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We wrote a book! The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night
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Helping teachers learn about science of reading, knowledge building, and high quality curriculum.
Takeaways
Resources
We wrote a book! The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night
Don't miss an episode! Sign up for FREE bonus resources and episode alerts at LiteracyPodcast.com
Helping teachers learn about science of reading, knowledge building, and high quality curriculum.
You're listening to. Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Spencer Russell is a former teacher who helps teach parents and families to read. He uses play as an opportunity to integrate letter learning and blending, so be sure to check out his awesome videos on Instagram, tiktok or Facebook. At Toddlers Can Read. Today, spencer will share some practical and easy to implement tips about how to teach children to read. Hi teacher friends. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two educators who won the best for all kids, and we know you do too.
Melissa:We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.
Lori:We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.
Melissa:Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.
Lori:Hi, welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy. Today is a quick tips from our Teacher Friends episode, which is a little shorter episode where we collaborate with our teacher friends for practical application.
Melissa:And today we're here with Spencer Russell, and Spencer is a former kindergarten and first grade teacher and he's a father who taught his son how to read and founder of Toddlers Can Read, which is a series of courses that help parents teach their kids to read, and where we found Spencer on Instagram. So welcome to the podcast, spencer.
Spencer Russell:Thank you, super, super pumped.
Lori:Yeah, well, spencer, you create amazing videos on Instagram and I don't know, are you on TikTok too? Should I know that?
Melissa:I am.
Lori:Okay, so TikTok too, and maybe every other place, I don't know, yeah, every other place, all right, so all kinds of social media. You create videos and courses that focus on what we know about teaching reading and how we can teach it in a practical way. I know that as both a parent and an educator, I'm really drawn to your videos and you caught my attention just because they're so simple and like really easy to implement. But I'm wondering if you could kind of just kick off by telling us why did you start helping families and caregivers learn how to read, like teach their kids how to learn how to read in this way?
Spencer Russell:It's an incredibly important skill in a kid's life. We know the difference it makes when kids know how to read and for me, having taught kindergarten, having taught first grade and really paid attention to how my kids' brains were working, what was working for them, what wasn't, what data to track would not to do, which activities give the most bang for the buck I knew that this process wasn't that hard and oftentimes we have teachers who sit with all this knowledge, who've read all these books and done all these things, and the teachers can teach it at school. But the teachers face all these challenges like class sizes and instructional time and every other thing that comes up during the day that interrupts your actual teaching. As parents at home, we have this incredible opportunity to work directly with our kid for a couple of minutes today, one-on-one. So when I had my son and my wife and I, who's also a former kindergarten teacher decided you know, these are the things that are important in his life reading was at the top and I took that time, a couple of minutes a night to teach him when he was two and realized the same stuff works, same as that stuff works.
Spencer Russell:It is not rocket science, it's not this thing that needs to be locked away somewhere in a textbook. It's super, super practical. For many kids it's super, super fun, and after seeing his experience learning how to read and how early, how quickly, how successfully he was able to do it, knowing he's not a genius and knowing the impact that has on a kid's life, the opportunities, seeing the difference it made for him, as they will then start reading for fun and for pleasure, I knew that this was something that parents would gravitate towards, because there's so many people who want to support their kids but don't know how and it was a no-brainer for me. It was. You know, there's no point having this thing that just I know about, right, two girls can read. There's no point holding that for my kid when this can impact hundreds and thousands, and now millions of families across the world are helping their kids read too.
Melissa:Yeah, well, thank you for sharing all that you know, and we're going to ask you to share a little bit right now. So we would love to. Well, what we love about your videos, like we said, is that you know you take something that can feel really daunting, especially to a parent who might not have any training, but I would say, even to anyone working with kids tutors or teachers or reading specialists, anyone that's working with you take something that can, even if you have a lot of training, it still feels like really complex. And what I love is like you break it down to where do you start, like where what's the what's the very simple place to start? And so that's where I want us to jump in is if you could give some tips and ideas to people out there who have that feeling of like I don't even know. I don't even know where I would start with my child or my students. What do you do?
