S6 E12: Celebrating many meanings: Language comprehension and bidialectal students with Jasmine Rogers

While working with students, one educator came to a realization that put her on a path to fascinating research in the Science of Reading. In this episode, Jasmine Rogers—manager and coach with the In Schools program at the DC Reading Clinic and an early literacy intervention lead at American University—shares her story and delves into her research on dialects and best practices for structured literacy instruction. She discusses Black language and how it connects with the language comprehension strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope. Jasmine also offers recommendations for classroom teachers who have bidialectal students.

Show notes:

• DC Reading Clinic
• S1-22: Success using the Science of Reading: Mary Clayman
• Jasmine Rogers - Linkedin 
• S4-07: Linguistic Variety and Dialects: Difference, not error: Julie Washington
• “Teaching Reading to African American Children,” by Julie A. Washington and Mark S. Seidenberg
• “Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy,” by April Baker-Bell
• “An Informed Lens on African American English,” by Megan-Brette Hamilton
• “Multilingualism and Codeswitching in Education,” by Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu

Quotes:

“As a teacher, a Black woman, who speaks Black English, who knows the language, who is very well versed in structured literacy, if I overlooked this, if that caught me off guard a little bit, then that means that could potentially catch someone else off guard.” —Jasmine Rogers

“With language comprehension, and considering in your native language, there may be a word that doesn’t necessarily match up with a language that you are learning in the classroom. So you have to then use your incredible cognitive skills that speak two completely different codes, comprehend what is happening, and then tie that back into, of course, the Rope to become a fluent reader.” —Jasmine Rogers

“I consider Black English to be a very complex and complicated language…but I think typically in society it has been viewed very negatively. You can see in the media and in research where people have talked about it and used negative connotations. And I think those beliefs from society have seeped into the classroom.” —Jasmine Rogers

“A strength of children that are bidialectal is the similar strength to students that are bilingual—they have an ability to take language that is different from theirs and translate it. That right there is an asset.” —Jasmine Rogers

“The languages that we speak and bring from home also are not wrong. They’re simply different. And we’re gonna work together so that we take what we know differently and come together with a common language so that we’re communicating with one another.” —Jasmine Rogers

“We have got to give our students access to this code so that they can become literate and run our society one day.” —Jasmine Rogers

Transcript

Susan Lambert: 0:35

This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast. A quick programming note, this is our second-to-last episode of season six. All season long, we've been exploring the infrastructure behind the Science of Reading movement. We've looked at how people in very different roles throughout the education system are working in their own ways to advance evidence-based literacy instruction. As we near the end of the season, we're bringing you the story of an educator who, while working with students, came to a realization that put her on the path to some critical groundbreaking research. Jasmine Rogers is a manager and coach with the DC Reading Clinic and a doctoral student at American University. And on this episode, we'll hear Jasmine's story and delve into her research on structured literacy instruction and teacher perceptions of Black English. Jasmine will explain why she uses the term Black English and much more about her work. As always, we won't be able to cover everything about this topic in one short conversation, so please be sure to check out the show notes for links to more research, as well as our season four conversation with Dr. Julie Washington, a professor in the School of Education at the University of California Irvine. And now, here's my conversation with Jasmine Rogers. Well, welcome Jasmine. Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode .

Jasmine Rogers: 2:11

Thank you for having me.

Susan Lambert: 2:12

We are excited to chat about this topic, but before we jump in, we would love if you could just introduce our listeners to who you are , and where you are in your Science of Reading journey.

Jasmine Rogers: 2:24

So my name is Jasmine Rogers, as you already know. I work for the DC Reading Clinic during the day , which is a clinic that focuses on teaching teachers the principles of the Science of Reading in leading needs-based small groups as it applies to appropriate structured literacy practices. And then in the evenings, I am a doctoral student at American University. I am in the education policy and leadership program with a focus on early literacy initiatives. And I also adjunct there teaching a master's course in reading for aspiring teachers. As far as the Science of Reading, I have been, thankfully, I have been able to be exposed to the Science of Reading because of the DC Reading Clinic. I was a teacher for about nine years prior to having this job. And so I've been very fortunate that for about the past five years, I've been able to really dive in and hone in on my practice and do what's best for students.

