EP6: Why Are We Talking About Dyslexia?

School Psychology Consultant Dr. Susan Koceski joins Jay, Katie, and Steven to unpack why dyslexia is finally receiving long overdue attention. We explore how reading is learned, why structured literacy benefits all students, and what Michigan’s new dyslexia law means for teachers, families, and schools.

Hosts: Jay Haffner - Literacy Consultant, Katie Morrison - Mathematics Education Consultant, Dr. Steven Snead - Supervisor of Curriculum & Assessment.

This podcast is proudly brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District in the great state of Michigan. Oakland Schools is an educational service agency that offers support services to school districts that are best delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. Oakland Schools is an autonomous, tax-supported public school district governed by Michigan General School Laws and is one of 56 intermediate school districts (ISDs) established in Michigan in 1962.

If you are an educator in Oakland County, Michigan, check out www.oakland.k12.mi.us to explore the services and professional learning opportunities available to support you. 

Have feedback for the hosts? We'd love to hear from you! Email steven.snead@oakland.k12.mi.us to connect with us. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

All right, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are listening to the Teaching Tomorrow Podcast. We got a special one here for you all. A topic that's very apropos for today. Ooh, I used a big word. Um but without further ado, I am Steven. I want to introduce or let my co-hosts introduce themselves.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hi, so excited to be back with you guys. Katie Morrison, math consultant for Oakland Schools. Hey.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Happy to be back. Jay Hafner, literacy consultant, Oakland Schools. My main man's a hundred grand, Jay Hafner. And in a minute, we're going to bring in a very special guest, an expert, an industry expert, Dr. Susan Kasseski from Oakland Schools. We're going to be talking today about, uh, and hopefully I can say this without getting a copyright infringement. Ooh, we what up with that? What up with that? Yes, we're going old school. Do people know SNL? Is SNL still funny? It is. Yeah, yeah. I think it's still funny. Yeah, I think it's I still think it's funny too, but what is not funny is dyslexia. So we're gonna talk about why are so many people talking about dyslexia today? Like, like why now? Like what's going on? And more importantly, like as teachers and people working in schools, what can we do? Like what's what's actionable? And here's the thing where I'm like, part of me is like, I don't know, but what I do know is like really great uh instruction in in reading. Can't can't hurt, right? Can't I can't hurt. But what do I mean by like really great instruction in reading? So my jazz hands for my time in the classroom um was ensuring that students were actually interested in the reading text. So what are those texts that are grade level, appropriate, within their zone of what they should be able to read, and ensuring that whatever the stories, and I was a high school teacher, so whatever those stories are, that they resonate with the kids' lives. Because quite frankly, whether you have any sort of reading challenges or not, no one wants to read a thing that they don't want to read. They're like, oh, this is so what's not sorry, guys, sorry, if this is your thing out there, uh podcast world, I don't do romance novels. Like I just that's not my thing. So like just broke the heart of so many. I do, right? So like the whole Twilight thing, even though I like vampires, like the whole like romance thing, like that that's not me, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

It doesn't like sit with you.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

That doesn't sit with me, right? So if I have a reading challenge and this is the thing that we're reading, I ain't reading that at all. So that that kind of th exacerbates that that that challenge. I know there's many, many different things. Katie, what about you? Like in even in your math world, like what do you say about this issue of dyslexia?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think like when I first heard the way this new like bill was being introduced is like the dyslexia law that's gonna like help support all of our students. I think, you know, the more I started to like make sense of it, the more that the amazing consultants at Oakland Schools helped to like shed some light on like what is truly within this bill. Um, it really connected me with the work that Michigan is already doing with MTSS as well as the work that you know the secondary world has really been doing around disciplinary literacy. Yeah. And really building really building this idea that like we all teach reading, writing, and listening as secondary teachers within content-specific domains. And one of the things that like stands, right, right, right. One of the things that really stands out to me is one day I took a problem that students would typically see in like, I would say, like a more traditional math textbook. I looked at that same concept and how students see it in the real world, and then looked at how they see it on the PSAT, and the starkness in the difference between the level of vocabulary, the level of like reading that the PSAT and SAT requires, like really set in my mind around like wow, we have to read in math. Like we have to do it. And we we can't just read math problems. Like we really have to read math in context and support our students and like building that. Um, and so I know today we're talking about dyslexia, but those are some of the things that I'm thinking is like how do we support all students in learning how to like read content-specific disciplines so that we're re building everyone's like real literacy development skills.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

