001to our workshop from phonics to fluency how reading is taught and how you can help. Our goal of our workshop tonight is to clarify and explain how we teach reading in Capistron Unified and also as parents how you can help your child also learn to read and and and gain that literacy knowledge. Um my name is Brad Sheer. I'm the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction for elementary. And my team tonight joining me um is the wonderful Rihanna Sarus, our humanities coordinator for preschool through 12th grade. She covers it all. And also one of our amazing teachers in the trenches doing this every day. Kendra Ghart who's a teacher at Concordia Elementary. So thank you Kendra for being here. We definitely wanted to have a practitioner here to um talk to you as well. So, a
002couple of housekeeping things for tonight. Um, you have handouts on your table, so you can take they're there to take notes. So, if you want to, um, they're sort of a summary of our slides, but also on the handouts is a QR code. So, don't feel like you need to write everything down tonight. Um, you're going to get the slide deck. You'll be able to just go back and look at it in your own time. So, but you do have a notes page if you want to take any notes. Um, also at the very end of our presentation, we will have a time for questions. And again, part of the reason we're not kind of doing that along the way is because we're live streaming. So, um, but we'll definitely answer any questions that you
003have. And to organize that, we're going to also just ask that you write those on the index card. So, that way we can collect them and do one at a time and then we'll like say, "Here's the question." And then we'll answer it so people that are watching at home know what the question is as well. So all right, I think that's all the housekeeping things. I'm super excited about tonight's workshop because literacy really really does matter. Okay, it is the core thing we do in Capana Unified and schooling. It's our main purpose because it literacy is the foundation for everything else. If kids do not become literate, then they're going to struggle with everything else that they're going to be asked to do in education and really in life, right? So, it's strong literacy
004leads to success in school obviously, but even beyond, right? We know that outcomes for the for the future are enhanced when we have strong literacy. One of the most important is there's probably many studies we could have shared with you tonight about the importance of reading by the end of third grade. Um but one of those things is is there represented on the graph a study from back in 20 2011 from the Annie Easecy Foundation. The children who read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to graduate on time. Um K through third grade is a predictor for a lot of things. Graduation is one of them. Kind of success in life is another one. So trying to ensure students are proficient in reading by the time they finish third
005grade is so crucial. Part of that is because in our K12 system, kindergarten through 2 grade is all about learning to read. Third grade and beyond is reading to learn. We access all of the learning we're going to do through books, through literature, through reading. And so by third grade, we want to be able to be able to have kids have access to all of that good information by being able to read. Teachers can teach a certain amount of things, tell kids certain amount of things, but it's reading that unlocks the world to them. So being able to read by the end of third grade is super crucial. In the very back of the room, you'll see that same image. We've been we've had this up in for several years now. Our vision of a
006CUSD graduate. So, in Capistrano, we deeply care about our kids from preschool all the way to 12th grade or even in our adult transition programs. Um, but this is our vision for a CSU graduate. We want to see students graduate, walk across that stage when they're 18 years old and shake their hand and they have these qualities. Continuous learner, engaged citizen, skilled communicator, innovative problem solver, inspired leader. The reality though is that none of these are really possible without being literate, right? You can't access text if you're not don't have strong literacy. These are all going to be difficult skills to acquire over the course of that uh educational experience. kind of interesting that um there has been there's this phrase we use in public education that is in reading circles a lot. It's called
007the Matthew effect. So this actually was a term coined in the 60s by sociologists. You see him on the screen and it's the idea that success breeds success. And why is it called the Matthew effect? Well, they actually took a verse out of the Bible, the Gospel of Matthew that says, "The rich get richer and the poor get poor." And there was a different context for that in that in the Bible, but in the context they're using it here is this concept of success breeds success. So if I'm successful at something, I want to do more of it. I want to strive to do more of it. And so psychologist Keith Stanovich applied it to show how early reading success accelerates growth. If I'm successful early, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade with reading,
008what happens to the learner? They want to read. And when I read more, I gain more knowledge because I'm reading more content. I'm building my vocabulary. I like reading. And so, the trajectory of that strong reader gets stronger and stronger over time. What about the poor reader? the student that's not acquiring literacy, who's struggling, they don't want to read. Reading's hard. Reading is taxing. I don't want to do it. And so, the gap between the rich and the poor grows between that strong reader and that struggling reader. There's a few just more just to hammer home this point which I think you would have all agreed with before I even walked up here. But early reading success is key to not only academics but also self-esteem, emotional regulation and resilience. A Yale study looked at
009strong early literacies linked not only to academic success but also to a lifetime of physical and mental benefits including lower anxiety, fewer aggressive behaviors, healthier life trajectory. So reading so important. Two more concepts here. Reading fosters relaxation, confidence, coping skills. And then finally this major I love this study from Cambridge University that found that early reading for pleasure. So, this is not you forcing them to read. They actually want to read, right? Ages two to nine. Okay? Now, we're not saying that a sec, a two-year-old can read. Um, I do have a picture, wonderful picture. We didn't put it in the slide deck of my six-month old grandson who looks like he's reading a piece of text, and I like to show my friends that, but really isn't, but he's looking at the book. Um
010anyway, ages two to nine showed improved brain structure, cognitive performance, and mental health in adolescence, especially with around 12 hours a week of reading. Now, does that mean the child is reading 12 hours? Could be. But it also means mom and dad reading to him, shared reading, reading to him, reading with him. We're going to talk a lot about that tonight about how important it is to read to with and to listen to your child reading as much as possible. Okay. So, there's been a lot of debate. I've been doing I've been in public education a while, a little over 30 years. And when I first started, there was a lot of debate. Kendra, is this correct? Yes. Okay. A lot of debate about how do we teach reading? What is the science? Is there
011a science of reading? And so a lot of research was done really about 2530 years ago. It's solidified over the last 20 years. And we now have this concept in educational circles called the science of reading that there is the predominant amount of research shows that there is clarity when it comes to what works well when we teach kids to read and what really doesn't. So there's four principles up here. One, that reading has to be taught explicitly. We don't leave reading to chance. We're going to teach you explicitly how to how to read. That the brain connects print or we read on text to speech. So the brain has to make that connection between what's on the page and how it sounds. Both how I say it and how I hear it. And we'll
012talk about that. There's an evidence based instruction. There's evidence that we can follow, research we can follow to ensure that kids learn to read. And this is especially critical for students with dyslexia. So there's a lot of concern out there about students who may have dyslexia or may be susceptible to becoming dyslexic. And if we don't teach reading the right way, we exacerbate the likelihood that some kids may develop dyslexia. So that's another key component. I love this slide. It just shows that there's no one part of the brain that's reading. It's multiple pieces of the brain working together to to learn to read because we're connecting what we see visual with what we hear and the language centers of our brain. They're all working together through multiple pathways. And as we read, see that
013last one down there? It says practice strengthens connections. It's like as we read, we strengthen the connections, the neurons that are firing and connecting with each other, and they strengthen in their skill to to improve reading. So, we're not going to go into brain research tonight or any of that. I couldn't speak to it anyway, but just know that the brain it's reading is not simple and it needs to be taught explicitly. There's a few myths that then this was 30 years ago for sure. There was a lot of debate about this. I remember I was a sixth grade teacher at the time and I would get half a class of kids that couldn't read. You're like, "What's going on down there in the primary grades?" Well, part of it was our approach. There was
014a thought that kids just learn to read naturally. That if you just expose kids to enough print, put a printrich environment around the room, have a lot of pictures in your books, that if I'm just exposing you to print, I'm going to learn to read. Well, the reality is that explicit teaching is required. Explicit systematic instruction with structured phonics and practice. So, Kendra's going to come up in a little bit. We're going to talk about what this means. What is what do we mean by this explicit teaching, but this is key. We have to teach somebody to read. The idea was if you think about it naturally I mean for the last 10020 years most of the world is literate like most of us read but that wasn't the case three or 400 years ago
015like listening a podcast about early modern England like 1600s 20% 30% of people were literate few people could read some people and it was even worse a few hundred years before that so reading is not natural it actually isn't just It doesn't naturally develop. It's not evolutionary like speech. Like we have a one-year-old back there. She's going to learn to speak, right? She's going to pick up all the things that mom says and replicate those, right? Doesn't need to be taught how to speak. There can be some helpful hints. We have speech teachers, right? But for the most part, we learn to speak naturally, but we don't learn to read naturally. Okay? And then pictures are that was a myth before or context clues. And we just give you I kind of said this already.