Spencer Russell:Of course, I think that we've got to balance two things here when we think about where to start. There is science of reading, and this is where I think a lot of your listeners are focused. It's what do we know about how the brain learns to read, and that's incredibly important. We also have to balance that with real life, with motivation, with psychology, with behavioral science, with learning science, with child psychology, like.
Lori:Yeah, that's what I was thinking the reality of like 30 kids in a classroom, right Like exactly, exactly.
Spencer Russell:We've got to hold those two things together. So if you're a classroom teacher, you've got to adapt to this in one way and if you're a parent, you've got to adapt it in a different way. And I think when you look at everything on paper, you can get overwhelmed. Let's look at phonological awareness in and of itself. Okay, your phonological awareness then, under that phonemic awareness and under that, is going to be rhyming and blending and segmenting. We have onset, we have syllable addition, we have deletion, we have vowel substitution, all this stuff and it's. It's so, so much. And what we know about people is usually, when there's a lot of stuff, we shut down, we don't do anything. So we've got a balance. Okay, yes, phonological awareness is a progression we need to walk kids through, but we also need to take a bite out of that. We need to take a bite because we need to see a win as the teacher and our kids need to see wins as the student. So what I try to do with parents who I work with, but what I would also coach teachers through, given their specific curriculum, is what is the bite we can take right now? That we know is going to have an incredible impact, but that is also going to give you very, very, very fast wins, fast wins, and, to be perfectly honest, I don't care if that first bite is in the perfect order. I care that it gets taken, I care that we see the win, I care that we feel the motivation and we feel the drive to keep going. Right now, as we're shooting this, it's early January. We've got a world full of people with resolutions that are about to die because they're taking these huge bites and this overwhelming thing and it feels so daunting and if you're on this meal plan, it might be better, other than researching, here's the exact, perfect balance of every single thing to eat. Just what's one win that I can have? Because if we get some wins in January, we're gonna get some wins in February and in March and April. So that's the philosophy.
Spencer Russell:I know that's kind of broad, but what that means when I coach parents is let's start with letter sounds. This is so easy to teach. Kids love it. Let's pick two or three letter sounds, let's show it to our kid and let's have them playing a game. Let's have them jumping on it or hitting it or running to it or moving a toy to it, because within one week of doing letter sounds, you can learn three or four or five or six of them and have momentum.
Spencer Russell:You've got to build a routine and now you've got part of your routine and then we can start to layer on some blending we can add to that. It's okay. Now let's start to string those sounds together, let's add a second chunk. But those would be the first two chunks I would do. I'm gonna start with the one that's easiest to implement, because you're not gonna see a kid in one week just start blending works, because you've done this incredible amount of PA without knowing that's gonna be a struggle and it's gonna be a little bit frustrating. So take some time. So let's build the confidence, let's get the wins, then let's start to layer on and gradually let's build through that progression instead of trying to tackle everything at one time and shutting down.
Melissa:Yeah, can you even go into those games a little bit? I know I can hear our listeners asking like go back to those games. How do you do that? What do you mean by having them jump on the letters and the sounds, and what do you do?
Spencer Russell:Anything, anything. The key is data. That's the key. You've got to know the sounds your kid knows and doesn't know. So if you are a parent, it's as simple, if you're starting the beginning, taking the 26 letters and alphabets, showing it to your kid, asking them what sounds this? All the sounds they know.
Melissa:I heard you say what sound, not what letters.
Spencer Russell:What sounds, what sound. They're gonna need to know the letters too. But this is really a matter of focus and I don't personally like have a dog in the fight. I just know that we need the sounds for reading. So if you want to teach both at once lots of people do this They'll say what's the name of this letter Great. What sound does it make? Beautiful? There's a strong connection between a lot of them because that sound isn't the name. So if you want to do both at the same time, wonderful People I'm working with. They want their kids reading. They're not trained educators, they're not trained professionals and they're trying to see wins so we can teach the sounds and we can get the kid reading. So either one for me is great.
