Read by Example

👋Hi, it’s Matt. This week, I spoke with Jen Schwanke, former principal, current deputy superintendent, and author of Trusted. (Full subscribers can watch the video of our conversation below.) Enjoy! Also, my feedback survey closes soon. If you have a few minutes to spare, I’d love to know more about your experience here. Take care, -Matt

Jen Schwanke has spent her career inside schools as a teacher, a building leader, and now a deputy superintendent in Ohio. She is the author of five ASCD books, including her most recent, Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools. She also writes the newsletter “Principal Problems with Dr. Jen” and co-hosts the Principal Matters Podcast, which has surpassed 1.5 million downloads.

In this conversation, Jen and Matt discuss what it takes to lead with trust: riding the inevitable ups and downs of the principalship, delegating without losing accountability, building the self-awareness to recognize when you are undermining relational trust, and staying connected to students when compliance and logistics pull you in every other direction.

What We Discussed

* The connection between trust to student outcomes

* The difference between being trustworthy and being trust-willing

* How to recognize when you are unintentionally harming trust with your staff

* What it means to lead through teachers, from the inside out

* The area where teachers are most willing to take feedback from their principal

* The two things that keep Jen grounded as a leader when the job gets enormous

About Jen Schwanke

Jen Schwanke, Ed.D., is a longtime educator who has served as a teacher and leader at all levels. She is the author of five ASCD books, including Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools. She writes the newsletter “Principal Problems with Dr. Jen” and co-hosts the Principal Matters Podcast. She is an instructor in educational administration at The Ohio State University and currently serves as a Deputy Superintendent in Ohio.

Find Jen at jenschwanke.com, on X at @JenSchwanke, and on Instagram at @DrJenSchwanke.

Resources Mentioned

* Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools by Jen Schwanke (ASCD, 2025)

* Principal Matters Podcast

* Principal Problems with Dr. Jen

* Choice Literacy

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Full Transcript

Matt Renwick

Hi, my name is Matt Renwick. I am a coach, former principal, classroom teacher, and I am joined today by a colleague, also a former principal, former classroom teacher, current deputy superintendent, Jen Schwanke. Welcome, Jen.

Jen Schwanke

Hi, Matt, so good to be here, thank you.

Matt Renwick

Good to be connected with you again. I want to read your bio. You’re a long-time educator, teacher, and leader at all levels. You’re the author of 5 books. The last one is the one we’re going to talk about today, Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools, published through ASCD. In my review that I wrote for it, for Middle Web, I wrote it was a book that I wish I would have had when I was a principal — it was just really well done. We’re going to talk more about that, but Jen has published 5 books, all focused on leadership at the school level. She’s a frequent contributor to multiple educational publishers, including Choice Literacy, which we’ve both been contributors to and proud writers for. She also consults with districts and school leaders in the areas of school climate, personnel, and instructional leadership. She’s a frequent presenter at national organizations, including ASCD, ISTE, NASSP, and NAESP, and also an instructor in educational administration at The Ohio State University. She currently serves as Deputy Superintendent in Ohio. You can find her at JenSchwanke.com, on X at Jen Schwanke, and on Instagram at Dr. Jen Schwanke. Welcome.

Matt Renwick

What made you decide that you wanted to write a book about trust?

Jen Schwanke

Well, let me tell you a story related to that. I’ve been lucky to have a great relationship with my editor at ASCD, and this book came to life because I had just published one on conflict management for school leaders. The ink was still warm on the press, and I reached out to my editor and said, I want to write one about trust. And she said, Jen, my goodness, be quiet for a minute. And I said, no, no, these things do go hand in hand. Managing conflict in a school, and how you talk to people, and how you try to anticipate and analyze and act on conflict is so tied to trust. So here’s what she said to me: we really need you to come up with something that has a true effect on student outcomes. So anything you write about trust has to be tied to student outcomes. And I thought, I don’t know how to do that. I know how to write about how trust feels and how to not be a jerk, but I don’t know if I can tie it to student outcomes. Then I started doing some research, and I was shocked — I should not have been — I was shocked to find how much of a correlation there is between principal and staff trust and student outcomes. Students achieve more when teachers trust their principal. After that, the book was easy to write, because I was able to really focus on the why, my intentionality with building trust, and what happens with students.

Matt Renwick

I’m glad you wrote it. I’m glad you convinced the editors, because you do get at the student level, and that’s one thing I appreciate about the book and your writing. I’ve read your writing with Choice Literacy, and I’ve been on peer review groups with you. I always appreciate your stories — small anecdotes from your own experience, the ups and downs of the principalship. It’s an interesting polarity: conflict management and trust, those two tensions.

Jen Schwanke

That’s exactly right, because you can’t do one without the other. You and I met, probably 10 years ago. You were doing some writing for ASCD, I was too, and we went to an authors’ retreat together, and where we geeked out together was with the literacy piece — the reading, and the writing, and student engagement. To me, it was a little bit of an aha moment to think about how it really all is tied together, including student achievement and progress.

Matt Renwick

You note in the book that the only way to be successful as a school leader is to learn to ride the inevitable ups and downs. That conflict, and engagement with it, and trust — that’s something I both miss and don’t miss as a former principal. What strategies did you use in your 17 years as a building leader to ride those waves?

Jen Schwanke

I had a little bit of an aha moment. I was probably in my 10th year as a school leader, and I was complaining to my dad about it — about a teacher, or a parent, or a curricular resource, or a data point. He happened to be standing on his skid steer with a chainsaw at the time, cutting down some branches after a recent summer storm. And he said, you know what your problem is? You always think there’s going to be a point where there’s no more problems. You’re always dissatisfied, because there’s always another problem. And he looked up to the tree and said, a storm blows in, you gotta cut a few branches down. It’s just the day’s work. I thought about that for quite some time, and I thought, that has been my weakness as a leader. I’m looking for this moment when there’s no more conflict, everybody’s getting along, everybody understands what we’re trying to do, everybody’s engaged in the learning — and that’s never going to happen. Because we’re humans, and we have feelings and responses. So rather than feel like I’m chasing an impossibility, I found a great deal of peace in thinking, problems are going to come and go. That is literally what I am paid to do. The strategies were, first of all, recognition of that. I have to embrace these problems that come. And I will even say — my team will tell you it’s very annoying — they’ll come in and say, we have this problem, and I’ll say, okay, let’s pause and think about this together. That takes self-discipline. It also takes team. Because if you are alone, and you feel like you’re the only one who’s going to ride this up and this down, it gets pretty hopeless — like going in the ocean and taking another wave, and then another wave, and then another wave. And then perspective. It is so easy as school leaders, as teachers, as coaches, to feel like the things in our bubble are the most important to anyone. We have to make sure that we don’t wrap too much of our identity into the work — meaning letting go of the sense that we have to have everything perfect.

Matt Renwick

That very much resonates with me. Of those things you listed, the one I struggle with most is letting go of control to get things done. As you said, you need others to help lead. It’s the only way to manage it all. What have you found effective to make it clear what’s expected, and how to do things well, so that you’re not trying to do it all? How do we let go of control?

Jen Schwanke

This is something I did not do well at the beginning of my career. I thought that when I got the master key to the school, I needed to put on a Superman cape and be everything to everyone. I needed to know everything, be involved in every conversation, make every decision. And if I didn’t, the whole place would fall apart. I’ve come to know — and part of this was through the research I did in my doctoral program — there’s so much out there about collective efficacy. If, as leaders, we don’t empower our staff, if we don’t say, hey, you got this, or, I need help with this certain thing, and invite those other voices, then the trust and the ability of a staff to let their gifts shine is really diminished. We work with people who have bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees, and many times we overstep in our assumptions of our own expertise versus saying, hey, you have the expertise. I’ll be honest, to this day, I still have to enact self-discipline and say, Jen, you would not do it that way at all — but the outcome is going to be the same or better if you just step aside. Really, all of this is a synonym for trust. In the book, I make a distinction between trustworthy — which most of us know how to be: be honest, do the right thing, follow through — and trustwilling, where we have to be willing to let other people do their thing, do what they were hired to do, get out of their way, and help and guide them instead of criticize or micromanage.

Matt Renwick

You bring up a good point about the differentiation between being trustworthy and being trustwilling. A step of that is humility — and also self-awareness. You talk in the book about how trust killing can sometimes be unintentional. Principals aren’t always aware of how their words and actions are damaging, both what they do and what they don’t do. How did you create that self-awareness, or how have you seen leaders create it, so they’re becoming more adaptive and not making the same mistakes over and over?

Jen Schwanke

I’m a listener, I’m a watcher, and I watch myself with the most critical eye — but I watch other leaders too, and I watch teachers and coaches and see how they respond to different leadership styles. Self-awareness of when you are undermining relational trust — you can’t measure how important that is. Trust killing is generally unintentional. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I really want to ruin some trusting relationships today. But many of us miss the cues that we are undermining that relational trust. Two things I’d like to say about this. The first is a bit of an offshoot of the ‘let them’ theory, which many listeners probably know. Let people feel how they need to feel. That comes with a little bit of tension as a school leader, because we can’t just let people do whatever they want — we have to lead, and provide guidance and standards and expectations. But if we are doing things with sound mind, with thought, with input, with an eye to how it’s going to affect students, then we really have to be able to let some things go. However, we’ve got to have our eyes and ears open for the feedback, because it comes in various ways. If I walk into a staff meeting and no one will meet my eye, or if I’m explaining a new initiative and people are just coming at me with all the reasons it won’t work — rather than thinking, okay, this is a staff that is resistant or toxic or negative, what they might be is scared, or uncertain, or nervous about change. We have to listen for feedback and learn from it. I always look for my truth-tellers, the people who will tell me when we’re getting off track. I also tell people: look for patterns and look for mirrors. If every time you roll out a new initiative or program you’re finding significant resistance, that’s when you look in the mirror and say, I may not be communicating well enough, or I may be leading a group of people so scared of change that they can’t see the potential outcomes. Then I have to backtrack and see how I can fill the holes in the sieve so that my leadership intentions are not seen as barriers, but as potential for the future.