You mean math teachers have to help students how to read?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Not only do they have to help, but it is our job. We are also reading teachers.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

That feels controversial.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I know.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

The literacy consultant is throwing a high five to the math teacher. High five. We're high fiving in the studio, yeah, yeah. Bridging uh bridging this gap. Yeah, yeah. Talk to him, talk to him. Yeah, so I over the course of my career, starting secondary uh English teacher uh and then being you know coach, administrator, district administrator, I've learned sort of a lot about this and developed a lot of feelings and thoughts about it. And when we talk about students who whether we're developing their ability to read or we're trying to close learning gaps that exist, uh early in my career, I had a lot of thoughts and conversations around intervention. And then as I got a little further into my career, I started to realize and engage in conversations about our core instruction. Our what are we doing in our core tier one instruction in our classrooms to ensure that we're providing a really solid foundation at an early developmental age for students, that we're identifying those gaps early, we're addressing them not only in intervention, but in our core instruction, and that we continue to address those uh as we as we move forward. And, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit here, you know, about the the thing that hangs over this conversation right now is PA 146. The this the You got real technical issue. Yeah, I was gonna say hello. Well, you're gonna hear what is it? You're gonna hear about this legislation that uh that that we're moving into here in the state of Michigan that's going to sort of help design and and lay the foundation for uh reading instruction as uh you know through our K-12 schools. But I think there's an important point to make. If we just look at legislation and take it as legislation, uh it's gonna feel compliance. All legislation comes across feeling just like it's a compliance piece. Like that Judge Dredd, like I am the law of the R. But there are there are opportunities within this to lean into some verifiable science-backed best practices that we can take advantage of in this space in order to ensure that we're giving uh all students an opportunity to grow their reading. So I'm I'm really passionate about this. I think I think there's some urgency. Because I think we should be feeling some urgency right now. All of us as educators should be feeling a little bit of urgency around where we are in the in the state of our, not only the state of our pedagogy, the state of our practice, the systems we're creating in schools, and the opportunities that we're providing teachers to educate students and grow their reading capabilities. These are urgent times, urgent moments. And this, if looked at and framed the right way, could be opportunity. So maybe we figure out a way to look at this as an opportunity uh moving forward here.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

I like opportunities. Opportunities sound good. Well, you got you got some other sound goods for us for our our guest here today. Jay, who who do we have in studio with us?

SPEAKER_04 8:14

So to help us unpack all of this, we are joined by Dr. Susan Kaseski. Dr. Kaseski is here with us today, school psychology consultant at Oakland Schools. Uh Susan's been at the forefront of this work for a very good portion of her career helping districts, educators make sense of both pedagogy systems development and the need to support and develop uh readers uh here in Oakland County and beyond. She's here to help us dig into why all this is getting the attention that it deserves and what it means for classrooms, teachers, and students today. Isn't Susan also a good idea?

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Have you done some like professoring in places? Not anymore.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Did you for about 20 years at Wayne State University?

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Ooh, 20 years. Were you a warrior or a tartar or both?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I guess both.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Both. Okay, all right. So we got we got some expertise in the studio. Yeah. A warrior tartar. A warrior tartar.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

All right. Yeah. So Dr. Professor, school psychology consultant, Susan Kiseski. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Good morning. This is a great topic, so I'm glad to be here. Great.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Happy, yeah, happy, happy you're joining us today. So let's uh let's kick this off. Let's just start with the big question in our episode title. Uh, we know that you know, dyslexia isn't new. Reading challenges aren't new. Uh so why does it feel like it's suddenly getting so much attention in schools uh and in the legislation right now? What's uh what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Well, this has been building for a long time. So I'm really glad that you have framed this as it's not a it's a new law, but I think going back to like 2016 and before, states across the nation have been really pushing for legislation uh regarding dyslexia. The uh PA 146, um, we like to talk about it as a K-12 literacy and dyslexia law, not just a dyslexia law, because we really are missing the biggest uh issue facing us, which is this really isn't about identifying kids with dyslexia. That's part of it indirectly. But the big push with this law and many others from across the nation have really been about improving core instruction. Why would we need to create improve core instruction? Well, we uh really have inadequate in the United States of America, we have inadequate overall reading achievement for many students, aside from kids that have dyslexia. So the movement has really begun with parents and teachers who were seeing uh maybe core instruction not matching what their students need. But the big idea is that uh the instructional principles that work for kids with dyslexia also are essential for kids that are in general-led classes. And that's really the push of the bill. So it's really about changing and improving and getting better results in core instruction so that we have less students being referred for supplemental services, intervention, and um special education.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