Spencer Russell:I just don't recommend letter names on their own, because they're going to learn all the names, still not be able to read, and we're gonna have to start again with the sounds. So I'd say both at the same time, or sounds on their own. If you're in a classroom, you've got to pay attention to the standards now and you've got to pay attention to your curriculum and it's probably gonna say names, so you're probably pumping them together, but yeah, so to me it's all about data, so I know whether it's a kid in my class or my son or a parent. I'm coaching the sounds that they know those sounds we're gonna review really quickly every day so they don't forget. I also know the sounds they're working on. We're gonna pick two to four sounds, depending on the kid. Some kids are two sound kids. If we go above that, the lesson starts to get frustrating and unproductive. Some kids can take four at a time. I don't judge a kid's number, I just find the kid's number. I don't care what it is, I just need to find it. How many sounds can I do with this kid? And let's say it's three sounds at a time. And let's say it's the IH, ih and AH, I'm gonna take those two or three sounds and I'm gonna figure out some kind of game, some kind of activity that's gonna keep this kid focused. So most kids who are little, they like to move, they like to run. So I can put this sound on that back wall behind me, I can tape it up. I can tape this one somewhere else. I can tape this one somewhere else and I can say, okay, I'm gonna say a sound you run to it. Eh, they're gonna take off, run to it and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna layer in repetitions and say okay, every time you run to it you're saying the sound too. Eh, they can say it their whole way to the sound. They can touch it and say it three times, it doesn't matter, I just want them saying seeing learning that sound. If the kid likes to jump, I can put them down. I'm sitting on the couch and I can have them jump off the couch onto specific sounds. I can have them say it. I can say it and have them say it afterwards.
Spencer Russell:Just earlier today I was kind of just making up the game on the spot because I had nothing ready for the kid. I was working with no materials, so I grabbed some printer paper. I drew we were doing R-controlled vowels, e-r-i-r-u-r-o-r-a-r, so I drew each one in piece of paper. I gave her a marker, put the five sounds out and I said, okay, I'm gonna point to a sound and once you say it correctly, put a check on that. And I gave her a marker. It was just check, check, check, er, er or, r, er, or, and she just loved doing the check. We went rapid fire 25 reps in like two minutes.
Spencer Russell:So once you know the two to four sounds they're working on, you just think about what's gonna get them engaged. What are they gonna like? What activities do they enjoy doing? You can take existing games like red light, green light or, you know, like flashlight tag or scavenger hunt, and turn any of those into a sound game. If you just make the sound and saying the sound the cue to do the activity, you're doing a flashlight search. When you find the sound, you say it. We're doing red light, green light. When I say the right sound, you move. When we just say the wrong sound, you stop. Anything can be a sound game and kids love it.
Melissa:I love those. Guess what. Guess what we're doing tonight. Get ready, We'll have letters taped up all over my house.
Spencer Russell:You should and let them run.
Lori:Yeah, spencer, I'm gonna link some of the videos that you have that show this. So if our listeners are listening and not watching on YouTube right now, they can click on the links in the show notes and see examples of these in your videos, because you do it so well. One of my favorite ones I feel like I've seen it recently, but I always am reposting your stuff, I can't remember how recently, but it was you were working with a child and they had a truck in front of them and they you know y'all were saying the sounds and then putting the letter card into the truck as they were saying the sounds. I mean, that's so simple but super engaging, you know, and that was it Just to teach those sounds. It was, and I thought, wow, this is so simple.
Lori:I'm a parent who has two minutes sitting on the floor with my child. Or you know, I'm a kindergarten teacher, you know, walking to lunch, right, like I could just say the sound and, I don't know, have the child put the card on their head. Or, you know, like there's so many silly things you could do that kids just love, that are engaging, and I just I wanted to underscore like you know, it's so, it's so simple, and that's what really strikes me about your work it's really clear and simple.
Spencer Russell:Thank you. It is, and to me the biggest limitation is the parents beliefs. If you're the kind of person who is like you know, my kid's too young, or my kid can't do it, or my kid doesn't like learning, like, of course they're not going to like it, like you are not going to think of something they like. But if you start with the premise of kids like to learn, which they do, and the premise of kids are capable, which they are, then it's not hard to think of some kind of letter sound game that your specific kid is going to like.