Matt Renwick

The need for feedback and having your truth-tellers around you is crucial. I was married to one of my truth-tellers. She was a special education teacher in the same building where I was the principal, so if I screwed up, I learned about it very quickly — which I appreciated. And she knew how to approach me in the way I needed to hear it, so that I actually would.

Jen Schwanke

Let’s talk about that for a minute. Your wife was a truth-teller, and she probably saw things you didn’t see — and there you were, trust-willing. Willing to listen to her, willing to say, where am I going sideways? I’m certainly not saying we all should be married to our truth-tellers, but we need to trust that they don’t want us to fail, they don’t want to bring us down. There’s no ill intent when people try to give us feedback. We can choose to say, thank you, that’s very helpful, let me think about that — or we can choose to say, we’re moving forward. The first one is the only way that you build trust.

Matt Renwick

How do you get to that level of intimacy — in a relational sense — so that no matter what happens, you’re still going to be on good terms with each other? I think that’s a barrier in people’s minds, though it may not always be correct. They think this is going to destroy the relationship if I have this conversation, and it really is not, unless something truly egregious has occurred. I didn’t love the story, but I really connected with the story in the book about when you walked into the lounge and heard some teachers talking about you. If I remember right, you didn’t respond in the moment. You kind of walked away and found a custodian’s closet and...

Jen Schwanke

Cried.

Matt Renwick

I think we’ve all been there. If you’ve been in the principalship long enough, you’re going to catch that at some point. That’s just the nature of the job. It made me think about the principal as an outsider — how we have to lead through teachers, from the inside out. You pushed back on that a little, and I appreciate that, because you don’t think of principals as outsiders, although oftentimes principals do think of themselves that way. Especially teachers who become principals in the same building — they see the shift in relationships right away, just from that positionality. So I guess the question is: how do you balance being somewhat of an outsider with needing to lead the building and maintain those relationships?

Jen Schwanke

In the past, many years ago, the principal was very far removed from the day-to-day intentionality of a school. The principal was there to handle discipline, the facilities, maybe suspend kids when the teacher couldn’t or was exhausted. Now, principals are in the muck with instruction, classroom management, and professional development — things that were never the original job of a principal. I understand why it’s still in the DNA of some teachers and principals to think of the work as separate. And of course it is, because the principal is the boss at the end of the day. But the most ideal version of the model is if the principal is the one in charge, but with a team mindset. This goes back to that collective efficacy piece. If a principal thinks of him or herself as an outsider, there’s something wrong there. Outsider is different from leader. Leaders should not be outsiders. Leaders should be in the work. In schools, everybody is talking about everybody else — that’s just human nature. We spend an exorbitant amount of time with the people we work with in our schools. It’s okay if people have complaints or feelings or want to talk about the principal. But we want people to know what we’re trying to do. And by the way, sometimes the negative talk is exactly what you want. There was a teacher I once called to task for the tone she used when talking with children. It was really upsetting. She had been doing it for a decade. I finally heard an interaction with a very young child that shook up the child and even me. I went to her and said, we’re done. We’re not going to talk to kids like this anymore. She marched right to the lounge and said something along the lines of, can you believe she’s insisting I be nice. Well, her colleagues may have nodded along, but deep down, they were applauding me. Many of them came to me and said, thank you for taking on this long-running problem. The things people say — we’re never going to eliminate that. We want them to say things like, I trust her, she’s fair, she follows through. I sure don’t like this PD she’s rolling out, but I see what good it’s going to do for kids. Those are the kinds of lounge conversations we want had about us.

Matt Renwick

I love that example. If you’re going to have a candid conversation with someone and you’re going to upset someone, upset the right people — the people who need to be nudged to improve — and you’re right, the other teachers are going to quietly applaud. They may not come to you and say thank you, but yes.

Jen Schwanke

Respect and loyalty deserve a place in this conversation. Sometimes somebody might say something disparaging about the principal that makes the principal feel like an outsider, but that might be one of your most loyal teachers, saying something to a colleague because they don’t like a decision. And that’s okay. We want that collegiality among teachers, where they can talk things through. And then if something’s a real problem, you’re probably going to have a truth-teller who comes and says, hey, do you have a few minutes? Can we talk about this initiative you’re rolling out? Respect and loyalty on both sides make for a very strong school culture.

Matt Renwick

Everyone’s responsible. I remember coming into my last school, and there had been 6 principals over the past 10 years. I knew trust was going to be an issue. I learned from Anthony Muhammad — the Solution Tree PLC approach — a concern form. Teachers would fill it out: rate the concern 1 to 5, describe what the concern was, what they’d tried to do so far, and what they would like me to do. They’d give that sheet to my assistant, who would enter it into a form anonymously. My assistant would still know who submitted it, so it wasn’t character assassination, but it gave teachers an initial avenue to communicate with me. And eventually, similar to what you’re saying, they just eventually said, I trust them, I’m just going to come and talk to them. That’s a great sign — they trust that you’re going to be respectful and loyal.

Matt Renwick

This is always a challenging one: trusting teachers professionally, their professional knowledge. You note in the book that they are the experts, and trusting them means not questioning their knowledge. I wanted to push back a little. I’m strong in literacy — not an expert, but I know it well enough — and there were times when I did know more than some teachers. How do we approach that, especially if we haven’t taught at the grade level they’re teaching, but we know we’re right and there may be some errors in thinking?

Jen Schwanke

I just talked about this this morning with the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators, leading a talk on instructional leadership. I appreciate your pushback, because you’re right: there are times a principal might know more in terms of content knowledge, but that’s generally only going to happen if it’s in your area of expertise. As teachers, we are masters of one subject. Many times, leaders — and I would say this is true for instructional coaches at the beginning — we go in, and I remember when I first went into a science classroom, I thought, I’m going to have to evaluate science? I don’t know math? World language? Over time you begin to understand what to look for, but most of us will never truly understand the depths of content that someone with, say, a master’s degree in that content will have. What we do tend to know as leaders is instruction — what good instruction looks like. And we know what engagement looks like. What leaders need to tease out is this: if I see something inaccurate and damage will be done to a student, I need to step in and correct it, of course. But many times, especially in today’s classrooms, learning is about discovery. Unless a teacher is presenting inaccurate facts and then testing kids on them, it may be part of a journey a student is taking instructionally. We might be able to ask questions about the intent of the content, the intent of the instructional model. The other thing — and I do talk about this in the book — there’s been research on what impact principals actually have when they evaluate instruction. There’s only one area where teachers are really willing to change, and that is not content knowledge, not facts so to speak, but classroom environment. They will listen to their principal about that: where we seat kids, how we manage behaviors, how we set the routine for the class. That is the only thing that moves the needle. So as leaders, that’s what we should focus on. What does it feel like to be in the classroom? How do you manage how do you assess kids? If you went out and lined up 100 students pulled off the street and asked what they remembered about school last year, none of them is going to say, I really liked the day we broke down the Pythagorean Theorem. What they’re going to say is: I liked it when my teacher was kind to me. I liked the day we got to bring Gatorades to school. I had fun when we did that lab. They’re going to talk about experiences that were feeling experiences, not fact experiences. As an instructional leader, I try to look for ways to approach not necessarily the teacher’s knowledge, but how they’re teaching, not necessarily what they’re teaching.

Matt Renwick

You could go in almost as a student yourself during non-evaluative visits — learning walks, instructional walks, whatever you want to call it. I recall teachers saying, can you pay attention to so-and-so? I want to see how they respond to instruction. These were teachers I had a good degree of trust with, and you’re right — they wanted to know the response to their instruction. They were open to that feedback.

Jen Schwanke

I have a new idea I’m teasing out and working on with some groups — a rise theory. My belief is that all of us as educators have four needs. We want relationships: people we connect with, whether students or colleagues. We want an identity: to be known as something, to have a thing — maybe the fun teacher, maybe the tough teacher. We want success: to feel good at what we do. And that ties to the last one, which is efficacy: we want to feel like we’re making a difference. When I work with teachers, I don’t get hung up on factual knowledge or accuracy so much as whether they’re feeling that rise. How can I, as a principal, help them feel it?

Matt Renwick

I don’t want to go too far here, but it sounds like a potential book down the road.

Jen Schwanke

I do want to write that as a book. I have to trademark it, because I believe it’s a human need.

Matt Renwick

I love it. I have one more question, and you’ve already touched on this: students care about being challenged, being seen, and fitting in. I’ve heard that from parents too, and from kids themselves, so it really does check out. When we get buried in logistics and compliance — and you do a great job in the first chapter of listing all the ways the job has become quite enormous — how do you stay grounded in those values, those principles of challenging kids, seeing kids, helping them belong? What grounds you as a school leader?