016decoding skills are essential essential. So, I'm going to turn it over to Kendra who's going to kind of walk us through some of these next slides. >> Well, first of all, thank you so much for being here everybody. Um, as a classroom teacher, I just want to say thank you. You will make the world of difference here in this journey that you're about to partake on. Um, so I'm going to talk about um the mount he was talking about research. Well, the mountain of research has landed on this concept of the simple view of reading. So the simple view of reading is if you have dyslex or if you have decoding and you have language comprehension then you are going to have the end goal which is reading comprehension. So those two those two elements
017are vital. If you don't have decoding and you just have language comprehension, you can't get to that product of the endpoint of reading comprehension. And if you have language comprehension, but you can't decode, then you're going to struggle with reading comprehension. Both of them are vital. So what does decoding mean? So decoding is the ability to sound out words accurately. And if you think of the word decoding as all of this is a secret code that nobody has told your child about yet. And our job is to explicitly teach them this code little by little. That's what we mean by decoding. And then the and then um the language comprehension is understanding language, understanding vocabulary and all that goes with that. Um so if either skill like I said is weak then reading proficiency suffers.
018Both must be developed through intentional instruction and practice. Um, so then under those two categories, we can look and see what does that mean? What does decoding mean? And like I said, decoding means being able to see this as a secret code that we want to teach your your children and that you want to help them develop. So they have three main things and I'm going to get into them more, but one is phmic awareness. The next one is phonics and the next one is fluency. And then the other part of this um the simple view of reading is that language comprehension. And what do we mean by that? that we mean vocabulary and comprehension strategies. Um, so I'm going to be talking tonight mostly about decoding and then Brad's going to get back into
019the language comprehension. Okay, so here's a really nice graphic again. Here it says word recognition instead of decoding, but it's the same thing to be able to recognize a word. And we want to be able to recognize it actually by decoding the letters by sounding it out by knowing what these symbol what you know what the eer means what the sound the eer makes and what the sound the ar makes and that sort of thing. Um, so one thing I I've been teaching for 30 years and I can tell you I've taught, you know, reading for 30 years and I've taught first grade, I've taught second grade, I've taught third grade. And sometimes it is a little bit easier for some kids to learn to read the first grade or second grade. But what I
020can tell you is in third grade, if they kind of just skipped over the decoding part, then that's when they get into trouble because once they get into third grade, there's a lot of multi-elabic words and they look at those words and they panic and they don't think about how do I break this apart and how do I have the skills to break it down and decode it? and all those big words that they're going to get to in third grade, everything they've been working on the last few years in terms of the code are are in those bigger words and we want to them to be able to read them just chunk by chunk. So all those skills um just kind of build on top of each other until the point where we're able
021to read multi-elabic words. Okay. And just like the simple view of reading also we have what's called the five pillars of reading. And so um there was the national um reading panel that was around two the year 2000 it was released and this is really the five areas that as teachers and for instruction that we want to focus on. You can see the similarities here with that simple view of reading. So, phmic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. So, this if we're thinking about um how do I how do I want my instruction to look and what do I want to do? These are the five um pillars that I want to follow, but also how do I help my children? These are the five things and I'll get into a little bit more of
022what each of those. Okay. So, the first thing is concepts of print. So before children can read, they need to understand the basic mechanics of how books and texts work. So when they are um very young and they have books in their hand and you're reading with them, they are building this skill. So even before they can decode, they are starting to understand con concepts of print. And to us, it just seems so natural, right? And of course you know which where the front of the book is. Of course you know where you point and where you start reading. But all of this is completely abstract to a beginning reader. They don't know unless we show them unless we give them a lot of time in books. Um so um one thing that we can
023be doing is really like having them have books like reading them lots of books. That's how we developed this. Um, also, um, when you're reading with them, use your finger and track with the young kids so they see that how how words were or how a page goes and you go from left to right. They won't know that unless we're showing them. So, that's another thing that you can do at home. Um, and then also text features. So that's something when they're really young, they're seeing where's the title, where's the cover, where do we start reading, where do you start pointing, what direction do you go? But even as they go like towards third grade, um text features turns into more complex ideas like um is this what's the difference between a narrative and what's
024the difference between a narrative and informational and what are the elements that are in a story and what patterns do we always know are going to come next? And so the more you're reading to your kids and the more you're exposing them to books, the more that they're going to know and be able to predict what's going to happen next in the story. Um because stories have structures, right? And to us it just seems so natural, but to them they really we really need to point it out. Um headings and subheadings and the picture and what's written under the picture. All of those skills that we're so used to, we want to really help develop with our kids. Okay. And so now next, phenemic awareness. So phmic awareness is actually a a really important um
025skill that kids need to have to be able to read. So it's the ability to hear and identify and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Um and so if you think about that, like if we're just talking and I say the word cat and I say, "What's the what's the middle sound in cat?" and you would be able to hear that it's ah. And if I said, "What's the last sound in cat?" You would be able to tell me that it was t. So, you're able to hear those sounds, right? Well, surprisingly, this isn't as easy as it seems. For us, it's so easy, but when you're young, this is actually really hard. So sometimes when I'm working with kids, especially like kindergarten, and I'll ask them uh phmic awareness skill, which would be segmenting, and
026I'll say, "Tell me the sounds in frog, and they would they'll go a and sometimes they they do not know they do not know the last sound." Not that they don't know a g or how to, you know, that a g says g, but they actually can't produce the last sound orally. They don't hear it. They don't know how to separate it from the a. They don't know the Ah is separate from the G. So that's phmic awareness. It's a being able to hear the sounds and be able to manipulate them. So it's a very like I know a lot of people the big thing is like oh they get their B backwards or they get their D backwards. But really phmic awareness is such an important skill. That's that's really the big one. Are
027they able to hear the different parts and and the different sounds in words when you're asking them? Um, so let's see. Also included would be like rhyming and blending sounds, segmenting sounds. Um, so these are all things that you can be doing and practicing at home. If they if they're struggling wherever they are on their ability to do this, this is a skill that can be improved. And your child at school, they are working on this. This is something that's daily part of their instruction. But you can also and and don't panic if you go home and say, "Hey, what's the what's the um what sounds in the mi? What is the in cat? What's in the middle?" And if they can't tell you, don't panic. It's just something to start working to work on.
