Science of Reading: The Podcast
Science of Reading: The Podcast will deliver the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Via a conversational approach, each episode explores a timely topic related to the science of reading.
Science of Reading: The Podcast
S7 E5: Science of Reading professional development with Danielle Thompson
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Susan interviews Danielle "Nell" Thompson, literacy multi-hyphenate and the creator of the Big Sky Literacy Summit. This August, the summit returns with a star-studded lineup of mentors, sages, teachers, and leaders, and in this episode, Nell shares how her own background—working with students in Alaska and Mississippi, among many other places—has helped shape this year's conference theme. She and Susan discuss the importance of mentorship in advancing evidence-based literacy practice and literacy instruction.
Show notes:
- Website: Big Sky Literacy Summit
- Twitter: The Transformative Reading Teacher Group
- Danielle Thompson's Twitter: @Nelliet11
- Danielle Thompsons's LinkedIn: @Danielle Nell Thompson
- Book: From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
Quote:
I was feeling like the numbers were too great and that the systems were broken. … If I could build better systems, I could also support the educators' success within those systems." —Dr. Danielle "Nell" Thompson
Within about two to three months, it was kind of sold out, and I thought, all right , I guess I'm into event planning. This is super fun.
Susan LambertThis is Susan Lambert. Welcome to Science of Reading, the podcast from Amplify, where the Science of Reading lives. On this episode, we're diving deep into the story of the Big Sky Literacy Summit, which takes place again this August in Montana. This year's summit features a remarkable list of scholars from the Science of Reading movement to talk about how all this came to be. I'm joined by the conferences creator, Dr . Danielle "Nell" Thompson. Nell and I talk not only about what's in store this August, but we explore her own backstory working as a speech language pathologist and teacher everywhere from Alaska to Mississippi and beyond. Please enjoy my conversation with Nell Thompson, president and founder of the Transformative Reading Teacher Group, president of the Reading League, Montana, and creator of the Big Sky Literacy Summit. Nell Thompson. Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. I didn't know if I should call you Danielle, Nell ... exactly how we're supposed to do that? But I feel like we're friends, so I can say Nell.
Nell ThompsonThat's right. Nell is perfect.
Susan LambertWe're so glad that you could join us, and we are so excited to bring your story to our listeners. It's been a long time coming. I think I've had you on this list for quite some time. I would love it if you could tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself in this space of the Science of Reading.
Nell ThompsonOh, thank you, Susan. It's such an honor to be here. I've long listened to this podcast and you, and I felt like you became my friend as I hiked up trails in Montana. So thank you for inviting me. Gosh, how did I come to this work? The reality is, is that I was trained in speech and language pathology and ... it's a long time ago in my career, now, it feels like. But actually, it's just two decades ago. And I had come out of an undergrad in communication disorders, where I had really worked really hard to figure out how to understand science. And I actually got this research opportunities grant at University of Colorado in Boulder called the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant. And my boyfriend at the time had one. So since he had one, I had to have one. <Laugh> And I studied with two great researchers, Katharine Earhart and Lewis Harvey.
Susan LambertWow.
Nell ThompsonOne was a perceptual psychologist and one was an audiologist. And what we were studying were how the auditory system and the visual perceptual system had similarities and/or differences. And I just was this 21, 22 year old undergrad, and I would end up in these research meetings with grad students and these amazing professors, and I realized I was hooked. And this was amazing stuff. But then I went off to the Peace Corps . I worked in a school for the deaf in the Dominican Republic. I had studied sign language and I loved every minute of it, but there was something that happened in my work in the Peace Corps, is that I would ride the bus every day and I'd pick up the children , to go to school, and I could communicate i n sign language, but they didn't have sign language. They hadn't learned sign language. The children who were deaf weren't as valued as other children w ere. So I learned this, hard. It was a very hard experience, to watch children devalued for their difference —neurobiological difference, for many of them. Or they had become deaf through an illness. And so I r ealized that their language is what I really, really wanted to know more about. And I could not tap into that. I couldn't see it. The human brain is this very nebulous thing, and I just felt like I hadn't studied enough about it. So when I returned from the Peace C orps, I went back to get my m aster's degree, but this time it wasn't in audiology. Which I thought it was gonna be! It was speech and language. I wanted to study language. And so that was what my first five years of m y career were. But they really were focusing on studying something intently and understanding something intently. And that was really set in place by two great researchers that contributed a clear understanding of what it takes to ask the empirical question, number one, and then do the work. And gather data and see if you've proven your hypothesis to be what you thought it was, or if it works out, it works out. And, it was really fascinating work. But I can say that what helped me arrive at where I'm at today was my long journey t o Alaska.
Susan LambertOh my goodness. Tell us a little more about that.
