In this episode, we take you behind the scenes of the smash hit foundational reading series The Reading League’s “Reading Buddies,” aimed at students in pre-K through third grade. Susan is joined by Andrea Dotto and Brendan Malafronte—artists, performers, and co-founders of children's story hour and media company Dusty & Dott—as well as "Reading Buddies" executive producer Toni Ann Walsh. Together, the four of them discuss how the show started and how Andrea and Brendan got up to speed on the Science of Reading, and share tips for educators and caregivers on how to make reading instruction fun for kids.
Additional resources:
Quotes:
“Our mission is to educate educators on the Science of Reading because we believe that if educators have that knowledge, they can transform kids' lives.” —Toni Ann Walsh
“Little by little you can learn to read, you can do something hard and we can do it together.” —Andrea Dotto
“As a storyteller, I can go on a stage and tell a story and know, ‘Oh, that song made somebody connect to a memory,’ or ‘These two hours, they got to escape whatever is bothering them at home.’ That escapism is special and magical. But with reading buddies you get escapism and then you also get impact.” —Andrea Dotto
“God bless teachers. They're incredible. And we are here to help you continue to be incredible. We're here to give you tools to excite your students and just complement everything that you are doing.” —Brendan Malafronte
In this episode, we take you behind the scenes of the smash hit foundational reading series The Reading League’s “Reading Buddies,” aimed at students in pre-K through third grade. Susan is joined by Andrea Dotto and Brendan Malafronte—artists, performers, and co-founders of children's story hour and media company Dusty & Dott—as well as "Reading Buddies" executive producer Toni Ann Walsh. Together, the four of them discuss how the show started and how Andrea and Brendan got up to speed on the Science of Reading, and share tips for educators and caregivers on how to make reading instruction fun for kids.
Additional resources:
Quotes:
“Our mission is to educate educators on the Science of Reading because we believe that if educators have that knowledge, they can transform kids' lives.” —Toni Ann Walsh
“Little by little you can learn to read, you can do something hard and we can do it together.” —Andrea Dotto
“As a storyteller, I can go on a stage and tell a story and know, ‘Oh, that song made somebody connect to a memory,’ or ‘These two hours, they got to escape whatever is bothering them at home.’ That escapism is special and magical. But with reading buddies you get escapism and then you also get impact.” —Andrea Dotto
“God bless teachers. They're incredible. And we are here to help you continue to be incredible. We're here to give you tools to excite your students and just complement everything that you are doing.” —Brendan Malafronte
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast. We hope you've been having some fun this holiday season, and we want to keep the good times rolling. So on this episode, we're bringing you something a little different.
Cartoon Voice #1:Hey, Dott, what badge am I gonna get today?
Cartoon Voice #2 :Today's Alpha Badge is called <laughter> The Old Vowel Badge!
Susan Lambert:That sound, from an episode of Reading Buddies, a children's TV series about a woman named Dott and her talking dog Dusty, who's learning how to read.
Cartoon Voice #1:Vowels are , um, what I use when I get out of the bath.
Cartoon Voice #2 :Those are towels, Dusty. A vowel is a sound you make when your mouth is open and your lips, teeth, or tongue don't hold them back.
Cartoon Voice #1:Woo, those vowels are busy and fuzzy sounds!
Cartoon Voice #2 :Yes!
Susan Lambert:From our friends at The Reading League, this TV series is bringing the Science of Reading to kids via YouTube and PBS affiliates from Alabama to New York. To talk all about the show, I'm joined by three key people behind it, Toni Walsh from the Reading League, as well as Andrea Dotto and Brendan Malafronte, the talented humans who bring Dott and Dusty to life. Listeners will come away from this conversation with real tips for making literacy instruction fun and effective for kids. Here's my conversation with Andrea, Brendan, and Toni. Well, hello. We have such a special episode today. This is the first time we've had more than three people on the podcast. So thanks for joining us, Dott and Dusty, who will get your introductions in a minute. And Toni from the Reading League, we would love if you would introduce yourself, tell us who you are, and then we'll just kind of jump into the content of this podcast. Toni, you wanna start first?
Toni Ann Walsh:Sure. Hi everybody. I am Toni Walsh. I am the Chief Marketing and Development Officer at The Reading League, and I also serve as the executive producer for our amazing television show called Reading Buddies.
Susan Lambert:Yay! And we're here to talk about Reading Buddies, and with us is Dott and Dusty...which, you're really not Dot and Dusty in real life. So can you introduce yourself?
Andrea Dotto:Happy to . My name is Andrea Dotto. That's where we get the "Dott" from. Dott is a nickname that you're welcome to use today if that makes you happy. <laugh> . I am a Broadway storyteller and turned Reading Buddy during the pandemic with my husband Brendan here.
Brendan Malafronte:And that's a great segue into, my name is Brendan Malafronte , and I run all the props and the puppetry for Reading Buddies, and I'm the head writer as well.
Susan Lambert:That's amazing. And I know that there's quite a story about how Reading Buddies came to be, which we wanna get to for our listeners. And Toni, I would just love if you would share Reading Buddies. Tell our audience what in the world are we talking about when we're talking about Reading Buddies?