028Um so we have a a little video here that we're going to show you. Um, so you can kind of get a clearer picture of some phmic awareness skills and what it looks like at school and then maybe think about how you could do that with your child at home. Okay, friends, we will play some listening games. >> Say glue. >> Glue. >> What was the first sound? G. >> I will say some sounds. You blend those sounds together to tell me the word. Listen to these sounds. I >> What's the word? >> Height. >> Yes. Kite. I will say a word. Say that word back to me. Use your roller coaster to say that middle or vowel sound extra loud. Say pose. Ready? O. >> What sound was in the middle? >> O. >>
029I will say a word. Say the whole word back to me and you will chop or segment it into the sounds that you hear. Say the whole word first. Say June. June. Now let's chop it. >> How many sounds? >> Okay. So that is exactly what phenemic instruction would look like in the classroom. And again, doesn't it seem like so simple to us, right? But it can be really hard and it's a skill that we want that we need to develop in children so they can be successful at reading. >> I love how our young learners got really engaged during that video. That's awesome. >> Yes. And I also liked when they came in, they started saying ABC, which would be concepts of print. They saw this and they knew that. So, good job. Good
030job. Um, okay. So when we're thinking about a lot of researchers looked at phmic awareness because it's such a vital skill that kids have to have and that we want to develop and we want to work on with them. So there's three it's called the trinity of phmic awareness the holy trinity. So the three most important ones that that are vital to be able to be become a reader are blending. So, um, blending would be if I said fogg, then your kid would be able to say that's frog. Or if I said mmatch, they would know that it was match. So, that's something that you can do with your child. Driving in the car, going for a walk, it make it into a little game and and develop that skill of being able to blend
031the word together. any word um usually starting with one syllable words, right? And then segmenting. So that would be if you said the whole word like frog and then they could go fogg. And so again, a fun little game that you could be doing while you're walking or driving your car. And then the last one is isolating. So let's say you said the word frog and okay, what what is the the last sound in frog? And then if you said the word um mix, what's the middle sound in mix? And so that and they could ask you to do the same thing. You could kind of play a game back and forth like that. Um one thing I want to say about isolating and like um the middle sound is that vowels are so vital.
032So really starting to notice, can they tell that the sound difference between the vowels? So if you give them different words with different vowels and see if they can hear the difference between a I and an E, can they hear the difference between those are the two hardest ones to differentiate. So can they hear the difference between if you say what's the middle sound in mix? Can they say I and then met a right? See how similar that is? And so those are that would be an isolating skill. Okay. So then phonics. PhonX is the essential skill of connecting sounds, the phonms to the letters. So it's the bridge between the spoken language and the written word. And so what we need to do is we need to as schools and teachers, we need to
033systematically and explicitly teach the phonics skills. So then the kids can decode the words. It's teaching them the skills so they know the secret code and the secret code's not a secret anymore. For example, if they don't know that this is B, then it's the secret code, right? But as soon as they know this is B, then they they have a piece of that code, right? And then they can put it into words. Um, when children masters f master phonics, they unlock the ability to read virtually any word they encounter. So, just as a parent at home, if your child's in in kindergarten or preschool or TK, um, are they starting to understand and learn the sounds? as as the class is learning them, you can be looking for that. Um, as they get older
034um in kindergarten here in Capo, they're going to start re putting those into words and putting those into sentences and um so practicing decodables. Um so decodables are it's text that can be like a little decodable book or it can be a passage. And the decodables the teacher is going to give have all the sounds that the that the students have already learned. So as they learn more sounds, the decodables get more difficult. And the decodables are so vital and so important to practice because that helps them solidify the phonics skills and move from just the sound into words into sentences into passages. And so reading those decodables, um, words that they can sound out, passages that they can sound out, sentences that they can sound out, that's vital. >> Let me just add to
035that. So, and if you're hopefully you're seeing decodables if you have children in grades K1 or two. Um, if you're not, it'd be a good question to ask your teacher. Are they reading them in class? Um, we do have uh copies that can be sent home. So, it's great practice. So, remember back to how much you want to pract. You just learned all of these sound spelling correspondences as a learner and now I'm going to practice those. So, if I just grab any old book, it's got all kinds of different kinds of words in there, right? It's not the words I practiced. It's not the sounds and the spellings I practiced. Decodables are very predictive. It's got just what we've worked on or what we've worked on up to this point. If we're in October,
036all of the decodable in October is going to have everything we worked on since August August to October, right? Um with a special focus on what our focus was that week. So that's really helpful. And the more the kids read it, the better. Um they're not that interesting. Matt sat and did something with a cat. I don't know what, you know, it's like very simple. So, it's not like, oh, what's the big meaning behind this this text? That's not the point. The point is just to practice reading and get really good at feeling confident because now we're building back to that Matthew. We're building confidence. Oh, I can read, Mom and Dad. I can read this. And so then I'm ready for the next one and the next one. So, >> exactly. Yeah. So, those
037decodables are are vital in solidifying um and solidifying those phonics skills. It's the best practice. Okay. So if we look at this um slide up here, this shows a lot of times like we think phonics skills, we just think knowing thinking of the alphabet and knowing that there's a sound with each letter in the alphabet. But actually phonics skills, they go all the way into very complex um different skills like um diagraphs like sh, ch um we've got vow teams like AI. Um, we've got um the bossy rs like a r, i, r, e, r. And then we've got irregular vowel patterns like ooh and oi and all of those. So, anything like that is part of the code. It's part of phonics. >> Miss Gard, English is pretty complicated, isn't it? >> Yes. Look
038at how many different ways we can say e. E consonant e probably at the end of a word, right? Or syllable. EA e blank um like my like y at the end blank i e blank blank ey. There's all these different ways to say the sound e. So this is the code and we try to expose kids to all of these. So it seems like they naturally pick it up, but sometimes kids don't. And so we have to be really explicit. These are all the ways that the the sound E, long E, can be represented by what they they're called graphimmes by the letter combinations. So your classrooms, if you go in during parent conferences or during back to school night openhouse, you may see these posted. They look like they are the traditional um
039alphabet cards, right? ABCD, you know, especially these ones. But their purpose has much more important purpose. It's to connect the sound R, A, E, CH, to all of the possible spellings that that sound can make. So, it's just really important and I and we just that's why we had them up here. I know people at home probably can't see this, but um these are these are probably up in the in your child's classroom. So, >> yeah. And so when we think about learning this code, um, we want them really by the end of second grade to have all of these skills down. So that's kind of like a good timeline. And we actually have foundational skill standards and you can you can look those up, too. Um, but that that all connects there. Okay. So
040we have these phonics skills, right? And it we progress through them all the way to multi-elabic words. And um so what do how do we do this right and we do it through what's called systematic phonics. So the first step is students are explicitly st taught a phonics skill. So let's just think about the very beginning right? So at the very beginning maybe they learn that a says a s says m says m t says t. Well, once that they know just a handful of sounds, we're going to start them on putting those sounds into words. So, a long time ago, they would just kindergarten, they'd learn their sounds. First grade, they'd start to read. Well, it's not like that anymore. Now, as soon as they know just a handful of sounds, they're on their
