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Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ® | Science of Reading for Teachers
[Listen Again] Ep. 120: Research-Based Routines for Developing Decoding Skills with Julia Lindsey
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From August 12, 2022
Talking with Dr. Julia Lindsey is like popping into the classroom next door to chat with your best teacher friend after school. On this podcast, Julia shares what evidence says that young readers need to know to help them decode words efficiently. We discuss foundational reading skills, starting with oral language and print concepts through multisyllabic word reading. Instructional swaps take this conversation to the classroom where Julia tells us what to swap to improve instruction. Efficient and effective instruction is critical when teaching decoding.
Resources
Reading Above the Fray by Dr. Julia B. Lindsey
Looking for more literacy support and resources? Explore all of our podcast episodes, free listening guides, and classroom tools at literacypodcast.com.
Interested in bringing Melissa & Lori Love Literacy to your school or event? Email us at literacypodcast@greatminds.org.
Phonics Nerd on Decoding Skills
LoriWelcome teacher friend . I'm Laurie and I'm Melissa . We are two literacy educators in Baltimore . We want the best for all kids and we know you do too .
MelissaOur district recently adopted a new literacy curriculum , which meant a lot of change for everyone . Laurie and I can't wait to keep learning about literacy with you today .
LoriHi everyone . Welcome to Melissa and Laurie Love Literacy Literacy Podcast . Today we have an incredible guest and I'm so excited because she has a resource for all teachers , but especially primary teachers , and it just dropped on the market , so we'll be sure to talk about that a whole lot today . It's called the Book Reading Above the Fray , and I read this book and I felt like I was talking with a teacher friend while reading it . There are just so many activities and strategies . I felt like I was back in the classroom and just chatting with my teacher neighbor , sharing tips and sharing best practices , and it was just so fun to read and easy to read . I cannot underscore that enough . So , melissa , I know you're excited for our guest today because she's one of our favorites of all time .
MelissaYes , she is . So we have Dr Julia Lindsay . Yeah , we're one of our favorite guests , like you said , it was about a year ago that we had her on and just love her , and we said at the time that we would have her back when her book came out . And so here we are to talk about her book and all about decoding . And we'll talk all about what it's all about , but what the evidence says that young readers need to know to help them decode words efficiently , and we'll get into that during our podcast today . Yeah , so Julia welcome to the podcast .
Julia LindseyI am so happy to be back with you all . I'm very excited to talk about reading above the fray today .
LoriYeah , we're so glad you're here and I honestly can't wait to hear more about how you chose the title personally . But first I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself .
Julia LindseyYes , thank you . I would love to set the stage for how I became a self-proclaimed phonics nerd and am not ashamed of that , no matter what controversies might be happening in the reading space .
Julia LindseySo I actually got really interested in reading and in education in college when I was a servant leader intern with the Children's Defense Fund , freedom Schools , and I started interning with that organization the summer after my sophomore year and their mission is really around loving literacy and reading lots of wonderful representative books and feeling really confident and excited to read .
Julia LindseyAnd I noticed , even as a college student who was not an education major I was a psychology major that there was something sort of off about this in the littlest grades , the K1 , because I thought why aren't we teaching them how to read ? We're just doing all this other fun stuff . But wouldn't it be cool if we also helped make sure that these little ones were able to read themselves , not just do a lot of fun comprehension and other things ? So , coming back , my second year I actually proposed to the director of the program that I develop a phonics program for the little K through 2 and introduced a addition of some partnerships with some of the older kids to do tutoring as well . And to be honest , looking back , I had no idea what I was doing . But you kind of did you kind of , did I kind of ?
Melissadid . You had a gut instinct , I did .
Julia LindseyI had a gut instinct . I tried to look at the research , trying to be like a studious college student , but it was like a kind of a hilarious attempted experiment . And then I got into the classroom where I taught in New York City kindergarten , first grade and I taught in a school that was really in love with leveled texts and guided reading and really rich readers workshops and writers workshops and we did have a very systematic phonics program that we were very adherent towards and we did tons of progress monitoring in phonics and I always was like , oh , my kids are doing great . They're all scoring so high on reading , read aloud tests and comprehension . They're scoring so high in their phonics tests . They're making progress and most for the most part and guided reading . But I thought it was pretty strange because it didn't actually seem like any of these skills were coming together for a lot of kids . There were some kids that they could just do anything you put in front of them and there was another group where I just couldn't understand it . I would be , I would be watching them read and be like , what are you doing ? Like didn't we just learn stuff like this in phonics ? Or I would try to sound out a word with them and I would say , oh , no idea what that word's doing , Don't listen to me , because that sounding out didn't make sense . And honestly I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and thought , ok , well , I just don't know enough or I'm missing something . But nobody around me knows what that is , so it must just be that this is how it goes and eventually these kids will be OK .
Julia LindseyAnd then I was simultaneously getting a master's degree where there was basically no information about phonics teaching . And then I got to grad school at the University of Michigan and in my first semester I was doing , I was the teacher's assistant for the introductory methods to early literacy course and within the first month my mind was blown . Being the TA this class , I wasn't even supposed to be a student , but I was so shocked by the amount of information that I had never gotten to receive because of my particular trajectory . But also I was in a school with tons of professional development and this just wasn't the topic that people were talking about at the time for the most part . So we get into this class and I'm like phonemic awareness , what is this ? And I did make some calls back to students' parents who I had heard never blending words together in kindergarten or first grade , and I said oh my gosh , have I got some news for you ? You need to try these things at home , because I knew that they might never get access to this information otherwise .
Julia LindseyAnd then I was simultaneously working on a project with the Boston Public Schools and now Duke as well where they had come to us and said we have this weird issue where we have kids doing really well in phonics and doing kind of OK and guided reading , but we don't really think they're reading because we don't see them using phonics ever .
Julia LindseyAnd that to me , was a huge light bulb moment because I realized that my experience as a early career teacher who had taken an alternative route was not my fault and was also very pervasive and that actually a lot of teachers and a lot of really experienced educators and whole systems were experiencing the same problem , which is this like extreme disconnect between how we were trying to teach kids to handle our English spelling system and how we were trying to teach kids how to read words in a text . And so I started kind of poking around at different things and came across some very old research on decodable texts and I was . I was like this is it ? This is so cool , like what if this is the thing ? And I got to be honest with you , almost everybody around me at the university was like EW .