Toni Ann Walsh:Absolutely. So, Reading Buddies is a foundational reading program that is geared towards kids who are preschool through third grade. It's applicable for older kids as well who might be struggling to read. And it really is a fun foundational show with every single segment having some sort of educational component to it. And it's one of those shows that when a kid watches it, they don't even really understand they're learning, but by the end of it, they, they understand how to write letters, how to listen to sounds, how to do chaining things that they would learn in school.
Susan Lambert:So we're talking about a TV show that delivers content to kids about the Science of Reading. Is that right?
Toni Ann Walsh:You got it. And we're the only one in town. Actually, as far as I know, we're the only one on the globe.
Susan Lambert:Wow . That's pretty cool. And we can't wait to hear more. How in the world did this whole thing come to be? And I think, Andrea and Brendan, that started a little bit with you, right?
Andrea Dotto:Yeah. So when the industry shutdown happened for the performing arts, we really were at a loss of how we were going to connect and use our skill. I mean, this is our job. This is how we provide for our lives. But it's also our calling. So to not have our calling have a space, it was crippling, almost. And so Brendan and I, we knew we had to find a way to connect, even in all the isolation. So an artistic director who I had worked with asked if I would record a bedtime story, a read-aloud for his audiences at the theater, and it would just be on Instagram and Facebook and things like that. Brendan had one of our puppets, Dusty, with us because he was—
Brendan Malafronte:—teaching. A professor over at Pace, teaching a puppetry course. <laugh>.
Andrea Dotto:Right. So it was kind of this meeting of a bunch of serendipitous moments. And I decided to do this read-aloud with Dusty, and I filmed it and I edited it to kind of have our sense of humor. And I shared it with my family at our kitchen table. And they were all really laughing, <laugh> and to have this sense of, "Oh, we just provided humor; we just provided this sense of relief"—because read alouds are just...it's just in their nature. We figured we should start doing this more. So we would do weekly read alouds, and I got us in some local magazines and papers in our upstate New York area, and that's when The Reading League found us and thought, "I think you can do more than just read alouds." <Laugh> And then, and then we had our glow-up; then that's when we had our Reading Reading League glow-up.
Susan Lambert:That's really cool. Before we just jump over to Toni for a minute , Andrea and Brendan, what were you specifically doing before the pandemic shutdown? Like, where were you and what kind of performing were you doing?
Brendan Malafronte:Right. We were — we're musical theater performers. You know, trained in that. And we had booked work together, lined up for a few months. We were doing a musical called All Shook Up , which is kind of an all-Elvis—
Andrea Dotto:Jukebox musical.
Brendan Malafronte:Jukebox musical. Thank you. Where it's all Elvis music. And, you know, we were excited, looking forward to all of that. And then the pandemic happened and, you know, the whole world shut down. But people could still work from home and things like that. The theater industry literally shut down and kind of stopped overnight. We had just opened the show and then the next day it closed. <Laugh> Like, we had one performance.
Susan Lambert:Wow.
Andrea Dotto:And that theater has had to close its doors entirely. Which was also really telling, of "Oh man, we're in for something that we don't know what it looks like."
Brendan Malafronte:So when we moved to—well, Andrea, her parents are up in Syracuse. So when we relocated up there from the city, we left our apartment and , you know, it was very scary. It wasn't a stable time. And everybody was kind of wondering, what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen in the future? And you think it's gonna be a month and you'll be back. And then a month turns into three months, and it's gonna be fine. And then, you know, as it goes on, you realize that it's never gonna be the same. That's what it seems like. So when we did our read alouds, we found something to be able to ground us and connect us in something that seemed familiar , and brought us joy, and the kids joy. It felt like we were performing again.
Susan Lambert:I think that's important for our listeners to hear, because it wasn't necessarily on your long-term goal to do a kids' TV show , even if you did have Dot and Dusty characters. Right?
Andrea Dotto:That's right. Well, we had brought Dusty out when we worked for Ronald McDonald House. We would do these events called Musical Magic, where I would go and we had a band and we would sing, and Dusty would sing with Dott. I wasn't formally Dott yet. But I think that's when the characters and our personalities, they kind of got to workshop themselves , at these children's hospitals. And we realized how Dusty, among all of our puppets, really had this way of connecting with kids, and immediately giving them a laugh or some comfort. It was like, "Wow"— you know, I'm not a puppeteer, but it was my first kind of foray into, "This is magical, what Dusty is capable of."
Brendan Malafronte:And the children that we are performing to, they needed the laughs, and their parents needed the laughs.
Andrea Dotto:That's right.
Brendan Malafronte:Because, you know, the parents at these hospitals, they're with their kids 24-7. So it was a moment where you can have the adults and the kids all laughing at once, and it makes that lighter moment for the whole family.
Susan Lambert:And, and for our listeners, this is the moment that I wish we could show video. And we talked about that. Right? And for, for those that don't know, Dusty is a dog. I've got that right, right? Dusty the dog.
Andrea Dotto:Yes. He's a talking dog. Yes.
Susan Lambert:A magical talking dog. <laugh> .
Andrea Dotto:That's right.
Susan Lambert:So here you are, in Syracuse, New York, doing read alouds, and The Reading League is in Syracuse, New York. You probably weren't even aware of the Reading League. Maybe, maybe not? No?