Nell ThompsonSo I ended up inside the Arctic Circle, and I worked in a community that had a museum. And I had stood in the museum just staring at the pictures. It was fascinating to me to consider the ancientness of the culture. In fact, 5,000 years old. And that piece of it really resonated, because it meant it was an oral language, and I was humbled. And at that moment, a chapter — or not just a chapter — the very first part of Speech to Print, 2000 Edition, by Louisa Moats, was ringing in my head. She opens it with the language foundations of reading. And I thought, "Well, goodness, if this language wasn't even written down until after the 1930s by linguists who were translating it into English, this was an oral language, and it was thousands of years old." And they did not have a written system. And that was profound for me. And in the opening of the book also, she talks about how many languages there are and how many actually were written down. And this gave me pause to think about, well , I was just startled that I didn't know enough about all the languages of the world, and how this could matter in translating and teaching in English, and teaching a child to read in English, and what their oral language experience was before. And so I was very inspired, and I, that was the beginning of my journey to meet Louisa Moats.
Susan LambertThat's crazy. What took you to Alaska was as a speech language pathologist, is that right?
Nell ThompsonCorrect.
Susan LambertSo I hold speech language pathologists, SLPs, in the highest regard, because I always thought that they were the ones that were the most trained in the Science of Reading. Turns out that's not true for all speech language pathologists. So would you say that when you were doing that coursework, you felt like you were prepared and grounded in the Science of Reading? Or was it the Speech to Print, your introduction to Louisa Moats and her work, that actually helped you get there?
Nell ThompsonOh , that is an excellent question, actually.
Susan LambertMaybe it's both. I don't know.
Nell ThompsonIt definitely is both. My training at University of Colorado, Boulder was very robust in the language foundations of reading.
Susan LambertThat's awesome.
Nell ThompsonAnd while I was young and naive to all of that, I was prepared well. And I actually offended a lot of people when I got into the field and asked if I could be on the MTSS teams, if I could be a part of the process of intervention. I didn't wanna be the last person to be called in when a student was struggling. I wanted to be on the first line of defense. And that was not heard of in my schools that I first worked in. And I worked in several schools when I first started out, because I was an itinerant. So then, of course, it was built upon through diving back into the texts that I had read as a master's degree student.
Susan LambertGot it.
Nell ThompsonSo to your point, it was coming back to Louisa's work. That was not a text I was assigned. In fact, it had just been written when I entered into my master's program. However, it was a book that a dear friend and mentor, Annie Whitney , said that I should know all about; it basically helped me understand the language components that contributed to reading comprehension and word recognition. Language comprehension, I should say. And also Hugh Catts's work. So those are the two books that were ... almost, what we would say, is they were my Bibles. They really were. I actually wore them out and opened them up, made copies of the chapters, shared 'em with team members. So I felt very strongly that I was trained very well in the Science of Reading through my undergrad, grad. And then it just was validated in the field by the books I continued to read. And then I just grew my knowledge base.
Susan LambertSo those books were pretty important to you personally; you said you went back to them over and over and over again. I think this is an important point, especially for you, while your curiosity is just insatiable. Right? Like, you just are super-curious anyway, but it was always important for you to continue to be a learner, to take what you were seeing and what you were interacting with in the schools and with the students, and taking it back to those books. That's very interesting .
Nell ThompsonYeah. I, I look back at that now and, you're right. I'm surrounded by books right now, fyi.
Susan LambertI knew that about you.
Nell ThompsonYeah, yeah, yeah. It's this reality: behind me, there's a whole bunch of books. So it's dawned on me as I work in schools that I check in with the educators and the leaders about what they're reading, and wonder, "What would a Science of Reading library look like?" That was just about a few years ago in my career. And I started to begin a resource list o n t he Science of Reading library resource book list. It was helpful. Like, as soon as I started to start off with a new school that I h ad been working with, at least I kept learning from my failures. And one of t hem is that we have to have a lot of knowledge and we have to have the tools that we can go back to. And there are some very solid tools and books that we can go back to, t hat will help us and ground us in that evidence-based practice and what the science is teaching us. And it's not always easy to read. But I know that the repetition and the consistency, it really changed my life. And as one of my mentors says, consistency compounds. So it's just like a bank account. The more you you read it and you study it and you do it, it's a compounding effect. You just get better at it. And you become more efficient. And a colleague recently said, about the simple view of teaching. And I morphed it yesterday and said, "Good teachers with the right tools, the right knowledge, times the efficiency in using them equals effective teaching."
Susan LambertHmm . That's interesting. I remember you telling me, too, that one of the things that you did ... we were talking about like, what's a teacher to do, and what books to pick up, and what to read, what researchers to follow. I think you told me that you picked up bibliographies and literally looked at the end. Like, who is the reference list and who are the common — is that right?