MelissaWhat are you talking about ?
Julia LindseyLike they were like no , I don't think you understand what these are Like . This is not the thing . Like you're missing something here , and I was like , no , no , no , no , no . I really think that we could write better ones . And obviously I had mentors who believed in that as well and wanted to see where I'm not sure exactly who was like , okay , yeah , I'll see what you're talking about .
Julia LindseyBut people were and obviously , as I mentioned , dell was very supportive and Boston Brooke Childs , the director of early literacy .
Julia LindseyThey was like , okay , like I'm interested in what you're talking about , and so that opened up this path to thinking about what would it mean to create decodable texts that are better and then that that deeper , for years and years thinking about what does it really mean to actually teach kids this beautiful messed up logic of the English system and how can we actually give kids the opportunity to apply that knowledge and to practice that knowledge in ways that are going to skyrocket their abilities and their confidence and their potential love for reading ?
Julia LindseyBecause we're putting in front of them a task that they can't handle and that they can grab a hold of , and we're not withholding meaning either . So that kind of sent me down this path of being kind of a decodable obsessed and getting very excited also about all the elements that go into why you would need a decodable , so all the elements of decoding . And that is where it led me to this book and why the book subtitle is reliable , research based routines for developing decoding skills , and the whole book is kind of about this idea around decoding and trying to get people at least a tiny bit as excited as I am about really thinking about the meaningful , beautiful experience of getting a kid to be a strong decoder to serve the rest of their reading journey and to get them to the real place that we want them , which is that deep meaning making .
MelissaJulie , I'm wondering really quickly , before we get into your book , if you could . Even you might not know this , but I'm wondering , like why so many people had that reaction when you said like they were like Ew decodable text , because I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that still have that reaction . So just curious if you know the the reasons why .
Julia LindseyYeah , I do .
Julia LindseyI think I know a lot of people have said to me , even subsequently , that I really changed their mind about decodables Because they initially perceived them as these like meaningless , like just Feel like , just like random words on a page that serve no purpose , that made no sense to kids , that were devoid of all of the other aspects of reading that we think are important and that were exclusively wrote phonics practice , which is Something that I think people feel really worried about accidentally going so far and becoming a Situation where kids are like phonics robots . So which is very valid to be worried about that .
Decoding Foundations
Julia LindseyBut I think a lot of people have had negative experiences , especially those who have been teaching a while with decodable texts . The , the ones that are 100% decodable and and are designed for kids who only know like consonant-valconsent words and are were written in the 90s , are Not always Making tons of sense , thinking of some . So , yeah , yeah , so that preconceived notion is strong and makes and makes folks folks very rationally worried about the implications of putting books like that in front of their kids .
LoriSo yeah , that's such a good point and I feel like everyone out there probably has has that image in their head of like , oh , I know what you're talking about with the zip , zap , zap , decodable book , yeah , or something , and then you're also trying to , you know , have kids read it and sometimes it's all . I feel like the whole experience could be misunderstood . You know , in terms of what the purpose is and I know you talked about that the last time you were on the podcast the purpose of the decodable book , and we can talk about that a little bit later if you want to , when we talk about your book . But I think that that that a whole time and that whole experience of decodables could be misinterpreted if the Way that you are describing it like the old way or a way that maybe wasn't the most effective way Is in our minds . So I just wanted to throw that out there . But I'm so glad that you shared why you wrote this book and how you got on the journey to it , because I think it's a really cool story .
Julia LindseyYes , thank you . Yeah , it's , it was . I thought it was a fun story to live . I always fun to share as well ?
LoriDid you get your masters in , by the way ? I was thinking about that .
Julia LindseyUm , it was in just childhood education . It was like a first through sixth start , so okay , yeah , wow . All right .
LoriSo could you share a little bit with us what the book is and what it isn't , because I know it has Did the word decoding in the title , so it's for developing decoding skills , but I'm hoping that you can elaborate for us .
Julia LindseyYes . So this book is very purposeful and Hopefully it is purposeful and when you read it , not only in terms of what I chose to include and not include , but also purposeful in what I'm telling folks to consider when they're choosing what to include and not include in their instruction as well , and to always orient back to their purpose for teaching . So if you think of a book as as kind of a teacher or coach , what was my purpose in in writing this and in hoping to to help and teaching coach other educators with is really around foundational reading skills , and those are Are not actually just one thing that's something I dive into in the beginning of the book is that we actually don't even have a definition that is shared among all researchers or all , all , all organizations About what foundational skills for reading are . So the book is really around a Couple foundational reading skills . We could have , you know , all-day long arguments about what the full breadth of foundational skills is , but about those skills that are absolutely required for you to make sense of our written system and To give children access to the ability to pick up a book and do anything with the words on a page , and so that that starts even with oral language and print concepts and then takes us all the way through Multisyllabic word reading . So really thinking about what is it that we can do in In our routines as classroom teachers to actually support kids in developing these skills , why are these skills important and where are they leading us towards , and also how can we do this in the most efficient and effective way possible . So I am very much a Beans means to the end person .
Julia LindseyThe foundational skills are things that I know one who is a fluent reader even thinks about . They are below our conscious recognition , and that is super awesome because we can devote all of our energy to other stuff , like making sense of something or crafting a beautiful piece of writing , and so our goal and foundational skills instruction should always be to try to be Efficient and effective in how we're teaching so that kids can spend more time doing the much harder task of making meaning . And the way that we're efficient and effective is by leaning into these research based routines that we know about and leaning into Understanding why we're doing something . So the book does not go into a lot about Comprehension . It doesn't go into a lot about writing .
Julia LindseyIt doesn't even get into that much about fluency , because I was really trying to constrain myself , to be able to go a little bit deeper and to be a little bit more specific and Purposeful around decoding . Just like if you have ten minutes and you know that you need a child to be able to blend a three-letter word at the end of those ten minutes , you're not going to spend that ten minutes talking about the meaning of the word toad . You're going to spend those three minutes doing some sort of routines to support blending and then to support the blending with letters as well . So really thinking about the most purposeful uses of our time and the way that we can use that to the ends of getting kids these skills and then being able to move on .