Andrea Dotto:No. I mean, when I had gotten the initial email and I had told my family, my sister Kim, who's a speech pathologist, she said, "Oh, I see their sign, their billboard, you know, downtown, every time my drive to my client's house." So it was like, "Oh wow, OK." All these little clues.
Susan Lambert:<laugh>. That's so great. So Toni, how is it that the Reading League actually partnered together, then, with Dott and Dusty to make this thing happen?
Toni Ann Walsh:Yeah, honestly, the only way I can put it was the stars all aligned in the universe in line the right way. So , hopefully all of your listeners know that The Reading League's true passion, our mission, is to educate educators on the Science of Reading, because we believe that if educators have that knowledge, they can transform kids' lives. So at that time, we were three years old, we had five of us on staff, and we were trucking along and we were doing great professional development with school districts. And you know, we were kind of getting our bearings, and really those school districts were our only target audience. We just wanted to build that program. And then March of '22 happened, or 2022, and I mean, you wanna talk about life changing forever for everyone! Particularly teachers, who, you know, their lives were completely turned around. They're trying to figure out how to do remote learning; what are these computers; do all the kids have computers? You know, how do we make sure that the kids who weren't showing up come back to this class? I mean, the stuff that our teachers were dealing with was tremendous. And we knew as an organization whose sole purposes to support educators, we knew we had to pivot while that was all going on. I happened to have a kindergartner. So when we were having meetings, the world was on Zoom. We'd have these Zoom meetings. And Madeline, my daughter, and I would literally be fighting for bandwidth. She'd be trying to do her schoolwork, and I'd be trying to be on a Zoom call. And I'm like, "Guys, I gotta go. She can't; she can't—she's gotta be on this class!" And it became super-obvious to the team that something was gonna give, right? We needed to provide something to educators that was gonna both help them figure out how they can help continue that learning path when it came to reading education in a strong and positive way, but for crazed moms and dads like myself, and grandmas and grandpas, who now found themselves being supplemental teachers...I work at the Reading League and I didn't know how to do it! So, you know, we were struggling. So we brainstormed and brainstormed, and it just so happened that one of our staff members saw Dusty and Dott's faces on a magazine, Central New York magazine, and that prompted us to look at some of the videos they were doing. And we were like, "Geez, WCNY is right next door to us.That's our local PBS station. I wonder if there's some sort of way that we can partner together to make something happen." And we were very blessed. We got Andrea and Brendan on the phone. We talked to them a little bit about what we were thinking about doing. We got the team over at WCNY together, tried to figure out what that even meant—like, how would we put this all together?—and, you know, it, it was always a Covid fix. It was always, in our mind, this temporary thing we were going to do that was gonna help these kids and help educators during this past— because like Brendan said, "Remember, we were going back to school in two weeks. Oh, two more weeks. Oh, now we're gonna go next month. Oh, now we're not finishing this school year. But hopefully we're going back in September." You know, we had months of uncertainty. And meanwhile all these kids are sitting here, eager to learn, and we had to figure out a way to help them learn. So our coming together was very like fate. It sounds a little corny, but it was, like, this fate of "how do we help kids? When push comes to shove, how do we help kids?" We do that through educators; we do that through parents. And we were able to put something together relatively quickly to do Season One.
Susan Lambert:That's awesome. And we're gonna talk later , about, you know, it's no longer a Covid fix. It's actually on a path for something else. We'll talk about that later. But what I love about this moment is that we've been talking so much about what happened during Covid, how people were impacted; how kids were impacted in their learning; how teachers were impacted. But something really cool came from that Covid moment, called Reading Buddies, that nobody ever anticipated would happen and maybe might not have happened had Covid not happened.
Andrea Dotto:It's true. I mean, we joke that it's not that we were given lemons and we made lemonade; we were given rocks and we made lemonade. <Laugh> Like, nothing, nothing should have been fruitful from this time. And we made it happen. And I think that's because when everything gets stripped away, you have to evolve. You have to try something new. There were no other options. So in a way, we were limitless, you know? It was like, "Well, we've never done this before, so what if?" Rather than the "what if" going the negative way, because we had so much negativity everywhere, we were like, "What if this goes right? What if we all do this and it works?" And The Reading League , Maria Murray is so able to see the positive and the potential in everything that she does. So that, I mean, I remember when we were introduced to her, it was like, "OK, make a good impression <laugh>, because she makes things happen." <Laugh> And I was like, "OK," you know , straightening my outfit. But I think that that potential—they met the moment and instead of saying, "Well, this isn't really what we do," they said, "Maybe this can further our mission." And then everything changed from that moment.
Susan Lambert:Hmm . And the two of you, I'm guessing you weren't experts on what the Science of Reading meant. So you kind of had to come up to speed on that. How did you, how did you make that happen?
Brendan Malafronte:Well, The Reading League , they teach teachers. It's great. So they have this wealth of knowledge on it. And we worked with them to explain a lot of this to me , because, well at the time, we were both writing it. And they provided a bunch of workbooks and textbooks that, you know, I got from the lessons. I was like, "OK, I hope I retained that information. Let me look through this book and see if it makes more sense." So by the end, these books were tagged and highlighted and dogeared. And it's just a different way of learning t han when we were kids, so we had to kind of jump back and be, you know, six-year-olds for a second <laugh>.