Spencer Russell:When I started this business a couple of years ago, I had very, very few games, very few. But when I put content out to parents and I say find something your kid likes, get creative, you can do this. And parents say you know what I can do this. They start posting ideas, they start coming up with videos and I just see them all, I take them all in and my knowledge base grows. So it's not always you know what did Spencer do or what did this person do. It's what does your kid like and think of something. Make up your own thing, make up your own game that they're going to like and that they're going to engage with, and it's just been amazing to see how people have gotten involved and really take it to the next level in terms of some of the activities that they show, because some are that simple and it's like, hey, that simple, it's easy, we got it. Some people go over the top and I'm okay, that's. That's a lot, but that's pretty cool.
Lori:Yeah, oh my gosh, I felt feel the same as a teacher. I was always the more simple, I was not very creatively gifted. But, spencer, I'm like thinking as a teacher right now, and I mean even as a as a parent, like how do we know if a child is understanding what we're teaching them or not. Right, like we're engaging them, they're playing these games? How do we know if they understand, if they're retaining, how, like, what are some metrics we can use?
Spencer Russell:I love to do assessment. I assess all the time and I assess kids cold, so I'm not going to, you know, teach a full lesson and then like, assess and say, okay, do you know this or not. Like, yes, I am going to want data at the end of that lesson, but I also want to know what the next day, the day after that, the day after that, like, without having seen this, can you do it? We can all think of students who, after practicing with the class and singing the song, they can count 200. They can do it in that moment. Have them come in the next day and they're going 28, 29, 100. Right, like they didn't master that skill.
Spencer Russell:So first thing is they've got to know it cold. They've got to know it fresh, out of context. So if I'm starting a phonics lesson and let's say that we have a new concept to introduce, I love to assess that concept first, completely cold, to figure out which kids in the class know that concept coming in. I want to pull them from the lesson and I want to teach just the kids who are missing that concept to give a smaller lesson. So let's go back to this R controlled vowel example. Let's say it's this AR concept, ar sing RI might have a couple words that I have them spell. I say spell the word park, spell the word car, spell the word whatever.
Spencer Russell:And I look at it and if we've got that R controlled vowel right there, that AR in the middle I might great these kids if they can segment and with that AR sound and they probably know it pull them out, focus on the other kids. Spelling is a very fast assessment. You can do everyone at the same time if you have a protocol for their whiteboards not showing and facing other kids and you can have them hold it up and in seconds you can just check. Check, do kids have that skill? Spelling is going to be harder than blending, so blending is going to be a little bit more accurate in terms of do they know this? Are they able to read it? So you can write down three random words, even nonsense words. I go right down the arc right Couple nonsense words and kids entering the classroom before that lesson. I might have them Step two or three steps for them. The other kids that can't hear what's this word, if they miss the first word, right to the carpet. Miss the first word, to the carpet. Get the first word right. Try the second, try the third. Got it to your desk. It'll add two minutes, but that two minutes now has my class divided into the kids who know it and the kids who don't know it, and now I can give these kids their writing assignment and get them writing, get them on topic. Another two minutes to get them on and I can give a dedicated lesson to 12 instead of 25. So there's kind of this preemptive assessment to it. Then there's the kind of preemptive We've taught it, we've done it. I think we know it at this time and then I'll do very similar assessments that were.
Spencer Russell:Maybe the concept for the day is AR, but the thing I want to know is is do you remember the CH, the CH that we learned? So I might start that AR lesson with a quick assessment on CH. We got it, don't got it? Okay, check, check, check, check, check, check, okay. I know these five kids don't have it. I'm going to come back in small group to handle that, but for me it's assessment all the time super, super quick and I try to build it into procedures, whether it's how we come in the classroom, how we leave the classroom, what we do, the first thing on the carpet, and if we can find these two or three minute chunks.
Spencer Russell:It takes excellent behavior management to do these fast, but if we can find these two or three minute chunks to do it, we're going to save hours and hours and hours of wasted instruction, of review of things down the road and then later in the day, if you're able to pull kids you know, just five minutes, and even better if it's not just these, are the kids missing CH? We can get the kids missing CH, th, wh, pull together and do five minutes on just those couple sounds. Kids are going to start to move through the progression really, really, really quickly Because all of a sudden, instead of getting, here is our phonics curriculum and it just goes from this to this, to this, to this. Every day, every kid is getting every sound they're missing, which to me, I think is the dream and is why I work with parents, because parents can do it. One kid in front of you, every kid, every day, everything they need.