Jen Schwanke

There’s a balance. Imagine a scale, and there are two things that help me stay grounded. One of them is consistency — being the same leader every day. Having expectations and accountability that are what they are, but every day being student-centered, being visible, being available. And then the other is being immersed in the work. I have never, ever regretted putting down my pen, closing my laptop, and going to get immersed in a student activity in a classroom, on a field trip, at lunch, at recess. I have never regretted that. There have been times I didn’t want to. But when I make myself do it, I always think, why don’t I do that more? Consistency and immersion are the two things that keep my scale balanced.

Matt Renwick

Those are huge trust builders. Thank you, Jen, for talking with us. The book is Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools. If you’re a new principal, if you’re looking for renewal, I would recommend it to anyone in leadership — and beyond the principalship. These are good lessons for coaches, superintendents, anyone in those kinds of positions. Thank you, Jen. This was great.

Jen Schwanke

Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Matt. We always have great conversations.

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The science of reading has made real progress in how schools think about decoding and language comprehension. But for a significant number of struggling readers, those two buckets don’t explain what’s getting in the way.

Dr. Kelly Cartwright, Spangler Distinguished Professor of Early Child Literacy at UNC Charlotte, has spent her career mapping the territory other reading models leave out — specifically, the role executive functions play in coordinating what skilled readers do.

In this conversation, Dr. Cartwright explains what executive functions (EF) actually are, why they matter for every reader and not just students with ADHD, and what her research reveals about the kind of EF interventions that actually move the needle on reading outcomes. She also makes the case that the field’s tendency toward dichotomous thinking — decoding over here, comprehension over there — may be leaving a large group of students without the support they need.

Check out the video recording of this conversation below, available to full subscribers. Join the community today!

Show Notes

Research and Articles

(links embedded in title)

* Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(S1), S25–S44.

* Cartwright, K. B., & Palian, S. R. (2024). Considering Roles of Executive Functions in the Science of Reading: A Meta-Analysis Highlighting Promises and Challenges of Reading-Specific Executive Functions. Educational Psychologist, 59(4), 263–290.

* Wagner, R. K., et al. (2021). A Model-Based Meta-Analytic Examination of Specific Reading Comprehension Deficit. Annals of Dyslexia, 71(2), 260–281.

* Austin, C. R., Vaughn, S., Clemens, N. H., Pustejovsky, J. E., & Boucher, A. N. (2022). The relative effects of instruction linking word reading and word meaning compared to word reading instruction alone on the accuracy, fluency, and word meaning knowledge of 4th-5th grade students with dyslexia. Scientific Studies of Reading, 26(3), 204-222.

* Chi, M. T. H. (1978). Knowledge structures and memory development. In R. S. Siegler (Ed.), Children’s thinking: What develops? (pp. 73–96). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Assessments Mentioned

* Graphophonological Semantic Flexibility (GSF) Assessment — freely accessible; measures cognitive flexibility in managing letter-sound and meaning features of words simultaneously (from Chapter 4 of Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension - see below)

Books Mentioned

(embedded Bookshop links are an affiliate account)

* Cartwright, K. B. (2023). Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. (Bookshop) (Guilford Press - download flyer for 25% discount)

* Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print. MIT Press. (Bookshop)

* Page, L. This Book Made Me Think of You (Bookshop) — recommended by Kelly Cartwright

* Weir, A. Project Hail Mary (Bookshop) — recommended by Matt Renwick

* Richtel, M. How We Grow Up (Bookshop) — recommended by Debra Crouch

Model Referenced

* The Active View of Reading (Duke & Cartwright, 2021) — diagram available via the Reading Research Quarterly article linked above (and below).

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick

Hi, I’m Matt. Welcome to Read by Example, where teachers are leaders, and leaders know literacy. I am excited to have someone that I’ve been reading about in a pretty specific, but I think important subject area. I’m joined by Kelly Cartwright. Dr. Cartwright is the Spangler Distinguished Professor of Early Child Literacy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She is the author of Executive Skills, Reading and Reading Comprehension, second edition through Guilford. Welcome, Kelly.

Kelly Cartwright

Thank you. I’m so excited to be here with you today.

Matt Renwick

And Debra Crouch, author and co-author of Made for Learning with Brian Camborne, is also here. Excited to see Debra again. Are you in the classroom still, Debra?

Debra Crouch

No, not right now. I’m actually supervising a couple of student teachers right now. That’s what I’m up to.

Matt Renwick

Alright, but you were teaching second grade, right?

Debra Crouch

Yes, second and third grade. Both grades.

Kelly Cartwright

And technically, you’re in classrooms, so…

Debra Crouch

Yes, always in classrooms.

Matt Renwick

Same here. Whenever I can get in, it’s a treat. So, Kelly, I want to start with curiosity. Executive functions have not been a prominent part of the conversation around reading instruction. What made you think they should be? What about this field captured your interest and focus for your research?

Kelly Cartwright

That’s a great question. I started out in psychology, but I was interested in how reading works — how reading works in the brain, how our cognitive processes support our ability to read. I was learning about executive functions, learning about the fact that kids, when they are young, are learning to be flexible in thinking about things. It occurred to me that reading is super complex, and it requires that we think about words in lots of ways. I was reading Marilyn Adams’ book, Beginning to Read, while in graduate school, and learning about all of these wonderful executive functions, and realizing that kids have to manage a ton. Grown-ups have to manage a ton of things in their heads, and I wondered about this connection. So, I started off my work in the area of looking at cognitive flexibility specific to reading — flexibility in thinking about words, sounds, and meanings — because kids have to think about words in a lot of ways to learn to be good readers, and we do it without thinking about it. Lots of people are looking at it now and realizing that being able to manage your thinking and manage your reading processes is a really important part of being a good reader.

Matt Renwick

Are you seeing more interest in this due to the world we currently live in, with constant connection and distraction? Do you see that contributing to this interest?

Kelly Cartwright

Maybe. I think that people are aware of executive functions in the context of special education, or when a child has ADHD in your classroom and the school psychologist has done assessments and says, “This child has a working memory problem,” or, “This child has an inhibition problem.” We’ve seen more and more diagnoses of executive skill difficulties, like ADHD, over the past few years. Is it connected to technology? I don’t have data on that. But I think the piece that we don’t always think about is that for a child who has executive skill difficulties, we see evidence that there’s a problem — but when everything’s going well, and your working memory and flexibility are supporting your reading processes, it’s invisible. We don’t see them. We see evidence for difficulty, not evidence for success. But being a successful reader means that you have those things in place.

Matt Renwick

ADHD has been referred to as an invisible disability — or difference, however you want to term it — and that resonates with me, because kids don’t always demonstrate it. It’s often an internal kind of thing.

Kelly Cartwright

Exactly.

Matt Renwick

You mentioned executive functions, and I think when people hear that, they sometimes just resort to ADHD as a rule of thumb. But they’re different. How would you describe executive functions in a way that’s separate from a diagnosis like ADHD, and connects it to what every reader is trying to do?

Kelly Cartwright

Executive functions, when you have difficulties with them, people see evidence of those things when you have a child who can’t focus, or can’t inhibit attention to all the things that are so interesting. But we recruit executive functions in all of our daily activities. Think about going to the supermarket. You need to keep your list of needed items in mind — you don’t want to get home without the noodles for the spaghetti — and that’s working memory, having to hold all that stuff in your head. You might make a list, but that kind of offloads the thinking onto a piece of paper. And you’re still going to have to use it in a flexible way: you’re looking at the shelf, you’re looking at the list, maybe they don’t have the brand you usually buy, or they’re out of the fruit you were going to buy, and you have to flex the week’s menu. You’re also having to use that list to inhibit your attention to the shiny Oreos on the end cap, and not buy the things that are not on the list. That working memory, that cognitive flexibility, that inhibition — they play out in everything we do.

In reading, we’re building a mental model of text meaning in our head. As I make my way through a text and learn about a new event, or a character does something unexpected, I’m updating my mental model of the text’s meaning as I go, while still hanging on to the things I’ve learned before. That’s working memory. While we’re doing that, we’re also decoding — shifting between word reading and meaning-making constantly. Even as adults, we process all the letters and sounds. If we come upon a multisyllabic word we haven’t seen, we’re totally using our decoding processes, but we’re doing those things under the level of conscious awareness and switching between them, and that takes flexibility. Or coming upon a word like “wind” — W-I-N-D — if you’re reading about a mechanical toy, it becomes “wind,” but if you’re reading about weather patterns, it’s “wind,” and knowing how to flex that vowel pronunciation is another instance of cognitive flexibility specific to reading.

Inhibition plays out in reading when you encounter words with multiple meanings, like “jam” and “traffic jam.” You can’t think about the sticky stuff you put on toast — you have to only think about the congested traffic. All of those things are happening for skilled readers automatically. We don’t notice them. But when children don’t have the working memory capacity, they’re not able to hold in mind the text pieces they need and supply their prior knowledge in order to make an inference. We can support that kind of thinking — put it on paper, use a graphic organizer like an inference map — but as skilled readers, we often expect kids to have the ability to do the things that we can do. Making inferences is so obvious to us, but it’s not obvious when you don’t have the ability to hold all the relevant pieces in your mind.