MelissaYeah , I think that's so important and I was just . I was looking at your forward by Nell Duke , which is awesome . She said that you know this , this book is highly accessible and Really practical , and I totally agree with that and I was thinking , well , like gosh , if you try to address every part of Reading which is so complex , I mean we wouldn't have this like short , accessible book that's really helpful for one part of reading . It would be a million pages and Would no longer be a friendly , friendly book to pick up , and I think you said this to Julie is like we can't expect every book about reading to cover every part and we shouldn't right like every or any , not just a book , but articles , podcasts , everything . Right like we have to look at the different parts and then put them together Because reading is just very complex and so yes , absolutely .
Julia LindseyAnd also , you know , I spent the past five years , and some people have spent the last 30 years , exclusively thinking about foundational skills and so , to think about Like what it is that Someone in this space can tell you , someone else might have spent the past 15 years , 30 years , talking , thinking about comprehension , and I think that you should go to them to learn about comprehension . I think comprehension is amazing and complex and so critical , but I am not , and I probably know , more than you know . Well , I certainly know more than my dog , for example .
Julia LindseyI know somebody about it but I think that you know to we we have to like be able to consume lots of people's thoughts and lots of research from different arenas to really get the full picture of reading . And that is why reading is kind of a rocket science is because we actually , you know , need people with the deep XRT's and these things that seem kind of small but are actually such a massive part of the puzzle . And then , educators , we need to put those pieces together to make the full picture for the students in front of us .
LoriI Think it might be a really good time to share about the title . What do you think what you just said made me think . Oh , we should name why or discuss , yes , why . You called it reading above the fray .
Julia LindseyYeah , absolutely Absolutely . So I think that many of us have experienced in the last couple of years that there has been an increase in conversations in popular media conversations in newspapers , conversations on Facebook , conversations on Twitter , in our school board meetings , in our own classrooms and coaching , conversations on podcasts . Basically , wherever we turn , if we're really in this reading world , we see very fierce discussions about what is the right way to teach reading and particularly what is the right way to teach early reading and how do we get kids to become readers , and we've seen splashy news clippings and research findings all over about the huge percentage of children that are really struggling to keep up with this and differing opinions about what does that mean or how do we fix this or what's next , and I think that it's been critical it's been really critical for us to engage in that kind of discussion and for everybody to understand that this is a massive undertaking and that we are , in some ways , not meeting the needs of a lot of kids right now . But it's also really complicated to try to sift through what that all means , and it's a lot of noise and it's a lot of opinions and it's a lot of very strong feelings which don't always come across as kind and don't always come across as helpful . So my hope in writing this book was to offer some very clear outlines and explanations directly from research .
Julia LindseyI essentially took everything I learned in grad school about decoding and I put it into a book , and that included a lot of experiences with classroom teachers , with district leaders , with doing my own research myself , supporting other researchers with curriculum writing , et cetera . So it wasn't just me reading articles in isolation , but in truly being in practice in a lot of settings and I essentially got together as much research as I could find about some of these topics and about the instructional implications of this research and presented what I could about how we could teach these skills better and understand these skills better . So everything in the book , every routine that I present unless otherwise I say for example , there's one that I say like this is from a really awesome teacher who listened to some things and came up with this cool idea Everything is research-based and almost all of the routines are not only research-based but they've actually been tested in research before . So I really wanted to help folks kind of see behind the curtain and beyond the noise of all of these reading wars , to feel like they had clarity in what was going on . So that's what reading about the Frey means .
Julia LindseyIt means we know that there is great controversy about how to teach early reading . Right now . Let's rise above that and talk about what we actually know from research , and some of that is not going to feel like it fits neatly in a particular camp , and that's kind of how research goes . It tells us the truth about a certain question that we ask , even if that doesn't match our hypothesis . So presenting the research and trying to say you don't need to live down in the noisy spot , especially if that doesn't serve you , we can all kind of lean into research specifically and learn from that instead .
MelissaSo I was just going to say what I love about your book is exactly what you say . I felt everything was based in . You know , I could see research on everything . And then you even gave ideas for , like , if you want to learn more about this , here you go , like here's where to go look for more . But at the same time , it was so practical , right . I was like if I was in the classroom right now , this would give me so many ideas of what to actually do , which you know . Sometimes you read research articles and you're like OK , I don't know what this means for my classroom . That's not helpful . So I'm wondering can you talk through , just like , give you like an overview of the structure of the book , like how you ? I'm sure that was all purposeful what I just said , right ? So how did you structure the book and what did you want people to take away from it ?
Julia LindseyYeah , so the book is structured again around the foundational skills and the definition that I use to talk about . What I mean by foundational skills because , as I said , there's multiple definitions is what are the things that we have to add together that will lead us to being able to decode , or the elements of decoding is what I call them in the book . I did want to make them into pizza ingredients , but I think that idea got shut down pretty early in the process , but it would have been more fun .
LoriYou could go right here if you want to .
Julia LindseyI don't know if I can . Can I think off the cuff that fast ? We'll see . So the first couple chapters are really an orientation towards why foundational skills ? Why decoding ? Why am I so passionate about decoding ? I feel like probably I sound like a broken record , but decoding is cool and we should see it that way . So I talk about kind of why I'm being so obsessive , and then the next couple of chapters are organized as the elements that go into decoding , specifically single syllable words , and in each of those chapters I talk about why that element is important , for example , why alphabet knowledge , and I talk about the principles of great instruction , drawing really deeply on research to inform that .
Julia LindseyAnd then I give one essential swap that you can make in your classroom . Depending on the swap , some of them are things you can literally do tomorrow and I do try to call that out when it's possible and some are things you would have to think a little bit more about . But I try to give exact examples of why this is really essential , why it will move your practice forward immensely , how it's deeply research based , along with some routines and suggestions there as well . So an example of that would be in the alphabet knowledge , the swap is teach like a hare , not a tortoise , because we know from research that teaching the alphabet faster and this holds in PK , but is most essential for kindergarten is actually better , not only for the highest achievers in your classroom and those coming in with alphabetic knowledge , but actually , fascinatingly , we have research that shows that faster alphabet instruction is better for those kids who come in with less knowledge , which is a super exciting finding because it really gives us confidence to say okay , you should be efficient about this and get through these letters .