041path to get started with the reading. Um, and so then we once we have these, we start reading. we start blending them together. Your child might be um exposed to a beginning word like sat. They might, you know, be reading it and a lot of times in class we use our fingers like sat. Sometimes we'll go at sat. Sometimes we'll go sat sat. So that would be the beginning and then eventually we just pull through it. Sat. And then eventually they're just going to see it and they're going to know it's sat. Right? So that's the process. Um and then we continue to add new skills each day on and on every day and then throughout throughout um the year and then to the next year. And then the new skills combined with previous skills
042until all skills are mastered and words can be read and spelled with ease. So that's what we mean by systematic phonics. It all builds and we're just building and we're um we're um the previous skills or going with the new skills and then those go into decodables and then we practice the reading with the decodables all based on the things that the kids have already explicitly and systematically been taught. Um, and then once we get to this multi-elabic words, we need to really help them once they get to those to look at that word. Like let's say they get to remember and they don't just look and go remember and panic or not be able to read it, but they go. So they're reading it chunk by chunk. And so, um, that's what we want
043to do once they get to those bigger words is we're looking and we're using all those skills that they've already learned for the multi-selabic words. One thing I wanted to say about this is how can you help or how can you notice if they're learning their skills or they're not. The best way to see if they're learning their phonics skills is reading the decodables, but also their spelling. So if they are if they've learned their short vowels and then they go to spell and they're confusing their short vowels, then that shows you in their spelling that they haven't really solidified the skill of short vowels. So their spelling is a really good way to see if they're solidifying the phonics skills as as well as the >> it's a window into their thinking. Yeah, absolutely.
044It's a great point. Yeah. And then when they get to the big words, this is something I see in third grade a lot. When they do get to the point where the words are bigger, they're have them have them um not only read them chunk by chunk, but also spell them chunk by chunk because at first it's the panic, right? And then you go, "No, look, it's just easy. You you can do this chunk by chunk." Okay. Okay. So next um what I wanted to talk about one of the pillars is fluency. So a lot of times we have this misconception that fluency is just reading really fast. Well rate means the speed, right? And the goal of fluency, if we think of fluency, it's really being able to read like we're talking. So at
045first the kids aren't able to do this. It's a process to get to that point, but that is one of our end goals that one of our skills that we really want them to have. So, um rate is important, but it's not the only thing that we mean when we're talking about fluency. Procity means being able to um read with expression, read like we're talking, not read like a robot, right? Um and then accuracy. So, accuracy means most of the words they can read correctly. And so a big indicator research shows is that if they can read a passage, a decodable or a grade level passage with 96% of the words correct, then they really have the phonics down, the decoding down, and they can really work on their fluency more. If it's less than
04696%, then they really that that's another indicator that it's either too hard for them or they're they're having a struggle with the phonics. Okay. So, fluency, how do we develop it? And researchers have looked at this a lot. So, we do have the information on how do we build this and everything on a those pillars or the simple view of reading, all of those things. We have we know how to improve them. So, it's not just like, oh, you know, don't panic. We've got the skills to do that and and we can help you, too. So for fluency um to we want to um to be able to improve it build strong decoding skills right if they are struggling with decoding it's re it's going to be really hard to read fluently. So all those
047phonics skills all those understanding the code that needs to happen for them to be able to read um fluently. Um practice reading often. So the more that they're reading, the easier it's going to get, especially with the decodables. If they read it once, they're going to read it okay. But if they read it twice, a little bit better, a little more fluent, three times. Three times is kind of the magic number in in fluency that we look at. Rereading something three times um can really bring them up to a more fluent level. um read a variety of books, listen to fluent um reading, so you can be a model of what fluent reading sounds like. You can also read together where you know maybe you're reading the first time where you're reading the book or
048the passage or the decodable or whatever together and then they then that's a model for them of what the procity would sound like for example. And then um reread familiar text. Another rereading. There's a lot of research on how rereading really is the number one way to build fluency. And then focusing on understanding. Um so that is that is um those are really good strategies for helping at home as well as what we're doing in the classroom. >> Okay. >> Right. Now talk. So then remember there were five pillars. So the last two are vocabulary and comprehension strategy. So vocabulary. So if if I can decode the words on the page, but I don't know what any of the words mean, I still have not made meaning yet. So the more vocabulary that I have
049as a learner, the more accessible the text is going to be. I now have built up this muscle of decoding and I'm going to add this muscle of vocabulary and some strategies that I can use to make meaning of the text. So, how do kids learn vocabulary? Well, one, we teach them, we have vocabulary lessons. We actually will teach them how about certain words, but a teacher can only teach so many vocabulary words. I mean, Miss Ghart could teach vocabulary all day and wouldn't give her second grade this year. Third grade, third graders this year all the vocabulary they need to actually acquire in third grade. They're going to get it from rich exposure through reading. The more I read, the more vocabulary I learn. Now, some of the words I don't know when I'm
050reading, but I can use now the context of what I'm reading to to figure out what that unfamiliar word is, right? Um the other thing is what about the youngest learners? So our little ones, the 2-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds before they come to us. Research also says the more vocabulary the students have when they come to us in kindergarten, the more successful they're going to be. You're like, "Well, Brad, how do I develop the vocabulary of my 2-year-old or my three-year-old?" You talk to them and you read to them. The more it's so interesting, the more we talk and read to our children, the more vocabulary they develop because remember language is natural and evolutionary and they're listening and building off the words they hear. There's a lot of interesting research of kids that don't get
051talked to very much who tend to be from more, you know, at risk families with a lot of needs. Uh they don't talk to their kids very much and then they come to school and they really struggle because they don't have a lot of vocabulary. So just talk to your kids, use complete sentences, you know, all the things and you encourage them to talk back, but they're going to have a whole lot more knowledge vocabulary than they have verbal vocabulary. They because they've heard you say those words or they've read those words and so they're going to, oh, I know that word even if they're not using that word on a regular basis. Now, once they start using it, it's even better, right? So, um, so vocabulary is a huge key. And then, and by
052the way, the home language, you may say, "Well, what about if my my home language isn't English? What if it's another language? Is am I am I hurting my children by No. The more language they they learn?" Well, first of all, you're giving them the possible benefit or likely benefit of two languages, which is amazing. And they're going to bring that language knowledge into their learning and their reading. So don't hold off on speaking to your child in your home language at all. That's still building them as well. Super important and super valuable. So any oral language at home is valuable for the child. The other skill, the other muscle over here is just using strategies when we read. So when I when I'm reading something, if I use some key strategies and they're right
053here on the board, I make a prediction. Okay, I'm looking at the title, looking at what this might be about. I might now look at some pictures if there are pictures. I might look at the text and the meaning or look at that first paragraph. What does it say? I can make some predictions about the text. We actually teach our older learners to annotate. This is a big idea now in in our educational circles to actually read with a pen. Annotate as you're reading. Uh asking questions to the author like why did you say that or what's this about? Summarizing. If a kid can summarize what they just read, it's super helpful. And then just reflecting, what does this mean for me? I just read this. What does this mean? So, comprehension strategies are really
