Rising Readers

In this episode of Rooted & Rising, Andrew McDonald sits down with Lacey Weidman & Geoff Melder to explore one foundational truth: literacy touches everything.

The conversation looks at why strong literacy instruction matters far beyond language arts, shaping students’ confidence, critical thinking, and ability to engage meaningfully across all subjects. Geoff and Lacey share how intentional literacy practices help meet students where they are, support diverse learning needs, and build a shared foundation for success across grade levels.

Together, they reflect on how literacy helps students not only read and write well, but also understand, express, and grow into who they are becoming.

This episode offers a thoughtful look at the power of literacy when it is treated not as a single program, but as a shared commitment across a school system.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Rooted in Rising, a short podcast where we highlight the people, programs, and moments that make Billings Catholic schools special. Each episode, we'll spend just a few minutes sharing one story from across our system. Something worth noticing, worth celebrating, and worth building on. I'm Andrew McDonald, and I'm glad you're here. Yeah, no, it's really not a big deal at all. So we're just we're just having a chat.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Yeah? How are you feeling about it?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Oh I'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, we'll be we'll be great.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Awesome. Well, I am joined by a couple folks that I am really excited to have on the podcast today. I've got two teachers from our SFC K4 level, and I'm gonna let them introduce themselves. I'll start with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Okay. I am Lacey Wideman. I teach second grade.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

And I am Jeff Melder. I'm one of our first grade teachers. Fantastic. First and second grade. How long have you been at St. Francis, Lacey?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Uh this is year nine.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Year nine.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, since we opened the new building beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

And Mr. Melder, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I've been with the Catholic school system for six years. I did one year over at the preschool, and then I've been at the SFC for the last five in a couple of different roles as an interventionist and now as a first grade teacher. So it's been a lot of fun. It's they're my people down in first grade.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and and one of the major skills for the younger grades, right, and and one of our major focus areas is literacy. So how or or why is literacy everybody's work in a school system?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Well, because literacy is everything. It's in math, it's in writing, it's in reading, it's in social studies, science, which is oh, do I need to go closer? Slide you in a little. Yeah. Which is the entire school system. So everybody has to be involved in it.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love taking those literacy pieces and spreading them out across everything that we're doing. I mean, we're writing about the science topics that we're doing, we're diving deeper into some of those comprehension strategies with social studies. I even make them read the math problems out loud and try to piece together just comprehension-wise, what it is we're supposed to be doing in these math problems. Because sometimes that's the biggest hurdle for a lot of kids is just understanding what to do when they read the problem. So it bleeds across every subject area, whether or not we want to believe it does, because it it does. It does a lot.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