So um so we we've talked about these terms like tier one and like core instruction, and those might have like different meanings for different people. Like what is your understanding of what core instruction is? What is that? What up with that?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Well, let's talk about what is dyslexia then first. Okay. I think that's probably the most important part because then we can get into how does this affect all students. So what is dyslexia? I want you to consider that dyslexia, excuse me, is really difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition, poor spelling, and decoding skills. So it's not at the comprehension level. It's not my understanding of text. I can read the text and you understand it. This is about being able to decode the text. And that is really the defining core feature of dyslexia. And I have spent, I want you to consider, I've spent the majority of my career thinking and researching about students that find learning to read easy, effortlessly can read. And then for a large number of students, not a small percentage, a large number of students, 60% of students, 70% of the students, this is a formidable task. This is very difficult. And for a smaller group, 30% of students, very difficult. The most difficult thing that they're gonna do in school. So how could it be so easy for some students? And for a large number of students, it can be very difficult. And that really comes down to understanding what dyslexia is or and how the reading brain works. Because the reading brain doesn't work differently for kids that it's effortlessly for or kids that are struggling. We have one brain that has the same constraints for everybody. So it really is understanding the reading brain is really important and understanding that this is really not about comprehension. That's a big misconception in the field. This is about being able to read at the word level. And, you know, about one in five kids have this. So that's a large number of students that you think about every classroom has a kid that either has dyslexia or is struggling with reading as an at-risk reader. Yeah. So those are large numbers of students.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

Yeah, let's let's unpack that a little bit because I think doing a little bit of research and learning throughout my career, this was the moment that sort of shifted how I thought about students and their growth, their ability to read and close those learning gaps was when I started getting a little bit into the brain science and seeing the way in which the brain, the brain works and internalizes these processes. So one of the points that you emphasize, uh, Susan, is that reading isn't just this like natural byproduct that happens, that we we learn our oral skills and and pick up and develop our oral skills in a little more of a natural way. Reading is something different altogether. It's there has to be some like it's gotta be explicitly taught. So for our listeners, can you just break down a little bit about what that difference is between how we develop our oral skills versus how we develop our reading skills? There's a little bit of a difference there that I think matters in this discussion.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

It's so true. And this is where a lot of misconceptions have come out of reading practice, um, how we teach reading. Um it's important. Humans are born with brains that are wired to acquire language. That's right. You can't almost stop someone from acquiring language if they can hear. So that spoken language is developed through immersion. We talk to kids and we learn to talk by being talked to. So we have this extraordinarily organized brain system for language. We don't have that for reading. It doesn't exist. So in fact, one of my favorite facts is um written language is just a human invention. We don't have brain functions that do it. We have it for language, we don't have it for reading. Less than 10% of the world's languages actually have a written system. So when you start to consider that, we have to consider, well, like how does the brain do this? And this the brain really needs explicit instruction to make pathways work between the visual system and the language system. We have to like make these pathways, we have to invent them. We actually hijack the language system to make reading happen. For some kids, that process takes very little exposure and effort for the majority of kids, not for a small percentage, but for a majority of kids, they really need systematic, explicit instruction in the phonology and the code of language arphonics skills that help them make connections in the brain that aren't there.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

That we are changing the way the brain develops. We actually hijack a little system, it's called a ver visual word form area, and we um make we change the visual system. So it just says, oh, that's language. These letters, that's language. Let me push it to the language areas of the brain, let me push it there. And we create pathways that weren't there before. So it isn't about immersion. Right. So one of my favorite quotes and that I teach often is uh reading is taught, not caught. And that is not my quote quote, it's from Dr. Strom, but it really emphasizes the we need to teach it explicitly. And um, structured literacy practices, they're um good for all, um harmful to none, and crucial for some kids. And that's really what I hope this bill and other bills that have come along have really been focused on how do we improve core instruction so we get better outcomes. We want instructional materials, training, experience to be um impactful for the majority of kids in a classroom.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Students can benefit, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