Melissa:And it sounds like these assessments are really bite sized, too similar to what you're saying with the instruction. So you know you're not waiting for that. You know, sit down with a kid with 10 minutes of an assessment to give them to find out whether they know these. But you're like every day, really quick, just a few sounds. Do they got it? Do they not have it and keep it?
Spencer Russell:moving Exactly and it takes a little bit of extra planning. I will say that you know I was at school a little bit earlier than most folks, but I got that time back because I knew these are the skills I'm assessing today. This is the way I'm doing it, whether it's in reading or math beginning lesson, I'm going to give them this math problem and if they can solve this problem I know they've got this concept down I can check them off and we don't need to return to it Because it'll be fresh, it'll be cold, it's a little bit more rigorous and we've got it down. So I plan that all out. So in the moment I can say, okay, literally everyone in the class today is going to read these three words. At some point they're going to read these three words.
Spencer Russell:I'm going to use these three words to determine if they know this or if they don't, and if you can sit down couple minutes for school and plan those three words every day. I mean game changer, because otherwise what do you do? Have a kid read a book, read a full book and try and gauge are they a good reader or a bad reader. That's hard and that takes a lot of time. Walk them through a full cumulative assessment. That's challenging, so sprinkle in.
Lori:Time consuming, Also exhausting. As a teacher, that was never my favorite thing. It's important I'm not saying it's not. There are times and places for that right but on the daily there's so much information that we can gather and you're pointing out some really key ways and like quick ways to gather that and to make, I think, instruction and assessment more effective and efficient.
Spencer Russell:Yeah, my goal was to know how my kids were going to do on those big assessments before they took them. No surprises. I know what they know. I know what they don't know. I know what we're working on. Their parents know too. So it was never just me teaching, it was always here's what your kid knows and doesn't know. Let's support this at home. Here's some activities, you know, which really was part of the impetus to start this business. But we shouldn't have surprises if we can avoid them just by having these quick checks along the way to see what the kids have mastered.
Melissa:I want to back up to one thing that I wanted to ask earlier but I forgot, which was, I know you mentioned. You know, especially if you're working just with your child or one student, you're looking to see where they are and what they know and that's where you would kind of jump in with the next letter sounds. But do you have any like let's say, you have a student or a child who's were starting fresh, clean slate Do you have any suggestions for like where would you start with other letters, that you would suggest starting with letter sounds, that you would start with ones that you would wait until later? Do you have any suggestions for that?
Spencer Russell:For sure there's connections between which sounds are typically easier to learn and which sounds are typically harder to learn. So there's, you know, a couple of things that make us on easier. One is pronunciation. So when we're talking about younger kids specifically, I'm going to advise people to start with sounds your kid can pronounce, versus trying to have them learn sounds that are hard for them to pronounce. Now they're focusing on trying to get the pronunciation right versus just being able to focus on the sound itself. What's interesting is sounds towards the beginning and end, so like ABC and like Z, like, tend to be easier to learn because we see them so often in one in like songs, two on like books and stuff. So most kids have ABC on the front of books. It's just super, super familiar. So, like those, those letters tend to be easier.
Spencer Russell:Letters where that sound isn't the letter's name are often easier for kids to learn. This is going to be particularly true for kids who know the letter names already and you're trying to do sounds. So okay, if they know this is a T, like is going to be easier. Some letters, if they know it's a W, that's not going to help them with the sound right Like some are tricky, but generally those letters where the letter name and letter sound are similar are going to be easier. Often for kids, letters whose uppercase and lowercase symbols look alike are going to be easier. If you think of a letter like G, you know there's no reason why those two cases look so different, but they do.
Melissa:Yeah, and sometimes that lowercase G looks crazy in certain fonts.
