You don’t want to think about the fact that you’ve been doing things wrong this whole time. But again, it’s not your fault. We have to give ourselves grace. And also that, you know, when you’re looking into changing these things, it is a journey. It does take time.
~ Heidi from Episode 81 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
In this episode we have Science of Reading expert Heidi, from Droppin’ Knowledge who shares her journey into learning about Science of Reading and the importance of decoding skills over traditional sight word memorization. We discuss strategies for teachers to adapt outdated curriculum, focus on phonological awareness, and provide developmentally appropriate instruction for diverse classrooms. If you want to learn more about the Science of Reading, you don’t want to miss this episode!
In this episode we share:
- The Controversy of Balanced Literacy
- Effective Strategies for Teaching Reading
- The Reality of Science of Reading Curriculum
- Decodable Books: What to Look For
Connect with Heidi:
- Instagram – @droppinknowledgewithheidi
- Website – droppinknowledge.com
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
Zeba McGibbon [00:00:00]:
Hey teacher friends, it’s Zeba. And today is the highly anticipated, Highly Asked for guest episode with a Science of Reading expert. I had so many people reach out when I asked for ideas for the podcast for this year and so many people asked for an interview with a Science of Reading expert and topics about the science of reading and what is the science of reading. So I invited Science of Reading expert Heidi from Drop In Knowledge with Heidi onto the podcast and she has so much great information for you as you’re listening. If you have questions or ideas or thoughts like, please definitely reach out to both of us and we’d love to hear from you about what you think about the episode. So give it a listen and let us know what you think!
You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone, ready to start saving time and reducing your stress, all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love. Let’s get started.
Zeba McGibbon [00:01:35]:
Okay. Welcome Heidi, to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. We’re so happy to have you. I’ve been following you for a little while on Instagram and when all of the Science of Reading stuff started really getting popular and popping up like your account was one of the first ones that I was following and seeing a lot of advocacy for. And so I’ve been doing a little miniseries on literacy with my listeners and I’ve gotten a lot of requests to have an expert on science of reading. And I do consider you like an expert, definitely in the social media world, but I’d love for you to give a background on who you are and how you came to be talking about all things literacy and all that stuff.
Heidi [00:02:21]:
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It’s been such a whirlwind the past few years with all of this. I actually found out about the science of reading on accident. So I spent most of my time teaching first grade. And when I was teaching first grade, I’ve also taught kindergarten in 4K. And when I was teaching first Grade, I found out accidentally about the science of reading. My husband, actually he went to school for teaching after I did, and then they had already implemented this foundations of reading tests that people had to do. And it was talking all about, like, phonological phonemic awareness, those types of things.
Heidi [00:02:56]:
And so he was mentioning that, and I was like, what are you talking. I was literally had no idea what he was talking about. And he was, you know, telling me that these are really important foundational literacy skills. I’m like, yeah, okay, if that was so important, somebody would have told me by now. I had already been teaching first grade, I think, for about 10 years at that point, never knew about these skills. So when he was talking about all this, I decided to start researching and looking into it, because I’m like, there’s no way that this is a thing. So I set out to prove him wrong, but, you know, he ended up being right for sure about all of this. And so when I started to learn about all of these terms and all of these skills that our kids needed, it really sent me down a rabbit hole because I was like, why didn’t anybody tell me about this? And then I started thinking about all of these students who were struggling in my first grade classroom, and I’m like, oh, my gosh, this is what they needed.
Heidi [00:03:50]:
Why aren’t we giving it to them? And, you know, I work at Title 1 schools, and they. We have Title 1 services for reading. They weren’t doing these things either. Nobody was doing these things. And I’m like, why aren’t we just doing these, you know, giving these essential skills? So then I went to social media because I had already kind of. I had been on social media, but not really posting too much. And I found out really, there was not really very many people talking about this at all either. It was still very much balanced literacy.
Heidi [00:04:19]:
So I started just slowly sharing different things that I was learning. And turns out a lot of it was controversial at the time. So it caught attention, I think, because I’m saying we don’t have to memorize sight words, you know, things like that. So I think that’s kind of. It caught, like I said, caught attention. But a lot of people were really open because I was coming in as a teacher who also didn’t know, and I’ve been very transparent about that, tried to be throughout, you know, sharing on social media, because I want people to know that it’s okay and it’s not our fault that we didn’t know and, you know, we can’t do better until we know better.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:56]:
Absolutely. And that’s funny because that’s kind of like how I process through all of my understanding of Science reading and everything too, of like just having a little bit of eye opening-ness of in the news. Like, I think it was the Sold a Story podcast. And then I was like, wait a minute. And so then I started doing my own research and looking into it a lot. And I’m like, wait, this makes so much sense. And then I started thinking about the students in my class and why they were struggling.
Zeba McGibbon [00:05:21]:
And like, literally I would be assessing kids and they’d be guessing and they’d be guessing wrong. And I’d be like, why are you guessing? And then I’m like, oh, I literally taught you to guess. I did that. I taught you to guess. And I think there’s a whole process of like, guilt that goes through that. But it’s not our fault. Like you said, like, we were working with the information we had. And it makes me sad that it is so controversial.
Zeba McGibbon [00:05:42]:
I just feel like even to this day, I feel like there’s still. It’s still a hot topic and it should just be about, we should use the information we have to teach kids how to read. Yeah.