All students, not just a few students. And so that's really the take right now. The bill, um one of the things that I want to say about the bill that it concerns me a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I feel like um bills like these rest on the back of classroom teachers. And I'm not sure that that's where the responsibility really lies right now for you know, classroom teachers, they don't pick the curriculum, they don't pick the assessment system, they don't get to pick their training, they don't get to pick their resources and their structure of support. So I really I I get nervous about the bill and the second bill, 147, is aimed towards higher ed and making sure teachers have certain credentials, which is great. But I really think this is an opportunity for district administration, for lar districts to look at their systems. When teachers aren't successful, it is the job of the system to identify the barriers and address them. It's this I get nervous when we think it's like the teachers aren't teaching. It's a part of a huge system. And I think this bill is really trying to get people to look at the system. And that I think is an important takeaway for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

So Susan, I really appreciate you talking about that for our listeners who are teachers who are saying, ooh, this is resonating with me, but I'm not sure like what I could do differently in my classroom that would support students who might be struggling, but also knowing that good practices are good practices for all. So for some of our secondary teachers who are saying, okay, so what might this look like? What are some things that you you might shed some light on for those teachers?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Well, for secondary in particular, um morphology and vocabulary becomes a really critical part of the teaching. So language is language, it's K-12 language. And um, for secondary, that becomes really important. Um, from the system point of view, it really we hit should have it in schools. It's never too late to learn to read, right? We're never giving up on anybody. So our systems in secondary are particularly challenged with getting intervention to still happen in secondary. It's possible, it it can happen, but it really takes the commitment. We're a little bit better on the MTSS side in uh elementary right now.

unknown 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

And um, we want early intervention. You know, it's very difficult. I used to say all the time, you know, like, how hard is it if you're a fourth or fifth grade teacher to work with a kid that's really struggling to read? And usually a group of professionals will be like, it's very hard. And I'm like, is it hard for the kid or hard for you? It's hard for both. When you're trying to close a two, three-year gap, it's really difficult. So uh do you believe in early intervention and uh closing that gap early? And that means that we're really, I think, in a lot of places in Oakland County are really focused on their core instruction and seeing how systematic, how explicit it is. We have the what of teaching and then the how of teaching. And so some of the how of teaching is getting refined and bolstered right now. And I think it'll have a positive impact on more kids, and that's important. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

So what do you so what do you break break it down for what do you mean? And and again, I'm a like an old high school teacher, so I'm I'm used to like we teach literature, right? The name of the course literally was American literature, British literature. What do you mean by explicit instruction? Break that down for me.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Well, let's go back to what we talked about earlier. You just don't learn to read by being exposed to people reading. Right, right, right. So there's a lot of uh perspectives that think like good literature in the classroom, we expose, we get you excited about the joy of reading can help you learn to read. Um that is not exactly how we need to teach it for most kids, because we need explicit instruction. So to me, when I talk about an explicit approach, which applies to math, it applies to other areas, I always think coaching is explicit instruction. A coach doesn't just put you out on the field and say, go at it.