Nell ThompsonYes, it's absolutely true. And I think, you know, we talked about that before. And I've thought about it. Where did it come from? I actually think it came from the years in the first research lab that I was a part of, because I didn't know how to build the knowledge base behind what I was doing. My professor said, "Well, go look at all of the articles these authors used to contribute to this article, and then go read those, and then look at their reference list and then read those." And I was like, "Well, that's daunting." It's like hundreds of articles, right? So what I would do is I would find which ones had commonalities. And so, nowadays, if you wanna look at educator knowledge, some of that seminal work will be around Louisa Moats. So you will hopefully see that seminal article show up in the research. And Louise Spear-Swerling , right now , Tim Odegard and Emily F erris, they're doing work on it. So, i t's been fun to consider where those lines of wisdom are and really understanding that once you start to look, you'll see the commonalities in the reference or the bibliography list.
Susan LambertSuch great advice. I, I love that, 'cause like I said, I remember being a teacher, and first of all, it's just hard to get your hands on materials, but then in order to wade through and figure out which ones are gonna be worth my time when I have very limited time to be able to do that. So that's great advice. I appreciate that. All right , so let's go back. You're in Alaska. You're in Alaska.
Nell ThompsonAlaska was such an incredible experience. I'm an adventurer, just by nature. I was born onto a ranch. I'm extremely adventurous and I'm a big risk taker. I live in Montana now. And I loved everything about Alaska, from the small planes that I took into the village sites that I worked in. I primarily worked at Barrow [now known as Utqiaġvik], which is our farthest north community. Even was there when the sun would set and wouldn't rise for 60 days. And , Kotzebue, and then the surrounding villages around Kotzebue, and then King Salmon , Dillingham, Homer. I love all of my years in Alaska. And what it taught me was that there was this day that I just kind of awoke to a reality that many children could not read. And while I was desperately trying to figure out how to contribute to the MTSS teams, and my intervention supports or my services through students that were identified with specific learning disabilities and reading and or language impairments , I was feeling like the numbers were too great and that the systems were broken, and that I needed to understand how I could help build better systems. Right? And if I could build better systems, I could also support the educators succeed within those systems. And now I see more clearly that it's — a great quote from James C lear i n Atomic Habits, that we will not rise to the level of our goals, but w ill f all to the level o f our systems. And Brené Brown uses that quote all the time. It's so true. We can have great goals, but if we don't have our systems in place to support our rise to them, we will fall to the level of our systems. So I came out of Alaska with a very clear understanding that many s tudents weren't reading. I more deeply understood why they weren't reading. It was not just a school fail. It was a societal, m uch bigger, issue. And that part was very much weighing on my heart. And I always told myself I would never get a PhD until I had a burning question <laugh>. And all o f a sudden, I had this burning question. Because I think you know, Susan, if you don't have the burning question, getting through the PhD is hard work.
Susan LambertAmen. <laugh>
Nell ThompsonSo I had to be passionate about it. I all-of-a-sudden felt like, "I gotta solve this reading crisis!" And I just decided that I would enter into what I considered — and now understand more deeply is that it was one of the first Science of Reading programs that was created in the United States. It was a multidisciplinary degree. It had the leadership, it had general education, special education, communication disorders, neuropsychology. And what I did is, I moved to Tennessee. So Alaska inspired me to become a reading scientist. It inspired me to wanna support children who are marginalized by illiteracy. It really made me very empowered to wanna seek greater answers. And so I ended up at Middle Tennessee State University as their first doctoral student. So I'm very grateful.
Susan LambertCongratulations. Wow. That's amazing. And if you could articulate that burning question in a question form, can you articulate. ...
Nell ThompsonIt was actually simple. I wanted to know how I could help support the educational community in ameliorating illiteracy. Just banishing it. Making sure that if I was going to contribute to the future of education, what would it be that I could ... how could I be of better service to making sure children were literate? So my burning question was, "Why are so many students not reading?" And I was naive. I didn't realize how much , or how complex it really was. It's not just a student not learning to read. It's much bigger than that. So that was my first question. I t's like, "Why are so many children not reading?" And that's what got me to Tennessee.
Susan LambertWow. Amazing. Not just a little question either. I mean, this is a big question contextualized in a big issue. Sort of speaks to your adventurous spirit. You weren't afraid to take that one head-on.
Nell ThompsonRight.
Susan Lambert<laugh> When you think back on that time, what's one of the dearest memories that you have of doing that doctoral work?