Andrea Dotto:And Brendan would often ask—'cause we would take parent courses through The Reading League, acting as if we were parents; we were parents to Dusty and so we learned that way—and then Brendan would often have to say, "OK, now, tell me this this idea as if I was six years old." And then they would kind of give him a lesson as if he was a young reader, and then through that, he could kind of not learn with his adult brain, but learn with his child brain.
Brendan Malafronte:And in trying to recreate those lessons in a similar way that they would probably learn it in school, but with a twist on it, that is meant for these imaginative TV segments, so that it's fun, and it's reading. So the show is kind of a filter. So we have teachers teaching teachers and all of that great information and all of that knowledge gets funneled through the lens of this show and turns into something really special that is meant for kids. Both to entertain and educate.
Toni Ann Walsh:And I just wanna acknowledge, because I think the journey that Andrea and Brendan went on is the exact same journey that all of our teachers and educators go on, when we stop and we ask them to kind of forget all the things you've been taught up until this point, have this clear and open mind, and learn new. And once you have that knowledge, not only can you figure out what curriculum you're gonna buy, what books you're gonna buy, but you can transform how your classroom runs. So you're more efficient and more effective for more kids. These guys took that exact same concept, instead of their classroom, their classroom was a television studio. You know, their classroom is that film. And I just wanna acknowledge that, because these are two humans who are not educators by trade. They are not classroom-trained at all. And they were able to do it. So for those folks who are listening here, who kind of get to that point where you're like, "Oh my, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can put in the time or put in the energy to make that transformation".... It can happen. You can do it. If we can do it, you could do it.
Andrea Dotto:That's right. Coming at it from the Beginner's Mind, that was helpful. We didn't have anything to compare it to, which, that makes it a little bit easier for us. But I was so curious about what I was learning, because I was—I always struggled in reading, growing up. And so I was coming to this curriculum thinking, "Man, what if we could teach this in a different way? What if this could be different?" And then, you know, we were able to create something really special.
Brendan Malafronte:Yeah. We've become better readers because of the show <laugh> . So it works for adults, it's gotta work for kids!
Andrea Dotto:That's right. <laugh> .
Susan Lambert:But the Science of Reading wasn't the only learning that had to take place. Right? The Reading League, you weren't entertainers and you weren't TV producers. What was your journey through that, too?
Toni Ann Walsh:I think our naivete of understanding what a television show was was actually helpful, because had we known, I don't know that any of us would've done it. <Laugh> You know, looking back on it, hindsight's always 20-20. We put together a television show when all of Hollywood was closed.
Susan Lambert:Yes.
Toni Ann Walsh:I Iook at that and I go, "Geez, how did we do this?" We had three characters on the show. The Alphabott is played by Brendan's sister, Erin . So we had this little family pod of Andrea, Brendan, and Erin . And they kind of lived and communed during the four-week production period. The WCNY staff who did the filming and the sound and all that, that in-studio stuff, they were their own pod. And then The Reading League was a separate pod. And we walked around with masks and face shields and things like that. And that was really our focus. You know, we let, we let WCNY be good at what they were good at. Dusty and Dott were great at what they were good at. The Reading League was there on-site to make sure the educational components were there. And we just focused on putting out some sort of quality educational show. And I really look back on that and I say, "Man, there are seasoned actors and actresses who, you know, I don't know that they could have pulled off what we did." You know, there was times when there was squares on the floor that were six feet apart and we were literally— everybody had their own square and you could only talk to each other from those areas. Um, Dott and Dusty, they did all their makeup and all of their prep by themselves, because we couldn't have other humans come near them. And we were lucky, you know, nobody got Covid during that production. And we lived and learned a lot on what it meant to actually put a television show together. But you'll see a lot of differences between Season One and Season Two, because the restrictions that first year were ginormous.
Susan Lambert:What other big lessons were learned in the process of doing this?
Toni Ann Walsh:Well, on our end, I can say it allowed us to open our eyes and open our minds to more than just teaching educators. We were so focused on that educational component in working with school districts, and we were so young as an organization that we just never had thought to open up our target audience to other folks. And once we did, we were completely and utterly shocked by what we learned and the feedback we got.
Susan Lambert:What kind of feedback was that?
Toni Ann Walsh:Well, I'll go into my little spiel here about how WCNY's president Mitch Gelman comes over to the office, in September. So we launched September of 2022. We were free on YouTube and at the local PBS station here in Syracuse, that covers about 14 counties here in New York State. And we were all excited. And about two weeks into it, Mitch comes to the office unannounced and says, Hey Maria, Toni, I have to sit down and talk to you . And we both kinda looked at each other and were like, "Oh, no, <laugh> well, what's going on? So , I know many of your listeners know who Maria is. Maria is a very talkative, energetic woman. And same with me. So we talk a lot, and Mitch sits down, and he says, "Ladies, I gotta tell you something. Reading Buddies is beating—it's outpacing Sesame Street and Donkey Hodie, the two biggest PBS Kids national shows. And our little show, two weeks in, was outpacing both of those on that Syracuse station. And that shut us two Italians right up ! And I kept saying over and over again, jaw to the floor, I'm like, "Wait, can you repeat that?" And he would say it again. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. Let me, let me restate it. Like, make sure I'm hearing this correctly." And we were just floored. And that was the moment we looked at this and we were like, "Holy smokes. We've been looking at this all wrong." We originally started as this Covid fix, right? The Covid Band-Aid to stop this Covid slide. Everybody kept hearing about the Covid slide, and we have to stop the Covid slide. It was at that moment that we went, "Holy...this could have a bigger impact long-term and it could have a bigger impact , more than just our small community here in Syracuse." And that was the moment we started looking at things differently.