Spencer Russell:G is a tough sound, I mean it's hard to pronounce without adding that at the end the letter name and letter sound sound different. The two symbols look different. It doesn't have this like ABC advantage at the beginning. It's not incredibly common in words. But even when it appears in words, you know, oftentimes it makes that soft G sound. So G is one that I'm punting down the line a little bit, you know.
Spencer Russell:And the other consideration is going to be frequency and how common is that sound? Especially if we're going to start to blend what we're learning these sounds, which I think that we really should. We want to think about high utility sounds that are going to be helpful for kids as they start to blend. So there's a lot of folks have like SAT, ipn as the first six. I think that's kind of the most common progression that I've seen.
Spencer Russell:But there are certainly other letters and other sounds that are going to fit those criteria. But ultimately it will depend on your kid A little bit here in terms of which sounds they're drawn to which. Again, if you're working one on one and they've got a sound or a letter in their name that they love or just something that they say all the time we can work that in and we can pull it from later in the sequence and push it earlier in the sequence because it feels like it's going to be easier to learn. But we definitely try and get the lowest hanging fruit to build confidence and get momentum, and then we start to work towards that stuff. That's going to be a little bit trickier for them to learn.
Melissa:Yeah, and those letters make sense that you mentioned. You know S and T and P because when you're starting to blend you know you can have one vowel with those letters and you have a ton of ton of words that you can, you can start to make. So it makes sense to start with some of those words. That are the letters where you can make those words pretty easily.
Lori:Yeah, I'm also glad we you acknowledged the names of the students to, because obviously they're drawn to them that they're seeing their name in print a lot, and I think that that's something too that I know that, as you know, kindergarten teacher or as a parent we can. That's something we can draw on and, I think, make use of and help students feel like, or children feel like they're a little bit of an expert there, right, like where is another kid might not know that letter in their name yet, but they can like that's a place where they can shine. So I think there's moments where we can draw that in as a way to help students feel success too.
Spencer Russell:Yeah, agree, some names are tricky. A lot of names are phonetically irregular, at least at the beginning stage. You know, sometimes we learn the rules for why it says what it says, but 100% and a lot of parents are think intuitively start with some of those letters because of the exact reason. Kids have seen a lot kids, kids like those, and I always want to pull on the kids interest and the kids existing knowledge when I begin to teach them.
Lori:Yeah, it's funny that you should say that. So I'll tell a really quick story. My daughter's name is Presley, so she knew P really early and my dad wanted to be called GP, which is very hard to say, like just as an adult saying GP, like for grandpa. And so I I knew, like out the gate I was like he's going to end up P and this is this is going to, this is where this is heading. So like very, very quickly with the weather, when she could talk it was like P, p, like she just dropped the G, so he's still P now to this day. Like I call him P now, you know. But it's just really funny because I was like listen, I know, I know where this is going, I'm not going to say a word. You want to be GP? Sure, go ahead. And I knew it was going to be like P in about six months, right, like because nobody's saying GP as a two or three year old. That's very hard.
Spencer Russell:Yeah, that's hilarious.
Lori:So no, noted for anyone listening out there. Pick a nickname that everybody can say very easily from the from the get go.
Melissa:I'm glad mine went with mom, mom and pop pop much easier. Well, spencer, are there any other practical tips that you would give to either parents or classroom teachers that are on this journey?
Spencer Russell:For sure. I think that when a lot of people embark on this journey so I'll talk about people at the very beginning, whether this is like a teacher kind of in the early stage, or a parent at the very beginning we tend to over complicate things because that's what people do and my kind of like tough love advice is like continuing to gather information, Absent implementation and actual practice is procrastination and it's not helping anybody. It's not, and I'm not the kind of guy who says you've got to teach your kid to read at this age, because I don't really care what age you teach your kid to read.
Spencer Russell:You know I don't have a dog on the fight. I am the kind of person that says if you decide it's important and you want to do it, you've got to do it. And if you pay attention, you are going to learn so much through doing that you would never get in a book Never, ever. I think in the science of reading community specifically, there's times when we've learned so much that it can prevent action. And then in the parenting community we've got the opposite. We've learned so little that it can prevent action. And so we've got to meet somewhere in the middle where you say, okay, we've got to equip teachers with really easy plans to implement. The plan to implement has to be easy so they can do and they can learn through doing it. We don't need to keep reading on advanced topics and strategies until we are an advanced teacher, until we've gotten to the point where those little things actually are going to make a difference, which they will eventually.