Matt Renwick

If I’m reading a novel and trying to keep track of all these characters, I’m not going to pull out a character map — maybe I might, if it’s a complex novel. But you’re right, we don’t reverse ourselves back to when we were learning to read when we teach. That’s where these external tools can be really helpful to support that cognition.

I personally have a hard time remembering all these different systems — it’s hard to visualize. When you teach this, do you use some kind of mental model, metaphor, or imagery to help teachers hold that idea in mind?

Kelly Cartwright

You’ve identified something the field probably needs. Models of reading are starting to incorporate executive functions. Nell Duke and I proposed the Active View of Reading — for those of you listening, maybe we can link this in the show notes. There’s a green bubble off to the left that has your executive function and self-regulation abilities, and they are helping drive your ability to recognize words, that word recognition piece, and that language comprehension piece, and your ability to put it all together in service of reading comprehension. That visual heuristic helps teachers to think about the fact that these invisible things actually undergird and support the processes we know readers need. But if I continue to try to teach inference-making in all the typical ways to a child who has working memory difficulties, without thinking about how working memory shows up within reading or how I can support and strengthen those reading-specific working memory skills, then the child may not make the progress I need them to.

For kids with ADHD, or adults with ADHD, all of these executive functions show up as difficulties in organization and planning. The child who comes with a backpack that isn’t as organized as we’d like — with an executive function difficulty, the organization isn’t there, and they may not be able to make that mental model of a text’s meaning without concrete support, or a story map, or explicit text structure instruction, so that they can use that heuristic — putting that thinking on the table — to support the working memory where they can’t do it all in their head.

Matt Renwick

I’ve used the Active View in presentations for school leaders on what they need to know about the science of reading. I’ll start with the Simple View, and then go to your Active View, just to show how complex reading really is. And I like where you positioned executive function — before word recognition and language comprehension. I assume that’s intentional. If you need executive functioning, you need strategic use of strategies. You can’t just teach phonics.

Kelly Cartwright

You have to know what to do with the phonics. The Simple View is amazing. It’s elegant. It’s 40 years old now, which is remarkable, and it has longevity in the field because it provides an amazing heuristic to help teachers understand that reading is more than just loving books. It came out at the height of the whole language movement, when phonics was not favored, and the Simple View does an excellent job of demonstrating that if our phonics knowledge — our ability to recognize words using that phonics knowledge systematically — if it’s not there, we are not going to understand what we read. You can’t understand what you read if you don’t pull the words off the page. But likewise, if you can’t understand what people say to you, you’re not going to understand what you read.

The Simple View does an excellent job with that. It’s a great place for teachers to begin to see how that complexity works. But what I’ve seen in practice is phonics instruction happening over here in this part of the day, and instruction in language comprehension happening over there in that other part of the day, and never the twain shall meet. But when I’m a skilled reader, I’m doing these at the same time, and I’m having to put it all together. The Simple View — and the rope model is similar — shows these two buckets of skills. The rope goes further to say we do weave them together, but it doesn’t say how. I think that’s where executive functions come in. Executive functions and self-regulation help you to strategically deploy that word recognition knowledge and that language comprehension knowledge and weave them together in service of comprehension — which is a piece that’s over and above each of those alone.

I like to use the analogy of that old pat-your-head, rub-your-tummy thing we used to do as kids. I can pat my head by itself, just like I can decode — when assessed independently I do well. I can rub my tummy, and I can do well when assessed on language comprehension independently. But if I have to put them together, it requires some third coordination ability that’s over and above the individual skills. That bridging or integration is represented in the Active View but isn’t represented in the Simple View. The Simple View initially alluded to this idea that kids decode and then comprehend — like a sequential thing — but it’s not. It’s very much an all-at-the-same-time kind of thing.

Matt Renwick

You’re multitasking in some ways. It’s why reading is so difficult for some kids.

Kelly Cartwright

And for grown-ups when we are tired.

Matt Renwick

Right — I’ve hit many mental roadblocks, and I’m like, I need a break, I need to go walk the dog. Movement helps me reset my thinking.

We see new resources that are still referring to the Simple View, still framing things as decoding over here, language comprehension over there. Why has this binary been so sticky? Why has the field not progressed to what you’re describing?

Kelly Cartwright

This is what happens in fields all over the place — it’s not just education. We like to group things. Cognitively, we like to sort things into groups. There’s the old nature-nurture debate from human development: is a particular trait caused by nature, or is it caused by nurture? People tend to think about that in a really dichotomous way, when the truth is very much intertwined. Even reading disabilities are a great example. Reading disabilities have a heritable component, but environment plays a role too. If you get explicit, systematic phonics instruction, that’s going to move the needle in a way that an environmental factor — not getting that instruction — won’t.

Another example: kids with lower socioeconomic resources tend to have more difficulty with reading, and with executive functions. Experience plays a role; heredity plays a role. It’s not a simple either-or. But when we’re thinking about doing something super complicated — Louisa Moats characterized teaching reading as rocket science — not only are we having to do all of those things at once as readers, but as an educator, you are having to help little people who have never understood how letters make words. You’ve got to help them decode, know what the words mean, know how to weave them into phrases and sentences and paragraphs, make mental pictures, make the inferences, deal with syntax and morphology. That’s a lot. And so, to be able to group the things that I need to do as an educator into two buckets simplifies things and helps us organize our day. But it may not always be beneficial for students, because we know that multi-component interventions help students learn to do that integration.

Matt Renwick

I wish we would pay teachers like rocket scientists.

Kelly Cartwright

Hear, hear. I agree.

Matt Renwick

In your meta-analysis, you were looking at executive function interventions isolated from reading instruction and then asking: what’s the effect? And you found that for EF interventions to be effective, they need to be embedded in reading instruction. You can’t do executive functioning interventions in isolation and then expect them to generalize into reading. Why is that, and why does that matter for educators?

Kelly Cartwright

There’s a super basic study in cognitive psychology called the chess study. What they did was compare children who were chess experts with adults who were chess novices on two tasks: memory for chessboard arrangements, and memory for strings of numbers. Both are memory tasks, but one is specific to an area the kids have experience with and the adults do not. What they found — and this was a big deal at the time — is that the children outperformed the adults on chessboard arrangements. Children are not supposed to have better memory than adults, but they did on chess-specific memory. And on memory for letter strings, the adults outperformed the kids, as we would expect. That illustrates this idea of domain-specific or task-specific cognition: the thinking within that task gets better. Over time, playing chess helped those kids get better and better at remembering chessboard arrangements. That doesn’t really relate to reading — I’m not saying go out and have people play chess — but within reading, it’s requiring you to do a lot of mental work, a lot of mental gymnastics. Being flexible about pronunciations of words — there’s something called “set for variability” — or being able to shift between thinking about words’ sounds and words’ meanings, or being able to hold aspects of text in mind and update them as you continue to make your way through. That’s reading-specific working memory.

So, if I’m doing an intervention that helps to strengthen the kinds of reading-specific executive skills, or the way executive skills show up within reading, that’s going to help the child’s reading — and also their executive skills within reading. But if I put a child over here on a working memory task that looks kind of like that Simon game we used to play as kids, where you’re pushing buttons to remember sequences of tones — that’s not going to help reading. It might help them remember sequences of colored buttons, but it’s not going to transfer. The field went for a while, when executive functions and reading were shown to be related, toward: let’s do executive function interventions, have them do computerized tasks, and it will transfer to reading. But we’re not seeing that happen, because the work was being done in separate areas. When educators can identify the ways that working memory shows up within reading — like inference-making, or the flexibility we’ve talked about, or inhibiting inappropriate word meanings for context — and then intervene in those things to strengthen both the executive skills and the reading skills, then both improve.

Matt Renwick

When you talk about that, what comes up for me is “neurons that fire together wire together.” Is that why we see that?

Kelly Cartwright

I don’t have all the data we need yet, but we know that reading interventions strengthen connectivity in the reading network. And we know that executive function networks help to connect up the hubs in the reading network in the brain. In a sense, yes, you’re having them fire together — just like an intervention for a child with dyslexia. They need more explicit, systematic phonics instruction to get that letter-word form area in the visual cortex — that part of the brain we repurposed to become reading brain — to build up. When we give them more practice, it improves the connections and the processing. Interventions change brains, yes. But we do need more work to really say definitively, here’s study after study. We don’t have all of that yet.

Matt Renwick

I’m thinking about kids who have gone through a very isolated phonics intervention and come out as good word callers, but their comprehension hasn’t kept up. It seems like a similar issue — we want the bridging processes, we want to bridge these activities so that kids are fully growing as readers.

Kelly Cartwright

That brings up something for me, just thinking about reading difficulties. Dyslexia is one — those kids have word-reading difficulties. But the kids we typically call “word callers,” where they sound like great readers and fly under the radar because they sound awesome — the teacher hears them and thinks everything’s going well, and then the end-of-grade assessment comes and they can’t comprehend, and you’re like, what’s going on? Those children are children where executive skills show up as a difficulty. Kids with dyslexia also have executive skill difficulties, in different ways.

A recent meta-analysis by Rick Wagner and colleagues at the Florida Center for Reading Research looked at kids with great word-reading ability but surprisingly poor comprehension. Using the Simple View framework, they examined how much word recognition and language comprehension contribute to reading comprehension for these kids. Those two buckets of skills explain about half of the variance in reading comprehension, and what they concluded was: there’s got to be something else. We know that these students have executive skill difficulties — study after study shows it. This work matters for educators because, historically, we haven’t known what to do with those children. You know what to do when they can’t read the words. But when they can read the words and comprehension just isn’t happening — executive skill-infused instruction helps these kids in ways that typical instruction sometimes does not.