And so what do parents really need to know? Like if you were going to say, like, hey, hey, parents, as they're you're coming into first, second grade, or while you're in these grades, how can parents help out with with literacy literacy skills?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I would say that literacy is more than just being able to read the words on the page.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yes, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I think a lot of times we get caught up on reading the words, memorizing sight words, decoding and all this, which is all great stuff. Like it's all necessary to be an excellent reader. But the other half of that is really just engaging with what you're reading, discussing the books and the topics that you're talking about. I see more kids get interested in reading because of the topics, not because they necessarily know how to read. And especially for our struggling readers or the struggling readers that I've had in the past, that's been the biggest selling point for them is I want to learn about this topic. And in order to do that, I have to be able to read and engage with what I'm reading. And so I think one of the best things that the parents can do at home in preparation for school at any grade level is just spend time finding what interests your child and read about those things and discuss it and discuss not just what did you learn, discuss about the author, discuss about how do the pictures contribute to what the topic of the text is. There's so many different things that you can do with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah. And we in second grade, we get to a point where there's a lot of readers that can read at a fourth grade level, but they don't understand as much. So, like Jeff was saying, if you are talking about things and pictures and, you know, like morals of the story and the characters and the descriptions like that, it really will help. And reading out loud at home, not just say, oh, here's a book, kid, go read. Like have the kid read to you because it's a whole different ballgame reading out loud versus to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, absolutely. And I would imagine that you guys have seen over the past couple of years, right? There's there's been a lot of conversation about how we teach reading and a lot of changes to how we teach reading. How has that impacted you? And and what do you find what are you really leaning into in regard to teaching students how to read?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Usually by the time they get to second grade, most of them are knowing how to read. So we just delve deeper into like different spelling strategies and bigger words and maybe a little bit into vocabulary so they understand bigger words better. I know first grade is more still learning to read. We do have struggling readers that are still kind of at a first grade level, and you know, we have interventions and stuff for them for that. But yeah, second grade is just making sure they're interested in things and like taking them as far as they are willing to go.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah. For me, that shift in how to teach reading. I've said I I've been teaching for this is my 11th year teaching now, and I've taught literacy from every level pre-K to eighth. So I have a really wide breadth of how to teach reading. And since I started, I've always been a little bit skeptical of the whole language type approach that has been so dominant for so long, and some of those three queuing system type things that I've always been a little skeptical of it, and so I've had a hard time implementing those. And I've always been a more phonics-based instruction, content-based instruction.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Which is really what we're seeing come to the surface is like this is the best way to teach.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yes. And so for me, it's kind of validating that I've been at least sprinkling that in all along. And because for a lot of kids, even the sixth, seventh, eighth graders that I used to teach, it was once they figured out they could sound out the words, that's when they started wanting to pick up books to read themselves. Again, so it's understanding that everybody is a reader is the springboard that gets a lot of people into reading. So for me, that transition has been really nice because I feel like I don't have to kind of skirt around the edges in some cases. It's like it's very just out in the open of like, no, this is what we should be doing. And for me, that transition has been very nice. And I've seen a lot more progress with it at all different levels, just by incorporating it into my teaching.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah. And now I think as we see more and more folks get on board with that and that approach become more standardized, right? We're seeing the fruits of that too, school-wide, right? We're seeing reading scores and it's particularly the growth scores start to improve. This year has been really incredible with regard to growth scores.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Uh oh, yeah, I agree. Yeah. My our well, our map scores just amazing. Like I can't even believe. I think every single student of mine has gone up from fall to winter. And I'm guessing the same will be in the spring, because that's like spring is the time they grow the most.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Normally you see that kind of that that winter score is always the weird one, right? Where it kind of dips a little bit sometimes and then it like ramps back up in the spring. Oh, yeah. So I'm super excited to see spring scores this year because I think it's going to be pretty revealing. But you kind of alluded to a couple of these things, right? That that when a student starts to understand the words and they can start to comprehend things, that's where you see them really embrace reading and start to flourish. But but what changes do you see when a student starts to get that confidence as a reader? Like when they become confident readers, like what do you see? What do you expect?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Oh my gosh. They are wanting to read all the time. Their hands are raised, they're answering questions, they're like, Can I read this? before like you even called their name. Participation more. They're just it's like, and their eyes are just like sparkly. It's amazing. They just, you can just tell, like, they're not struggling anymore. They know the things and they just they just want to participate.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, it's incredible to see, especially some of those that start the year as really struggling readers, once they get to that point, because all of a sudden they are participating in everything. They're not trying to hide in the back of the room and avoid eye contact. They want to read out loud, they want to participate, and they're not so stuck on this idea of like, I'm a bad reader anymore. Even if they're still struggling, they want to participate. And just that desire to participate is what makes them seek out more opportunities to read and wanting to talk about their reading at home and wanting to talk about what they're doing in school, and to kind of cycle back to that it's everybody's business. They don't just start participating more in reading discussions, they start participating more in science and social studies and math. They start participating more across the board. And that's so much fun to see every year, especially as we get towards the end of the year.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

So it really kind of unlocks their their ability to really fully engage in education.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Absolutely. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So if if that's the case, right, then then how do you support those different levels and different needs of students? Because not everybody's going to be on the same page. And you guys have an incredibly difficult job, right? Meeting the needs of up to 20 some 22 students that sit in your your classroom. Like how how do you do that? How do you manage those things?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Like my higher kids, I start them on research. Like what is something you want to learn? Like we do a as a class, we do like an animal research, so they all kind of participate in that. Granted, some just to kind of set the stage.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

So they kind of know the expectations. Some kids will write uh, you know, two paragraphs, some kids will write three sentences. It, you know, it kind of just depends on where they're at. And then I use it kind of as like a unfinished work or not unfinished work, I'm sorry. When they get done with everything. Like an early finisher. Yes, early finisher. Thank you. Yeah, like what do you want to learn about? Do you want to learn about a new state? Do you want to learn about some planets, animals? Tell me something, and then I will find, you know, research papers and I give them websites. We go through a whole thing about you know what websites are credible, which ones are not.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Which is hugely important for kids to learn, right? At an early age, because there's so much misinformation out there. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yep. And then yeah, and then if they want, I let them present, which they usually want to be in front of the class. So for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Put them on stage, right? What kid doesn't love a stage? Oh, right. I know Mr. Melder loves a stage.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Oh maybe. I like to think I do, and then I get out there and I'm like, oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Then the mind goes blank. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yes. So I've done a couple of things to help support different levels of readers over the years. Typically in my own classroom each year, I have a time of the day that I refer to as my reading rounds. And so that is my time where I might meet with a small group of kids, or most of the time it's I do one-on-one meetings with the kids. So over the course of a week, I can meet one-on-one with every single student in my class. And I sit down and I have them do a reading at their particular needs level, and we kind of figure out where they are at at that time. The rest of the students are either doing independent reading or they have some sort of writing task that they're working on. There's a lot of practice in independent learning as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Which is a huge skill to develop, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:31