Heidi [00:05:51]:
And you know, I don’t get it. I recently did a video, you know, I just don’t understand. I get so much pushback, especially when I say, you know, instead of teaching kids to memorize hundreds of words, why don’t we just teach them the 44 phoneme or sounds, you know, and the spellings that go along with them versus having them memorize these words? Because honestly, by the time they get to third or fourth grade, that’s not going to help them. Memorizing words isn’t going to help them anyways. We have to give them those skills. And I still get so much pushback. And I’m like, I don’t understand the fight because memorizing words, I only did a hundred words when I was teaching first grade. But people do more than that.
Heidi [00:06:25]:
And it is so stressful for me, for the parents, for the kids. Why do you want to keep doing that when there’s a better way that’s easier and so much less stress?
Zeba McGibbon [00:06:34]:
Just one of the episodes in the literacy mini series is how I Teach Sight words. And yeah, it’s about teaching them the phonics rules. Like in kindergarten, they definitely won’t have learned those phonics rules yet. So it’s about unlocking the code. And you can see it. You’ll be like, oh, that’s the code. Like Y at the end can sometimes say along E. And like, oh, wait, I noticed that in all of these words.
Zeba McGibbon [00:06:55]:
And like, you know, the O at the end of a two letter word is going to say a long oh, oh. Now it’s go. So except for two and do. But you know, like, it’s just about unlocking the code for them for sure.
Heidi [00:07:07]:
And if we don’t unlock the code for our kids in K,1, and 2, we’re doing a huge disservice for the kids in 3, 4, 5 and beyond. And I think that’s why we see the literacy statistics that we do now.
Zeba McGibbon [00:07:19]:
For sure. Absolutely. I guess what would you say to someone listening who has just been watching from the sidelines this debate happening and they’re like, I don’t know, like, where to start dipping my toes in.
Heidi [00:07:31]:
Yeah, it’s hard, right? Because so just to give anybody listening, just so you know, I was very much a balanced literacy teacher and I very much loved my guided reading groups. I had two leveled libraries. I loved, you know, I switched classrooms a couple times throughout my career and you know, word wall was the first thing that I’m like, where am I going to put up my word wall? Like, I was very much into these things and I know how hard change can be. And then it’s also, you know, a little bit of ego, I think, because you’re like, you don’t want to think about the fact that you’ve been doing things wrong this whole time. But again, it’s not your fault. We have to give ourselves grace. And also that, you know, when you’re looking into changing these things, it is a journey. It does take time.
Heidi [00:08:20]:
You know, I would focus on one thing at a time. Like first I focused on learning more about phonological and phonemic awareness because I knew that’s what my kids were missing. So let me focus on that and literally just learn the difference between all of these terms. Right. So many terms to go along with it. And then I started focusing on, you know, sight words and what’s the best way to teach those. And then the Alphabet, I mean there’s, you know, pick one thing on what you want to learn more about and you know, the research about what I try to be is that bridge in between research and the classroom. So between research and teachers.
Heidi [00:08:57]:
Because even just, you know, this morning I was looking up some research. First of all, it’s so hard to find open research papers. I’m like, no, I’m not going to pay for it. So it takes time to like look for it. And I know teachers are so busy. And also just reading through to find those important key points can be really Tricky because of the way the research is written. So I really try to breathe that bridge, try to read the research so you don’t have to and just translate it into what does this look like in our classrooms? So I would say, you know, pick one thing. I have designed my website so that, you know, if you pick phonological and phonemic awareness, if you go to my website, it says foundational skills right there.
Heidi [00:09:34]:
And you can just get a quick breakdown of these things. Because I felt like there wasn’t very many places for teachers to, or parents even to go when they’re starting out learning about these things. And so I’ve always kind of took the science of reading 101 approach with how I share things and try to keep it as simple as possible for people who are just starting to make those transitions. Because I think it can be daunting.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:02]:
Absolutely. Yeah. You feel like you have to throw everything out and start fresh. And you’re like, I can’t do that. But I think that’s good advice in general for teachers. Like, having something to focus on every year to improve yourself as a teacher is great. And then having too many things is overwhelming and stressful. And so picking one small thing and getting really good at that and then trying another thing every year, like, that’s a good mindset to have as a teacher.
Heidi [00:10:26]:
And I think they all will blend together. Like, I think that’s what happened for me is like, once I started learning about the, you know, certain things, it was like, well, now this doesn’t make sense. So, you know, and you’ll start to kind of piece these things together and I think they kind of just will end up flowing and you’ll, you’ll learn like, okay, this that I’ve been doing doesn’t really make sense anymore because I, I know this now.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:49]:
That was exactly my journey. Like, I was doing changes little by little. And like, one of the things last year I was using the same poems I’d be using every year to teach sight words. And then I was like, wait a minute, none of these poems are decodable. And like, they can’t read them. And I love them. They’re cute and fun. It took a while to find them, but they’re not.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:08]:
And so I made my own decodable poems to go actually with the sequence of skills that they’re learning. And now I’m using them this year and I’m like, oh, why haven’t I been doing this all the, like my whole career? So it is like little, like eye opening experience and Just little by little changes over time make a big difference for sure.
Heidi [00:11:27]:
And I think that we probably say that all the time, right? Like all of us who are learning and growing and I call it unlearning. We’re like, unlearning so much too, because so much that has to change. But it’s like, then you start, you say it to yourself all the time, like, why wasn’t I doing this? Why did I, you know, fall? Why did I think that was a good idea? You know? But again, we don’t know better until we do, so.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:48]:
Right. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Heidi [00:11:50]:
Exactly.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:51]:
Yeah. And I do think your Instagram is a great place just for quick tidbits of, like, you said that research and how it applies to the classroom. I don’t think we got to say at the beginning, what is your Instagram handle so people can go find you. You.