Susan Lambert:That's amazing. Andrea and Brendan, what about you? What lessons learned?
Andrea Dotto:Well, I wanna say as far as even how we learned on how to make a TV show...I think it applies to everything, but we learned that you can't do it alone. I am a very efficient person. Toni, dare I say, is more efficient than I am. And we still need—
Toni Ann Walsh:I don't know! I don't know about recently, but! <Laugh>
Andrea Dotto:—we still needed to expand our team and ask for help. And it made us better communicators as, you know, just working as a team. I think it showed me that I am capable of things I don't know yet. You know, I had never edited a TV show before. I had never been on Premiere Pro. I had never done any of these things. And thanks to YouTube and my family for supporting my breakdowns, I learned how to do it, you know? And so then it's like, wow. This might sound so cliched or corny, but to actually believe in yourself. And when it gets hard, to not give up. I mean, I really learned that from this show. And I think that that is in the bones of the actual characters and their plot on the show too. That little by little, you can learn to read. You can do something hard. And we can do it together. You know, "You'll Never Read Alone" is one of our lyrics.
Singing cartoon character:We'll see you soon, from this same spot, with Dusty, Dott, and Alphabott! With your Reading Buddies, you'll never read alone!
Andrea Dotto:That just applies to everything with Reading Buddies.
Brendan Malafronte:For myself, it was kind of like a gradual appreciation for the curriculum. Because for the most part, you know, beforehand, it's very musical theater and very escapism and very like, "No, don't worry about that stuff! This is fun and slapstick! You know, you know. And then when we initially got all it , because we had such a short amount of time, and I was going through the curriculum, I'm like, oh! Because I can't wing curriculum; I can wing performing, right? But you have to prep curriculum. But that first season I was like, "Oh, I wish we could just wing this, but we can't!" <Laugh> And then, you know, as it went on, and as I understood it more, and turned it into these fun exercises, and now, you know, after Season Two it's even more. A nd now, writing Season Three, it's like, "OK, I'm excited to try to fit the curriculum in. I'm excited to try to get that curriculum in, in a fun way." And the appreciation comes from how important the curriculum is. And thinking back, in retrospect, now that we're not rushing, r ushing, rushing, and it's not the heat of the pandemic, I r ealize that this is what makes the show vital. And this is what makes the show, probably the most important thing I h ave done so far. It's that this show can change lives. It can be the foundation for these kids that opens any door they want. Because reading and writing and expressing their thoughts and ideas and taking in other people's thoughts and ideas that they can learn lessons from...all of this, it, it just empowers them, gives them confidence, and gives them the keys to unlock the world.
Susan Lambert:So I'm gonna make a couple of connections 'cause I don't know if you realize, Andrea and Brendan , that you just both said something pretty wise. So Andrea, your discussion about when things get hard, you just keep going. And for kids...I like to remind teachers, when you're learning to read when you're a kid, it's hard work, but it's worth it in the long run. And for teachers to remember to be beside those kids in that hard work. But additionally, for teachers making the switch to evidence-based practices, it's also hard work, and don't give up on that. Right? So to sort of stay with that, and learn it through, and Brendan, what you just said about, "I wanted to do my own thing, but it was really the curriculum first and I learned the curriculum and then learned how to do some fun things with it," I think that's another message that's very wise. That curriculum, the scope and sequence, is really important, but you can also add in who you are and how best to deliver that. And I think that's just a shout-out to teachers who are trying to both learn this process and then count on their high-quality instructional materials to carry them through. So, so thanks for those wise messages to our educators that are listening. Which leads me to another question that's less serious. But come on, explicit instruction, making that fun and more appealing, 'cause what we hear all the time is like, "Oh, that kind of stuff is kill and drill. Kids aren't gonna like it." So tell me a little bit about how you went through that process to say, "Oh no, this could be really fun."
Andrea Dotto:Well, I think when you're writing something, and you're gonna say, "OK, I'm gonna write a kids' show and I hope that it's funny," that's so wide. Like, what do you do with that? But to have the walls of the curriculum, that almost made all of the creativity...it gave us, like, a play space. Which was helpful. And I don't know if that applies to a classroom too, but just to have some boundaries...it might seem like it's limiting you, but I actually think it's knowing where to create within, or else there's too many options. So I think that was helpful for you, would you say?
Brendan Malafronte:Oh, for sure. I'm trying to think of...
Toni Ann Walsh:So why don't I toot your horn, Brendan? I'll toot your horn here .
Brendan Malafronte:'Cause it's hard to...
Toni Ann Walsh:These are two of the most creative human beings I've ever met. And there's often times when I'm like, "Hey, take a look at this ugly thing and make it beautiful." And it comes back and I'm like, "Holy moly , that's better than I could have ever thought!" I think what these guys have been able to do is take curriculum, which has just a tendency to be boring, right? Like, that's the nature of it. And some of our segments, they have put music to it, so there's a rhythm in the background as they're doing the exercise. And that's kind of what makes it fun. Some of the segments there is movement. So we have a whole segment called Squat with Dott,
Cartoon Voice:Are you ready to Squat with Dott?