It is, and it's one I think that sometimes gets overlooked as well. But sidestepping away from that. So then for that, so every student would have to start that time with their independent reading. And that one-on-one time that I use, they'll get some sort of book from me where when they start their independent time, they have to start with that practice of that book. And then once they complete that, their reward, if you will, is that they get to select whatever they want to read. And so the prize is reading more.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

And which then for some of them really builds in some like, hey, I want to get to that book. I guess I gotta read this now. But it's a practice in fluency and things like that. This year, one of the things that our first grade team has been able to do is implement a half hour of walk to read every day. And so we've grouped students based on their individual needs. And for a half hour of the day, almost every day of the week, they go to a different classroom teacher to work on specific things. So, like the group I ended up working with this year were the kids that had the largest amount of gaps coming into first grade. And so the most of the year has been just filling in those gaps for them and helping them build that confidence as a reader and understanding, like, I'm just a reader right now. I'm not a good reader, I'm not a bad reader, I'm just a reader. And then some of our highest kids will go to our paraprofessional and they're doing the things like the research and diving deeper into more advanced texts and talking about deeper level content that they wouldn't have access to in our general classroom setting just because we kind of have to keep pace with the median.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah. And so this really enables every student to get exactly what they need, the support at their level, and and make sure that some of those gaps are closed by the time they get to Lacey's class, right? And now we've got stronger readers moving into that second grade level and and so on, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, and a little bit more independence they've gained and they can handle a little bit more. Yeah.

unknown 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

I've been loving it this year. It's it's been a fantastic addition to what we've been doing already.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah, there's so many different things that are happening that I'll dive into on some other episodes of this, but it it is truly incredible the work that K4 has done to differentiate things over the course of this year. Like it is, it is it has been really remarkable to see, which I think also contributes to some of those growth scores, right, that we were talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, well, and especially like with our new enrichment program, then you know, they pull kids the same time as our intervention does. So I like when those are both gone, I have just like the very standard second grade kids, and we work on very standard second grade stuff while the enrichment kids are doing, oh my gosh, just amazing things and the intervention kids are working exactly where they should and learning some more strategies to help them read and do math and which is a really incredible thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Like the that idea of meeting every child where they're at is so important in education. And I think when when you don't have the opportunity or the innovative thinking like you guys have demonstrated over this past year, uh it's just really difficult for folks to make that happen, right? And then kids do fall through the cracks. So I I'm really grateful to to both of you and and really to the K4 team for the work that you guys have put in because it it really has been remarkable to watch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Um I agree.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

What what what excites you most about your literacy work right now? Looking at like right now, the end of the year, or looking ahead to next year, what excites you most?

SPEAKER_02 15:02

So I it's already kind of been mentioned, but my favorite part of literacy instruction is always quarter four, because the first half of the year is essentially a lot of review of the previous grade. It's maybe we sprinkle in a couple of new things. Quarter three is we start really sprinkling in a bunch of new things, and then quarter four is where we put them all together and we see the largest amount of growth in terms of reading ability. And we tend to see a lot more engagement with what they're reading. So that part's really exciting. The other thing, we just finished up our book madness bracket, March Madness tournament. Such a fun thing, so fun every year. It's I think one of my favorite things every year. And it always surprises me what books they select as their top favorites, and then it also amazes me how they go home and they talk about these 16 books that we've been reading over and over and over again and how excited they are to then be able to like check them out of the library now that the tournament is over, to be able to take those books home and share their reading with their families at home.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah, what an awesome way to celebrate reading. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Oh, yeah. So mine isn't so much in the reading aspect. Mine is more the writing. Because, you know, most of the kids coming into second know how to read fairly well. They go from maybe writing a complete sentence at the beginning of the year to five by the end of the year, like a whole paragraph and they know all the parts. And it's just granted, if it's a story or a research or informational, they I don't know, their writing just explodes, especially in quarter force.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

It really takes off in second grade, and you really see kids start to lean into writing and and r recognize that that's a way they can express themselves.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Absolutely. And as a first grade teacher, I can say I'm really excited to see my old students really taking off in second grade in that writing as well. Because it's, I mean, I know where they came in at the beginning of first grade, and to see where some of them are exiting second grade is just truly incredible.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah. Well, really a testament to all the work that that both of you guys put in. Can't thank you enough for being here today. Um, so encouraged by the things that you were you are both doing and and and that your level is doing. Uh, really grateful for all the work that you guys are putting in. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Oh, yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Absolutely. Thanks for listening to Rooted in Rising. We'll be back next week with another story worth celebrating.