Matt Renwick

And this is an equity issue. You mentioned that low socioeconomic status has an influence on executive functioning as well. I mean, I’m thinking about schools and their intervention banks — they’re almost 100% either language comprehension or word recognition interventions. We are really potentially missing a lot of kids if we’re not thinking about executive functioning.

Kelly Cartwright

And you said “either-or,” and that points to some new work that’s coming out. I’ll point to one particular study — Austin and colleagues out of University of Texas at Austin. They did an intervention study with 4th and 5th graders with dyslexia. One condition had 45-minute intensive phonics lessons — a series of lessons with multisyllabic words — and students learned to decode those words to fluency. The other group, randomly assigned, had 25 minutes of explicit phonics instruction for the same series of lessons, but also 20 minutes of meaning-focused instruction — so they learned what the words meant and were working with the meanings as well as the decoding. And as you might expect, the students with the multi-component intervention — dealing with both the sounds and the meanings of the words — actually outperformed their peers who received phonics alone. It’s important to give kids the opportunities to deal with both at the same time.

Matt Renwick

What steps could an interventionist, or a classroom teacher, take to start redesigning core instruction and interventions with executive functions in mind? What might be a first good step or two?

Kelly Cartwright

One way that we approach instruction is to put an anchor chart on the board or have an organizational tool for the child on the desk. There are certain graphic organizers that can help take cognitive load for students, and using them in that way — helping kids put the thinking on the table — really supports kids with working memory difficulties.

You can also assess cognitive flexibility. I have an assessment — a Graphophonological Semantic Flexibility Assessment — that measures flexibility in thinking about letter sounds and meanings. It shows how well someone can shift back and forth between the word recognition piece and the meaning-focused piece. Kids and adults who are more flexible in considering both sounds and meanings of words are better comprehenders. Word-calling types of kids, kids with dyslexia, are not good at managing both. It’s freely accessible, so that’s another thing to think about.

Fluency is another area. The way we operationalize and measure fluency — we’re looking at rate. Rate just means they can decode automatically. Rate doesn’t tell us whether they’re also managing meaning at the same time. But prosody, or expressiveness, is harder to measure. We don’t always measure it, but that’s an indicator that they’re weaving meaning together with their decoding. The old school thinking is: you get more automatic with word recognition, and it makes mental space for comprehension. But that doesn’t mean you fill that space with comprehension if you don’t know how.

Matt Renwick

So oral reading fluency by itself may not be enough. It’s a screener, but we want to investigate further — especially for our right-to-read states where reading fluency is the primary measure.

Kelly Cartwright

There are options for examining prosody and expressiveness, but we don’t always do that because it’s just harder to assess. When I’m talking to students, I’ll talk about it as expressiveness, or using your “movie star voices” and putting the feeling in — but you have to know what the text means to put the feeling in the right way.

Matt Renwick

Let’s talk about a harder part of this conversation. You’ve expressed your position on the popular science of reading discourse. You note in the Active View of Reading article that popular SoR discourse, as currently practiced, may actually be masking complexity in ways that can hurt kids — particularly kids whose reading difficulties don’t fit the decoding-or-comprehension frame. The walls come up, egos get hurt, resistance arises. How do you communicate these critiques effectively, so that people are actually hearing them and are willing to be responsive?

Kelly Cartwright

It’s difficult, because educators have put so, so much time and effort into retooling and learning and understanding. But the science — just like any science — is ever-evolving, and we continue to learn more so we can meet the needs of all learners. If we all share that goal, then we just have to keep working toward figuring out why all learners aren’t growing the way we expect them to.

If we’re teaching word recognition over here and language comprehension over there in different parts of the school day, and not giving students the opportunity to put them together — to bridge them, as we know skilled readers need to do — then that doesn’t help them do what they need to do as skilled readers. We’re not equipping them in the same way. Like the Austin intervention study with 4th and 5th grade students with dyslexia: the ones who had the opportunity to deal with explicit, systematic phonics instruction and meaning did better on all of the outcome measures than the students who got the explicit systematic phonics instruction alone. If we look at word recognition and language comprehension, we’d say, “Oh, those kids need word recognition!” But the word recognition alone didn’t lift them up as much as helping them learn to do that alongside other things. We have to look at the data on the kids and what they need, and try to avoid compartmentalized thinking. We need more work on multi-component interventions.

Matt Renwick

Sharing the research and being a learner yourself. I’ve found similar results where I’ve shared a study, and the response is usually not defensive — it’s more like, “Okay, I’ll think about it,” and then they circle back around and I do see change in their practice. They may not admit that what they did in the past was not as effective, but I would agree: just share the research and be a learner. So, fun question to close things out. What are you reading right now?

Kelly Cartwright

I always have a fiction book on my bedside table — that’s my break at the end of the day. I may only read two sentences and fall asleep, as we do sometimes. A literacy professor friend recommended a book titled This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. It’s great — I highly recommend it. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s a great book.

Matt Renwick

I’m writing that down. I am reading Project Hail Mary. It just came out as a movie — science fiction. It’s one of those “we gotta save the planet” kind of books. I always try to read the book before I see the movie, because once I see the movie, I picture that person as the character.

Kelly Cartwright

You want to develop your own visual imagery — yes.

Matt Renwick

Yes. Debra, what are you reading?

Debra Crouch

I am reading a book called How We Grow Up by Matt Richtel. It’s all about adolescence and all the science and research coming out now about the brain. He’s got some really interesting things to say, and he’s just a fabulous writer — it doesn’t matter what his topic is, I will always read him.

Matt Renwick

I’ll put them in the notes. Well, thank you, Kelly, for being here. This was really informative. You read what someone writes and studies, but to hear them explain it is super helpful. I’m imagining your students really appreciate your instruction. Thank you for being here.

Kelly Cartwright

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this 45-minute presentation, I walk through five beliefs about the science of reading. The intent is to spark curiosity and encourage conversation.

Watch this presentation in tandem with my free eBook What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading. Use these resources as a starting point for holding much-needed discussions in your school around effective literacy instruction. If you would like support with facilitating this type of conversation, don't hesitate to get in touch with me here.

Take care,

Matt

P.S. Join me for the next professional learning event: a conversation with Dr. Kelly Cartwright, author of Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators.

Full Transcript

What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading

Transcript of a presentation based on the free ebook resource available to download.

About Me

Hi, I’m Matt Renwick. I’m sharing this presentation: What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading, based on the free ebook resource available to download.

A little bit about myself. I’m a father of two teens and a husband to Jodi, who is also a teacher. My son is currently in college — whenever I visit, I try to find something fun for us to do together. My daughter is a junior in high school. I’m also a very part-time bookseller at an independent bookstore in my hometown. This is our dog, Millie. She works Sundays with me and is excellent at her job. And one of the things I most enjoy is visiting national parks. My most recent trip was to the Rocky Mountains for a mountain biking trip — though I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of heights, so I drove the rest of the party up to the trailhead and cheered them on from there.

Starting With a Book

I want to begin by referencing a book — not reading it aloud, but using it as a frame. It’s called Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. You may have seen it. It uses an optical illusion — is it a duck or a rabbit? One person sees a duck; another sees a rabbit.

I’ve found this book especially useful for lowering the emotional temperature when we start talking about the science of reading. After reading it aloud, I typically invite a group to pause and reflect on these three questions:

* When we debate reading instruction, are we arguing about what’s best for kids — or about who’s right?

* Where in your work do you notice people looking at the same data and seeing completely different things?

* What would it take for you to genuinely consider a perspective on reading instruction that you’ve resisted?

If you’re watching this with a group, I’d encourage you to pause here and have a conversation.

How This Resource Got Started

The impetus for this presentation came from a colleague who was supporting a new administrator. This new administrator was already getting inundated with requests for evidence-based workbooks and heavily phonics-focused resources. She reached out and asked me to share my take on the science of reading with this administrator.

Here’s what I shared in an email:

First, reading instruction is complex. It’s not a simple equation you can plug resources into and expect to produce readers.

Second, science requires inquiry, not dogma. If a field is a true science, it will continue to conduct research, look at what’s working and what’s not, and reevaluate its philosophies in light of new evidence.

Third, multiple sciences of reading matter. We can’t just look at cognitive science. We also have to look at the science of engagement, the science of motivation, the science of efficacy, and the science of goal setting. These all matter.

Fourth, authentic texts should support skill development. A lot of resources strip away rich, relevant text in service of isolated skill practice — and we know that doesn’t work.

Fifth, programs do not equal responsive instruction. I’ve heard this called “solutionitis” — the idea that buying a program will automatically raise reading scores. We know that’s not the case.

I sent that email and waited a few weeks without hearing back. I eventually reached out to my colleague and learned the administrator had left the position. My first assumption was that the complexity of the topic had scared them off — but actually, they’d landed a dream job. Still, the experience got me thinking about all the new administrators coming into these roles without much background in this area. That’s what I want to address through both this presentation and the ebook.

My Beliefs — A Disclaimer

What follows is based on my current beliefs, grounded not just in my own experience but also in research and in conversations with colleagues who know more than I do in certain areas. These beliefs are evolving. I hold them with humility.