Toni Ann Walsh:While they're doing the curriculum exercise, they're also physically up and exercising as well.
Overlapping Cartoon Voices :And join us! Yeah, do it! Let's do it!
Toni Ann Walsh:There's some times that the curriculum is done in a way where there's an artist with a paintbrush. And now they're doing this more creative, and fun, abstract type of activity. So each of the segments has its own little bit of creativity that then allows the activity to be fun. It's not that the activity changed; it's that some other component was brought into it. Most of the time the kids don't even know they're learning, but that's that difference of, you know, is it drill? Yeah , sometimes it is drilling. But what if you drill with a rhythm in the background or a metronome or something in the background that provides that? Thinking outside of the box. And that's what these guys have done to make the show special. But I also wanna say, I have met many, many teachers in this position. They're the most creative human beings that I know, as well. That once they get that knowledge, they'll be able to put those pieces together too. They'll be able to say, "Oh, you know what, if we do this by clapping our hands or by shaking our hips, you know, it will make it fun for the kids." And they're still getting that good quality education.
Susan Lambert:Absolutely.
Brendan Malafronte:And , I found my thoughts, <laugh> sorry.
Susan Lambert:Good. You go. Yes .
Brendan Malafronte:And so...drill. It's more of a thrill a nd drill, is the thing. When a kid's playing a game and they enjoy it, they don't want it to end. Right? They wa nna d o it again and again. We've babysat. I've babysat a lot. I've done a lot of k ids' p arties and things like that, and some games they just don't want it to end. And others, they, they wa nna k eep moving through it. So, as a performer, on the fly, you're like, "How can I k eep their attention?" Different ways, different tactics, different things like that. Be cause w hen a kid is bored and you're babysitting, that babysitting day becomes a lot longer. <laugh> It feels a lot longer. So the game, for us, is to keep them entertained. And as far as the educational co ntent o f this: When we were kids...I keep saying we grew up—and everybody probably feels this way—we grew up in the golden age of children's television. < Laugh> E specially the golden age of children's educational television. Because when we were growing up, we had B ill Nye: The Science Guy. We had Magic School Bus. And if you maybe read the script to Magic School Bus, you might be like, how is this gonna work? But the different ways that they create the safe space for the kids to learn is wonderful. And I think that has inspired us now, in creating a safe space where the kids can trust that, "Oh, this is my show. This is my fun show that I get to watch every d ay. I love this dog. I love Dott's voice." Things like that. Learning in a safe environment that doesn't necessarily scream "school" is key to the show. Right?
Susan Lambert:All right . I'm gonna ask you an out-of-the-blue question, but my wheels are turning as you're talking about that. When you're trying to figure out, "What fun thing can we bring to this curriculum routine?" do you have any specific routine the two of you go through to come up with that creative application?
Andrea Dotto:<laugh> Well, it makes me think, there's a segment in our show, in Reading Buddies, when Dusty takes a bath. Every kid takes a bath. So they know—at least we hope so—they know what to do. And so then it's like, "Yes, I take a bath! I go in the bathroom!" And they get to see something familiar. Then Dusty has a loofa. So everybody has their bath toys. Everything that they can then apply at home, do at home. Then we do an exercise where Dusty blends the bubbles. So three bubbles pop up. It says, "we read," C-A-T, "you hear" the phonemes being said, and then as the loofa blends them all together, Dott's narrative says the word as a whole. So we're taking something that we know it has to go from left to right, left to right. And so we would physicalize with our hands: If we're going from left to right, what does that look like? Does it look like catching butterflies? Does it look like popping bubbles? So we figured out with that action, where can we take it, as far as the story goes? And we decided to do bubbles.
Cartoon Voice #1:<laugh> That workout made me sweat. Whoa , look at all the bubbles. Let's get poppin'!
Cartoon Voice #2:Hot rod.
Cartoon Voice #1:Bye bye, bubbles!
Cartoon Voice #2:Hot rod.
Andrea Dotto:To have two people in my parents' basement...the lights are on, we're trying to write , it's snowing outside, and we are just—our hands are going from left to right, trying to figure out what we can build. So sometimes it is a little goofy, you know. You have to put yourself in a kid's body and not not feel so constrained by <laugh> adulthood.
Brendan Malafronte:And the good thing about The Reading League, and ourselves not really knowing <laugh> how to make this TV show, is that it has grown and developed organically. So we will add something else, be like , "Is this OK, Reading League ?" And they're like, "Sure! <Laugh> Go for it! Let's do this!" And so that kind of cooperation and that freedom, like, it's not like we have some producer saying, You can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this." It's, it's, "Let's see what happens if we do this. Let's bounce this idea around. Could this concept work?"
Andrea Dotto:That's something to remember too. Like, there are segments in Season One that...it's not that they weren't funny or charming, but they didn't really stand up as much as the other ones did. So then, they go. So maybe that's another reminder, too. It's OK to try something and then not use it. <laugh> Even though, you know , it took a lot of time to build some of those segments. They go to the editing floor. And that's OK.