Heidi [00:12:02]:
Yeah, so it’s at Droppin’ Knowledge with Heidi. Droppin’ does not have a G. So just Droppin’ Knowledge with Heidi. But that, that is literally what I try to do on social media. I actually started on TikTok, so it’s the same thing. Droppin’ knowledge W. Heidi on TikTok. And so because of the one minute limit for videos, you know, I.
Heidi [00:12:22]:
Back in the day when TikTok was all about trending sounds, I would just take those. I loved taking those trending sounds and then just applying them to the science of reading because I think that just showed people in a quick, super fun way of like, okay, wait, maybe we shouldn’t do this. And then I could explain it more in the captions or explain it more on my website. But yeah, I think that, you know, social media, it has its up and ups and downs, but it can be a good place to start and to get some quick little, you know, professional development tidbits. You just have to watch, like, who you’re getting those from. But yeah, so I, I do. I will say that, you know, I’m a national letters trainer for letters early childhood. My husband’s a national letters trainer.
Heidi [00:13:07]:
I have been trained by them and also in Orton Gillingham. And so I’ve attended. It’s not just, you know, when I first started on social media, everyone’s like, who are you? I’m like, I’m not any. I’m just a teacher, you know, unlearning. Since then, you know, I have done a lot of research, have taken a lot of trainings. Um, so thank you for calling me an expert. I still just identify as someone who’s unlearning. And I’m still learning new things all the time.
Zeba McGibbon [00:13:33]:
Well, I think the science of reading, the term science of reading has become, like we said, controversial, but it’s also become this catch. All of like, this is trendy now. We’re all saying we’re science of reading. This is science of reading. And you’re just kind of throwing it out because it’s not like a program that’s people. Sometimes people think it’s a program, it’s a prescription, it’s a script, like, and it’s just not all those things. I don’t know if you want to talk about that at all.
Heidi [00:13:57]:
But yeah, it’s so hard because when you talk about the science of reading, you’re talking about. And I’ve. I have a couple videos that I’ve clarified this on as well, because people will say, well, show me the research. And I’m like, well, there’s 50 years. There’s what, what specifically do you want? Because I can show you that. And I, I make sure that everything that I say is backed by research. But there’s 50 years plus of research that defines the science of reading. And it’s in multiple fields like linguistics, psychology, you know, literacy, and in multiple languages in multiple countries.
Heidi [00:14:30]:
There’s just research upon research that has built up this thing now that we call the science of reading. And I hate that it’s become a catchphrase or a buzzword. Same as like heart words. Now. I try not to even say that anymore because it does get a bad rep then. And then people kind of, you know, turn their heads towards it because it’s like, you know, and that’s, that’s me too. I don’t, I’m not a trendy, kind of like, I’m not going to follow trends kind of person. But the science of reading is not.
Heidi [00:14:59]:
There is no curriculum. And I don’t think that even to the, to this day, there’s a curriculum that 100% follows the science of reading either. There can be curriculums that are rooted in the science, which means they would use the research to create their program. However, I still have yet to see a perfect program, which is why teacher knowledge is what I always advocate for and parent knowledge, because no one can ever take that away from you. And if you have that knowledge, you can use any program really to align with the science of reading. We can’t even say this is science of reading. This is science. No, the science of reading is again, over 50 years of research and meta analysis and you know, again, different yields, different countries, things like that.
Heidi [00:15:43]:
So it’s just all the research that we’ve done on things that affect our learning to read.
Zeba McGibbon [00:15:50]:
Yeah. Let’s talk about the curriculum a little bit. I think there’s probably a couple different types of teachers listening. There’s the teacher like me, who is being told to use a curriculum that is not founded in research and it has been problematic in the past. And that’s what the district is using. And so what do you do with that if that’s what you’re being told to use? For me, I make it my own and I use the knowledge that I’ve developed over the years to make it more effective and take out the parts that are more harmful and, you know, go with it the best I can based on what I know. Then there’s the teacher listening who’s given one of those new curriculums. It’s overwhelming getting a brand new curriculum.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:28]:
They say they’re based in the science of reading. I’ve read some of them because they’re quote unquote based in the science of reading. They’re trying to fit so much in. It’s now like, not developmentally appropriate enough, I don’t think in reading. Some of them. And also you like some of them are. They say that they’re based in science of reading, but then there’s still some troubling things in there. And then there’s a third teacher who’s given no curriculum, nothing, and they don’t know what to do.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:51]:
So I don’t know if you can talk to any of those three teachers.
Heidi [00:16:54]:
Yes, for sure. Let’s start with the one who’s given the program. I’ve been all, actually all three. So the program that is not aligned. I’m just going to say, you know, I think everyone has to handle it differently because it depends on your district. It depends on how strict your district is with it. It depends on how much you’re being watched as a teacher. So we had instructional coaches that would come in and, you know, make sure that we’re hitting these four points.
Heidi [00:17:22]:
They wanted us to do these four things during a mini lesson. So, sure, I’ll do that and that’s it. I’ll post the things on the, on the wall that you want me to post up. I’ll quickly reference them and then I’m going on. But I will say that is so hard because now, you know, you have your curriculum and you have all your resources and now you also have to find X, Y and Z. Abcdefg over here that actually. Actually, you know, will work with your students, you know, so it’s. It sucks to have to do that.