Susan Lambert: 3:23

That's awesome. And for our listeners that remember, I think it was our first, was it our first season? We actually had had Mary Clayman , is that right? From the DC Reading Clinic? Just talk a little bit about what's happening there. So we'll link our listeners in the show notes to that. So you're kind of a product of that DC Reading Clinic.

Jasmine Rogers: 3:42

Oh, I am. And I'm very proud to be a product. I'm really excited that the Reading Clinic has made such an impact on Washington DC and our school system. Thinking about teachers who have been trained from the Reading Clinic and where they have branched off to, it is amazing to see the thousands of children that they are impacting because of the work that Mary Clayman started and in our district.

Susan Lambert: 4:05

That's amazing. Oh , yeah. That was such an inspiring episode, and I didn't put two and two together until right this minute that you actually were, were part of that legacy, so that's amazing. So you found yourself in a doctoral program. How did that come to be that you decided, "Oh, I think I'm gonna go back to school"?

Jasmine Rogers: 4:27

Well , I ask myself that every day . I decided to apply for American University's program because I saw that they had a very specific grant for people who were passionate about special education, structured literacy, and anti-racist practices. And at the time, I was a special education teacher and all three of those areas are things that are very close to my heart. So I applied based on that and was accepted in the program, accepted as an ELI lead, and I chose the program because of its commitment to teaching best practices to teach students to read and its commitment to fixing injustices and making sure that we are providing equitable instruction to students.

Susan Lambert: 5:15

Yeah, that's amazing. And I know a lot of our listeners out there are thinking about where to go or what to do in terms of their next steps . So I think this is gonna be a great episode to just really encourage people, if you have an interest, to pursue it. It's hard, but it's important. And you're at the place now where you're actually thinking about, well, you're actually doing your research, so you already have your topic and so you're getting near the end .

Jasmine Rogers: 5:44

So close. I'm so close.

Susan Lambert: 5:47

So tell us a little bit about your research topic and how you decided to get to that topic or how you got there.

Jasmine Rogers: 5:54

Language has always been of interest to me, and I joke that I'm a nerd about specifically Black Language. When I was in a teacher preparation program, we took a class on language development and towards the end they did a short lesson on African American English or Black English. And it was just really interesting. So I started reading books to learn more, and it was just something that kind of stuck in the back of my head for a while . Fast forward to last year, I'm in the doctoral program trying to pick a topic and I'm a reading specialist at the time. I have children who are Black English speakers and we are reading a decodable text after doing a full structured literacy lesson. You know, we're in the last part seeing if we can apply our knowledge to this decodable. Great. So I have one student who is, it's his first read through the decodable, which means I cover the pictures. I tell him the names of the two characters so that he understands that the one's in capitals. Student begins to read. And the first words are "Mac has a cap." And he looks at it, stops, reads it again, and then is like, "This doesn't make any sense." I'm looking at it, I'm like , "What are you talking about?" He's like, "You can't have cap ." And then I was like, "Oh my goodness, you are correct," because in Black English, "cap" means that you're lying. It's a phrase that sometimes people say, "No cap ," just to make sure that you understand that that's not a lie or a truth, you know, to something that's like, is graduated. And so I'm thinking, and I know this, didn't even conceptualize that that was the meaning. I was like, "You're correct. You cannot physically have cap. I'm gonna go ahead and change this." So I went, taped over "cap," wrote "hat," we talked about a hat and then , you know, continued on. So it was like, fine, great, we get the short "A," but I'm in my mind, perplexed, like I've previewed the text, should have known this. Another child ends up reading it in a different group, another Black English speaker. She flies through. She's actually at the point we remove the paper . She can see the pictures, so she knows what the characters are. She's reading through the decodable , nice and fluent, accurate, sounds brilliant. So at the end of course, we ask comprehension questions. I ask her, you know, "What happened in the book?" She said that it's a story about a rat and a cat that are friends, but the cat lied to the rat. But they became friends at the end because they told the truth. And again, I paused and thought, "I can see exactly how she drew that meaning from the text." "Thank you so much. You did a great job. Here's your sticker, we're gonna talk about, tomorrow, the cap in Generalized English so that we can have, you know, the different understanding." But those two students and those two instances that occurred very close to each other inspired me to think that, as a teacher, a Black woman who speaks Black English, who knows the language, who is very well versed in structured literacy, if I overlooked this, and if that caught me off guard a little bit, then that means that that could potentially catch somebody else off guard . And so I wanted to make sure that in my research and in my role now as a coach of teachers, that I'm able to help teachers address and understand, first of all, understand language , but then address what to do when situations like that occur, which they occur often.