Nell ThompsonHmm . Doctoral work, dearest memories, in the same category. ... <laugh>
Susan LambertIt's alliteration! It's alliteration. <Laugh>
Nell Thompson<Laugh> You know what I really appreciate about getting a doctorate? Something that Louisa Motz taught me. She was such a good mentor in many ways — and she IS a good mentor, I should say. I say that as prior to my doctoral work, I was the eager student getting trained in language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling, which went on to be LETRS, that most people hear about today in the Science of Reading as a professional development program for educators. But she said a doctoral program isn't necessarily about that burning questions. It's about getting through. It's about enduring. It's about endurance. And that, I didn't quite understand. So I think the endearing message for me was, is that yeah, surviving that, and really getting it done — I did it in three years. And so I really put the pedal to the metal . You know, I was very intensely engaged. I studied a ton and just put my head down and made sure I got through. And I worked hard to answer a very fun burning question, which was, "How does morphological awareness contribute to reading comprehension?" So I did a lot of great study and time in school. So my endearing memories are my relationships with teachers in Smyrna, Tennessee, in a school there that I still have relationships with. Education is so much about the relationships in the environments we work in and the culture we develop together. And it was such a touching experience for me, because they allowed me to practice being a teacher of the Science of Reading. And to see them today on social media just makes me smile still.
Susan LambertWell, thanks for taking that little bird-walk with me. And , because one thing that we do hear about folks is listeners are, "It's inspired me to go get my master's" or "It's inspired me to do further work!" And so anybody that we can inspire with the passion and burning question that they have to go back and have a greater influence, I think it's helpful to hear that they can survive a doctoral program and still be OK <laugh>.
Nell ThompsonThat's right. That's right. And, and honestly, to Louisa Moats's point, once you get the doctorate, that is such an experience that to apply that into your future ... it's Angela Duckworth's work. It's about grit. It's about knowing you can make it. And so when you get into very complex situations , however you're contributing as a academic, as a researcher, as a professor, or as a teacher or leader or change agent in education, all of this work is complex and it requires you to have a tremendous amount of grit. And so I'm really grateful for it all. Very grateful. So yeah, I encourage anybody to follow that inspiration and contribute to the future of this work.
Susan LambertYeah. That's a great message. Well, let's take another backtrack, because you said something about being one of the original trainers of what is now known as LETRS. And I think, you know, you're an an original ... tell us a little bit about that experience. How did you end up doing that? How did this all come together for you?
Nell ThompsonThat is such a fond memory for me, because really, it goes back to Alaska, and standing in the museum and knowing that I had been reading Speech to Print and considering that the children I was working with technically spoke Iñupiaq, and they also were learning English, while most native speakers of Iñupiaq are over 40 today, and there's under 2000 that actually speak it. I was profoundly influenced by the fact that it hadn't been written down, but 75 years prior to that point. And that short history really made me consider, "Well, what are the language foundations of teaching reading? What do I have to do?" And I ended up writing a lot of emails to my other mentor at CU Boulder, Annie Whitney. And she said, "Well, you need to come to, to Boulder, Colorado again," where I had gotten my degrees, "and meet Louisa Moats in person." And I was like, "What?" She's like, "Yeah, she'll be training the LETRS curriculum for educators in Boulder, her last — it'd probably be her last time." And I was like, "Well, then I gotta be there." I basically asked my dad for a loan, and I went from Alaska to Boulder. I did eight total trips, which is a lot of travel, a lot of Alaska. If you know Alaska, it takes 13 hours, just one direction. And I studied with Louisa , and became — obviously I was passionate. I knew that I wanted to come back to Alaska and make a big difference. This was prior to me understanding that I also would go on to get a doctorate. I thought I would get LETRS-trained; I would bring it back to Alaska; I would educate to educators along my journey in my schools; but realized that that was also naive. Like that would ... I needed to be a part of a much bigger project. And so I ended up moving into my doctorate. And I ended up moving into helping train LETRS. And one of the greatest gifts was starting the Mississippi rollout of LETRS, original rollout. And I spent several weeks of my life, if not maybe a year of my life, in Mississippi , training educators — thousands , probably, by the end after the years I was there. And through that time , I became a national LETRS trainer. At that time, there I think were 12 or fewer. I I was the last one that I know to receive a phone call from Louisa, asking me to be a part of the team. And I'll never forget sitting in Franklin, Tennessee when I fielded that phone call. And I used to say, "I'm gonna be like Louisa Moats someday. I'm going to touch the world and help educators understand that they can empower themselves and teach all children to read in their classrooms." And so to hear Louisa Moats on the other end of the phone was like, "Oh my gosh, is this real?" And it led me into a long line of work, really enjoying the opportunity to train and work with many, many educators and leaders in bringing this work to life. The Science of Reading to life.
Susan LambertI sort of have this image ... if I was an artist, I'd draw it, but I'm not. But I have this image in my mind of you holding the original Speech to Print edition, while at the same time, years later, on the phone with Louisa Moats. And I wonder if that earlier self would've ever envisioned Louise Moats would invite you to join in the work. That just kind of gives me goosebumps now. But you have continued in your journey to support educators in their learning. So, post you getting your doctoral degree , even what you're doing now is supporting educators in their journey. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that?