Importance of Decoding in Reading
Julia LindseyAnd then , after those chapters , I go into a chapter about how to use all these elements together to decode , and this chapter is one of my favorites . I would say it's really critical to me because we often see decoding as kind of the outcome of knowing a lot of phonics and recently , because there's been a lot of emphasis on phonemic awareness , we might see it as the outcome of phonemic awareness plus alphabet , plus phonics . But I argue that we should actually be much more intentional about teaching decoding . And so in this chapter I talk about what would it even mean to teach decoding and what does this look like ? And so in that chapter I give a couple of extra swaps to talk , to take you through what it would really look like to be teaching decoding in your classroom .
Julia LindseyThe next chapter that I get into is adding decoding to multisyllabic words . So I talk through how you can support kids in accessing syllable types and morphology to read multisyllabic words . This is something we need to be thinking about in early grades because we're setting them up for that long-term success when they're encountering almost exclusively multisyllabic words once you're in third grade and reading lots of big books . And then I end with a very short chapter on fluency , to make sure we're always angled towards some of the end goals . Foundational skills are not just decoding words in isolation , but obviously reading text fluently and , as Melissa said , lots of nods towards other resources and places that you can go for people who are way more better positioned than I am to tell you how to achieve this in your classroom around comprehension , oral language and vocabulary and fluency as well .
LoriLove it . I'm making a note that chapter eight is your favorite . I just think that I'm going to go back and read it again .
Julia LindseyChapter two and chapter eight are my favorite .
MelissaAnd there's other ones that are about decoding .
Julia LindseySo there you go . I love that .
MelissaBut before we get too deep into because I know I want to talk about a lot of the swaps , I think we all want to talk about the swaps , but I just we may have already said this , so just tell me if we did but like , why is that ? Why is decoding so important ? I know you're like a big super fan , but I just want to make sure our listeners like really hear the like why .
Julia LindseyOkay . So the first thing I'll just say quickly is like , what is decoding ? So decoding is using everything we know about sounds and spelling relationships and applying that to an individual word so that you can say that word aloud or in your head , if you're further along in your reading journey , and match that word to an oral representation that you have of a word . So if you know the alphabet , and you know the major alphabet , sounds and short vowels , and you see the letters C-A-T on a page , being able to say at cat and then being able to match that cat that's a word I know and being able then to match that to a meeting is obviously part of the process of really being able to read , as knowing what that means as well . So decoding is so critical because otherwise these letters , they don't mean anything to anybody . So we really don't have any other route to making sense of words on a page other than relying on letters . We can rely on guessing , we can rely on some other mechanisms like analogies and that sort of thing to guess at words . However , we don't have any other way that is the most guaranteed to be effective and to also be pretty efficient if we're doing it well , to figure out what a word is on the page in front of us and then to be able to move on and read the rest of a sentence . So decoding is really cool because it gives you access and ability to read words on a page . And I also think that's super cool because it's , as you might notice , in the language I'm using . It's giving it to you , so it's giving the reader that independent ability . There is no need to rely on a teacher if you can decode a word . There is no need to rely on a picture , there's no need to rely on prior knowledge , so you're actually just relying on the exact information that you have about sounds and spellings and , again , about blending and segmenting and rolling that all together to be able to say the word on the page . Decoding is also super cool because , yep , in the short term that immediate it lets you read the word . In the long term , when you've seen that word repeated over again or if you've seen similar patterns and similar words , it creates a huge schema and representation for you so that you can navigate more and more words , so that you can engage in a mechanism of self-teaching where you're learning more and more and more about English orthography , our spelling system , and about words , so you're able to encounter new words quicker and get through them easier . Decoding also , in the long term , helps us build orthographic maps , which are a pretty hot topic . Essentially , think about a triangle where you understand the words pronunciation , spelling and meaning and by seeing a word multiple times and decoding it , you're building this map in your brain of what that word is so that you can see it and read it automatically in the future . So all of these things together are about how decoding is the mechanism to getting kids to be automatic readers .
Julia LindseyYes , it is theoretically possible to get to automatic reading without decoding . However , not for everybody it's not . And , more importantly , it's faster and more effective to go through decoding . So I know sometimes we think back on our own teaching experiences or those of us still in the classroom and we're like , well , yeah , but I've got all these kids who've seen fine , and I've never even heard them really sound out of word . Yep , there are some kids and some humans who we think just kind of like have a an ability to suss out these kind of patterns and language without too much support . But if we want to support all of the kids in our classroom . This is the route , and if we want to support those kids who seem to be getting it on their own and being more effective , this is also the route . So I think decoding is super cool because it unlocks this individual , internal ability to access all aspects of our written language , both immediately and in the long term .
LoriYeah , I think it's so cool that it doesn't even take that long . I'm looking at your book . It does not . I'm on page 44 and I've highlighted in pink Are we talking about the first swap ? We're talking about the first swap and I'm trying to transition seamlessly that researchers found the most impactful phonemic awareness training for less than 20 hours total across a school year or intervention .
MelissaThat seems manageable , you know I mean again and I also think like you think people think more is better . Right , Like if this is so important and so critical , let's do it all day until they get it .
LoriAnd I know , julia , you have some recommendations about like the time frame and the instructional moments and what that might look like during the day . So I'm wondering if you might be able to share with us a little bit about swaps like what they are , because we just kind of dove in I was trying to seamlessly transition us here Share a little bit about the essential instructional swap , which I love this this is my , these are my favorite pages in the book and then also a little bit about , so this first swap here . So give us the example on page 44 , which is less foundational skills , overload , more language and reading , rich instruction , and then maybe we can talk through some of that schedule like what it might look like , because that's always a question that everyone has on their minds , from , like , classroom teacher to , I think , school board you know , educator or school board leader .
Julia LindseyYes , yes , absolutely . This swap is so critical because this is a book about foundational skills , but I wanted to make it very clear that I am not talking about foundational skills overload . I'm talking about a reasonable amount of foundational skills to the end of getting kids to proficiency , and research does not suggest to us that that's going to take all day every day for three years . That's just not what the evidence tells us . So it's really important to keep that in mind when we're thinking about how we're infusing this into our schedule . That does mean that when we are engaged in foundational skills , we have to be choosing effective ways of engaging in it . Or maybe it will take all day every day for years and years , because it's kind of like a you can't do either , or it's it can't be efficient but not effective . It's got to be efficient and effective . So fast and good at the same time is the only way that you're really going to be able to achieve these goals . So , yes , there is research about like phonemic awareness . Trainings do not need to take that much time . I think it's about maybe 10 minutes a day . Is if you , if you divide that 20 hours out in a school year .