Susan Lambert: 9:26

Interesting. And we're gonna unpack that just a little bit. But first of all, thanks for picking up this topic because I think it's going to be really important and we are going to watch your research sort of emerge. But before we sort of dive in a little bit further for the general purposes of our audience, let's just talk about what you mean when you say Black English. What do you mean by that term?

Jasmine Rogers: 9:51

So when I say Black English, I'm talking about the language that many African Americans in this country speak. My understanding of what I've read in research is this is a language that came out of enslavement when Africans were taken from Africa to the United States. They were enslaved and they all spoke different languages from, you know, there are many countries in Africa, they were unable to speak their own language because the enslavers didn't want them to, to communicate with one another to potentially leave. So they began to learn the language from the folks who worked over them, which were typically Irish or Scottish immigrants. So they were learning English from multiple sources. So like Southern American English learning with Irish connotations and accents and learning Scottish. All of that blended together with the language that they held becomes Black English. And language of course evolves over time. So the Black English we hear from those times is different today, and it will be different in years from now. But that's what I mean, I'm specifically talking about that language. It's really important to know though, that even though research shows us that 80–90% of African-Americans speak Black English in some contexts, not every Black person speaks Black English. And part of the reason I call it Black English is I have a lot of friends who are from Africa who are African immigrants, Nigerian, Liberian, and they are technically African American. You know, just how a language evolves and develops, it's more encompassing to say Black English or Black Language. Some people may have heard of it as African-American English, African-American Vernacular English, African-American Language or Black Language. But I tend to use the term Black English just based on my views of how I see myself in this country. And from what I've learned from research.

Susan Lambert: 11:50

It's interesting because the example that you provided was a really meaning-based example as opposed to a phonetic pronunciation. And I think typically when we hear about African-American English or Black English, the examples we've been provided, or at least the examples that I've heard, typically land on the pronunciation side as opposed to the meaning side. So we have sort of two things that are involved when we're talking about working with students that speak Black English.

Jasmine Rogers: 12:22

Oh, absolutely. And I'm really grateful for the research I've been able to do and the connections I've been able to make. There are a lot of talented speech pathologists who look at the phonology portion of Black English and are really on it. They've charted and can tell you all of the features where they match and what have you. And that's great for the bottom part of Scarborough's Reading Rope, right? So that we know phonological awareness is a part of that. Phonology is very important. I am now starting to consider the top part of the Rope with language comprehension and considering, in your native language, there may be a word that doesn't necessarily match up with a language that you are learning in the classroom. So you have to then use your incredible cognitive skills that speak two completely different codes and comprehend what is happening. And then tie that back into, of course, the Rope to become a fluent reader. It's a little bit of a heavier lift, but it's possible when you are really working to be culturally competent in structure and keeping in mind the features that you know of from vocabulary, grammar, and phonology.

Susan Lambert: 13:32

Hmm . That's amazing. So I'd love if you could talk just a little bit more about your research. What specifically are you working on? What you're finding, what surprises you?