Heidi [00:17:57]:
And so I’d say, you know, you have to do the best you can with what you have. I was the type of teacher who I will close my door. And my admins. I had nine admins in my first nine years.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:08]:
Oh, my gosh.
Heidi [00:18:09]:
So I really learned to do my own thing and, you know, pretty much, you know, gain the respect of my admins, let them know, like, I know what I’m doing. It’s okay. You don’t have to, you know, bother me. And then they would leave me alone, and I close my door, and I could do whatever I wanted to. I also don’t believe in teaching a program with fidelity. I don’t think that we should do that, because I don’t think that there is a program yet that has been created that is good enough to teach with fidelity. Because, like you said, now we got these teachers who have these new programs, and they’re overwhelmed, and they’re told that they are aligned with the science of reading. And for the most part, most of them likely are not.
Heidi [00:18:50]:
Or they could be, for the most part. But they’re going to have these other things that your teachers would be like, wait, you know that I read research on that, and that’s not following. Which I get questions about all the time. And I’m like, I hate to talk about curriculums because I don’t think that any of. I don’t know. You know, I still. I still think we have a long way to go to have a good line with the science of reading.
Zeba McGibbon [00:19:12]:
Yeah, I. I love what you said about the program should not be taught with fidelity. And I just was laughing because that was exactly the line I was given for a new curriculum. And this is the first year, let’s teach it with fidelity, and then we can make it our own. So I’m just laughing, but I’ve really learned in that process of really trying to teach it with fidelity that it is not what’s best for the kids right in front of me.
Heidi [00:19:35]:
Right? And I think that curriculum could be a tool. It shouldn’t be the tool. It can be a tool. We can grab tools from many different places, you know, and it can be, like I said, a tool. But I don’t think it should be the only tool, because there’s just not one created yet that, you know, is perfect. There’s no perfect program. We have to be smarter than our programs. I do think that’s hard for teachers as well when they get a new program and they’re told like you, that you have to teach it with fidelity.
Heidi [00:20:05]:
I was told the same thing when we got ours. And so it’s like, okay, I’m going to look at it as much as I can and, you know, try to teach with the curriculum as much as I can. But as soon as I see some things that are problematic, like, I can’t do it. Yeah, can’t do it to my kids. So for me, I’m the type of person who. I just can’t, you know. But again, I think it, it depends on where you’re at, who your admin is, what your district says, things like that. I, I can’t tell everyone to, you know.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:33]:
Right. Because that could be problematic for them. But, yeah, know your admin for sure. And I think knowing the school you’re in, the district you’re in, giving teachers permission to close their door and do what’s best for kids in front of them, I think that’s important. And I think, yes, some schools, they are coming around with the curriculum and being like, you should be on lesson seven and you should be saying this and like, that’s horrible. Horrible if you’re in that school. I’m sorry, but if you’re not in a school like that, this is permission to do what’s best for the kids in front of you.
Heidi [00:21:04]:
Right. And I think that’s our goal. And then we have to keep that in, in the back of our minds. And so for the teacher who doesn’t have the curriculum, that’s my favorite. I would love that for myself, but I know a lot of teachers are not like that. I’m a type B teacher. I know there’s a lot of Type A teachers are like, love it. Like, I need that curriculum.
Heidi [00:21:23]:
But I would love the freedom to be able to use what I know and teach my kids. And then I feel like that helps me to be more creative too, and I can do more things in a fun way versus having to feel like I’m following, you know, the program. But again, I know that’s not ideal, you know, for all teachers to not have a program. I think overall, with what we’re talking about with these curriculums, what I think, I think that districts should be focusing. I know the first reaction when, when Science of Reading started taking off is to, okay, let me get a new curriculum. Let me look into this new curriculum. We’re going to spend millions of dollars and get a new curriculum when it should have Been let me train my teachers.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:06]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:22:06]:
Let me spend half the cost and let me train my teachers. Because then like you said, if you can close your door and if your admin can let teachers and have faith in teachers that they’re teaching, you know, how we’re supposed to be teaching, you could do that so much easier if you’ve already trained them.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:24]:
Right.
Heidi [00:22:25]:
So I think that was a miss, a huge miss for a lot of districts when they focused more on a program versus training their teachers. Investing in teachers is. Is I think should have been our first goal.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:38]:
For sure. Yeah. I think I feel like I have that trust in my district, which is nice. Even if they have curriculum I don’t love. Like, I do feel that trust there. You’re going to do what’s best for the kids in front of you. So I wish everyone felt like that. Absolutely.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:51]:
And I think, you know, the no curriculum thing for me as a first year teacher, I had fewer curriculums and it was overwhelming, you know, to like blank slate. What do I do? I don’t know yet. But now that I’m 11 years in, like you said, I would love to have no curriculum and I could just do it all myself.
Heidi [00:23:09]:
Yes. In my first year, I. We were. They were on their way out with the curriculum, so they were like, oh, you can use it or you don’t have to. And I was like, okay. So I feel like it was overwhelming at first, but then I loved that freedom and that was even my first year teaching. And you know, I’m like, you know, you don’t know if you’re doing everything right. And I definitely wasn’t because I didn’t know, you know, about the science of reading then.
Heidi [00:23:30]:
But I feel like, I feel like I did better than when I had curriculum that was forcing me to do things that aren’t best practice for the kids. For sure.