Nell ThompsonSo now I work really hard to be really present in the reality of the complexity of this work. And I have really grown to being present in schools and becoming the best coach I can possibly be. I've decided that the word "consultant" isn't an appropriate term for what I do. What I really wanna do is help lead and inspire those to become their best selves and maximize their potential in applying what so many wisdom bearers have taught us in the Science of Reading. And that they too can do this at such great levels that will change the future , for millions. So what I do now through the Transformational Reading Teacher Group is really boots-on-the-ground coaching and staying present with educators, watching failures happen, and trying to quickly learn, because of the urgency that's necessary in the moment of teaching children ... but yet being very clear that it takes a lot of patience to see the great results of applying this work, with consistent routines and processes and systems, and to see the results. And that led me to really seeing that the impacts of working with educators. It was really profoundly fulfilling. It's because it's not about me succeeding. It's about me just supporting them in succeeding at such high levels. There's nothing more rewarding than being of service to humanity. Ooh, gonna get teary here. And to watch others succeed at such an incredible level, and just to cheer them on, knowing they're teaching hundreds of children that will touch the future that we'll never see. And that's transformational for me. Really, building leadership within every human, to be so inspired to wanna do this work for themselves, is really where it's at for me. And that led me to creating educational opportunities for educators and leaders and stakeholders in literacy. And it led me into creating the Big Sky Summit, which is one of the greatest creations for me, which has been such a provocative arena to step into, because it really asks us to maximize our potential. At least it's asking me to do that, as I consider how we can touch the future and leave a footprint that is more profound and positive, and more children are reading, and our society is healthier for it.
Susan LambertWe're gonna get to Big Sky Literacy Summit in just a minute. One of my favorite places to go. But before we do that, you talk a lot about the coaching piece of this — which, thank you for reframing the consulting work you do as coaching work , because that feels like it fits better with who you are anyway — but what would you say some of the important qualities might be for a coach doing this work?
Nell ThompsonWell, I can't say enough about studying, about coaching as well , I've actually taken on about 10 years of being and feeling like an imposter. I think all of us who are in this work can have the imposter syndrome hit hard after you get a PhD. You've studied really hard, but you just really feel like, wow, I just realized I know a lot, but I know nothing.
Susan LambertYeah. <laugh>
Nell ThompsonAnd the wiser, and the more we know, the more we realize, right? That we don't really know a lot. So that's the wonderful of being humbled, more humbled, as we age. And I am really grateful for that journey. But coaching in and of itself has been a journey for me, because I thought I knew nothing about it, actually. And so I decided to get many certifications. You know, I'm, I'm obviously LETRS=trained, but that's not about coaching. So I spent several years of my life studying and pursuing human psychology, change psychology, organizational psychology, all of these things that you need to really dig into to more deeply understand when you walk into a school. It's not just about bringing the Science of Reading to life. It's about working within organization of humans. Who are within a culture, who have beliefs, and who have a vision and mission, or who don't. Who have goals or who don't. Who know a lot about the Science of Reading or don't. And they're on continuums, on all of those things. And to coach humanity into becoming our best selves, it's not for the faint of heart. I mean, you gotta show up and you have to be present, and you really have to know a lot about ... I say there's four pillars in this work. And the first pillar is understanding all the systems that underlie the work that we have to do within a school to teach children to read. So that's the assessment systems, the schedule, the overall curricular system. And then we move into literacy leadership, is your next pillar. And so I work with coaching the systems, coaching the literacy leaders. But then, then there's the teacher knowledge, and equipping the educator with the knowledge and the tools that they deserve and need to do the work in the most efficient way, so they're effective. And then there's the final piece, of coaches. You actually work with coaches. And so what does it mean to help a coach be a coach? And that's part of the work too. So , being a coach and not a consultant is a person that when you have that hat on, just says, "I make big decisions and we should see results very soon. Or you shouldn't even consider asking me this question and to have the answer." Because when you're coaching a system into life, it's gonna take time. And that's what it takes is to coach, for those four areas of the change process for me, or those systems and literacy leadership and educator knowledge and coaching. And so I focus on those four pillars, when I act as a coach, but I also wear the leadership hat, and then I wear the coaching hat, and then I wear the educator hat, and then I go, I wear the systems hat. So I don't think coaching is not simplistic at all. There's nothing simple about it. And then there's actually coaching with the reading process in mind, and the psychology of reading, and the science , the Science of Reading. And, you know, Jan Hasbrouck and Daryl Michel wrote a book recently that actually addresses that more specifically. And it's very interesting, because you can read other books on coaching, and it's just assumed that you know everything about reading <laugh>. And that's not the case. And so, yeah, I could go on and on. So the question is hard to answer, but I think to be a great coach, you have to study a lot of things.