054valuable and really helpful. Um, and kids can do this if they have the decoding. It's really interesting. I've shown brain images of kids who can't who aren't reading with proficiency, and all their brain activity is up here in this front part of the brain, and they're they're taxed. They're trying so hard to read that text. the proficient readers, the brain activity is back here because this is not hard to decode the text. Now I can focus on the meaning and what is this text about? What is this author trying to tell me? Okay, so what do we use in Kappo? Like how do we teach? What's the curriculum? What do we use? So our core curriculum in K through third grade is a program called Wonders. Um we've had this since 2016, I believe 16,
05517. Um, and it's a good program. We have identified over the last few years that we've needed to supplement this program a little bit because we really wanted to ensure that we are teaching in alignment with the science of reading. And so many of our teachers have been trained in what's called the Orton Gillingham approach, which is that multi-ensory approach to reading. A number of train teachers have also been trained in the University of Florida literacy initiative, UFly. Um, Miss Ghart is actually a trainer trainers I think in that and who's trained many of her staff members in UFly. It's a great multiensory approach to teaching phonics and phmic awareness as well. And then every teacher in our district has heard phmimic awareness. That earlier video you saw was a Heggery lesson. So um, everybody
056uses Heaggerty and we supplement our core program with this. Okay, Mr. Arus, I'm going to turn it over to you. Click on the document. >> Oh yeah. Thank you, Brad. So, what does that look like then? What does that mean in Kappa when we talk about teaching phonics and fluency and phenemic awareness? We have something in Capistroni Unified called Great First Instruction that all of our teachers use. It's a guiding practice and Brad's going to click on the document uh for what it the overarching what it means. First, clear lesson goals. How do we present this information to our students? by the teachers clearly explaining to the students what the goal for that particular lesson that day is. Okay, today we're blending sounds. Today we're segmenting sounds. Today we're learning the short a sound. The
057students know the goal of the lesson. They have a target and it's clearly defined. Uh they we have strategies that support all learners. We commit as teachers and as a staff that we're going to break these lessons down into manageable steps for our students. Kendra talked about that scope and sequence. There are clear, organized steps to support our students learning along the way. It's interactive. You'll see another example in a classroom in a moment of what interactive teaching looks like. I know we're talking a lot about research tonight and steps, but what this looks like in a classroom is students talking, students in groups, students on the floor manipulating objects, they're writing, they're reading, they're talking to each other. So interactive multiensory learning is really important in our classrooms, especially for our younger learners. and
058then ongoing review and assessment, which I'll dive into in a little moment here. But teachers are constantly checking for understanding throughout your students learning so that they can catch those gaps so that you can support your student in learning to read by third grade. So again, what does that look like? How do we teach reading at school? You heard a lot of the specifics, but if we were to put that into four general categories, uh that would be first structured literacy, systematic phonics, shared reading, and decodable text. So structured literacy using again that comprehensive researchbased approach. Uh reading systematically, reading explicitly. Uh there are steps, right? You don't remember how you learn to walk or how you learn to talk, but you might remember parts of learning to read. Talking is innate. Reading is not.
059We need systems in place to support our students to to learn to read and that's that systematic phonics. I won't read the slide for that. Kendra did a great job talking about how we teach phonics. That shared reading piece is also really important because that's the part that you can also do with your child. Uh teachers and you are your child's first teacher. U model fluent reading, right? reading out loud with your child, having your child read to you, teachers reading out loud, uh, texts that are above their grade level because we we know students can understand words and vocabulary at a higher level than they can decode and read themselves. So, exposing our students to a variety of rich texts and those fun decodable texts that help build those phonics skills. Um, and then
060the daily practices. Um, you've probably heard your child talk about reading aloud. These are also things you can do as a parent. Uh rich discussions, engaging with books, talking about the books that you're reading, contentrich texts. Kendra touched on concepts about print. So we are starting to teach our students even as young as kindergarten that there are different types of texts. A poem is different than a story. when they go to learn about science. Reading a one of those wonderful books you got tonight is way different than reading the steps of how a plant grows or the life cycle of a butterfly. Those are different those are directions. So teaching our students uh what they're looking at and using different strategies to learn to read different types of text and of course actively engaging them
061all the way. And we can't talk about reading without talking about dyslexia. It's a very common uh learning difficulty that comes uh that a lot of people are aware of. And so what is it? Um it's a language-based learning difference. It is not related to a level of intelligence. We talked about earlier how your brain uses different part needs different parts of the brain to learn to read and it's like cracking a code. Well, people with dyslexia have trouble breaking that code. Their their brain working together, right? You can see the words, hear the words, but you use a different part of your brain to comprehend the words. And putting that together is like cracking a code. So we know research has shown that early identification of dyslexia is key. So if we can identify
062the possibility of a student having dyslexia with the right support, students with dis dyslexia can learn to read. It's not a, oh, you have dyslexia, I can't read. You can read and read quite well if we catch it early. Um, next slide. So, how do we support students with dyslexia? The great news is there's a lot of research on dyslexia and we know if we catch it early, we can help. There are strategies we can give your students very early on that will help them um read at at grade level or above. So some of those strategies, explicit systematic instruction and phonics, multi-ensory teaching approaches using sight, sound, touch, movement, um small groupoup support. We can target individual support and we use some of those evidence-based programs you've already seen in examples here or in
063Gillingham. There's a lot of different uh support through wonders and our our teachers strategies that they naturally do to help support all of our students learn to read. Not just students with dyslexia. These strategies support any student who is struggling to read and regular progress monitoring. And what is that progress monitoring? You might have heard of Dibbles. How many of you knew it stood for? It's actually an acronym. It stands for dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills. And it's a really short one-on-one assessment that your teachers give to your students to help them understand their early development reading skills. Uh the skills it tests are phmic awareness, phonics, fluency and comprehension. And their students are tested three times a year in dibbles. Beginning of the year, middle of the year, and then end of
064the year. So if you go to your parent teacher conference and hear, "My student has a low dibble score. Oh no, they have dyslexia." It's not a dyslexia diagnosis. It's not that's not what it's meant to do. It's a reading difficulty support so your teacher knows how they can help what areas your student might need extra support in to help grow as a reader. And with dyslexia, we know if we can identify early reading difficulties, we can provide the necessary support needed needed. But with any student with any reading difficult in any of these one or more areas, a program like Doubles really helps us identify those needs and then we can target the specific support that the student needs. And yeah, we I was going to we can show you an example. I was
065going to say that California requires a a reading screener now and we're really fortunate that they picked Dibbles as their reading screener because our teachers and students have already been doing it for years. And this next slide is an example. Do we have time? a little bit. I'm running out of time. >> Okay, it's super short. >> Yeah, this is an example of multiensory. It's very short, but you can see a couple different ways that students can >> integrate um movement and sensory input multiple times a day, whether it's writing our red words into the carpet or um writing our sounds into sand. What we're doing with a kinetic approach is getting more sensory input that helps the learning stick and kind of works with those neurons and pathways in our brain to really solidify