unknown 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

You know, a coach is saying, this is how I want you to feel this ground ball. I need you to put your hands here, like they're explicitly teaching you. And so that same thing happens for reading. We need explicit instruction, and like I always say in volleyball, a lot of touches on the ball. I mean, lots of practice. So to me, explicit instruction is sequential instruction with a scope or sequence. We're gonna cover common sounds and um graphemes in our English language. We're gonna cover them all. Um it's cumulative, it has explicit corrective feedback. I'm not gonna let you hang on with an air for too long. I'm gonna correct that right away. High student interaction and engagement, um, a synthetic like approach to phonics, which is really teaching. Um, it's not happenstance, it's really going through in a systematic way. Like we have a lot of science on what's the order of the phonemes and how they're presented, what's the order of the graphemes that match to phonemes? How do we teach that? So we have careful like examples and non-examples, so we avoid confusion. Like we don't teach B and D right together, right? That seems a little tough. Um, and then of course, we use um a big thing is we use decodable text as a part of reading instruction, not the whole thing. Right. But it's like we have taught you something, we've gotten your sound system aware, we've taught you the graphemes that match, and then we put it right in text for you to practice. Though those are elements that you would see in most explicit instruction reading programs, like across the board. Some vary in how they introduce certain sounds or things like that. But in general, that's what explicit instruction is about. It's really about that's how we teach, and what we teach is the phonology. We teach phonemic awareness. Um, I have done, as a school psychologist, I have done evaluations for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders that still do not have phonemic awareness. Cannot, and our English language is so dependent on the sound structure and having a really rich understanding of the sound structure of our language. So that phonology, letter sound relationships, which is when we talk about phonics, orthography, which is our spelling patterns, vocabulary, and that's when we get into secondary and their important lift that we need to continue to focus on the more advanced um decoding principles that happen in vocabulary that happens in secondary. So those are kind of the elements that's the what to teach and the how to teach. I think the what to teach we have less controversy on at this point. I think the how to teach is where we're like coming along. And um we'll see. I hope that this I agree with you, Jay. I this can't be compliance. Um I'm hoping that we will I and I think we're seeing uh even teachers say, I knew this wasn't working really well. Or you hear teachers bringing in their own resources, going to teacher pay teacher, going to all these places to get resources. And I think when teachers are doing it, it means that what they have in core instruction isn't working. Yeah. And they are searching for something. So I think that we have some answers that are going to be good.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. Which goes back to what you were saying about like it's really a system approach. Absolutely. Can't focus on like individual teachers all working within the system to try to like make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

No, they don't really and they don't have the decisions. And I think right now this law is saying, hey, administration, um, we have to have a system. I know there's districts piloting different um materials, which is great. It's not that teachers aren't involved in the process, but they don't ultimately make that decision. And I think that this law really is trying to push the system, trying to push MTSS. And I think that that's a good thing. That's that's a good thing for all students. Yeah, that's a win for all students. And it's not just not just kids with dyslexia, but all students.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

All kids. So as as you're talking, I was I was sitting here trying to think of comparisons in my brain to the practice of reading. And you you touched on it a little bit in the moment that I was thinking about it, and you went to the the baseball analogy. And I am a uh eight-year former high school baseball coach. And so I woo-hoo, yeah. As you had that and said that, I had it in my mind and wanted to lift just to sort of bring the conversation back, to there are two very important things on the table when it comes to reading instruction for students. How we teach explicitly, how we teach students to read is a core function that's important to their reading development. Ensuring that students have opportunities to grow and love the act of reading is also important. And that's where I come to the baseball analogy. When I'm a baseball coach and I'm working with students, I am giving, or sorry, working with players, I am providing them explicit instruction on how to hit a baseball, where you place your hands at your stance, how you move your weight through the ball, how you bring your hands down through the baseball. That's very technical, it's very explicit, and we do it during practice. There is a comparison to how we teach reading in the classroom to that. However, the thing that gets kids back to the playing field every single practice to continue to work on their craft is a love of baseball and a love of the pre the thing that they're practicing. You gotta love it. And so we want to ensure that while we're teaching students the explicit measures and points of developing their reading, that we're also providing them entry points to love the thing that they're practicing. And when those two things do come together, you do have opportunities to grow students in their reading development, to grow players in their in their baseball development. There is an interesting connection that you made there. And I was making that same connection in my mind when you said it.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

One thing, though, that that that I love that, and I often think that coaching is teaching and teaching is coaching. But there's some momentum too.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

You have to be good at it. And as you see, no matter where you're starting, if you see yourself improving, that's where progress monitor comes in. We have progress monitoring in athletics. When you see yourself improving, it it it it gets you some momentum. You want to do it. That's right. Kids don't when a a big problem we have in schools is we have kids with behavioral difficulties acting out and everything. I'll evaluate them and figure out they can't read. So it's the chicken or the egg at this point.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah. That's a big problem.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

So when you're not a reader, I was just talking to a teacher the other day and it's first day of school, and a kid introduced himself to their third grade teacher and said, I can't read. And I looked at my friend and said, believe that kid.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Because I bet you they can't. And so I think that it's to get the joy and love of reading, you have to be good at it. You have to start with that. And if you're not good at it, what do we say? What do you do when you're not good at something? Do you like want to do it every day?