Jasmine Rogers: 13:42

I've shifted, as, you know, doctoral research, it goes with , I could go with what I'm interested in, but now I'm going with what I have access to. So what I have been finding as I explored this topic, and I'm so grateful for my friends, family, community, the teachers that I coach who just kind of talk to me and let me bounce ideas off of them. What I'm realizing is when I talk to people who are completely unfamiliar with Black Language, talking about rules and providing specific examples helps them connect to then understand that they've actually heard it before. And then from there, what I'm now focusing my research on is the beliefs that people hold within them about language. And I'm realizing, and I've learned this term within the past year, there's something called linguistic prescriptivism or standard language ideology, which is this belief that there's only one way to speak a language. So now that I know what that is, and I can see trends of teachers who have responded to surveys and questions that I've asked them, there tends to be a belief that there's only one way to speak a language that's coming up. So what I've been trying to intervene and dispel that myth, talking about dialects, there are over 160 dialects of the English language, which means there are 160 ways to speak English correctly. So with that in mind, it has been fascinating to have conversations with people who either know nothing about Black Language or know a little bit about Black Language. Either way, both of those groups tend to have a similar thought process about just the one way to speak. But by having conversations with people and connecting the knowledge that they have with their own languages, it's been wonderful to see how people are able to shift their perspective.

Susan Lambert: 15:33

What kind of responses are you getting from teachers when you start to bring up this topic?

Jasmine Rogers: 15:38

The teachers that I coach are fantastic. They have been interested in my research ever since I've talked to them. It's great, establishing relationships with folks. They are so curious and they just wanna know more. And what I've been hearing a lot is within the structured literacy space, how did they apply what they're learning about language to the lessons that they're teaching? And we're not just talking, like you said, the phonological features or that, for instance, the - th digraph, whether it's voiced or unvoiced, can make a different sound in Black Language. But also that other piece that I was telling you about with vocabulary and language comprehension. So they are so curious and so excited to implement things that they're learning. And they're also just really open to getting better in their teaching practice and applying what they've learned in the classroom. And it is, I'm blessed to work with such a wonderful group of people. They've been working hard.

Susan Lambert: 16:37

In our pre-call, I remember you talking to me a little bit about the differences in how Black Language is treated compared to other languages like Spanish or Mandarin or anything else that a student might bring into the classroom. Can you talk a little bit about that with our listeners?

Jasmine Rogers: 16:56

What I've noticed is that there are some varieties of English that are treated differently than others. I believe I've heard the term "low prestige" and "high prestige" used and I consider Black English to be a very complex and complicated language the more I learn about it. But I think typically in society it has been viewed very negatively. You can see in the media and in research where people have talked about it , and used negative connotations toward it. And I think those beliefs from society have seeped into the classroom. And, you know, the classroom, we're working to read and write and do all of these wonderful things with language. And the language that we're teaching in is not the language that children are bringing to the classroom. And that language hasn't been historically looked at as valued. So what I have noticed is there have been recommendations for how to teach students that speak Black English. And some of those recommendations often include talking to students in Generalized English at home. Well, I would never ask a student whose family speaks Japanese to speak Generalized English at home. Right? I would never ask a family whose student, the student speaks Spanish at home, to speak English at home. So why would I, as an educator, ask that of a student who speaks a different linguistic system than Generalized English? So that's one of the things that I've noticed is the standard seems to be different for students who speak Black Language.

Susan Lambert: 18:23

And that reminds me of the episode we did with Julie Washington, who talks a lot about the language that kids are loved in and, and sort of honoring the language that they're loved in no matter where they come from. Which leads me to this—I'm trying to make connections here, too, so be patient with me—this sort of asset-based approach, right? So I hear a lot about, in the classroom, we need to have an asset-based approach. What does that mean and how does this apply to the work that you're doing right now?

Jasmine Rogers: 19:00

A strength of children that are bidialectal is the similar strength to students that are bilingual, they have an ability to take language that is different from theirs and translate it. That right there is an asset. We need to acknowledge and celebrate the fact that children, and sometimes they're doing it very quickly or taking something that means something different to them and translating it into something that is meaningful for them. Again, attaching that top part of the Rope, right? Like, honing in on language comprehension and making sure that they're able to do that. I believe that an asset-based approach isn't necessarily like just the opposite of a deficit-based approach. It really is looking at a student or a learner for who they are as a whole in utilizing the strengths that they have to connect to the learning in the classroom. And good teachers typically do that in their teaching practice in a lot of other ways. So it's time that we make the shift to do that, to incorporate language in various language varieties in English.

Susan Lambert: 20:03

Is there an example that you can provide that would help us understand that really specifically in terms of learning to read?