Brendan Malafronte:And just committing to something. Like, the character Alphabott, right? Take Alphabott. A lot of times, maybe these lessons are done on...I was gonna say a blackboard, but I don't think those exist anymore. <laugh> Like a <unintelligible> <laughs> board . So we just wanted to put our own spin on it. And I'm a big sci-fi geek, so I was like, a robot would keep MY attention. <laugh>
Cartoon Voice #2:I t's time for Alphabott Sound of the Day.
Cartoon Voice #1:What's the new sound, AB?
Robot Voice :AH AH AH. AH AH AH.
Brendan Malafronte:So that's why a lot of these exercises are done on Alphabott. Like, chaining. Chaining is what you would do in school. That one's not, you know, super-disguised, super-hidden. It's a tough thing to do. It's so we wanna reinforce what they're learning in school. But putting it on a robot just automatically makes it more magnetic to a child.
Cartoon Voice #2:That is a great idea, AB! Alphabott wants to transform some words that have the AH sound i n t hem.
Brendan Malafronte:Also, there are are letter magnets, so I guess it's magnetic in nature. <laugh> .
Susan Lambert:There you go. <laugh> . And I know one of the big changes that you made between Season One and Season Two is kids. You have real kids on the show now. How did you come to that?
Toni Ann Walsh:Yeah. When Season One happened, we knew right away before we ever went to production that the long-term goal, if we were able to do it for more than one season, was to bring kids in. Because one of the most important things is for a child to see themselves in the show. So when you look at the kids who are our Alphabeteers, they run across the gamut: Different races, different sexualities, different faces, different everything. We wanted to make sure that any kid who sat down in front of their television or their iPad to watch the show could see themselves within the show. Or relate to somebody. So that was really exciting for us. We brought seven kids in and those kids became our Alphabeteers. And Dott is somewhat of the troop leader. Think of it as a scouting type of thing. And the kids all go and earn badges for the day, and they are actually helping Dusty learn how to read. They're learning to read themselves, but the main crux of the show is that Dusty is learning how to read. And that was important to us as well, because if the adult is always teaching the kids, then it's so similar to school, right? That's right. Most of the segments that we have, the kids are teaching Dusty a new trick or a new lesson or a new sound. And that really elevates how a kid feels. That really elevates that a kid can see, they can be the teacher. They're not always the student, you know. And gives that inspiration and builds self-esteem.
Cartoon Voice:I'm teaching Dusty some new tricks. Do you wanna help? Great! Here we go, Dusty. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Cartoon Voice :Say "Spacecraft."
Cartoon Voice #1:Spacecraft.
Cartoon Voice :Say it again, but don't say "space."
Cartoon Voice #1:Craft!
Cartoon Voice :Yes!
Toni Ann Walsh:So we brought kids in, we have a new set, and then we have two new puppets, Marty and Mary. And they are gnomes and they live in the outdoor garden. And those gnomes bring us the Word of the Day, the fancy-schmancy Word of the Day. And again, another opportunity to bring in vocabulary and all that Tier Two stuff, in segments that kids would never know that! Kids would never know the fancy-schmancy Word of the Day is a Tier Two word. But they will use that word throughout the entire show, and kids hear it on that repeat, and they'll get to learn it in a bigger, better, stronger way. So Season Three will be the same. We're in pre-production now of Season Three, and that really is our focus, of making sure that kids can see themselves in the show, that they are building self-esteem, they're building their knowledge, they're building their core foundational skills, but we're still having fun, and we're still having that high-energy excitement.
Susan Lambert:So Brendan , how is Dusty learning, in terms of how to read? How is he feeling about his reading journey?
Brendan Malafronte:<laugh> You know, he's learning more and more. Sometimes he drops little bits of knowledge in there and Dott the character's very surprised that stuff is actually sticking to it. Yeah . < laugh>
Cartoon Voice #1:The last sound has to be transformed, Dott! Can you put another "mm" in there?
Cartoon Voice #2 :Let's see. Mm. Ah. Mm. MOM! Very good, Dusty!
Brendan Malafronte:There's so much curriculum in this that if a kid walks away with 10% of it by the end of the episode, t hen they have learned something. So, i n terms of how Dusty learns and how these children teach him different exercises like repairing Alphabott wi th Reggie...
Cartoon Voice :OK, for every sound we hear in the word, we have to press a button. After a few rounds, Alphabott will be fully charged. Let's get to work.
Brendan Malafronte:...that turns into an exercise, right?
Cartoon Voice:The word is "stop." How many sounds do you hear in "SS, T, AH, P"?
Speaker 5:Ziggy, the painter on the show, that whole section is an exercise on how to craft these letters, how to draw the letters. M aya gives him snack t ime, gives his treats. That's another exercise. Because dogs learn new tricks and you gotta practice those tricks. And don't we all, right? < laugh>. So finding those ways of like, "OK, these are the—". It was actually really fun bringing on the kids. Because you get to figure out how that kid, with what they love in their STEM skills, how this person's love of technology can also enforce reading. And how that reading is kind of tied into everything we do in life, right? So that's like a fun way that Dusty learns how to read. You shake it up. It's not the same tactic. You use different ways to teach. And I think that provides a very full, well-rounded experience for someone who i s learning, like Dusty.