Julia LindseyAnother finding that a good friend of mine just reminded me about a couple of days ago in a Linnea Airee piece from a few years ago , was that it was they had taught kids who knew that at least 10 , 13 letters and the some phonemic awareness . They taught them how to blend and segment CBC words in 20 minutes , 20 , and then that was it and that's . They saw impacts of that . So , thinking about like how much kids need input into and then to learn a something , and then yep , those kids are going to need more practice . I don't think they're going to remember that exact skill for , like you know , 20 years .
Julia LindseyBut knowing that that actual instruction is maybe not going to take tons and tons and tons of time and that our real goal and a lot of the foundational skills instruction should be giving kids access to these skills in a super explicit way and then really strategically creating practice opportunities for them that , again , are still fast and still effective , based on research , so that they can continue to grow those skills every time . And that leaves you a lot of other time to do . Read alouds and other small group instructional types , writing instruction , all of these other wonderful things that literacy teachers do , and , for many of you , all of the other things that you do for science and social studies and math and all that sort of wonderful aspects of the day as well .
Julia LindseySo there is a schedule on page 45 , but it's not really a schedule . It's more of a nod towards all the things that you're probably doing in your day and the time that those things might be taking you and a way to talk about how these are all kind of interconnected . And in the online website for the book there's an additional table that sort of is similar to the one on 45 , but it indicates how you might infuse a little bit of foundational skills into some of these other times of day . For example , maybe you have a 30 minute read aloud every day that is focused on deep comprehension work , as it should be , but maybe every so often you use your read aloud to have a minute of infusion of print concepts . Or maybe you have 40 minutes of writing every day .
Julia LindseyI mean , God bless if you do . That's beautiful and you're engaging kids and really thinking about creating writer's craft or in all sorts of other great things that you might be working on . But you are able to also support spelling via the sound spelling relationships you've been teaching systematically in phonics during your check-ins in a writing time . So knowing that foundational skills can flow throughout your day and doesn't need to take away from those really deep , meaning-making experiences that you've crafted for your students and that are necessary to create readers and not phonics robots which phonics robot sounds scary , I wouldn't want to go up against them in a fight , but I don't think that we need those in the world .
MelissaI have to say Julia too . I love that the updated version also includes math , science , social studies . It doesn't even just have to be a LA time where these can continue . This practice can continue , yeah , and before .
LoriMelissa transitions us because I know she's about to ask another question . I can see it on her face . Can you say the website for everyone listening for the book ? Do you know the website ?
Julia LindseyThat would be cool if I could .
MelissaI think you have to have the book too . Right , I have it , but you have to have the book to get the password . Oh , you have to have the book .
LoriOk , well , that's good . So we can direct everybody to buy the book and then go to the website .
MelissaAnd then it's in the back front cover or the back cover of the book . Look inside . Yeah , that's where the goal is .
Julia LindseyPerfect . I was going to say I don't know . Thank you , I was going to say that's so funny .
LoriOK , well , I didn't mean to ask you the easiest question that you didn't know the answer to , but you're like what is your coding ? No problem . What's the website of your book , julia ?
MelissaIt's one of those secret ones , though , that you have to have the book to get into . We'll post it in our newsletter .
LoriHow about that ? We'll post it in our newsletter and everybody can sign up for our newsletter and then have access to your website .
MelissaThey still got to get the book .
LoriOf course they'll buy the book after this for sure .
MelissaYou got to have the book to get the password .
LoriYeah , because everybody I feel like this is a big question , that we get emailed all the time Like , well , what does this effective schedule look
Phonemic Awareness in Early Education
Lorilike ? How can I do all of this and fit all of this in ? So I love that you tackled that with some key thoughts and instructional moves . Thanks for doing that .
Julia LindseyWell , I hope it's helpful . But yes , we all have our own ideas about schedule , don't we ? So you'll have to adjust it and make it your own .
MelissaFor sure .
Julia LindseyEspecially principal .
MelissaIt's a guideline right , all right , so I'm switching to the next swap . Are we ready ? Go ahead ? Are we going ?
Julia Lindseyall through , all of them .
MelissaNo , we just picked out a few . We have a couple .
LoriOh , we like . We have a favorite swap list .
Julia LindseyLove it .
MelissaBut I did want to talk about the one on page 73 , which is around phonemic awareness , Just because I think I think for some people phonemic awareness is kind of a newer , a newer thing that , like you said , I didn't even know what that was , you know , before I went to grad school . So I just want to talk through that and , specifically , this is fewer rhymes , more phonemes and , like you said , this can be really short and quick , and so I think it's a really nice like something that someone listening to this podcast might be able to take away and and incorporate into their classroom . So tell us about it .
Julia LindseyAwesome . So first I'll direct folks to pages 18 and 19 , as well as the online resources for my dictionary of foundational skills terms . It will guide you through all of these definitions of the terms I use in the book and also in our the terms that are used in research . So well for those of them that have definitive definitions some of them unfortunately do not , so just always go back to that if something is not fresh or if you need an update about the specific definition of something , because this is a hugely confusing topic .
Julia LindseyWhat is phonological awareness ? What is phonemic awareness ? How do they fit together ? What's going on here ?
Julia LindseySo broadly , phonological awareness is our ability to hear and manipulate and generate any kind of sound in language , including saying a whole word . Knowing something is rhyming with something , being able to just kind of like operate in our oral world , and a lot of those skills do develop pretty naturally for many people . But that doesn't mean that they develop naturally in the sense that you might be able to rhyme but you might not and ever know what the word rhyme means . So we might think that kids are not able to do something if we are asking them rhyme with the word cat versus if we say let's play a game Like one of my favorites . You know , we're going on a camping trip and everybody's going to bring something that rhymes with sat and then playing games like that where we're , we're modeling and we're helping everyone along the way . So there is just a difference there , just in terms of what we're asking of kids , just always remembering that is particularly important in some of these oral language skills .
Julia LindseyBut even though I just mentioned rhymes , unfortunately the sad news about phonological awareness is that it doesn't actually seem to impact reading as much as we thought it did . What really impacts reading is a subset of phonological awareness called phonemic awareness , which is our ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds in a word . So being able to say dog starts with D , and if I change the D to a , b , it would be bog , that's demonstrating phonemic awareness . I was able to hear , isolate , generate and manipulate or change the sounds in a word , and that would be , you know , the highest levels of phonemic awareness , obviously . So those are what really matter for reading , and it's makes sense , because if you can't say that there's a D sound at the front of a word , then how are you going to figure out that the letter D should spell that , or how are you going to figure out that when you're looking at the D , that's the sound that you could should say . So phonemic awareness is really critical in letting us decode words sound by sound , letter by letter , spelling pattern by spelling pattern . So that's what we're going to do .