Jasmine Rogers: 20:10

I guess, I think about how to teach, for instance, my friend, he's reading, it's the word "cap." "Cap" means something to him differently than what it meant in the text. That was an opportunity to have a conversation about multiple meanings of words and an opportunity to celebrate that he took something that he knew and recognized that it didn't make sense. So I could take that opportunity to celebrate that he recognized immediately that that didn't make sense, which is an essential part of reading, right? Because when I'm teaching students to decode, I also want them to make meaning . So when they're going through and they're reading and it doesn't sound right, they have to go back and do it again. He applied that skill. To me that's an asset.

Susan Lambert: 20:53

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense for him to recognize that, "Wait, this doesn't make sense with my understanding what 'cap' is." And I love that story because you recognize that "Wow, in this situation, I didn't put two and two together until the student actually raised it." So he actually raised something for you in a way that was instructive for you as a teacher.

Jasmine Rogers: 21:16

Oh, absolutely. And again, to your point that you said earlier, it was in a manner that I didn't, I won't say "fully comprehend," it was in a manner that I needed to be exposed to because I had been so focused on the bottom part of the Rope, right? The word recognition and being able to actually solve the code that's in front of them. And I should have done a better job to make sure we're connecting the comprehension. And the student brought that to light for me and I'm now grateful for that cuz we have research.

Susan Lambert: 21:45

And now you can actually put his name on your list of references, somebody that helped you with your research!

Jasmine Rogers: 21:53

Yeah. And the great thing about what I shared with the children is I had one student who the reading was a bit laborious. It was strictly decoding what was in front of him. And then another student who was arguably fluent, accurate, sounds great, but she took a different meaning. So then I just then take a different approach for her, which is she read it just fine. We're not necessarily concerned with the decoding aspect. Let's talk about the word "cap," what you took it to mean, and let's go back with a different meaning of "cap" and see what that looks like for you in the text. And now let's ask this question again of what was the text about?

Susan Lambert: 22:32

Wow. And you know, when I think about, I'm gonna ask you this question about structured literacy in a minute, but when I think about right , those leading indicators that we know, like word recognition, accuracy, and fluency are so important and highly correlated to reading comprehension. This idea that, wow, if you wouldn't have asked her those comprehension questions after she fluently read this text, you may not have uncovered the fact that she wasn't getting the meaning that was intended within the text.

Jasmine Rogers: 23:05

And that is precisely our link to structured literacy, right? That bottom part of the Rope, the word recognition part, she's got it now. Now we need to make sure we're developing everything at the top from the structure of the sentence to her vocabulary in allowing her to work those things together so that she becomes a skilled reader.

Susan Lambert: 23:24

For a lot of our listeners, they completely understand what structured literacy means and, and what that looks like in the classroom. But when you're introducing new dialects , students that have new dialects or different languages, whatever that might be, what does that look like differently for them? And let's put it in the context specifically of Black English. Does that mean that there needs to be something different about the way that we approach structured literacy for them?

Jasmine Rogers: 23:50

I would say that it needs to be targeted and specific. And it's not necessarily the children, it's the teacher who needs to make the shift. A teacher can take the time in their small groups to say, "Okay, there are multiple ways to say words and speak language. I speak a language like this," maybe talk about some different words or what have you. But really making connections. Sometimes I talk to kindergarten students about eating. Everybody eats, some people eat in front of the TV, some people eat at a table. I eat at my kitchen island because I have a small place and some people eat in the car, we all eat in different places. Is it wrong that any of us are eating or any of us eating wrong? Well , some people use chopsticks, some people use forks. Some people and some cultures use their hands. Are any of those things wrong? So if none of those things are wrong, that means that the languages that we speak and bring from home also are not wrong. They're simply different. And we're gonna work together so that we take what we know differently and come together with a common language so that we're communicating with one another and understanding.

Susan Lambert: 24:56

I love that.

Jasmine Rogers: 24:57

It just takes a little more time.

Susan Lambert: 25:00

It takes a little more time. But that's a great example. And the fact that you actually talk to students about that, I think is really important to bring them into the learning process.