Zeba McGibbon [00:23:40]:
Yeah. And I feel like that’s why I started Kindergarten Cafe was like, if there are teachers out there that have nothing, like when I first started, I had some stuff, but not a lot. Most of what I did with my own. I want to help them so that they don’t have to struggle like I did my first couple of years. And I know, you know, you, that’s why you started is dropping knowledge with Heidi was so that you could help teachers that are like, I don’t know what to do.
Heidi [00:24:04]:
Yeah. So I actually, you know, because I started sharing on social media and then I was never planning to create anything, but people were like, well, what do you have a resource for this, do you have something I can use for this? And for the most part, you know, I had started talking about phonological, lymphonemic awareness. I’m like, you don’t need anything. But I realized like, for a lot of people having something could be so helpful. Like everybody was looking for something. And so I started. My very first resource was like my phonological and phonemic awareness starter guide. And it just had like some, you know, ideas and things for, for teaching all of the different skills.
Heidi [00:24:44]:
And it just, you know, kept going from there because people just kept asking. And so I, you know, based on what I saw the need for, I was like, okay, I’ll try and make this or I’ll try and have this available. And so yeah, because it, it is overwhelming and it is easier for parents and teachers when they have something for sure.
Zeba McGibbon [00:25:04]:
So if you are looking for a resource, like you said, your website is a great, a great resource. And if I’m correct, I believe you also have some amazing decodables that people can buy on Amazon or is it from your website?
Heidi [00:25:15]:
We’re not on Amazon because so, so yes, we actually wrote decodables because I had the same issue you were talking about earlier with this at homes and I was buying all of these decodables, checking them out and I’m like, they’re still not like decodable hard.
Zeba McGibbon [00:25:30]:
I get asked that question a lot of like, where can we find decodables? Like that’s the number one question.
Heidi [00:25:35]:
And I think decodable, we have to really also define what that means, right? Because it’s only decodable if you’ve taught the code. So decodable for one child could not be decodable for another child either. But based on a general phonics scope and sequence and a high frequency word scope and sequence, we wrote. My husband and I wrote our decodables. And then I realized that a lot of schools were looking for published decodables. So we spent about a year trying to figure out that how do we print these books? How do we get them published? We ship out of our house, not on Amazon. We do absolutely everything ourselves. We order the books.
Heidi [00:26:12]:
I mean, we wrote the books, we ordered the books, we keep the inventory here and we ship. You know, we’ve been getting a lot of orders from school districts, which is so great because while your students don’t always have to read books that are 100% decodable, it is also helpful for them to have books that are 100% decoded. Especially when you’re, if you have struggling Readers or very early readers. Yeah, because now they don’t have to guess. Yeah, now they have the code and they know they can read. Like my first book has only short a words and the word. The. No other high frequency words.
Heidi [00:26:49]:
No other words at all. And we still have comprehension questions. So they’re not on Amazon because we do everything obsolete ourselves.
Zeba McGibbon [00:26:57]:
They’re only more impressive.
Heidi [00:27:00]:
Yeah, we haven’t figured any of that out yet. But I mean, I think. Yeah, I don’t even know where I would start with that. So right now just on the website. decodableadventureseries.com
Zeba McGibbon [00:27:12]:
That’s perfect. Well, and I think, you know, I’ve searched decodables on Amazon when I was first looking to switch over to have more decodable books for my kids. And I ordered a bunch through like our, we had like a PTA mini grant and some of them were not decodable. They said decodable. Like they were like, you know, oh, cute little. I think they were like a Pete the cat one. And I love Pete the cat. And I’m like, this is perfect.
Zeba McGibbon [00:27:34]:
I’ll get the Pete the cat one. No, not decodable. It said it, but it wasn’t.
Heidi [00:27:38]:
And that’s another issue. It’s the same as the curriculum saying they have their science of reading. Like people can say decodable. I was at a conference recently as a vendor with my decodables and I had somebody come up to me and she was telling me that she was checking out decodable books at one of a big, a big box curriculum table down the aisle. And it was a kindergarten. Kindergarten Decodable, it said, and it had the word astronaut in it. Like, okay, so we know that’s not decodable. Yeah, you’re gonna force kids to use a picture and guess the word based on the picture when you do that.
Heidi [00:28:14]:
And so that was, I mean, writing and publish, self publishing and shipping and all this was never in the plans. But you know, again we saw the need. And so again there is, there is a thing that I think everybody should watch out for. When you’re looking for decodable or you’re looking for the signs of reading, look a little further into it. If it doesn’t follow a scope and sequence, it’s likely neither, you know. Yeah.
Zeba McGibbon [00:28:41]:
What are the key things to like avoid or key things to like look out for?
Heidi [00:28:46]:
Yeah. So when you’re looking for resources aligned with the science of reading in general, I would look for minimal high frequency words. I would avoid the heart words thing too. I know, I know. You said you Have a podcast about that. So I am the type of person like, why are we teaching this word before they learn the phonics skills? The only reason I see that we need to do that is to appease the curriculum or to appease the adults or the book that we’re trying to get the child to read. Otherwise, I don’t feel that there’s a need for it. So minimal high frequency words and there should be a scope and sequence, ideally a high frequency word scope and sequence too, if, you know they have that.
Heidi [00:29:29]:
Because a lot of our high frequency words that we were teaching our kids to memorize are completely decodable. If you put them in a open sequence and then, you know, just having it rooted in some research, like I try to always say, where I always try to include some of the research at least a little bit so that people know that this is backed by research and it is rooted in that research and shown to be effective. So just a couple, you know, things like that. Because everybody is putting science of reading on everything. Everybody’s putting decodable on everything. And so definitely having that phonics scope and sequence, minimal high frequency words and a little bit of research can go a long way.