Julia LindseySo in the book I talk about more phonemes , fewer rhymes , and this is true even in kindergarten , and you can , even if you're teaching pre-K . You should even think about this in pre-K , which is that we do have research that shows that kids can engage in phonemic awareness training as young as three and that we do understand that from research . Right now , we don't think that you have to have all of the other phonological awareness skills before you engage in phonemic awareness so we can come out the gate in kindergarten starting with this . We might realize that for certain kids we need to backtrack , but for most kids we can come out the gate practicing these skills in order to get kids to blending and segmenting . So in the book I give one example routine that's very straightforward . It's essentially you tell the kids exactly what you're gonna do .
Julia LindseyYou do an explicit teach of phonemic awareness .
Julia LindseyYou model something , you do it together .
Julia LindseyI do , we do , you do , and then the students practice it , and then you close , and so it might be something that you add on to the front of a phonics lesson .
Julia LindseySay you're teaching the letter D , I'm now using the letter D for a lot of examples of this .
Julia LindseyYou might start your lesson by saying okay , I'm going to show you how to isolate the first sound in a word and we're gonna focus on words that start with da , and then you might model that for students and then have them practice listening to you say words and saying what that first sound is , and that might be how you begin a small group lesson or a whole group lesson around and again the letter D , and that allows you to then directly connect the letter to that sound . We do need some phonemic awareness practice in isolation , but another big but around phonemic awareness is that we actually know from research and we've known this for over 20 years that the most important phonemic awareness work is happening with letters . So once we can get kids in a position where they're able to handle letters and sounds at the same time , we should be emphasizing that , not to say we shouldn't do any oral only , but that we should definitely be coupling those things together to get the most bang for our buck in terms of impacting reading and spelling .
MelissaCan I ask you a selfish question real quick ? I have a three-year-old and I don't know what I'm doing at this level to teach a three-year-old . But we often play a game where we just name all the words that start with a similar sound . We'll just say , like what starts with ss , and we'll just start naming things right Like snakes , and we just name things and we're like is that even helpful ? I'm really curious .
Julia LindseyYeah , no , that's what I'm thinking is great . And yeah , being able to like , match and group and sort sounds and words together is a helpful phonemic awareness strategy , especially when you're isolating down to that first sound , and that's a great example of the type of activity that could feel as joyful as a lot of rhyming activities that we love to do in early childhood . That's actually a lot more purposeful because it's getting us towards a skill that's much closer to real reading and writing than rhyming is .
MelissaOh good , ok , we just do it for fun . But I was like I wonder if this is helpful .
Julia LindseyWell , learning to read should be fun .
LoriSo I love that . I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about Alconan boxes , which you also named as both effective and efficient routines for this . Can you share a little bit about why they're effective ?
Julia LindseyYes . So Alconan boxes or sound boxes if you've heard that term word boxes , letter boxes there's all sorts of things that people use to call them are essentially when you have a number of boxes for the number of sounds in a word , and so you can use a toy car , or you can use letters , or you can use tiles and you fill in those boxes , as you say , certain sounds . So these are .
Phonemic Awareness Strategy With Elkonin Boxes
Julia LindseyThis strategy of using those to be able to say individual phonemes has been used in research for a very long time . The original study was from the 1960s and so , unfortunately , a lot of research does not necessarily get us to a specific instructional strategy . A lot of times research is at a higher level than that . So we have to make some strategic decisions about what the research really means for what we should do instructionally .
Julia LindseyBut what I think is cool about some of the research on this strategy is that we actually have done studies about this specific strategy for phonemic awareness , so we can feel pretty confident in saying , ok , this is a good idea and what it does is that it helps kids be able to have an additional modality for interacting with a very abstract concept .
Julia LindseySo listening for phonemes with your eyes closed , for example , is really abstract . That is about as abstract as you can get versus saying , ok , we're going to drive a car across the sound , say the first sound as we drive across the first box . So and then being able to drag that car across is really a supportive way to help kids be able to identify how many sounds are , in a word , be able to isolate individual sounds and be able to practice that action of blending and segmenting as well . So I definitely suggest them . It's also pretty easy to get a match that's even laminated or something with the three boxes on it , and it's also engaging to have kids get to choose , like maybe you have some game pieces in your costume and they can choose which ones they want to use to be able to isolate those sounds . So it's a strategy that can be really fun as well . Yeah , I love it .
MelissaLots of options .
LoriYeah , and I just want to confirm . It's for the number of sounds , in a word . So the number of boxes would depend on the number of sounds . If I were the teacher I might have to use have like a mat with two boxes and three boxes and four boxes , right ?
Julia LindseyYeah , and that's a great point is that we do want to emphasize that kids should be pointing to a box for a sound , not a letter , because we know a lot of spellings that represent one sound are actually more than one letter . So , for example , if you're working with digraphs and you're trying to have a child say the word ship , you would still only have three boxes because that SH is representing one sound . And the cool thing about Elcunin boxes as well is if you have ones that are , say , on a whiteboard , you can use a token first , or a car or whatever you want to do that oral-only practice , and then you can have kids represent with letters , either by writing or by using letter tiles , in order to really support that understanding of like , wow , ok , we're doing this oral thing . I'm translating this as the famous book Speech to Print , and now here I am printing this thing and I understand that these mechanisms all work together and I can actually use the same strategies of blending in all these situations , and then you've got a decoder .
LoriCan I ask a really nuanced question ? Around the boxes , you're like Lori , stop talking about the boxes . So I'm noticing that they're all squares , like perfect squares . I've seen on social media , I've seen in classrooms , boxes be used that mimic the shape of the letters . Can you talk about why these Conan boxes are specifically squares and why we're not going to give , like the letter , shapes to help students ?