Susan Lambert:So Toni, where can folks watch Reading Buddies? It's on YouTube, I know for sure, but what other places?
Toni Ann Walsh:Yeah, so our goal is to provide free access to anybody who is interested in watching. So our YouTube channel is 100% free. And you can go o nto The Reading League's website, TheReadingLeague .org/ ReadingBuddies to find out more there. And we are now picked up by seven PBS stations. So people who are in Detroit, that's our new one, guys, that I d idn't even tell Dusty an d D o t yet! We're in Detroit! That g ot signed this morning! So we're in Detroit, we're in New York City, we are in Syracuse, we are in Long Island. We ar e i n the entire state of Alabama. We're in a couple of the cities in Pennsylvania. And we offer the show free to PBS stations. So if you are in a market that I did not just list, and you are interested in helping us get the Reading Buddies show into your location, we would love your help. Contact your local PBS station and let them know that Reading Buddies is available. All they have to do is email us, and you can get all that information on our website, too. But the show is something that they will never—the PBS station will not have to pay for. And that's pretty big. You know, PBS stations are nonprofits too, so they're always looking for ways to save, and make sure that they're still putting on quality education. So PBS stations and YouTube are the two best ways. And if you really love our show, please, please do us a favor. Go onto our YouTube channel and press that subscribe button. That subscription to our station is really huge to us. It will help us get onto the radars of big distributors like Hulu and Netflix and Spectrum. And that's the long-term goal. You know, this is all for kids. So the big goal is to make sure as many kids are sitting there watching the show and have access to the show as possible. So our, our big goal is to have it go into some sort of distribution where millions of kids have access to it.
Susan Lambert:Well, how exciting about Detroit! Because I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so now I can point my Michigan friends to that Detroit channel, besides YouTube. And for our listeners we'll link all of these resources in our show notes so that they just can go there and have just an easy click. So amazing to hear what you have in store for Reading Buddies. Andrea and Brendan, as we sort of close up, what are your hopes and goals for the future of Reading Buddies?
Andrea Dotto:Hmm . I really hope that this show is seen by...I want the audience to expand. You know, it's, it's been incredible to create the show, right? And we love creating it. And we'd love to keep creating it and working together. But ultimately, what we have already is of value, and is so worthy for kids to see. And I think the more we can just get it out and see those numbers rise, it just means that the education is getting out there too. And as a storyteller, I can go on a stage and tell a story and know that, "Oh, that song made somebody connect to a memory," or "This two hours they got to escape whatever is bothering them at home," or whatever. That escapism is special and magical. But with Reading Buddies, you get escapism and then you also get impact. And that to me just feels like the greatest, the greatest job. Honestly. It's the best job. So the more that impact can spread, it will just be even more fulfilling.
Brendan Malafronte:I always thought that if this show ever becomes...if it picks up and becomes that show that a teacher wheels out the TV for, and plays it, and the kids are like, "YES!" And then years from now, these kids are, you know, 28, < laugh > and they are together somewhere, and they say, "Hey, did you guys watch this show with this dog and this robot?" And it was Science of Reading?"
Andrea Dotto:And I was like, "Yes!" Oh my gosh!
Brendan Malafronte:Oh my gosh! Yeah. So I mean, that's one of my hopes. That has been one of my dreams. Because we talk about Shari Lewis and Lambchop like that. You know , it's like that connection that brings people together. My other hope for it is like, God bless teachers. They're incredible. And we are here to help you continue to be incredible. We're here to give you tools to excite your students and just complement everything that you are doing. And the other side of t hat is it shouldn't end and stay at school. So when it comes home with parents and families, that's something else that I would encourage, is continuing that education. Watch the show with your kid; figure out what they're excited by in the show. And then when you work with that kid, you make references to that show. Get them excited. Figure it out. And I think it could be a really good tool to bond in that way. And show that, you know, reading and this stuff, it can come home, because it is part of the world. You're gonna carry it outside, when you go to the park, everywhere you go. So it's not limited to just school.
Susan Lambert:Well, y'all, thank you for joining. It was such a pleasure to have you on and to hear a little bit about of inside scoop on the Reading Buddies and how it developed. And I watch it and shoot it out to my grandkids to watch, too. So thank you for all that you're doing. And like I said, we'll link our listeners in the show notes to all these resources. But thanks again for joining.
Toni Ann Walsh:Thank you . Have a great day, everyone.
Brendan Malafronte:Yeah. Thank you.
Andrea Dotto:Thank you.
Susan Lambert:Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Andrea Dotto , Brendan Malafronte, and Toni Walsh. Check out the show notes for a link to the Reading Buddies website where you can find more information on how to watch the show. We'll also directly link you to the Reading Buddies YouTube channel, where you can watch full episodes. Also, I'm thrilled to share that Dusty and Dott are going to join us for our next Facebook Live event, Off the Pod, with me, Susan Lambert, on the morning of Saturday, January 21st. Mark your calendars, and alert any humans , big and small, who might want to practice their reading skills with a talking dog. We'll have much more information in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Next time on the podcast, we're going to turn our attention to a massive piece of literacy legislation out of Utah.
Speaker:We really wanted to close the gap. Our data has been static since the early 2000s, and so we knew we had to do something different.
Susan Lambert:Stay tuned for more, and thank you again for listening.