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Walk away.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Walk away, avoid it, act out. So that's what I'm saying. That's why I don't go to the gym.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

I should though.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

There is so many secondary problems with like I I couldn't read at the word level. Like I'm struggling with learning to read, learning understanding the sound symbol relationships, all that. But then there's huge complications. So when I'm not reading, I am not developing my understanding of how text works. I'm not getting enriched vocabulary that's going to help me. I'm not certainly reading. Outside of school. So it becomes a real problem for the haves and the have nots at that point. Like kids are getting richer who are reading, and there's kids that aren't reading at all. So we've got that instruction and coaching that you're talking about ends up bringing kids in that are at the fringes that this is a struggle for me. I I this doesn't come easy. How can you read that book? And I can't. That is hard. And kids know in their classes that they are not readers. And that's where a lot of this dyslexia movement came in. It's from parents watching their students. Emily Hanford did the Soul the Story, that did a big push in our country about the reading state. That was a very hot topic. She did an excellent job. There was no new research in what she presented, but she did it in a way that was real accessible to people. It also came in a time right after COVID. Yeah. And a lot of parents were witnessing instruction happen for their student and saying, like, oh, my kid can't do that. Can't do that at all. Or look at how far off the mark my kid is. And that that was like a I call it the COVID conundrum. Like a parent is now like, whoa, this is different. Why are we teaching in this way? So that's kind of been another real push in the country that it it was already existing before, but that was a little bit of a tidal wave.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Well, that's super hot that Emily Hanford, I know everybody was talking about that. And now we're gonna transition to our hot topic segment, Dr. Kazassi, don't go away, stay right there. This is a segment where each of us kind of lobs just a bomb and we just walk away like bam, right? Our hot topics. Um I guess mine isn't so so hot. It's it's lukewarm. We've already talked about it today. Uh, but again, my world uh as a high school teacher, and Katie, you you kind of stole my thunder a little bit. It's okay. I still love you. Uh everybody's a reading teacher. Everybody. And I'm talking to all my my high school, my middle school folks out there. I love us. Um the math teacher, yep, you teach reading. The science teacher, yep, you teach reading. The gym teacher, yep, you teach physical education teacher. Yeah, ph it's pardon, pardon my friends, yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

I was gonna say that's the physical education teacher will just like gym is a place. I teach physical. I teach physical.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Good job, Katie.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

And and everybody teaches students how to read. And like uh Dr. Kasuski said, uh, like it is up to the system. And so as as administrators, as leaders, we have to design that system in such that every every adult feels supported in their ability to. Because in as much as students need to feel good at doing a thing, uh in traditional teacher prep, many like if you were not an ELA teacher, you it's very likely that you were not given any skills or guidance and how to teach reading within you know, uh within a physical education class or within that science class. And so we develop these identities uh as like a content area area teacher, and we're all we're all teaching reading. So we all have a stake in that fight. That's my hot take. Jay, what about you?

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Yeah, so I'm gonna pick up on the just continuing with the coaching analogy that we had earlier to lead into uh where I'm where I'm thinking the best coaches put their players in a position to be successful. Lloyd Carr, right? The best teachers put their students in a position to be successful. Yes, go blue. Yeah, there we go. And go green and white for our state state listeners. We don't want we need listen. We need we need listeners. Go everyone. There you go. I like that. We need everyone. Go everyone. Okay, all right, keep going. All right. So the best teachers uh put their students in a position to be successful. The best administrators and district administrators put their teachers in position to be successful. You uh, Dr. Koseski, you had a quote earlier. I believe that quote came from uh Gibbons, Brown, and Nebling. Uh right, from so one of my I have two two call, two call to actions here. Number one, the Gibbons, Brown, and Nebling's book, Effective Universal Instruction, an action-oriented approach to improving tier one. A lot of really good quote book. Yes, good resources in there to sort of lead us back to the conversation we were having earlier about tier one instruction, core instruction being uh a key and integral to this. Uh so just to build out this quote, uh, they do have a quote that says that when poor students' outcomes occur in education, the system's quick to blame the teacher. Uh, in reality, when teachers are not successful, it's a system level problem. It is the job of the system to identify barriers and address them. So, my call to action as a former building administrator, district administrator, it is to my fellow administrators at the building level and the district level to use this and take this as an opportunity to engage ourselves in some real concerted learning and understanding of how reading occurs, why it occurs, and what we can do within our system to put the teachers in the best position possible to deliver the instruction that the students need, because I know we have teachers in every classroom across this county and beyond. They are ready to do it, they are eager to do it, they want to see the results in their classroom. I am asking and calling on fellow administrators to use this as an opportunity to leverage what the the uh what's in this bill to turn it not into compliance and not view it as compliance, but view it as best practice for what we do to teach reading across the K-12 spectrum.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