Jasmine Rogers: 25:10

Oh, absolutely. And I think what has been eye-opening and also given me an area of focus for my research, a lot of the research around tying Black Language into the classroom, into concepts focuses on middle school students and it focuses on the morphology or morpho-syntax of the language, including April Baker Bell's work, who is wonderful. She talks about using a book to connect to language in school. There's not much for me in my world of K–2 focused on structured literacy and students accessing this code for them to read. So what I have been trying to do is use what I know about the Science of Reading, use what I know about language and think about how I can best coach teachers, how I can best teach students to connect and bridge a gap between those two things.

Susan Lambert: 26:00

We'd like to hear, I'd love for you to give some recommendations about how teachers can approach this when they have students who speak Black English. Before you give recommendations, any caveats that you'd like to say?

Jasmine Rogers: 26:15

So I know we spoke about this briefly. I was speaking with a parent, a Black parent of a student who had dyslexia. And we were discussing some of her experiences as a parent of a Black boy with dyslexia. She shared with me that the teachers had undergone this training about being culturally competent and they kind of flew right in and they just took from the training and kind of threw some things at him. She ended up saying to them, don't let this training mess you up, basically. Don't just take what you thought you learned and just fly in and play in the classroom. You need to make sure that you're listening and then it's applicable to what is actually happening in the classroom. So, for instance, we know that 80–90% of Black people speak Black English. So that means that not every single student is going to speak Black English. It's up to me as an educator, up to us as educators, to listen for what our students are doing. We have to familiarize ourself with the speech patterns and with the rules of Black English so that we can recognize it when we hear it. And from there with that knowledge, we are then able to address our specific areas of language, just like we do with Spanish. We've learned that the syntax in Spanish is different than that in English. And if a student answers, a Spanish-speaking students answers a question and uses a syntax from Spanish, but the words from English, I recognize why that's happening. Because I know the syntax is Spanish. So it's really that, making sure that we are familiarizing ourself with the languages that our students speak in the classroom, applying those rules, and having a better understanding of where that's coming from. And I believe that will help bridge a gap between what's going on with teachers and best practices and making sure we're including students in a manner that allows them to access this code and become skilled readers.

Susan Lambert: 28:08

Yeah. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it also is probably a continuum, right? So just because one student speaks Black English, that doesn't mean it's going to manifest the same way in another student, right?

Jasmine Rogers: 28:24

Absolutely. And if we think about the development of language, especially the development of individual phonemes and where students are speaking, there are students who are able to pronounce—think about "yellow," how kids say "lelo," right? There's some children who are able to say "yellow" before other children who say "lelo," if we're really thinking about the development of language, you kind of gotta give kids a shot until they're seven. You know , really expose in the classroom, talk about language, expose them as much as humanly possible, and give them time.

Susan Lambert: 28:56

Yeah. I love that. Give kids a shot in the classroom. Yeah. I love that you bring everything back to making observations about what the student is doing, how they're speaking, and really sort of grounding it in the student and response to the student as opposed to a standard instructional practice. I appreciate that you're bringing the students into this. So with that, with the caveats, what kind of recommendations do you have for our teachers who are working with, and I would say young students speaking Black English, because that's really your area of expertise is this, the young students.

Jasmine Rogers: 29:39

Yes. My area of expertise is, is K–2. So there are a lot of materials that teachers can access if they are in upper grades when it comes to relating language variation to the classroom. So they're able to do that. Our K–2 teachers and teachers of younger students, I have learned in my research that there is not an evidence-based approach to having a protocol or a strategy in the classroom, but there are a variety of recommendations. My first recommendation is to get familiar with the language that your students are speaking. So that takes work and that takes time. And to be very flexible as you're learning and also be open to learning. We can learn a lot from our students. We're not necessarily the holders of all knowledge. Just like my student was able to teach me and remind me that I need to focus on vocabulary and comprehension. Your students have a lot that they can teach you. I would say as far as specific practices, I'm thinking about the phonology part that we discussed earlier. If there's a phonological feature that you are recognizing is Black English in the classroom and you are trying to teach a skill that may be different than what the student's phonology is that they're used to, take your time. So consonant clusters, typically students that speak Black English will pronounce the first phoneme in that cluster. So if I have the word "blast," it can maybe say "blas." So if I'm teaching a lesson about blends, I'm going to make sure that I am pointing out both of the consonants at the end of the word "blast" and pronouncing them, but also recognizing when the student says "blas," they've been saying "blas" their whole life, right? Take your time. Point out that this is, I mean, a great way to say the word "blas." I'm gonna say the word "blast" like this. Now I'm thinking, I don't know if "blast" was the best example, but—

Susan Lambert: 31:39

That's all right .