Belief 1: Teaching Reading Is Not Simple

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about the “simple view of reading.” I’d argue that teaching reading is anything but simple. It takes a long time to become highly skilled at teaching readers.

I recently came across a New York Times article titled “Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore — Even in English Class.” I found it striking because when I taught fifth and sixth graders 25 years ago, we were reading multiple novels a year as a class. Then we moved away from that — toward anthology series, excerpts, comprehension questions, skill packets. I’m not saying whole-class novel study is a best practice across the board. But it’s worth asking: we introduced all these programs, and the result is that kids aren’t reading books anymore. How do we find the balance — where resources support instruction without becoming the curriculum? As Peter Afflerbach likes to say: How do we teach readers, not just reading?

The Simple View of Reading — from Gough and Tunmer — reads like an equation: decoding + language comprehension = reading. There’s research that supports this. The problem is that it’s incomplete. It doesn’t account for all the other ways kids become readers.

One of the biggest promoters of this simplified narrative has been Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story podcast. I counted the transcripts of the first eight episodes: phonics is mentioned 48 times, comprehension 10 times, and engagement 0 times. You can see how media shapes the public’s understanding of reading instruction — and how that narrative flows into legislation. Wisconsin’s Act 20, for example, is heavily phonics-focused. Some of the assessments it prioritizes, like oral reading fluency, can be useful indicators — but they don’t even measure comprehension.

An Active View of Reading — introduced by Duke and Cartwright — is what I promote instead. It still values word recognition and language comprehension, but adds important components: bridging processes (print concepts, fluency, vocabulary knowledge), and active self-regulation (motivation, engagement, executive functioning, strategy use). These aren’t extras — they’re prerequisites for students to become highly effective, engaged readers. Notably, this is a reader model, not a reading model. It recognizes that reading is also shaped by the texts we choose, the tasks we design, and sociocultural context — including diverse authorship, representation, and the absence of bias.

A practical implication: expand your assessments. As a principal and teacher, I learned that what we measure is what matters. Right-to-read legislation may mandate oral reading fluency screening, and that’s fine — but we can also look at attendance and behavior as root causes, consider whether language barriers rather than reading skill are the real challenge for some students, and include teacher observations and student voice. Think about what it means to take a fuller picture of a reader.

Belief 2: The Science Is Anything But Settled

I once posted this on Twitter:

“I don’t know who needs to hear this. Teaching a literacy curriculum program like a script, lesson by lesson, to all kids without considering their current interests, abilities, and needs is not scientific, drains the joy out of learning, and leads to inequities.”

It got significant engagement — many positive responses, but also real pushback. Someone at the higher ed level responded that teachers actually love the script because it gives them structure. I understand that perspective. But the insistence that the science is settled — and that it’s simply a matter of implementing the right program — is not only factually wrong; it’s intellectually closed.

Notice even the language: the science of reading. That definite article is essentialist, exclusive — like “the Olympic Games” or “The Ohio State University.” If you’re for the science of reading, you believe X. If you don’t, you’re outside the movement. People have been pushed to the margins of these communities simply for raising questions. That doesn’t feel very scientific.

Any professional field that considers itself a science goes through paradigm shifts — a concept introduced by Thomas Kuhn. Normal science gives way to anomalies, then to a model crisis, then to revolution, then to a new paradigm. Copernicus gave us one example. I believe reading instruction is stuck in the model crisis — cycling through the same debates without genuine revolution. We can’t change the whole profession, but we can make progress locally.

One approach I’ve found effective: use professional journal articles to facilitate conversation — not to prove a point, but to create space for educators to engage with ideas. Rachel Gabriel’s article “The Sciences of Reading Instruction” is a good one. It’s balanced, uses helpful metaphors, and raises productive questions.

Pair it with shared agreements (I use: stay engaged, experience discomfort, speak your truth, expect and accept non-closure) and a dialogue protocol — like the 4As — to make sure all voices get space, not just the loudest ones.

Belief 3: Good Intentions Can Lead to Inequitable Outcomes

Wisconsin’s Act 20 — our right-to-read law — was written in July 2023. Like many state laws of its kind, its language has been heavily influenced by certain think tanks, commercial providers, and media figures. It requires science-based early reading instruction, mandates universal screening and intervention systems, restricts certain curriculum approaches (no three-cueing in core reading curriculum starting in 2024–25), and requires professional development around structured literacy for K–3 teachers, principals, and reading specialists.

There are also third-grade promotion policies. In some states — Ohio, Florida, Mississippi — students who are not deemed proficient can be retained. Up to a third of an entire third-grade cohort in some cases. The long-term effects of that are deeply concerning.

I share this because I do believe most people involved in this legislation want kids to perform better. But good intentions can produce inequitable outcomes when:

* Single scores become students’ identities

* A student who scored at the 24th percentile versus the 25th percentile on an ORF assessment receives a personal reading plan and a letter home — without anyone asking whether they had a rough night, or whether they still see themselves as a strong reader

* We do things to students rather than with them, stripping away agency and voice

What I’ve observed as this movement plays out in schools: more scripted curricula, limits on responsive instruction, isolated skill practice, decontextualized text, and assessments that measure only what’s easy to measure. The downstream effects include the removal of voice and choice, classroom and school libraries collecting dust, independent reading squeezed out, teacher professionalism diminished, and authentic tasks like project-based learning deprioritized.

One counter-move: empower students to curate and organize their classroom or school library. This can be an ongoing project — lay the books out, let students decide the organization, identify gaps, and bring in culturally relevant titles. Use book order points and let kids choose. You’ll see more engagement, more reading, and you’ll free up some of your own time in the process.

Belief 4: One Science Is Dependent on Another

I was recently working with a team discussing teacher beliefs and their role in effective reading instruction. I posed this question: Imagine your principal removed all the core ELA resources from every classroom. Could your teachers still teach their students?

After a pause, the group said — yeah, we could.

So what would that look like?

And that’s when the real conversation started.

I raise this because critics of the science of reading movement have pointed out that proponents often can’t articulate a coherent theory. “Sequential and explicit direct instruction” is a process, not a theory. What’s the actual theory of action for teaching readers? That question matters.

One answer is an instructional model that allows teachers to be responsive. I’ve used Regie Routman’s Optimal Learning Model from Literacy Essentials in two schools as a principal. What I like about it is the arrows going both directions — we move between whole-class demonstration, shared practice, guided reading, and independent reading based on real-time, informal assessment. If kids aren’t ready, we go back. This takes significant professional development to build capacity, but it also inoculates schools against scripted program dependency.

The larger point is this: teaching readers well requires holding multiple sciences in tension simultaneously. Cognitive science — comprehension, decoding, fluency. Affective science — motivation, engagement, identity. Metacognitive science — goal setting, self-efficacy, agency. These don’t operate in isolation. When you weave them together — for example, using a classroom library project that builds both reading identity and cognitive engagement — you see real growth.

How to build this knowledge in your staff: As a principal, I had to build my own curriculum. I subscribed to several journals — I didn’t read every article, but I’d browse the table of contents, pull one article, read it with margin notes, and then summarize it in my Friday staff newsletter, linking to the original. I became an information distiller. That made it possible to walk into a classroom and have a research-grounded conversation with a teacher who held strong views — not as an expert telling them what’s right, but as a colleague asking questions. What did you think about that article on Orton-Gillingham? It becomes a much more objective, productive exchange.

Belief 5: You Can’t Buy the Science of Reading

This became real to me as a principal when a reading recovery interventionist was trying to get a first-grade student to come to his sessions. Reading Recovery is a highly evidence-based intervention — but she couldn’t get him to come. We suspected executive functioning challenges and a history of reading struggle that made being singled out feel threatening.

So she brought in a Venus flytrap. She told the student: if you come to my room, you get to feed it one fly.

Eventually, I walked in, and there was a pile of dead flies next to the plant. This student had started bringing his own food supply. The teacher had to explain that they couldn’t overfeed it. What started as external motivation — a Venus flytrap — gradually shifted toward internal, identity-forming reinforcement. She had the student, after reaching a benchmark, choose a few books he actually wanted to read. That was the celebration.

You can’t legislate this. You can’t buy it. It’s built over time through teachers developing deep knowledge — not just of reading, but of kids, of pedagogy, of motivation and engagement, of executive function, of the ways all these strands weave together into a reader’s identity. It takes sustained investment in self-study and collective growth.

This shakes out in school-level data as well. As a principal, I used to look at statewide scores and identify schools similar to mine demographically — Title I schools — that were doing better. Then I’d cold-call their principals and reading specialists and ask: what are you doing?

Four themes emerged:

* High expectations for every student. Inclusion was the default. Intervention was carefully integrated with Tier 1, not siloed.

* Sustained investment in teachers. Not cutting PD days. Not just buying a program and saying good luck. Actually coaching and developing teachers over time.

* Different programs, shared beliefs. Every school used something different — some used Units of Study, some used anthologies, one had developed their own materials. What they shared was a deep commitment to common beliefs and practices. One principal described respectfully but clearly inviting a teacher who wouldn’t get on board to find a better fit elsewhere.

* No superheroes. No one teacher stood out as exceptional. What they had was a willingness to have hard conversations and an evolving, collective commitment to what they knew to be effective.