Spencer Russell:And as parents, we need to start, I think, we as educators, understanding that parents can do this to them and empowering them and teaching them and coaching them, and one of my biggest pet peeves is hearing, just leave it to school or let us handle this or whatever else, because it's like, just like the three of us. It's like what do we have that a non-teacher parent doesn't? We have someone or something or some program that trained us. We are not smarter, we are not better, we are not superior or just people. Someone taught me, I can teach them and they can do it, and the difference being a parent and me is the parent has way more time with their kid than I ever will. So my big mission yes, let's collect knowledge, let's collect information. Let's always reflect and refine on our practices.
Spencer Russell:The number of things I've learned the last two years about reading is incredible, and I wish I could go back and implement some of what I've learned on this journey and the science of reading back in my classroom. I got something right, I got something wrong. I'd love to go back and fix it. At the same time, I've learned so much of this through action. Earlier today, 10 minutes before this call, I'm teaching, I'm working, I'm learning and I'm doing, and so I want to encourage people to find that balance. We don't need to over complicate this. We don't need to make this too big. We need to take one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, and if we keep practicing and we keep reflecting, we are going to improve. And there's going to be a time and a place where we need to continue our learning, but it really needs to be a balance of both, I think, for our kids to get the biggest impact. And am I allowed to say one more thing that's off topic?
Melissa:Please.
Spencer Russell:I've got the platform, so I just want to say it. I think a lot of people are focused on fighting adults in this literacy battle. Look at what I know. You're doing it wrong and that's not going to impact anyone. We've got kids losing while adults try and win some kind of intellectual argument. We've got to humble ourselves as a community of teachers and educators and understand. This is so much bigger than winning an argument. This is so much bigger than the reading wars. This is real kids and real lives.
Spencer Russell:So when we enter a conversation with someone who disagrees with us or someone who teaches something a different way, we don't understand. First off. That's a human being and there's a legitimate reason why they believe that. But I started teaching. I taught kids to memorize whole-site works. My kids got it fast. They felt great, they felt confident. I thought they could read. There was a reason I was doing it.
Spencer Russell:If you hit me with all the reasons why I'm a bad teacher for doing that and all the science and all the research, what we know about psychology is that when you present someone with an opposing viewpoint strong enough, they're going to dig deeper into their beliefs. They're not going to change and what you're going to do is you're going to turn me off from your strategy. I'm never going to make that change and my kids are going to suffer. They're going to be impacted, but you're not going to care because you won this argument. You are smarter than me, you read more than me. It's the kids who are impacted and I think we lose sight of that. In my particular lean on the internet. I kind of stay out of a lot of this because what I see is a lot of adults arguing back and forth, trying to win intellectual conversations, and I see no movement, I see no action, I see no change.
Spencer Russell:Yes, you may be right, but so what? So what Is your being right impacting literacy scores in the country? No, is your being right helping a kid have some kind of opportunity in life that they're not going to have right now because of their instruction? No, your being right is going to help you sleep at night. It's going to help you feel better. It's going to help you feel superior. It's going to make you read another researcher or another study and do some more learning and write a paper about it and write a book about it, and ultimately, no one's going to be the right person. Yes, we can have really strong opinions. I want people to have really strong opinions. This stuff matters a lot Kids, their lives matter a lot. But if we're speaking, if we're doing, if we're teaching out of anything other, then the genuine desire to try and help kids succeed and win, then I think we're missing the mark.
Lori:Yeah, I'm so glad that you shared all of that. Melissa and I try to stay out of a lot of the stuff that happens as well and just stay the course. We haven't always been perfect at it, but we've tried. That's really, really hard and that's our mantra is just kind of like post and go interact with the positive and just seek change through modeling, like being a good model of good practices.
Melissa:Yeah, I think both of the things you just talked about are really important, because parents and teachers and all of these people who are sharing knowledge in some way, we're all on the same team because we all want kids to read. So it's a lot of time wasted of arguing If we just like we all have the same goal, let's get on the same page.