Jasmine Rogers: 31:41

I would say making sure that the specific features that you're teaching, especially if they align to something that you know is a feature of Black English, take your time and highlight the great things that students are doing. Cuz kids don't wanna learn if you're out here telling them that they're doing something wrong or if they're not having a good time, like they're with you for like six and a half, seven hours a day. Celebrate them. I hope you wanna be around happy people. The kids do, too.

Susan Lambert: 32:13

I love that. So before we get to the last question , what's next for you in your research?

Jasmine Rogers: 32:20

Right now it's finishing. I am, like I said earlier, I am so close to the finish line. I have done all of my coursework. I am at a point where I have done all of the research, found all of the knowledge. I am working on talking to teachers who have already had exposure to... that have been instructed about best practices for Black Language and have students that speak Black Language. So I'm talking to them about their shift in their beliefs and what they do in the classroom and how that's going. And I'm hoping the next step is to use that information to develop strategy or something I can use to coach teachers to say "This has worked for a group of people, why don't we try it?" And also make sure that it is asset-based and the strengths-based approach.

Susan Lambert: 33:09

Oh, that's amazing. And we can't wait to catch up and hear more about what you're learning and how it's being applied. We really appreciate you coming and talking about this cuz I think it's a really important topic that we all need to learn more about. So in closing , we've been really focusing on building infrastructure systems to support students, but really the heart of the work both here at the podcast and I know with you, is really about the kids. And so if I say the phrase "it's all about the kids," what does that mean to you?

Speaker 2: 33:44

So, my family is wonderful and they're very supportive. Anytime I celebrate something that a student does, my sister will break into song and she'll sing Whitney Houston and she'll say, "I believe the children are our future." And she'll say that I've taught them well and to let them lead the way. When I think about students in the future of this country and back to one of the podcast episodes, learning about what we did with NAEP and the recent scores that are coming out out of the pandemic, we have got to give our students access to this code so that they can become literate and run our society one day. This includes students who speak multiple dialects, who speak different languages, making sure that the whole purpose of language is to communicate, that children are able to communicate well with one another, that they're able to communicate their thoughts or ideas, and that they're able to receive communication by reading language so that our society can carry on and so that they can grow up to be happy and healthy. People who can vote and order pizza and, I don't know , read a magazine, or read the captions at the bottom of Netflix, right? The the whole focus for me is children being invested in their future as readers and as communicators, and teachers recognizing their potential as readers, communicators and bridging the gap between what they know and what's awesome for them at home and what we're teaching them at school.

Susan Lambert: 35:17

That's amazing. And if I could sing, I'd break into song right now, but what I wanna tell our listeners is that when you started to communicate that your eyes lit up, your face lit up, and I know our listeners can't see your body language , but it actually was really beautiful. So Jasmine, thank you so much for joining us. We will catch up with you when you're further along in your research and we just appreciate you being here.

Jasmine Rogers: 35:43

Yes, thank you so much for having me. It has been a pleasure.

Susan Lambert: 35:49

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Jasmine Rogers, manager and coach with the In Schools program at the DC Reading Clinic and an early literacy intervention lead at American University pursuing her Ed.D in education policy and leadership within the early literacy cohort. Please remember to check out the show notes for links to much more research on this topic as well as our season four conversation with Dr. Julie Washington titled Linguistic Variety and Dialects: Difference Not Error. Let us know what you thought of this episode in our Facebook discussion group , Science of Reading: The Community. Next time on the show, it's our final episode of season six. To wrap up the season, we'll be talking about the importance of a systemic approach to change.

Next week's guest: 36:38

If you don't think about this as a system and don't touch all the parts of the system at the same time, the chances of getting success and sustaining success are actually pretty low.

Speaker 1: 36:48

That's next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.