Zeba McGibbon [00:30:12]:
Well, I think a key thing you said to me was the decodable is only decodable if you’ve taught the code. And so decodable for one kid might not be decodable for someone else. And so, you know, I make sure to have a range of decodable books for my readers and knowing which ones fit best for my students. And that’s important to know where your students are. But also it takes me opening up every book and looking at the words inside of it and seeing, like, if a kid only knows the short vowels and the consonant sounds, can they read this book?
Heidi [00:30:41]:
It does. And I know that seems can seem daunting for teachers, but it really does. Because, you know, I did that. I went through and I was highlighting, I went through the decodable books that I had and I was like, okay, at this point in my phonics scope and sequence, would this be decodable? And I was highlighting all of the words that were not decodable and figuring out the percent decodable because honestly, people hate me for this, but it really should be 98% to have that mastery. Because if you’re any lower than 98% of accuracy when a student is reading, that can affect comprehension. Even at 95%, it can affect comprehension. And a lot of times we think, oh, this child isn’t comprehending. They are.
Heidi [00:31:22]:
They don’t understand what they read when it’s really. No, it’s really just that they can’t read the words.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:27]:
Right.
Heidi [00:31:28]:
You can’t comprehend what you can’t read. And so I think that is exactly why it’s important for our kids to be reading, you know, highly decodable books. And to do that, like you said, sometimes we have to open the book ourselves and look at that thoroughly before we present it to our students.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:46]:
Yeah. And the other thing I look for is a big, like, no, no big thing to be like, oh, this is not aligned. Besides, the reading is like, we talked about guessing at pictures, guessing at the beginning sound. I tell my students, straight up, readers never guess. I was like, what’s. We need to just. You always need to sound it out and figure it out. Like, you don’t just guess and make it up.
Heidi [00:32:07]:
Right. So if a book contains words or a passage contains words that a student can’t decode, then it’s just not decodable. They’re going to have to guess in some form. They’re going to have to use the first letter or letters. They’re going to have to use the context of the passage. They’re going to have to use a picture. And if they’re doing that, they’re not reading the words. And reading the words is what we need them to be able to do, because pictures disappear in third and fourth grade.
Heidi [00:32:34]:
And so I, I always, I hear from teachers a lot like, well, this worked for my students because they made all these gains. And I’m like, I totally get that balanced literacy can give the illusion that our kids are learning to read. My kids always made really great gains, but I don’t know what happened to them when they got to third or fourth grade. And the statistics show that they’re not reading in third and fourth grade. We have to consider that as well, I think, for sure.
Zeba McGibbon [00:33:00]:
Right. Well. And I feel, I feel like I’ve seen it in my own class that balance literacy and doing things the way I’d always been doing it worked really well for the majority of my class. But the kids that struggled, really struggled, and I struggled with supporting them because they didn’t have the code. That code was unlocked for them. And now I see that, like phonics, teaching phonics is teaching them the code. And it really, once, especially in kindergarten, when you start teaching the letters and the sounds and then you start putting them together, you see their brain flip open and be like, oh, I get it now. Like, you see their eyes light up, you see them unlock the code.
Zeba McGibbon [00:33:34]:
And that’s the kindergarten magic that I love.
Heidi [00:33:37]:
I know. And if we think about it, who likes to do something that they don’t feel successful at? Nobody. Not even us as adults. But who likes to do things that they do feel successful at? It’s like everybody. And when you see that, that light that you were talking about, that’s what we need. That’s what we need from our kids. That’s what we want to see from our kids. Because then, you know, they’re more likely to continue to try.
Heidi [00:33:58]:
Continue to like reading. Not everybody has to love reading, but, you know, at least not hate it. You know, when they feel successful, they’re more likely to keep going.
Zeba McGibbon [00:34:10]:
Right. And I see that, like in giving the kids decodable books that makes reading time more successful for them. They’re not stuck there being like, I don’t know what this word says. I’m trying everything. They’re just building their confidence as readers.
Heidi [00:34:25]:
Yes. And that’s. That’s the goal. Right. That’s what we need to do is. And I think that’s why. That’s another reason why we wrote these books is because I think it’s very important, especially in early literacy. You know, I know the books that we are giving to our kindergarteners, having been in a balanced literacy world, when kindergartners are supposed to come into first grade reading at A level D, what are we doing there? You know, that’s not appropriate.
Heidi [00:34:51]:
It’s really not appropriate.
Zeba McGibbon [00:34:53]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:34:53]:
And then I’m supposed to go from a D to a J. It’s definitely not appropriate. You know, and I’m sure you’ve seen my posts about my controversial thoughts on kindergarten. But I mean, if I had it my way, and this is from a first grade teacher, if kindergarten could just focus on the Alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness and they came into first grade not knowing a single high frequency word. Not knowing. I mean, they’re not even. They don’t even have to be reading CVC words. Um, but if they have letter knowledge and phonemic awareness, I could do so much.
Heidi [00:35:23]:
I could make those gains for sure. And the real gains with my first grade students, if kindergarten, if my kindergartners.
Zeba McGibbon [00:35:30]:
Have that coming in, I don’t think that’s controversial for. In my opinion. I think, I think a lot of kindergarten teachers feel like the expectations of the upper grades have been pushed down into kindergarten, especially given all the new. Not new, but given all the recent data about the third and fourth graders struggling with reading, they’re like, oh, we gotta push it Lower, lower, lower. When really you’re not teaching those foundational skills, you’re asking kindergartners to do the work of first graders. And it’s not developmentally appropriate. And so if kindergarten could be all play and foundational skills and social emotional learning, like, I think the world would be a better place. So it’s unfortunately not the case for our administrators to believe that, but.