Susan LambertWell, I'm, I'm glad I asked that question, because I think it sets our listeners up a little bit to understand more about your motivation and who you are, for starting this Big Sky Literacy Summit, which is getting ready to go into year three, I believe.
Nell ThompsonYou're right.
Susan LambertSo let's talk a little bit about the Big Sky Literacy Summit. What was the motivation? What have you learned from it? And then we'll talk about this year's theme in a minute.
Nell ThompsonOh, goodness. So, the Big Sky Literacy Summit came about because I literally got an email from a colleague that I've been a part of their life now since about 2019. And I had put on a structured literacy institute in Livingston, Montana. And 90 educators came and learned with Margie Gillis and her Literacy How team, and we had the most amazing time in July in Montana. And it was really powerful experience for those who came. And she said, "Well, what are you doing this summer for teacher professional development?" And I literally said on an email , I was like, "Well, nothing. I'm taking a nap." And this is after the pandemic, so 2020 into 2021. And we all know what that year was like, where we were put into the social media Zoom world, and everything was just information-rich. But I just was overwhelmed constantly, and I needed to decompress. And I needed to get away from being on a computer. And I literally wrote her back and I was like, "I'm taking a nap." <Laugh> And then the next day I wake up. And I do meditation and I'm a big believer in that quiet time and letting the thoughts arrive and being very unattached to things and just, like, observing. And I got these two messages the next morning, and one of 'em was to call Big Sky and Maria Pace, my colleague, who is on the executive board of the Reading League Montana with me, and she was a superintendent at the time. And it was like, "OK, I guess I'll call Big Sky and see if they have space for a conference." I didn't even know if they had space for a conference. And then I was like, "Well, I've lived in Montana a long time and nobody seems to have conferences there. Why is that?" So I call Maria Pace, and she actually answers the phone. A superintendent, within one phone ring! I'm like, oh. Oh, that's cool. So she answers, and I'm, like, stunned. And I go, "So Mariah, I kind of had this idea." And I tell her. And she's like, "I've already signed up yesterday, basically. <Laugh> And if you need some support, let me know." And long and the short of it is within two days I launched Big Sky . And that's that. And oh, the next thing I did is I called a group called my Masterminds. Um, and you might know some of them. They were Mary Dahlgren , Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, Susan Hall, Deb Glaser, and Antonio Fierro <laugh>. And I called them all. And if you know those names, you might also know that they were all LETRS trainers at one time, too, a nd all part of my life in mentorship. And most of them said yes. Some had prior engagements. And they helped me support it through Science of Reading partnerships. I did a format where we did continuous teaching, w hich was that you didn't go to a session for sixty minutes. You might hear Linda Farrell talk for three hours in three different, c ontiguous sessions, so that they would build upon each other. So that's what launched it. And within about two to three months, it was ki nd o f s old out. And I was ki nd o f s tupified, and I thought, al l r i ght, I guess I'm into event planning! This is super fun. Do I buy pens? Or do I have to buy bags now? Like, I had no idea what I was doing. <l augh>.
Susan LambertOh, that's great. We'll be right back. Hey, listeners, I know you love hearing about the latest research on early literacy. For even more insights and best practices from education experts, check out Amplify's two other podcasts, Math Teacher Lounge and Science Connections. Math Teacher Lounge is in the middle of a new season exploring all the fascinating research about math anxiety.
Speaker 1It's not just the case that people who are bad at math are anxious about it. It's actually that the anxiety itself can cause you to do worse In math.
Speaker 2One of the teachers that I worked with had done her student teaching with a teacher who had math anxiety and who never taught math. And so she entered her teaching career never having taught math before or seen it taught.
Susan LambertMeanwhile, Science Connections has been investigating science's status as the underdog.
Speaker 3If you were to work it out, how many minutes of science an elementary teacher teaches per day, it's like 18 minutes for the lower elementary grades.
Susan LambertAnd exploring the benefits that come with changing that.
Speaker 4We started to see this trend of students communicating more in English, because they were excited about the science that they had been learning.
Susan LambertThat's what's happening right now on the current seasons of Math Teacher Lounge and Science Connections. Subscribe to both, wherever you listen to this show. What makes Big Sky Literacy Summit different from, like, a Plain Talk, or other conferences like that? You have a very unique point of view, don't you?