066and consolidate that understanding and learning. The biggest part of that approach is that students are um learning foundational skills, phonics, um reading, decoding, encoding through a very specific scope. So in kindergarten they're getting these things. By first grade they're getting these things. By second grade, they're getting these thing and it's building on it itself. >> Today is green. If it's a compound word, that second part is green. It's >> d a vowel team. >> It's a vowel team. >> Today we saw um segmenting and fingertapping. So um segmenting, identifying the specific sounds within a word and writing them one at a time as we say it. We're tapping. We are pounding syllables. We were also putting our um hand under our chin as we um segmented the syllables in apostrophe. And then we also with
067the sand we were writing the multiple spellings of different sounds. So for example the C sound we know three ways to spell that sound. And we we wrote C says C K says C. CK says C. D G E says J >> and soft G says >> good job. Always learning. I love that. H So we use double our teachers use dibbles and many other measures to monitor your students progress in reading throughout the classroom. Many and not just the universal assessments like dibbles progress monitoring. your student, your teachers are assessing your students every day informally with writing lessons, reading lessons, communication, and so they can help your student um and intervene when necessary on the skills that they need extra support on. Uh what does that look like for Kappo? We have a multi-ter
068system of support. We believe in every student, every learner um by name and by need will get the help they need to learn to read. So for tier one, that means core classroom instruction for all. Everything you saw tonight, all of our students are getting this core instruction. And wouldn't it be great if I taught you something the first time once and you learned it and you remembered it the rest of your lives. I wish it was that way with golf when I tried to learn, but it's not. I need many one-on-one instructions uh to learn. So, tier two, those targeted in interventions. When your student has a skill or an area of reading that they need extra support on, they'll get targeted instruction on that skill. So again, something like dibbles or your teachers
069assessments will help them identify which area that they need help in or extra extension on. And then tier three is that intensive individualized support that's reserved for students um who are one or more grade levels below an area and they'll get targeted intervention support for that need. I >> I just want to add many of you may have heard of like they may may be called something different at everybody's school, but it might be called wind time. I don't know if you've heard of this. what I need time. So, every school in CUSD has a dedicated intervention time. So, time where our teachers will look at their results, their data, and see who didn't get it during tier 1 and we need to give some additional small groupoup instruction to those kiddos in tier 2
070or even tier three. So, it's a dedicated time, 30 minutes on everybody's schedule. Secondary has a version of this, too, called tutorial. So, we know kids don't learn something the first time, every time. We want to have time set aside in the day to give additional intervention and help. That's what that is. >> Thank you. And the last piece here is how can you help at home? What's the power of reading together? Right. We already know it increases vocabulary. Did you know that by talking to your child and reading with them at home, they can learn and hear up to four million more words, sometimes more? Some re research shows more than that. And that was the minimum. 4 million more words by the age of four years old. We've heard some of those words
071tonight. So, uh it promotes comprehension when you read together with your child. They're understanding more complex words, more complex ideas, and builds their fluency. So, don't be afraid to reread favorite books, uh read different types of stories, poems, sing rhymes. All of those different types of exposure to vocabulary really help your child. >> And then last, oh, you had it. I was ready. And then last, again, how can you support reading at home? Uh, put daily reading habits in place if you don't already have it. When my kids were little, we had bath books and bedtime. And every night before bed, winding down to take the bath, read their favorite books, and go to bed. But whatever that looks like in your schedule after dinner or after school, having a dedicated time where they can
072focus on reading. Uh again, you've heard this before, but reading out loud with your child, asking them questions during reading, uh predicting, making guesses, connecting it to their experiences and your experiences together, encourage storytelling. Uh we'd always talk about what are the highs and lows of the day or tell me about your day with your friends or what did you do on the playground. Um anytime they can tell you a story. And then finally, model reading uh to your child. I know books are probably rare. We're all reading, you know, articles and news on our on our phones today. But, uh, don't be afraid to model reading or talk about something interesting you read with them. And share your enthusiasm for reading because reading is contagious. That's why we're here tonight. >> Yep. >> If
073you got nothing from the rest of this presentation, but just this slide, this would be probably the most important because if you do this with your kids, this will help them hugely. And by the way, it bonds you with your kiddos. So, I still missed that. My kids are 29 and 28, but I do have a grandchild, so I'm looking forward to doing that with him. Um, because this is this is just probably most important slide in the whole presentation. All right. So, some key takeaways. Obviously, we wanted to help you know that reading is taught systematically. We have all of these areas, phmic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension. We monitor progress regularly. those interventions that structured phonics help all kids especially kids with dyslexia and you guys play a vital role at home. So
074we have time well we did it is 7 o'clock so I want to acknowledge if you came here and expected to leave at 7 and you were ready to leave you certainly can do that. Let me give just a few more words and then we will certainly stay for questions. If you have questions, if you don't mind taking the index cards and writing those on the there and maybe Kendra and um Brianna are going to go around and pick up your questions and then we can answer the questions here. Um if you didn't get a book on your way in, please make sure to grab one on the way out. They're all in the back there. Dr. Merwin is back there and he can help you as well to make sure you get one on
075the way out. And then last but not least, and we'll still do questions. This is our um QR code for providing feedback for tonight. It's also there's a QR codes over there on the table as well. We would really appreciate feedback on this presentation. Um Capan Unified is going to be doing regular parent workshops throughout this year. We would love to know what else you would like to learn about um and um have a workshop on. And we're more than excited. We're so thrilled to have so many of you here tonight and we're looking forward to doing more of these in the future. So, okay. So, 7 o'clock. Thank you for being here. If you do need to leave, you can. But we were going to start taking some questions. Kendra, I'm going to give
076you this mic so that you can actually say them out loud because you may be answering them, too. >> Okay. Or maybe Rihanna. >> Okay. >> I'll start. When does the dibbles assessment start? So, the dibbles assessment starts, we do it in the fall, in the winter, and in the spring. Those are the three main diagnostics. And it starts in kindergarten. I don't believe they do it in TK. >> We do not do it in TK. >> Yeah. So, it starts in kindergarten >> and we do it through uh grade five. So, we do do dibbles in 3, four, and five as well. It's basically a reading fluency passage that they're reading. There's another assessment for comprehension. Um, and the middle of the year assessment is going to be during the month of December. So,
077December 1st through the 18th is going to be our middle of the year assessment. So, >> next question. Okay, we just can you give a sample heardy lesson snippet. My daughter says we did Heaggerty today and that was our great question. That was our first video as the Heertrity lesson. So saw that. So if you uh forgot what it is, you can rewatch the recording tonight and we watch. >> It's very engaging. Kids love it. Um you could you could tell when the two of them they're like, "Oh, what's going on?" So they they really like it. It's very very engaging. >> And these are such good questions. Okay. Where do site words come into play with the pillars? This is a really good question. This would go under the decoding. So when you have
078um site words, the what we think of when we say site words is really like high frequency words like the of um with from and they might not be going by the phonics rules, right? So like from you can do uh there's an O and so but they're vital to being able to read because they're so common. So that's what we mean when we're saying site words. Okay. So what research has found is most site words actually you can sound most of them out. So what we want to do when you come across a site word like let's just say from is you could draw lines from let's do the sounds. So uh let's do four lines right. Okay. What's the first sound? F. What's the next sound? Oh the next one it's really weird.