Julia LindseyI think I know what your question is , but you let me know if I'm going in the wrong direction . So there was a theory that I'm not entirely sure where this came from , but I'm assuming it came out of some movements in the 1970s around how we recognize words , and this theory postulated that we recognize words as just like this whole thing , almost like when you see an iPhone and you're like that's an iPhone , you don't need to . You don't see each individual part , you don't see the camera and the well , there's like no buttons left on these things , but you don't see pieces and think , oh , these pieces equal holes . There's this theory that one of the way that the way we process words , is that we kind of memorize the holes , and out of that came this creation of saying , okay , well , if we outline the letters , then we can have kids kind of memorize the shape .
Julia LindseyThat is not how reading works . Let's let me just be blatantly clear about that . That's just not how reading works . We actually know for sure at this point in time , because of MRI studies and very sophisticated eye tracking , that in order to read a word , even you , who I am assuming are a highly literate , engaged reader , actually do look at every single letter in a word , and so we also know that kids need to do that as well , and that in order to get them into a space where they're decoding and therefore the route of the most efficient and effective word recognition is by drawing their attention to real letters . Not to shapes and not to abstract formations , but drawing their attention to letters , how to use those letters to map onto sounds and then how to blend those or segment them to read or spell .
LoriThank you , that's super helpful . And , yes , you did get the gist of what I was asking . I didn't want like a , is this bad to do ? Is this good to do ? I didn't want that to come from me . I wanted it to come from you because you're a much more reliable source than I am .
Julia LindseyWell , I don't know about that . You guys have learned , I'm sure , like learned quite a bit over this wonderful podcast .
MelissaWe have a lot to go . We're still learning a lot , yeah don't we all ?
Julia Lindseyisn't that ? The joy of all of this is that we all get to keep learning .
LoriAbsolutely , and I also love that you talk about joy in your book for students For sure . Yes , I love that you dedicated a little section to that .
MelissaThat was important , all right so there's like a thousand more swaps that I want to talk about . But I want to skip ahead to your favorite chapter , chapter eight , Perfect , and I don't know . If you want to try and maybe connect the swaps in there , you can tell us . But I mean , one is just like simply more decodable texts , fewer non decodable texts .
Decodable Texts and Independent Reading
MelissaBut I also would love for you to touch on the independent reading , the less less unsupported independent reading and more supported independent reading . We actually get a ton of questions about independent reading , I think more at all grade levels , but it'd be interesting to hear from like from you , about what should independent reading really look like at this time ?
Julia LindseyAwesome , yes , okay , so in terms of decodable texts , I will , I .
Julia LindseyIt is my favorite topic , and so I'm sad to do this , but I will encourage folks to listen to the last episodes that I had come on last year , because I do think we get into that quite a bit . The high level here to understand is to think about everything that we've just talked about about how word recognition works . You can rewind and listen to me gab about what decoding is and why I think it's so important , and to then think about okay , so if you agree with that logic and that research based understanding of how , how we recognize words , which I hope that you're curious about and and willing to think about , if that's that fits Then what would that mean about the books that we put in front of kids and the words that we want them to practice reading ? And so the logical kind of conclusion of this is that we would need to put words in front of children that they're actually able to decode . And so if you're just like any anything we practice , just like getting bigger biceps , you can't do that if you are just doing like one bicep curl and then going on a run . So we want to give kids the access to knowing what a bicep curl is , to knowing you know what are sound , smelling relationships , what is blending , what is segmenting , and then I'm just going to go with this metaphor and so we're going to give them bicep curls to do and work . It sounds like , okay , this is going to get really repetitive , but bicep curls are not the only way that you can support a bicep . So we have other ways that we can support decoding , such as like in strategic shared readings , where we have some words that are decodable in interactive , or we're supporting supporting kids and spelling these decodable words in decodable texts that are 100% decodable for one day and then up the next day it's 80% , and I'm right there to support you with that 20% of words . That is more about making sure that text is meaningful , but we're giving kids that practice to actually get into the act of decoding , and I the and then I'll say this that the major fear on these books , like I've touched on at the beginning , is that they are going to make kids hate reading , and I will say to you unequivocally that that has not been my experience or the experience of the educators that I have previously supported and using high quality decodable texts . It actually has shocked me . I did think that that was possible and then to actually see it in action , it will change your mind .
Julia LindseyKids are excited and joyful about being able to read a word . What an incredible accomplishment to go from someone who's looking at these weird symbols all over the place to being able to make sense of that for yourself . Read a word for yourself , read a sentence , read a book for yourself and to say to yourself I am a reader , I didn't have to rely on my teacher , I didn't have to rely on anything but myself . That act , that's the magic that we feel when we're teaching readers . The magic isn't because reading is mystical . The magic is because we can give kids access to this very critical skill and that they don't need to see it , all this background of stuff that we're doing . They can feel that joy and magic , but we know that we're being extremely strategic in what we're doing and I have had kids at places where I've written decodables , literally run up to me and say what's going to happen next in this decodable series ?
Julia LindseyThey don't use the word decodable , I'll just copy of that but they're so excited to read decodables that they have literally run up and been like this has been my . I'm so excited , I can't wait to read the next book and find out what happens . Or kids that are laughing out loud at decodable text . So just don't take the label to mean something that is vile . Take it and think about what it could really mean for kids and think about how you can also use your professional knowledge to find the highest quality ones that are going to match your students needs and interests . So I'll say that about decodable texts , and then independent reading is your next part of the question . So these do liaise with that right . So we , if we are supporting kids and in reading a lot of decodable words that they have are just learning in their sound spelling relationships , obviously we should give them the chance to practice that independently if they're ready for it . This is probably the most controversial swap . I would say it sounds . It sounds , I think , probably worse than it is . So let's just contextualize it . So this is a shocking finding , but there is research that tells us that unstructured , unsupported independent reading time is not impacting reading outcomes in any measurable way that we can see across student populations like K 12 . So that's like really hard of a pill to swallow , because I think most of us think kids deserve time to read on their own . They deserve time to pick a book that they want to read and have the opportunity to do that . That is not what that research is arguing against and that's not what I'm arguing against either . No one is saying kids shouldn't have the chance to be curious about books or to have the chance to explore books . That's not what this research is saying . This research is saying that if we have instructional time that we are dedicating to a specific thing and , for example , in this case , if we have instructional time that we're trying to dedicate to decoding and what we choose to fill that with is an activity of completely unsupported meaning go grab a book and go to the corner , kind of reading it's not going to get us there .