Nell ThompsonYou know, I guess all I can speak to is who I am, in that we each bring our uniqueness to the experiences that we create and what we create. And I've spent 20 years studying and meditation and traveling the world and living in poverty and being in extreme experiences. And I knew that there was one thing that really helped me change my life. And I believe that if we wanna change our life, and we wanna actually shift our belief systems and get ourselves out of being in a habitual routine, that could be what we do in our classrooms every day . Because who we are after 35 is typically not just ... it's actually proven in neuroscience that we become a program. Our patterns ... like, how you end up walking to get coffee in the morning, is a program. How you drive to the grocery store —you might forget that you even drove to the grocery store. You're on a program. And so what happens in our classroom in the routines that we have, sometimes it's very hard to break the programs if we've been doing them for a long time. So one of my meditation teachers taught me that one of the greatest things you could do for yourself is to do something that is profound, which is to retreat from your life. So that is a big reason why I chose Big Sky. Because you were asked to retreat from your life. You're asked to fly into what I think is the most beautiful state in the nation , in many, many ways and magical reasons. You then go from the airport and you have to drive one hour to the base of this very beautiful mountain called Lone Peak, and it's right next to Wildernesses. And you're also just about an hour from Yellowstone National Park, and you're in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. So this is grizzly bear country , mountain lion country. It's wild. It's scenic. It's out there. It's retreat-esque. Then once you get to Big Sky, you are at the base of this mountain in these hotels, and you look up and your daily vision is of this summit experience. So it's not just that it's the Big Sky Literacy Summit. It's literal and figurative. You're near a summit and you can ride a tram to within a thousand feet, I think it is, of the actual summit. And that piece of it, for me was a big part of the planning. So the other part of the planning has been watching how educators learn in school environments and watching how educators learn in conference environments and paying attention to something that's very important. And one of my mentors was recently talking about it and about how we don't oftentimes follow the educator back into their environment, back into their school, to see if what they learned at the experience of retreating from their lives has actually changed their life and changed the children in their classroom or their school district community. And so what I was going to try to do is to follow people back into their lives. So I set up a way to ... if you wanted credits, people all had to respond to a few questions. And I started getting these long essays about how the Big Sky Literacy Summit changed their life. And I know this to be true, because I went to IDA, I've been to Plain Talk , I've been to the Reading League, all of which changed my life. And so we're all in this to change lives, because we all wanna up-level humanity. So I decided then that I would start to curate how I hosted the summit. And I wanted to bring scientists and educators into close proximity with each other, but I also wanted the scientists to have been either pinnacle in their careers or they've contributed actual tools that are now in use. So the 14- to 17-year research-to-practice gap had been closed. So last year I brought Charles Hume , for example, who's now a dear friend and a, and a mentor who had researched the language foundations of reading. And he spoke to how he would really love to see how everything they've ever found through the research questions they've asked could be in the hands of teachers. And so he introduced a language-screening tool and a language-intervention tool that are completely shaping how the United Kingdom is providing early intervention and instruction and assessment systems. So that became part of Big Sky for me, because I had gone to Triple SR — the Society for Scientific Studies in Reading, and ASHA, and all these other scientific events, but I was like, I wasn't seeing teachers at them. So how could I bring the Science of Reading and the scientists of reading together with the educators in a palatable way? So now what I do is I curate the talks, I talk to everybody who speaks, and I make sure that there's what John Hattie has given us so much important information around, to build a collective effect. It's to build a coherent message, and leave that ripple into the future. So this year's summit is designed like no other experience I've been to. And it's based off the medical grand-round model of which Tim Odegard and Reid Lyon helped me shape, and I'm very grateful for their input. I am still working to pull it all off, but it's going to be pretty amazing.
Susan LambertIt's gonna be a great event. And not only that part of it, but you are really highlighting the importance of mentors. And clearly that's been important in your life. You've talked about it for this whole time we've been on this podcast recording, all the people that have helped shaped who you are, who have encouraged you to go out and do the work. So talk a little bit about the theme this year.
Nell ThompsonSo last year I was listening to a podcast, I think it was by Oprah, actually. And she had an author named Arthur Brooks, you can look him up. He's written a great book called [From] Strength to Strength. Um , in 2022. And I read the book and I listened to this podcast and it really gave me some impetus to consider what it meant to transition from what something a researcher by the last name of Cattell, in the '70s, had looked at, which was fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence. And I really contemplated what it was to be in that second half of your life. And that's right at around 49 to 50, which is this precipice I'm crossing over. And it really was monumental to me, because there, there was great wisdom in the book about devoting the back half of your life to giving and serving and teaching. And I couldn't feel anything but deep gratitude for the people that had given and served and taught and allowed me to stand on their shoulders. And so at the end of last year's summit, I sat at the base of the mountain in gratitude for the idea that I was standing on the shoulders of those who wrote the National Reading Panel, for those who mentored me to become who I am today, through being a LETRS trainer, and for those who challenged me and sat in the front row and pushed me further, and when I fell down, they were there to say, "It's OK. Get back up and do it again, and do it again. And how about again?"And so that piece of me really wanted to pay it forward, and to give the audience and attendees this year something that would be like nothing I'd experienced, which would be to ask and call upon some of the greatest mentors in the field. But first and foremost, my LETRS family. And so, to know that Louisa Moats and Nancy Hennessy and Carol Tolman, Joan Sedita, Linda Farrell, Mary Dahlgren, Michael Hunter, Deb Glaser, Annie Whitney, my first person who got me to meet Louisa — they're all gonna be there. And that's amazing to me. And to know that you could be in that kind of company, that they're gonna teach one whole day. Hugh Katz , my other mentor, remember that book that I said saved my life? He's coming. And, you know, Julie Washington , just Laurie Cutting and Jack Fletcher, some of the greatest mentors that we have in those four pillars that I talked about: assessment a nd systems and literacy leadership and, and then educator knowledge and coaching. So this year's theme is around standing on the shoulders of mentors and sages, and really giving them the respect and the reverence and the gratitude for the work that they've done to pave that pathway for us into the future. And to know that they want us to stand on their shoulders and take this work further, a nd to really shine.