079You have to just remember this by heart. It's an O even though it sounds like a U. And what's the last sound? M. So even with the heart words, we still want to go with like decoding and segmenting the word and sounding it out. And then that part that doesn't make sense, just tell them that. And if you have a word like of, just say, "Oh, it's of," right? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's English. And I don't know if you remember it, Kendra, but it's it's mostly decodable. >> Yeah. It's mostly decodable. It's not entirely. >> That was debatable for a long time. And a lot of times it was just like let's just rem let's just do flashcards with um with the words. But actually the way that we want the brain to understand how
080to read is always decoding the sounds from the beginning sound, middle sound, end sound and not just bypassing that. So it's better to also do that with these high frequency words. Um, and then somebody said, one of the cards said, "Is it good to do flashc cards with um, alphabet letters?" Yes. So, that would be great. The faster the kids can learn their alphabet sounds, the better. So, if somebody asked, should I do flash cards with alphabet letters? Sure. That's very helpful. >> Yeah. Also, just remember, too, it's just as important to focus on sounds that letters make, too. So, A, yeah, it's good to know the letter A and is a long is a long vowel sound, right? and B is the letter letter's name, but B is the sound. So practicing also with
081sounds because they're going to connect the sound to what they hear and then ultimately to the print. And so important. I just want to add this about phmic awareness because you think, you know, my kid's a strong reader. He's fine. He I he's reading Harry Potter to me at home. Everything's fine. How does he spell? Because I had one of those. He didn't get the systematic phonics, but he was reading because I was reading to him all the time. And so he picked up he could read, especially in kinder first. And so he started reading Harry Potter second grade. It was great, but his spelling was terrible. And so he wasn't making that connection back to the sounds that then make the letters the the graphimmes, right? So frog like there's you if you know
082you know the sound, the letters correspondence with each letter that you're sound you're spelling out. Some kids miss that. So again that's why I said earlier their spelling is a window into their their phmic awareness. So it really is kind of important >> you practice all your skills. >> Yeah. >> Which kind of answers this next question they were asking how can we learn the ways that uh phonics how can we help our students with phonics and how's it being taught? And that is just through exposure to what Brad said reading and sounding out words with your child segmenting helping them blend words together. And then someone asked are comic books and graphic novels okay? And I would would say yes, we have a graphic novel and adopted in our eighth grade literature. So again,
083exposure to a variety of texts and all kinds of print are >> and we want kids to love to read. Like if you if they're you find something interesting for them to read, they're going to read now. You want to watch what they're reading, right? I get all that, right? But you want them engaged and liking what they're reading. So kind of connecting them to what they want to read is really valuable. So >> yes. >> Yeah. One thing to always think about if you're a little like the graphic novel, do two books at a time, right? So, think about, okay, we'll do the graphic novel, but then we're also we'll do the graphic novel, but we'll also read this other book. And don't forget how amazing fairy tales are and story books are. Um,
084the vocabulary level of fairy tales is so much higher than than just your average um story book. So, those are really good types of books. So, yes, if they're just like they they're motivated by graphic novels, let them read that, but then add in something else. Do a couple books at a time. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. This is the one. What's your opinion on flashcard practice for sounds? Yeah, let's get let's learn the code. Let's learn the code. So, flash cards for the letter sounds. Great. And even better if the flash cards go beyond just the simple, you know, because if you give them an A, do you want long A? Do you want short A? Right sound. So it'd be better if they also saw some of these, you know. So I don't know
085what buy what cards you're buying, but it's good to get all of these different graphimmes in your cards. So there's all those different sounds that connect with them. So >> and you have parent conferences coming up soon. So definitely talk to the teacher about like where they you are in the systematic phonics sequence. what have they learned so far? What's next? What are we going to learn by the end of the year? So then that would be a really good question to ask. So then you know which flashcards that that they should know and and what ones maybe they don't need to know yet. So maybe they're in kindergarten and not they're not learning, you know, the variant vowels yet. So don't worry about that. But we definitely want to get the them started on
086the the essential ones for that grade level. Okay. Um do you want to read this one? I don't have my glasses. >> Oh, okay. Hold, please. >> Can you read it for me? >> For my second grader, is it a better strategy for me to read to them out loud or for them to me read to me out loud? Um, and also sometimes we read together. Um, or a different book in silence. What would help them? >> Yes. >> All of that. So, yes, read to them out loud. Yes. Like maybe a little higher, right? Read. What do you say? um for them to read uh together. So it can be, you know, maybe you're reading some of it and they read part of it cuz it's at their level and they can read that
087or they know some of those words or read some of the words are reading with them. Um or listening to him or her read as well. So remember we the student has to practice. So the more they read it's also really valuable. That's why the decodables are so helpful. And even beyond decodables, once they're starting to read, you know, kind of normal text that's not specifically decodable, but they can decode most of that text, reading that because the it's like anything you practice. The more you do it, the better you get, the more you cook, the better a cook you become, right? The more you play golf, hope well that one maybe not always, but generally you something you do and you keep doing it, you're going to get better at it. So the more
088kids do it. But yes, I think doing all of those things that this card said are all good things to do with a student 100%. >> And this goes right to the ne that question. Um are the decodable books the light brown gray paper folded in half? Um so a I'm not sure about the that but um the decodable would be anything that the kids have learned the skills in their sequence and they can sound out with a few high frequency words thrown in. So, it just depends. Like a a decodable kid could be in second grade um higher skills like they might be doing um vow teams and that sort of thing compared to kindergarten a decodable is going to be just probably short vows and that sort of thing. Um, but your again
089conferences are coming up. So at the conference I would ask for some decodables to take home or you could even email the teacher ahead of time saying, "Hey, when we meet at conferences, I'd love to get a handful of decodables." And then that way the teacher could have that ready for you when the conference comes up. So asking for decodables if you don't already if you're not already getting them, that would be a great thing to ask. And I, as a teacher, I would love it if a parent, you know, was was wanting to do that at home. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, third grade homework title, phonetic um phonetic fluency, but no directions other than ch green. Okay. SH red. So, what that from that beginning part, what they're doing is they're trying so
090ch that means that color the ch green, I'm guessing. and then color sh red, I'm guessing. So, what that would be is to really make sure they've probably in class learned that ch says ch and they've learned that sh says ch. So, what they want you to do is really having the kids noticing those skills. And so then when they're going to read the passage, they're really solidifying that those diagraphs, right? So they're seeing like, oh, there's the sh. So that's why a teacher would have you color or highlight something is because it's a skill they've learned in class and they want the kids to really cement it in their brain. Um, so one of the words was chef. Do you color that word red? That's a really good question. Okay, so if you see