One practical strategy: develop shared beliefs as a staff. I used Regie Routman’s Read, Write, Lead, which includes over 20 belief statements. Each year I’d put them in a Google form — agree or disagree. The first year, we had two shared beliefs. We celebrated. The next year, we focused our professional development on the areas of disagreement. The year after that, we had five. And we kept growing.

As a principal, I could then walk into classrooms and reference those shared commitments — affirming what I saw that was aligned, and asking honest questions when something was missing. The expectations were clear. The conversations were respectful.

You can also do this as a whole-group activity: post belief statements on chart paper, give staff colored dots, and ask them to place their dots on a spectrum from agree to disagree. Then have them talk about why. This builds not just shared beliefs but perspective-taking — recognizing that most people sit somewhere in the middle, and that the goal is to move together toward greater alignment over time.

Closing

I want to close with a student I remember from third grade — a kid who by second grade saw reading as something you do in school, not something you love. A capable reader, but not a joyful one.

In third grade, his teacher read aloud Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. He related to Peter Hatcher — oldest of three boys, with a younger sibling who was like Fudge. He read and re-read that book until the pages were falling out of his copy. He loved it so much that he wrote some not-so-great fan fiction trying to emulate Judy Blume.

If you look closely at the bottom left of the fan fiction — you can see my name there.

That’s how I became a reader. Not through a script. I’m sure I learned some skills in kindergarten and first grade. But what unlocked reading for me — what helped me see myself as a reader and to love it — was one read-aloud by one teacher who knew her students and knew what would turn them on to reading.

Closing question: How do you choose to see your readers? Take a moment to think about how you’re seeing them now — and how you might choose to see them a little differently tomorrow.

Thank you for watching What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading. Please reach out if you have any questions. And thank you for your work, your leadership, and your readership.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Listen to my conversation with Penny Kittle, author of Micro Mentor Texts: Using Short Passages From Great Books to Teach Writer’s Craft (Scholastic, 2022). This will be our book club selection for January - March 2026. Join the chat below.

Full subscribers can also access the video recording of our conversation here. See a preview below.

Brief Bio

* Penny is a long time teacher at every level of education. She writes about her practice at https://substack.com/@pennykittle.

* She is the author of several books, including Write Beside Them and 180 Days (with Kelly Gallagher, with whom she also co-hosts digital discussions).

* Penny is also the chairman of the board for the Book Love Foundation, dedicated to providing “classroom libraries comprised of hundreds of books carefully chosen by the teachers to meet students where they are and lead them to the deep rewards of reading”. Check out the Book Love Foundation Podcast to learn more.

* When not in the classroom, Penny enjoys spending time with her grandchildren in New Hampshire.

Summary

In this conversation, Penny talk about a variety of topics, including:

* the importance of teachers being knowledgeable and able to problem solve,

* how to build students’ confidence as writers by showing them the process of writing that you as a teacher use, and

* simple strategies, such as prompt writing, that can lead to students engaged in deep conversations during book clubs.

Educators will walk away with a renewed sense of hope and agency in their own work with readers and writers.

What part of this conversation resonated the most with you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Enjoyed this conversation? Restack and share this post to let others know!