Julia LindseySo we need to think about what again is our purpose for something ? If our purpose is I have some center time or stations or whatever we like to call them , I'm going to pull a small group and then one group is going to be . Maybe they're on a computer , or maybe they're with an assistant teacher , or maybe they're writing letters to the guests who came to your classroom last week . And then you have another group that you would normally say independent reading , but you know that that particular group is at a stage where they need more practice with decoding .
Julia LindseyYou might want to pick a different activity , and so in the book I do offer some ideas of activities that are more supportive of decoding than just free for all . And again , that's because what is your purpose and how are you best going to get there with the extraordinarily precious time that we have in classrooms ? I do want to caveat this by saying I am in no way indicating that kids who are needing extra support and foundational skills should never have the opportunity to find books that interest them or to engage in just joyful reading experiences . They deserve that always and they need that too . But just thinking about how we're using the time in the classroom that we have in order to support this very specific skill set might mean that we have to change some of what we're doing around unstructured , independent reading time .
LoriThank you , and thank you for that caveat too . I think that's really important to name . I think we have so many more questions . We could go all day long .
MelissaI don't understand I am a chatty .
Julia LindseyI am a chatty , I'm not chatting a lot , so we're going to have to plan like a part four .
MelissaI feel like I always get to the end with you and I'm like I just want to keep talking to her , though I know why is it over ?
LoriYou're making it so easy to understand . I'm just so grateful for how easy you make everything to comprehend .
MelissaYeah , I'm glad your book did that too , right . It's almost the same as when we talked to you . Your book was very similar in that way .
Julia LindseyOh good , I'm glad I have heard from multiple people that they read it in one weekend . It was not meant to be a tome , it's meant to be accessible and so that you can really use it , and so thank goodness .
LoriHopefully it doesn't .
MelissaYeah .
Julia LindseyIt's not a stressor , it's just a resource .
MelissaYeah , it's awesome .
LoriIf I could read it again , well , and I will read it again I would go through and , like , read all the swaps first and then back map the chapter , almost because I thought that was like such a great way , like .
Julia LindseyI read forward the first time .
LoriI would almost read backward in the chapters the next time to see . But I love the do it tomorrow too , like there are so many opportunities and like , though , I think , the one you were like it takes no more than 15 minutes , and I was like that's true , I could do it tomorrow . It takes no more than 15 minutes . It's really manageable . So it's so easy to understand and to read and such like practical application tips Super awesome . Thank you for that .
Julia LindseyWell , thank you . I'm glad it came across that way , and I hope other folks find value in it too .
LoriYeah Well , we can't let you go without winding down with five things you love , and I can't wait to hear about this year . So it's going to be rapid fire , julia . So , first thing that comes to mind , whatever comes to your mind , yep Ready .
MelissaDo you want to start ? Yeah , all right , julia . What do you love to read ?
Julia LindseyBesides research , children's books , yes , no , I love kids books . I have two nieces who are under the age of one and my favorite thing of the world is to buy books for them and then get to read them to them .
LoriI love it , love that . What do you love to watch ?
Julia LindseyI love . Right now I'm very much a 30 minute comedy kind of gal , so some of the old old book goodies like Big Bang Theory , seinfeld , even like way back in the day , that sort of thing . Got to get a laugh in .
LoriI hear you , I love it . A good friends episode yes , all right .
MelissaWhat do you love to listen to ?
Julia LindseyI'm a big podcast listener . I've listened to recently I've been listening to Code Switch on NPR and it's a very thought-provoking . So love that one . Write that one down .
LoriCan you listen to yourself on a podcast ?
Julia LindseyOh , generally no , I barely have people know . When I have to review like a video or something , it takes me a while to like get up the gumption .
LoriI was just curious . I feel like most people feel that way too . What is a memory you love , as a teacher or as a student ?
Julia LindseyOh , this is such a good question . There are so many memories I love as a teacher , just like basically all of them . I'll say one in particular . That comes to mind is that I had a student who was , I mean , they're all brilliant , but she was just in love with writing horror stories in first grade .
Julia LindseyAnd she . It was the most adorable thing in the world . They weren't that scary , I'll tell you that much , but they were really , really amazing anyhow . And she learned how to use an ellipsis the three dots in order to add drama to her stories . And it was just the joy on her face at watching me read the book and then go dot dot dot . I mean I'll just never forget it . It was beautiful to see someone using literacy in the way that made them happy and sharing it with me .
MelissaThat's so cool . That's so cool , All right . Last question why do you do what you love for literacy ?
Julia LindseyI love that too . Great questions , gosh . Wow , there's a lot there .
Julia LindseyI think that reading is the most powerful thing that we can give to someone else .
Julia LindseyI think that if we could , if I could snap my fingers and do something , it would be to say everybody has access to a foundation of reading that's strong enough that they can do something . They want that information . I think that that leads people to being lifelong learners . I think it leads us to being curious . I think it leads us to being more empathetic , because we can expand our minds and our worlds through books of our choosing , whether those are big nonfiction textbooks or if they're graphic novels , or if all we do is read text messages or Instagram captions
Promoting Literacy and Community Engagement
Julia Lindsey. Being able to give folks the information that they want , being able to give folks the ability to do whatever they want with this skill is , I think , just utterly important and beautiful and joyful , and I want to do my part in helping all of us get kids there so that they can grow up knowing that they can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want to do with their great abilities to read and to write .
LoriI love it . Well , we're so grateful , we're so glad you spent more time with us , I mean , and really more time , like we take up a lot of your time , so thank you . We schedule an hour block and we always go for 90 minutes , so thank you .
Julia LindseyYes , hopefully , folks are still listening at this point .
MelissaThank you so much , julia . Thank you for your book too .
LoriWe love , love , love it yeah everybody should go out and grab reading above the fray and then check out that schedule too on the site . That's , that is a bonus to this book . That's cool , we love it . Thank you , julia .
Julia LindseyThank you .
MelissaWe're excited to create a space for community discussion about our podcast . We want to connect with our listeners and support you in answering your questions , but we also realize there are a lot of other educators out there who have great advice and experience too . Let's keep learning together in our Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast Facebook group , and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter .
LoriIf the content in this episode helped you , share with a fellow educator and teacher friend . Our literacy lover community welcomes educators at every stage of their learning journey . We're so glad you're here to learn with us .
MelissaThe views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast in this episode are not necessarily the opinions of Great Minds PVC or its employees .