091phonetic, do you ignore spelling and only think sound? Okay. So, if you see the word chef, right? >> It's a great question. >> Yeah. >> So, that would be a discussion with your kid, right? You would say, "What do you think?" And ask them, "What do you think we should do here? What do you notice? Um, what do you think it should this word is chef, but it spelled? What is it spelled like?" And you just start talking about that because that's unfortunately the way the English language is. >> It's a rule breaker. >> Yeah. It's a rule breaker. So you just talk about it and then they notice. So then that would be one of those heart words, right? >> Where you have to remember that a ch by heart because it's not spelled
092it's breaking the rule. >> If I just add one other thought here that you might I don't know if you've seen this but in our dibbles assessment there is a part of the assessment that's called nonsense word fluency. So they're literally nonsense words that aren't real words. And the purpose of them and there was a lot of debate a few years ago about oh should we do this or not do this. It's it's fine. It's purpose is to practice decoding what's the predictable way to read that word. Now we tell the kids these are not real words. Don't think these are real words. We're just practicing with chef. Chef's a real word. So we would say it could be chef >> but we don't actually say it that way. a chef. We just have to
093memorize it. So, we do have those conversations with kids. So, yeah. >> Yeah. All good. >> Okay. And where do we find the expectations of what students should know by grade level? This is another really good question. Um I believe the the foundational skills um standards. I believe they say what they are. Um, so that that can be Googled, but I think probably asking your teacher the phonics, scope, and sequence would be the best thing to do because every teacher would have the phonics, scope, and sequence. So, um, you could email them like before conferences and say, I really want to work with my child at home, too. Do you have a year-long phonics, scope, and sequence so I can kind of know where you're at? And then that way they could um, it would
094be a great thing to have, right? So that that that would be what I would do is I would just email the teacher and ask for the phonics scope and sequence and maybe throw in a couple decodables while you're at it. >> Exactly. All right. >> Is there any other questions? Have the questions created other questions? >> Yeah. >> Is there a spelling bee? >> Yeah, there is not currently a spelling bee. There is a Chabronis on Wednesday night at the pizza place. >> Oh, at a pizza place. Okay, very good. >> Um, >> we don't currently have a spelling bee. >> I'm looking at Dr. Mun because we've had some good conversations about maybe doing it in the future. We don't currently do it. So, >> that may be something we might bring back.
095>> Yeah. All right. >> Yeah. So, definitely again the teacher conferences are coming up. So, that would be the time where you would go over, you know, they the teacher would go over the scores, the intervention, the plan, and then what you can do at home um to to give that support. So the great thing about the dibbles is it shows what targeted skills need to be improved and then the teacher once they have that information the teacher then starts um pulling the kid or pulling groups to give that specific targeted skill and build that and then um they reassess to see okay did that intervention help and then and then yeah >> right so again we and just and I'm going to reiterate a little bit what Kendra said We assess every kid three
096times a year, right? That big screener. We look at that data and we identify the kids score one of four scores. They're either going to be um kind of it's advanced, right? We call it above >> benchmark, strategic or intensive. So, one of these four levels. >> Kids that are strategic or intensive, we look at those kids and we say we need to create a plan as a grade level to respond to this data. So it may be say there's two second grade teachers at particular school. They they get together and they get together once every week as a as a grade level team and they look at data together and they might see okay there's these eight kids or 10 kids or 12 kids that need some additional time on they're not where they
097need to be. So then we need there the teachers will then identify either in their own classroom providing small group instruction or sharing kids. So some of our schools actually a kid will leave from one classroom go to the other and they'll intervention during their win time for that. The other thing a school may do is want to diagnose even further. So they may take the dibbles assessment and say okay we want to do another um assessment to even to figure out is can we get it down to the exact pieces of the code that the kid doesn't have and then we're going to try to do intervention just for that. Is it long vowels that he doesn't have? So we need to do some targeted intervention on long vowels for example. Um so all
098of that's done and then the school keeps also what's called an SST list or student study team list and their principal and the school are monitoring the students performance on that list. And there can come a time where they might feel like we've we've done all of these interventions and the students still struggling. So maybe there is some other issues going on where we might need to look at um testing for assessment for special education. Obviously that would have conversations with you to talk about that. But that's not something we rush into because we think we can fix a lot of this with just good good teaching uh and good instruction and figuring out exactly what that thing is. We don't want to, you know, have kids have to be in special education when we
099can address that before that. So that would be our goal. In the last four years, we we really invested in creating that time for collaboration for teachers to look at data. All of the training, the Orton Gillingham, the you everything you saw here was part of our investment into getting teachers the training they needed to help with that as well. So, um I would say, you know, first talk to the teacher, then you know, ask specifically what are you what's being done for the student? And then you know if you need additional assistant obviously you can go to the site principal as well for for help but start with the teacher. So yeah. Um so for um the last several years we had I Ready reading as um available to um we paid for it
100for grades three through five um because it has some pretty nice comprehension assessments. It's an online assessment just like the math that kids take on math. It it had an online component. Some schools would pay for also for it to be in K2. some would and then there is another part of it which is the personalized learning component which is you can get on I ready and it based on your assessment results it puts you into a personalized learning path um just like our math does right we have it for all of math because our curriculum adoption for math is I ready so we have it um unfortunately we don't have it for this year just looking at all the resources that we have um and so we asked sites if they wanted it and
101some sites did choose to get the diagnostic for I Ready, which is the test, and then a few sites have actually paid for the personalized learning component, but it's not universal across all our schools. Yeah. >> And we do have amplify or boost reading. And so that's um the a program that >> Yes. So there's a personalized learning for so amplify boost what they the dibbles is works together with the company work together. And so they have um they the they take the dibbles information and place students um at appropriate skill path so that they can close the gap or be enriched um with their reading as they yeah as they grow. >> Good question. Good question. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, you guys have been great audience. Thank you so much for being
102here and for great questions. So, thank you and we'll stay here until if you have any other questions. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much.