Spencer Russell:It is, yeah, it is. When I taught, I was arrogant. I was an arrogant teacher. I'll be the first one to tell you I did not get along with the teachers on my grade level. I didn't have many friends. It was super isolated. And my kids, their scores, were excellent. My relationships were excellent, my classroom culture excellent, but it was siloed.
Spencer Russell:And when I interacted with people on my grade level, what I was really good at it wasn't the reading instruction that was good, it was the relationships with kids and their families. So it was always here's all the home visits I've been on. I visited every kid's house. They've come to my house. I'm doing back-to-school parties, I've got parent workshops and doing this and doing that. You know my parents would call me all times, the day and night. It was always this thing. What that meant, my kids had a wonderful experience of interaction with me as their teacher. Their families had a wonderful experience of interaction with me as their teacher.
Spencer Russell:The other six classes in the grade level nothing moved, if anything, those teachers clamped down and locked down what they were already doing. And if I had entered with an attitude that said, okay, this isn't about me, this isn't about Spencer winning, it's not about Spencer being the best teacher and getting awards. It's about the seven classrooms, not the one, but the seven classrooms of this grade level. If I genuinely cared about kids, I would have said okay, I've noticed you're having this struggle with your kids. Here are some things that I've seen work and here's why I'm happy to come model it. You can come like I do it. I think you're doing a great job, but this thing might help to shift. Or here's a reason why you might want to build a little bit of a relationship with that parent, because it's going to help you in this way, and I've seen that.
Spencer Russell:And if I came from that level which says what's best for the kid, it would have been a fundamentally different interaction. And if I'm about winning arguments, I would have won that's not the point but their mind would have changed, kids would have benefited and we would have worked together towards the greater good. I did it. I was so focused on myself and my own kids and being right that it shut everything else down. Everything was combative, everything was my way or the highway, and kids didn't benefit. And I think that experience helps me see very analogous situation happening in the reading world, where we've got a lot of my way or the highway, and even if you're right, it doesn't matter if it doesn't help kids.
Lori:I think that there's always a common ground, like we can always find a common ground, and that is the thing that unites us. So I would just appreciate you sharing that so much, because we get that question all the time and that's always my thought is finding that common ground and where we can connect Even if around us there's lots of different things, like we have a lot and again, like you said, whether we're right or wrong or indifferent, it is the common ground space that's going to unite us and move us forward, not the right or wrong. So, spencer, I know everyone has been like, so inspired by this conversation. I know that our teacher friends listening they can't wait to find you. So where can everybody listening find you?
Spencer Russell:You can check out at Toddlers Can Read on Everything or toddlersreadcom. Either place is great for teacher friends. I'd probably recommend the social media just for the purpose of seeing how to break down some things that might feel a little more complicated into things that are simple. It's not like you're going to learn like this tremendous amount of stuff that you might not have already known, but it should be a helpful example of content that has been validated by parents, parents who've said this is really helpful for me. I'm going to implement this. So that's, I think, really positive for teachers is because the question I get is how do I explain this to parents? How do I help parents understand? It's like use 10% of the words you're using now, like show an example with the kid. Like show this is what you're doing. This is the impact. This is the change. This is the impact. Here's why you should try this. Here's why you should try that the social makes it super simple. Then the website will give more information on the business and all that good stuff.
Lori:Cool, we'll link everything in the show notes so everybody listening watching. Make sure you check out the show notes for direct links.
Melissa:Yep, and thank you so much for your time today, Spencer, and sharing all of these practical ideas and tips. And then I mean for all of the time you put into your regular work, because we watch it all the time and get our own tips from you and, like you said, it really is so helpful to just see it, because, even if you're reading all these articles and interviewing and listening to all of our podcasts, seeing it in action is just there's nothing better than just seeing someone teaching someone how to read, and so thank you for all of that work you do.
Spencer Russell:Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been wonderful getting to know both of you. I really appreciate it.
Lori:Yeah, same, it's been great getting to know you.
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Melissa:Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast are not necessarily the opinions of Great Minds PBC or its employees, we appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to learn with us.