I think we need like a fire extinguisher because Jay on fire. Jay's on fire right here. Katie, what about you? What's your hot take?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah, I mean, I almost feel like Jay should have gone last. So I'm gonna bring it back to the teachers. Um, and maybe this is a hot take, but like I think it's really important. Let's provide scaffolds for all students. I'm talking to my secondary teachers, like writing stems that incorporate vocabulary, support all students in developing that vocabulary, becoming able to use that vocabulary. I mean, using visuals is supportive for all students. And so I'm bringing it back to the teacher level, and I'm gonna say provide scaffolds for everyone, give everyone sentence stems that support their vocabulary development, and use visual representations when they're next to new equations, representations, and symbols to support all students.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Look at you, a math teacher that's talking that reading jazz. We're gonna leave the last hot topic to our esteemed guest, Dr. Susie Kasseski. Hot topic, what you got?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yes, what you got.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

There's so many. It's hard to pick. Um what I would like to say to teachers out there that are teaching, reading, and sometimes struggling and putting your heart and soul into this is um there's lots of support for learning how to do uh structured literacy for sure. But I think the the that immersion is so important to me because um the brain uh doesn't have the cortical structure really for reading. We have to create it. It doesn't exist at birth, it doesn't exist in non-readers. So we have to really make the connection from the visual areas of the brain to that language area of the brain. And the only way we do it is from explicit instruction. So to me, um, teaching is changing the brain. And everyone should know that. Like we are creating pathways in the brain that didn't exist. And if we the the consequence is when we don't do it, those pathways don't develop and we have non-readers. So it's really important to understand how the brain processes print and then pick your instructional um pedagogy. It it's not the reverse. And so I think that that would be my takeaway. There's lots of videos, there's lots of training at Oakland schools. I do training on how does the brain um how does the reading brain work? And I think once that is crystallized for people, it makes it a much easier to say, oh, now I see why explicit instruction is really important. So that would be my takeaway.

SPEAKER_04 38:26

Well, we are going to wrap it up for today. Uh and this was a hot one. It was a hot one. And it's a this one, it is. It's a it's a call to action. I think we have like multiple calls to action here at multiple levels to really uh lean into this and and and see that we approach this uh this this new opportunity, not as compliance, but as uh best practice. A huge thank you to Dr. Susan Kisasky. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate you joining us today for having me. And to all of you for spending the time with us as we have kicked off the school year together. Happy New Year to all of you. Happy new the best happy new year of it all of them all. We are we have started school across Michigan. We hope you found something here to inspire your own practice and spark new ideas for your classroom or school community. Join us next time. We're gonna be diving into a conversation that I don't think you're gonna want to miss, especially if you're a classroom teacher. What do we do about these cell phones? The cell phones? The cell phones. It's still a don't get me started on that. Yeah, well, we're gonna we're gonna get started on it. We have an entire episode, so let's get started on thinking about that. It's an interesting conversation in this moment. Uh, there's actually a lot being done uh right now. We have some a lot of new ideas that are out there about uh the cell phone conundrum. So it'll be interesting to unpack. We hope you can join us. In the meantime, don't forget to pull out that cell phone and follow or subscribe to Teaching Tomorrow. Listening to this on your cell phone. Yeah. As you're listening to it on your cell phone. Uh class. Make sure you follow or subscribe to the Teaching Tomorrow podcast wherever you find your entertainment and leave us a rating or comment. It helps other educators find these conversations. Smash the like. If you liked what you heard, share this episode with a colleague or family member, brother, sister, mom, dad. We want we we want them all. Michigan fans, state fans. We we want you all listening to this. Okay, I guess. Uh anyone who needs a little inspiration for the year ahead, uh, we hope we can uh help provide a little bit of that. For now, keep teaching, keep learning, and keep building the tomorrow your students can believe in because here at Teaching Tomorrow, we believe in you. See you next time. See you next time. Bye bye.