Zeba McGibbon [00:36:13]:
And the people making, you know, policy decisions for the states and all of that. But I’m with you.
Heidi [00:36:19]:
Yeah. Thank you. And I’m so disappointed in the new programs that are coming out that they aren’t doing that too. And just making kindergarten all about, you know, if you focus on letter knowledge and you focus on phonemic awareness, I guarantee your kids are going to be reading CD books by the end of the year. I still don’t think we should be doing, you know, heart words or high frequency words. I think those can wait. But I mean, with those skills, that’s what kids need to be successful readers. And like you said, with the, with the standards and everything being pushed down for them to do more and more, it’s not working.
Heidi [00:36:54]:
It’s not helpful, it’s not working, and it’s stressing everybody out.
Zeba McGibbon [00:36:57]:
Well, and it’s. The curriculums are made by people who don’t have a background in early childhood education for the most part. And kindergarten is early child education. First grade is two, second grade is two. It’s just a very different developmentally way of learning. And I don’t see that in the curriculums anymore or ever. And so it’s when you push that down and you’re asking kids to do these workbooks for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, even if you’re changing every 10 minutes and doing all these things that are supposed to be signs of reading, it’s not development appropriate. You’re going to have behaviors and people are like, why are all these behaviors happening all of a sudden? I think it’s because we’re putting demands on kids that are not appropriate.
Heidi [00:37:39]:
I mean, I think one of my recent posts was, if we’re truly going to follow the science of reading, we’re not going to teach heart words in kindergarten. And I think that’s gotten lost. And I think that turns people off of the science of reading too. Having these programs that say they’re science of reading, but then they’re doing all these things like you said, and teachers are overwhelmed with trying to meet these things that are not developmentally appropriate and probably are not following the actual science of reading. And Then like you said, then the behaviors start. And when we can, if we’re really following the science of reading, we are going to focus on phonemic awareness and letter knowledge in kindergarten. And then that opens up the opportunity for us to also focus on the social, emotional, behavioral, things like that and also incorporate a lot more play. It should be playful.
Heidi [00:38:24]:
There’s so much research on play as well. So if a curriculum is not including that either, then they’re not research based. They’re not following, you know, what science and what research says, the evidence on how we learn to read. And so it’s super frustrating that, you know, we’ve had such a. Such a momentum with the science of reading. But then there’s things like this that have kind of cut that and made it not so great.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:51]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don’t want to keep you forever. I have one. I have one final question that I’ve been dying to ask an expert in the science of reading. What are your thoughts on an and am as sounds as or can, you know, tam, like words that include those sounds in them?
Heidi [00:39:10]:
So I don’t think you said the nasal A either. I don’t feel like I say like, ham, ham am. I hear the short A. And so I do. And, you know, I do think this could be dialectal. And I think it’s important to take dialect into consideration when we are teaching reading. So I’m from the Midwest Chicago area where we. I was always taught that B, A G was bag, like people’s bag here.
Heidi [00:39:48]:
And I’m like, no, phonetically, it’s B ag bag. And so. But we can teach our kids these things, right? And say that, you know, general American English, B, ag. But, you know, here we have a dialect and we say it like that. And that’s okay. When we’re saying it like that in. In, you know, conversations, we can address that. So do you think the nasal could be dialectal? Because I don’t know.
Heidi [00:40:12]:
Do you hear me saying like, can. Is. Is it nasal?
Zeba McGibbon [00:40:15]:
It doesn’t sound like the short A to me. That’s my str. At least when I’m doing it like an. It doesn’t sound like a an. And I hear my students, they’ll try to sound them out and they’ll be like an. And then they’re like. And I’m like, I teach it as a glued sound. As an.
Zeba McGibbon [00:40:35]:
It should be together with an. It kind of changes the A.
Heidi [00:40:38]:
Okay, so say ham.
Zeba McGibbon [00:40:40]:
Ham.
Heidi [00:40:41]:
Okay, so yeah, you do have the. The nasal sound, I think, but like, am Ham.
Zeba McGibbon [00:40:49]:
I think I say I. I am going to. Whatever. It’s not. It’s not. That would be like, a little more British sounding. I don’t know. This is like.
Zeba McGibbon [00:41:02]:
Well, this is where you get different answers and you have different things at different programs. And I’m like, I am just gonna keep going with my. It’s a glued sound. You say it together, it changes the.
Heidi [00:41:11]:
A. Yeah, I don’t love glued sounds. I’ll say that because we do need our kids to segment every sound in words. So I don’t love glued sounds. But what you can say, I mean, if that’s how you teach it, that’s how you teach it. Another thing that you can say is that when A is before an M or an N, because M and M, if you say those sounds and you touch your nose, you can feel it. You can feel a vibration in your nose. And we can teach our kids that those are nasal sounds because they’re in our nose.
Heidi [00:41:41]:
And so when you see the A before the m or the N sound, then it might sound like you say it. Yeah, the nasal sound. You could say the nasal sound.
Zeba McGibbon [00:41:56]:
It’s hard to separate it from me. I think that’s why I’ve been teaching as a glued sound. But I love that explanation because I always bring it back when I can to, like, what are our lips doing? What’s the tongue doing? Like, so I’m gonna maybe start using that. Thank you.