Susan LambertAnd you said you talked to each one of them, and they must have been thrilled and honored to be asked to be able to come and share this. And then like, looping back to what we were talking about, encouraging people to go further in their work. So, like, what you said, we can take this work forward. I'm sure they're excited about this too.
Nell ThompsonOh yeah. It's so fun to spend time in collaboration and building that experience at a collective effect that will be happening at the Big Sky Summit this year. Knowing what's about to unfold is like a big Christmas present for me. I am ecstatic for the amount of joy that's being shared , and seeing their faces, 'cause we always do Zoom calls. I'm a kid in a candy store. Really, I am just in shock. And you get to experience this all the time too, Susan, because you interview so many of these amazing mentors, but they're so humble and they're so grateful and they have so much wisdom. So it's time to really remember that it's when you have crystallized wisdom that you have great teaching ability, because the ability to pull your thoughts together and integrate and teach with clarity is something that you have as you age, and have the experience to speak to that experience. So that's something we'll all get to reap the benefits of this year.
Susan LambertThat is so exciting. And you're right. As I talk to folks on this podcast, I can't tell you how much I've learned. How generous, how generous the Science of Reading community is with their time. Whether they did research years and years and years ago, or whether they're doing it now. It's just very encouraging to know that we all want the work to continue to move forward, and folks have some great advice for people out there. So it feels like a really good place to ask you: in closing, what advice would you give to our listeners right now? Because whether you know it or not, you are also a mentor, and folks are standing on your shoulders, right? So what advice would you have for our listeners?
Nell ThompsonI think the two pieces of advice that come to mind are two phrases that I've learned from a mentor, John Maxwell, is a), that consistency compounds just like in a bank account. If you let your money there and it draws on interest, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And you're wishing you would've invested when you were 18, but you should just start now. OK? So invest in the Science of Reading and invest in yourself. And that consistency of study and focus and discipline to applying it will change your life and the students' lives in front of you. And the next lesson that has been really monumental for me, and when I pay it forward, is that failures are your greatest pathways to learning. And so using that failure to grow yourself and to know that it's in reflecting on the failure, if it's in your small-group instruction that you feel like you had a failing moment, or if it's in a professional-learning opportunity, that you were the speaker or if you're the leader of a school or a superintendent , using a failure to fail forward and to really learn from the failure. So wisdom is only gained when we reflect. Aand wisdom is only paid forward when we reflect and we share how to not make that misstep again. And I think that's one of the greatest lessons from the mentors, is that they have a lot of wisdom to teach us how to take better steps into the future and to avoid the potholes and all the dangers along the way .
Susan LambertGreat advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Most importantly, thank you so much for the work that you do and for envisioning this experience at Big Sky Literacy Summit. And I can't wait to see you there, with all of your mentors , and learn from them. So, thank you again for joining us. We appreciate it so much now .
Nell ThompsonOh, thank you so much. And thank you for wanting me to be a part of this journey with you. I really appreciate it.
Susan LambertThanks so much for listening to my conversation with Dr. Danielle Thompson, president and founder of the Transformative Reading Teacher Group, president of the Reading League Montana, and creator of the Big Sky Literacy Summit. We'll have links to more information about the Big Sky Literacy Summit in the show notes. Let us know what you thought of this episode in our Facebook discussion group, Science of Reading: The Community. Please subscribe to Science of Reading: The Podcast, wherever you listen. We'd also be grateful if you rated us and left us a review. Science of Reading: The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify. For more information on how Amplify leverages the Science of Reading, go to Amplify.com/CKLA. Stay tuned to this feed for a special bonus episode dropping in just one week.
Speaker 5When we look at science first and build language development around it, the experience tends to be more authentic and organic.
Susan LambertThat's coming just next week, in this feed. Thank you so much for listening.
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