading life. I think most children and maybe even parents probably think of reading for gaining information, right? I read so that I can learn new ideas. And certainly that is part of it. But

Reading is also a liberating act. You know, I think of Frederick Douglass, who went to great lengths to learn to read and write through enormous challenges because he saw it as the pathway to freedom. I think about elements of just learning otherness, learning more about ourselves, encountering beauty on a profound level, getting wrapped up in story.

I'm sure you've had other people on the podcast that have talked about just the moral formation that happens through stories. So I just see the reading life as offering so much more than a skill set that is useful for school assessments or career readiness or, you know, to sort of check a box on, okay, I have now, I can now produce this thing and get this other thing in return. You know, it's not a transaction to be made.

Sara Osborne (33:55.374)
So absolutely, I see it as a way of living. And that's how I think that's the kind of the vision you have to catch in order to be willing to put in the labor and effort that is required for some students. And I think you have to cast it for them too, not just for yourself as a parent or a teacher and give them a big enough vision of what they're after so that it's motivating.

For these students, they have a million reasons to not want to practice reading. I mean, your goal can't just be so that they'll get an A in second grade or so that they'll pass, you know, whatever standardized assessment they need to pass to move on with their peers. So my goal is absolutely to convince parents and teachers and to...

Soren Schwab - CLT (34:31.113)
Right.

Sara Osborne (34:49.664)
encourage them towards the end of pursuing a kind of life and not just a skill set.

Soren Schwab - CLT (34:56.53)
Yeah. Amazing. What a lovely conversation. We have one more question. The question that we ask all of our guests at the end. It's my favorite and usually the least favorite of the guests because it's hard to pin it down to one. But is there one text or one book that you can highlight for our listeners that really had a profound impact on your life?

Sara Osborne (35:02.764)
here. Yes.

Sara Osborne (35:16.874)
Hmm. No, I can't just give one. Yes. You know, I was thinking about this question yesterday over over breakfast with my husband and I if I'm honest, I feel like my the milestones in my life could be mapped with books. I could tell you the one, you know, maybe one that shaped me as a child, one that I remember from high school, you know, the ones that transformed my my

Soren Schwab - CLT (35:20.606)
Thank you for listening everyone.

Sara Osborne (35:46.826)
spiritual life in college, the ones that have set me on my professional trajectory, you know, but since you're forcing me to choose, I'm gonna be naughty and not give you one, but three immediately came to mind. Can I just offer three in rapid succession? Okay. So I recently spoke at a women's retreat at the college and

Soren Schwab - CLT (36:07.09)
Sure, sure.

Sara Osborne (36:14.55)
I was talking about how anytime I am learning, I'm always asking, what does this tell me about God? What does this tell me about myself? And then how do I live in light of those truths? And there was a little book called The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer that shaped my understanding of God and myself in just profound ways when I was in college. And I mentioned that in the talk, so it's fresh in my mind. And

You know, as Christians, obviously who we believe God to be and then in turn who that means we are has everything to do with how we live our lives. So I'd have to say that's incredibly impactful. A second one some of your listeners may be familiar with is the series Every Moment Holy by Douglas McKelvey. They're books of liturgies for everyday life and have really shaped my parenting, my teaching.

My friendships have taught me how to use prayers to set my mind in the right direction for everyday tasks. I use them in my writing classes. use them, we had a tragedy happen on our campus this last week and I have used them to help walk students through grief. I've used them for so many reasons and I've even begun writing my own.

There's even a liturgy for parenting a child with special needs in the third volume. And what a powerful gift to those who don't have the words, but want to set their hearts, all right, you know, in that direction. And then the third one quickly. I have spent the last few years and I'm currently engaged in research that looks at the intersection of theology and literature.

I'm doing some doctoral research now on that. And a few years ago, I read a contemporary novel called The Lincoln Highway by Amor Tolles. He's the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, which was one of my favorites of his. But that book, I read it and I just saw themes of debt and atonement and justification, like all over it. And it just really set me on a trajectory for mining.

Soren Schwab - CLT (38:22.798)
yes.

Sara Osborne (38:42.414)
literature for theological truths and sort of interacting and dialoguing with that. you know, Lord willing, the next years of my life are going to be spent diving into that endeavor. so certainly that has currently had a pretty big impact on me as a scholar.

Soren Schwab - CLT (39:02.162)
Just yesterday in our leadership meeting, we always do segue questions. And my question was, who's your favorite living author who's still writing? And of course, it's hard because Wendell Berry is still, you know. But Amor Towles came up. Our chief of staff chose him. She's a big fan of Gentleman Moscow and Rules of Civility and even the new collection of short stories. But you're absolutely right.

Sara Osborne (39:13.314)
Yeah, yeah.

Sure, sure, yeah.

Sara Osborne (39:24.352)
Yeah, it's a fantastic book. Yep.

Soren Schwab - CLT (39:31.144)
The theme and Lincoln Highway, obviously the Odyssey is a big part of that. So I'm so glad you're mentioning that. It is one of my favorite books. Wow, this has been so delightful. Again, we're here with Sarah Osborne, who is the author of Reading for the Long Run, Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life, published by the Searcy Institute. And she currently serves as assistant professor at one of our CLT's dear partner colleges, the College of the Ozarks. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today.

Sara Osborne (39:34.434)
Yes. Yeah.

Sara Osborne (39:57.838)
It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much, Soren.