Heidi [00:42:09]:
Yes. Just tell them that it’s the same as, like, when A follows a W, it says that ah sound. And so we can teach our kids that when, you know that when we see wa, we know that A is not going to say ah or a, it’s going to say ah for the most. Most of the time. I say most of the time. I always say patterns because nothing in English is 100%. I never teach rules. So, yeah, using things like that.
Heidi [00:42:35]:
That’s why I always say teacher knowledge is key. Because using things like that, like you said, like mouth articulation and, you know, the different characteristics of the Alphabet letters can be so helpful in teaching those things. So I think dialect, we can talk about that. And we can also talk about those nasally sounds when we’re saying those am and a N. I know because I had a resource where ant was one of the. But I hear the short A when I say ant. Yeah, I see.
Zeba McGibbon [00:43:05]:
I don’t hear it when I say it.
Heidi [00:43:07]:
You don’t hear it either? No. And. And. Okay. So, yeah, I don’t know.
Zeba McGibbon [00:43:13]:
It’s Different. Well, I think this is this a perfect example of, like, not everyone has 100% of the answers. It’s okay to, like, not be totally aligned and do your own thing and, like, have honest conversations and be open to learning and growing. Like, that’s what we should all want.
Heidi [00:43:27]:
And we can tell our kids these things, too. We can say, you know, like, I mean, when we’re talking about dialect and we’re talking about the different sounds, and I think it’s okay to talk to our kids and let them know, first of all, let them know that they need to be flexible in English. I think that’s so important, and I think that’s a reason to not teach rules, because when we, you know, come to different words, they’re not always going to make the sounds that we think they are in English because it’s derived of so many different languages. And especially because we have the schwa, and we have to always be ready to be flexible and flex those vowel sounds. And so teaching that flexibility with our students can be so helpful because maybe you have students who’s like, literally, I aunt, I hear the A. You don’t. And I’m seeing it. We’re seeing it together.
Heidi [00:44:15]:
So maybe you have students who don’t or students that do. And just talking about the fact that, you know, the next letter can change a sound or the letter before can change a sound. These types of things happen all the time.
Zeba McGibbon [00:44:26]:
That’s so true. I always tell my students, English likes to trick you. And so, like, well, when we point out things like that, I’m like, this is a case of English trying to trick you. Or, like, they’ll be like, you know, how do you spell this? Or. Or I think it’s spelled like this. And I’ll be like, well, technically, it’s blah, because English is trying to trick you.
Heidi [00:44:44]:
But another thing you can say to get them ready because, like, etymology is, like, the word origin can be so helpful. And etym online. Etym online. I would even talk about this with my first graders. And I think that you can, too, with your kindergarteners if you’re, like, not sure why, you know, word is spelled the way it is or whatever. Like, you can always look up the etymology, like, the history of the word. A lot of times those words end up being that way because they’re coming from a different language. And in that language, you could like, my name.
Heidi [00:45:11]:
Heidi doesn’t make sense phonetically. Most of our names don’t make sense phonetically because they’re derived of different from a Different language. And so sometimes that can be really helpful, you know, for our kids as well, talking about those things to get them ready for older. When they’re. When they start learning more of those.
Zeba McGibbon [00:45:28]:
Those are the words that they’ll remember more because they’ll be like, wow, that’s like. This is a cool, like, adult fact. I bet your parents don’t even know this. Like, they’ll remember that.
Heidi [00:45:35]:
Yes, exactly. They love. I. I realize my kids love to learn about these things. And they. Exactly what you said. They remember them better as well. And then we tell them, you know, go home and ask your mom or dad or your, you know, parent or guardian or brother or sister if they know this.
Heidi [00:45:53]:
I bet they don’t. And then they’re so excited, they’ll come back the next day and tell you that they told them Exactly. Definitely remember it better. And I think it’s important and helpful to have those conversations in class with your students. I’ve looked up literally, like, you know what, let’s research about this word a little bit. Let’s look this up, because, you know, I don’t. I don’t know either. So we can look this up together and do a little research together.
Heidi [00:46:16]:
And having those, you know, open, honest conversations with your students and learning along with them isn’t a bad thing. I think that kids like that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:46:25]:
Yeah, well. And it shows off that we’re all still learners. And here’s how learners act when they don’t know something. They don’t freak out. They don’t, you know, start crying. They look it up and they learn from it.
Heidi [00:46:35]:
Exactly.
Zeba McGibbon [00:46:35]:
Well, Heidi, thank you so much. This has been so, such a great conversation. And I think it’s been really helpful to kindergarten teachers wondering, what is this science of reading or how do we get started? Or any of those common misconceptions. We’re going to put all your links below. But where can people find you or any last little things you want to leave people with?
Heidi [00:46:54]:
Yeah, definitely connect with me. I love to connect with you. I love to answer questions. This has been such a fun conversation just because I could talk about this all the time. So definitely reach out my website. You’ll link my website. And then Instagram, TikTok, Drop a knowledge with Heidi. Same on Facebook.
Heidi [00:47:10]:
But my website has all of that information as well. And then there’s a whole entire freebie, freebie library on my website, too. I love to provide free resources for teachers just to either get started or to check the quality of my work just to make sure that you know you are comfortable with those resources, things like that, so definitely check that out as well.
Zeba McGibbon [00:47:31]:
Awesome. Thanks, Heidi.
Heidi [00:47:33]:
You’re welcome. Thanks so much for having me.
Zeba McGibbon [00:47:40]:
Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more Kindergarten tips. See you then.