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick: Hi, this is Matt Renwick, and welcome to Read by Example, where teachers are leaders and leaders know literacy. And I'm joined today by someone I've met, I think a year ago in Wisconsin, when she was here doing a training around micro-mentor texts, Penny Kittle, long-time teacher, professor, all things education, literacy. So welcome, Penny.Penny Kittle: Thanks, Matt. It's good to be on your podcast. I enjoyed meeting you that day, that was a lovely day.Matt Renwick: Yeah, it was fun. I don't think it was on my schedule, but I'm like, I'm gonna make this on my schedule, like, I wanna hear Penny talk. Just all the good things I've heard from Reggie Routman, and just what I read about you, so I was not disappointed. It was a great experience, and I know the teachers walked away that I was working with, like, this is good, like, we want... and I'm still working with those teachers, actually.Penny Kittle: Oh, that's cool.Matt Renwick: Yeah, we still talk about the micro-mentor text, and just giving them that foundation, that knowledge that I think they were craving. They were looking for just a resource, and you really give them some nice ideas to build their practice, so...Penny Kittle: That's good.Matt Renwick: So I have been reading, as this year before, Micro Mentor Text through Heinemann, Using Short Passages from Great Books to Teach Writer's Craft.Penny Kittle: From Scholastic, just so they would want to know that.Matt Renwick: Oh, I'm sorry. I told you I'd mess something up, Penny.Penny Kittle: We all do.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I'm not gonna edit it out, though, so... Thank you for correcting me. Yeah, Scholastic. And, yeah, terrific book, very practical, very wise. I'm like, I think I'm highlighting the footnotes as much as the content.Penny Kittle: Oh, that's so funny. I had so much fun writing that with footnotes.Matt Renwick: Just the asides were just really cool, some of the cool stories from, like, Don Graves and Don Murray. But your subtitle says it pretty well, but what is your definition of a mentor text? Because I hear that tossed around a lot. What makes a mentor text micro?Penny Kittle: Yeah, I mean, I think that I always talk to students about, we're mentors to the authors and their craft, right? The text is just that particular vehicle, and we're using it to say, what kind of decisions do writers make? Are they things that I want to try? Are things that I want to imitate, or are these things that will make my writing stronger? So anytime we're studying anything, we're looking at pieces of work in that genre. You know, it's the idea of authenticity in a writing classroom. We're making things that exist in the world, and here are some people who make those things, and then what do our essays or poems or whatever we're writing look like next to them. And so, micro-mentor texts came about because I do quick writing with kids day after day, and I realized how much of the time, if I used a passage from a book, and said, what do you think of this? What do you... and used it instead of the whole, that I could get them interested in reading a book, but I could also, in a few minutes, look at craft. It was almost... I think we put a magnifying glass on the cover of the book, because I said it's like, a micro-mentor text is small enough that you can just look at it carefully. And you can't do that with a whole book. So, that is the idea, is that we look at a passage, we think about how does it work, and we imitate it.Matt Renwick: I used to teach 5th and 6th grade, and I would do, like, book blurbs, and I would read a small passage from it to promote it, to recommend it, but what you're saying here is you almost got, like, a two-for-one, like you're sharing great literature, but you're also honing in on those specific craft moves that writers do.Penny Kittle: It is definitely the way to combine a book talk with a little bit of writing. And I, you know, I honestly feel like I've taught more grammar through Micro Mentor texts than anything else. Because I'm often, when I ask them, what do you notice? Talk to each other, and I wander the room, they'll bring things up. You know, what is that? Is that the colon or the semicolon? What's it, you know, if it doesn't come up naturally, I often don't have to say anything, but I like that oftentimes this organic... Okay, do you see how this sentence is structured? Why is this such a long sentence, kind of thing. A really natural way to make grammar a decision, not a right or wrong.Matt Renwick: Yeah, you're pulling the lines away from the craft of it, you know, you're giving kids access to a writer, to the author's intentions.Penny Kittle: Right. And their choices.Matt Renwick: Yeah. So, let me frame it this way. I think with the science of reading, a lot of folks are concerned with decoding, and how kids learn to read, and I see less about actually helping kids comprehend text. I mean, it's there, but it's not as prevalent. And there's like this double-edged sword where I think literacy leaders, teachers want to get away from the 3-cueing system, we want to support kids with being good decoders. But I think what happens is we're not teaching kids to like read text for real, like once kids know to decode a word, what's the purpose of actually reading the text? And so what I like about your book is, you're using real text, you know, kids are reading it for real reasons, and so I'm wondering what are the connections between micro-mentor texts and the science of reading that you've been thinking about.Penny Kittle: I mean, I think for me, in the idea of what I do with a micro-mentor text, I'm not decoding it, right? Unless they're stopping and asking me. But I usually read it to them. And so I'm a fluent model, or another student in the room is a fluent model. And then we're diving into this idea of the pattern, the rhythm, what makes it interesting? And so to me, when you're looking at written text and thinking about writing text, you need fluency. And fluency is one of the pieces of the science of reading. So sometimes I'll have kids with me that are reading two and three years below grade level. And fluency was something that we never worked on. They're still word callers in high school. And so getting them to read with more automaticity and faster is gonna help comprehension because they're gonna have more energy and, you know, more focus to spend that effort on it, rather than in word by word. So my, you know, in the idea of the science of reading, I think that we have to first realize in secondary there are a lot of skills and strategies that I teach on a daily basis and a lot of kids lack. And so we have to keep teaching them and letting kids know it's okay to ask. You know, what does that word say? What is it? What does it mean? And when they hear us talk about it, then they learn, right? So I just think that there's a great emphasis on that 20 to 30 minutes of core instruction that, of course, is gonna support skills and strategies. But that then have a whole child, right? We can't just do 20 minutes of skills and strategies and think we've taught the whole learner. We need to get to comprehension, which is the whole point. And we also need to write, because when we're composing and creating text, we're adding to that power. The science of reading includes writing. It's not just about decoding. And I think sometimes that's where people come to rest. But of course, as you know, Scarborough's Reading Rope has both sides. And word recognition isn't any good without language comprehension. We need both of those things.Matt Renwick: So you do have like a routine in your book that you talk about. So you read text to kids. I've seen that example of you reading The Outsiders for example. But then what do you do after reading that text? What's the typical steps that you recommend?Penny Kittle: Well, I mean, the steps that I do are pretty simple. And I think that almost at any level, from elementary through college, you can do these steps. So I read a passage, or a student reads a passage. Then I say, turn and talk. What do you notice? And I give them time. And I try not to be the one that tells them. I want them to point out things. So they're gonna point out things. And then I might say, so what do you notice about this sentence? Or what do you notice about this? So I might do a little nudging in that conversation. And then we imitate it. So after they've talked about it and noticed it, I say, so take that idea. Let me show you an example of how I did it. Here's how I imitated it. Now you do your own. So they do a quick write. Sometimes that's five minutes or ten minutes. Sometimes they write for the rest of the class. And then many of those quick writes could stay in their journal forever. But often what I'll say to kids is, this might be the kind of craft technique that you want to save and try in your next piece, or that you might wanna use in your revision of your piece. So I'm teaching them to think about these tools as transferable to other times we write. Or I might, in that week or the next week, say, so I want you to take one from this list and put it in the piece you're working on. And then come talk to me, and I'll tell you whether I think it's working. So that's the steps. Read it, talk about it, imitate it, try it out.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I think you have Reggie Routman's steps there. And you also have that conversation in there around, like, self-assessment for kids. How did that work? What made that successful? What are you gonna do going forward? That agency piece, which I think is crucial for kids to take it on themselves, that responsibility for learning and being better.Penny Kittle: Yeah, I think for secondary especially. You know, what I like about Reggie is that shared demonstration step is so essential, and I think it's what's missed most of the time. So in secondary education, my professors would give me an assignment, like, you're gonna write a 15-page paper on this, and they wouldn't tell me how. They would just tell me to go do it. And that is completely lacking in what I think is good instruction. So when I'm writing with kids, I show them what I'm doing. I think aloud, I share my rough drafts. I show them, I think this is where I'm stuck, and I'm gonna try this. And that modeling and talking about our thinking is essential. And then we get kids writing, but we gotta talk about what we're doing. We've gotta show. That's the idea of a mentor text. We're gonna show you how someone else did it.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I can't think back to any instance in high school or college where I had a professor or teacher actually write with me or in front of me, and I had papers. So, yeah, it's a blind spot.Penny Kittle: Huge. And it is one that, you know, you and I have probably spent hundreds of hours doing this. Right? Because you write, and you know the challenges, and you think about kids, and you go, I need to help with this.Matt Renwick: Right. So those examples in the book, are those your writing or student writing, or both?Penny Kittle: They're both.Matt Renwick: Okay. So I think that's a good way to kind of mix it up. You give kids that authentic example from someone who's actually learning, and then yours. Did kids ever give you a hard time? Like, you're a published author, like, of course you're gonna write well. Like, this is easy for you. Or did you share your struggles as a writer?Penny Kittle: I shared my struggles all the time. And, you know, my quickwrites are way messier than the kids'. You know, I often would have scratch-outs and things where they would have done it on a computer and deleted. But I would just start with paper so that I could show them, and so, no. I mean, the kids, you know, it was funny. When I started writing Write Beside Them, I didn't have a publisher yet. I'd been working on it for a couple of years. And I, one day in class, I had a girl who said, do you even write? I said, I've been writing a book for two years. She said, well, when's it coming out? I said, I don't have a publisher. And she said, so you're just like us. And I said, yeah, I'm just like you. I'm trying to figure out how to get my work published just like you are. And I was in NCTE, and I went to Heinemann and pitched them the idea. And I came back and said, I have a publisher. And so it was, you know, it's not like I was sitting on this huge legacy of, like, I'm a published author. I was just somebody trying to figure it out, you know? And I think kids respond to that. They respond to our humanity.Matt Renwick: Yeah, and just the vulnerability of sharing, like, I don't have this down either, like, I'm still trying to figure this out.Penny Kittle: Yeah.Matt Renwick: So, you talked about teaching 180. Are you still teaching? 'Cause I know in the book you mentioned...Penny Kittle: No, I'm not.Matt Renwick: Okay, so what, about seven years ago or so?Penny Kittle: I retired in 2018, and then I taught another couple of years, so probably six years ago. Yeah.Matt Renwick: Okay. So I remember you telling, like, a story, I think it was your first year teaching, where, like, you handed out a paper, and kids were, like, upset about the directions, or something like that. Do you remember that story?Penny Kittle: I probably told that story, but I don't remember exactly. Tell me more.Matt Renwick: I think it was just like, you had made some assumptions about, like, what kids would understand, and they didn't understand it, and they got frustrated, and you're like, okay, I need to be more clear about what I'm asking kids to do.Penny Kittle: Yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, that happens all the time, right? We make assumptions about what kids know, and they don't. And so we have to be really clear. And I think that's one of the things that I learned early on was, I need to show them what I want. I can't just tell them. I have to show them. And that's, again, that idea of shared demonstration.Matt Renwick: So, circling back to your book, I know you have a chapter on nonfiction, which I appreciated because I think a lot of times when we talk about writing, we're talking about narrative or fiction. But you have a whole chapter on that. What are some key things you want teachers to know about teaching nonfiction writing?Penny Kittle: Well, I think that, you know, we read so much nonfiction now. We read articles, we read blogs, we read all kinds of things online. And so kids need to be able to write that way. And I think that one of the things that I tried to do in that chapter was to say, here are some patterns that nonfiction writers use. Here are some ways to organize your thinking. And I think that's really helpful for kids. Because sometimes they sit down to write an essay, and they don't know where to start. And if we can give them some structures, some patterns, then they have something to lean on. And that's what mentor texts do. They give us something to lean on. So, you know, I think that nonfiction is really important. And I think that we need to teach it more explicitly. Because it's not as intuitive as narrative for a lot of kids.Matt Renwick: Yeah, and I think, too, like, the connection to content areas. Like, if you're a science teacher or social studies teacher, like, you're writing nonfiction all the time. So having those examples, those mentor texts, I think is really helpful.Penny Kittle: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's where, you know, in secondary, we have this huge advantage. We have kids for different content areas. And if we could coordinate and say, okay, in science, you're gonna write a lab report. Let me show you some mentor texts for lab reports. In social studies, you're gonna write an argument. Let me show you some mentor texts for arguments. Like, if we could do that, we would be so much more effective. But we don't often do that. We don't often coordinate across content areas.Matt Renwick: Right. So, I have a question about, like, the role of technology in writing. Because I know, you know, we have AI now, and we have all these tools. And I'm curious, like, what's your take on that? Like, how do we teach kids to write in a world where AI can write for them?Penny Kittle: Yeah, I think that's a huge question. And I think that, you know, we have to be honest with kids about the fact that AI exists. And we have to be honest with them about the fact that it can write. But we also have to help them understand that AI can't think for them. AI can't have their ideas. AI can't have their experiences. And so, you know, I think that what we need to do is we need to help kids understand that their voice matters. Their ideas matter. And that's what we're trying to develop. We're trying to develop their voice. We're trying to develop their thinking. And AI can't do that. AI can generate text, but it can't generate their ideas. And so I think that's where we need to focus. We need to focus on helping kids find their voice, find their ideas, and then we can use AI as a tool. But it shouldn't be a replacement for thinking.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I like that distinction. Like, AI can help with the mechanics, but it can't help with the meaning-making.Penny Kittle: Right. Exactly. And I think that's where we need to be. We need to help kids understand that. And we need to help them understand that, you know, the best writing comes from thinking. And AI doesn't think. It generates. And there's a big difference.Matt Renwick: So, thinking about your work, you know, you've been doing this for a long time. You've written several books. You have the Book Love Foundation. What's next for you? Like, what are you working on now?Penny Kittle: Well, I'm working on a few different things. I'm working on a book about leadership with a colleague. And I'm also working on some online courses for teachers. And I'm doing a lot of speaking. So I'm traveling a lot and talking to teachers. And I'm also working on my Substack. So I'm writing there. And I'm just trying to stay connected to teachers and stay connected to the work. Because I think that's really important. I don't want to lose touch with what's happening in classrooms. And so I'm trying to stay as connected as I can.Matt Renwick: That's great. And I think, you know, your Substack has been really helpful. I've been reading it. And I think it's a great way to stay connected to teachers and to share ideas. So, I appreciate that.Penny Kittle: Thanks. Yeah, I think it's been fun. I think it's a good way to just keep the conversation going.Matt Renwick: So, one more question about mentor texts. How do you find them? Like, where do you look for good mentor texts? Because I think sometimes teachers are like, I don't know where to start. Like, how do I find good examples?Penny Kittle: Well, I mean, I think that the first place you look is in what you're reading. So if you're reading, and you come across something that you think is really well-written, you save it. And I have, you know, I have a Google Doc that I've been adding to for years. And it's just a collection of passages that I think are really interesting. And I don't even know if I'll ever use all of them. But I save them. And then when I'm teaching, I go back and I look at that document. And I say, okay, what fits what I'm trying to teach right now? And so I think that's the first place. Just read a lot. And when you come across something that you think is really well-written, save it. And then the other place is just to look at books that are popular with kids. So, you know, what are kids reading? What are they excited about? And then you can pull passages from those books. And that's a great way to get kids interested in reading more. Because you're using books that they're already interested in.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I think that's a great strategy. And I think, too, like, you can also look at, like, articles and essays and things like that. Like, it doesn't have to just be fiction. It can be nonfiction, too.Penny Kittle: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's where, you know, I use a lot of articles. I use a lot of essays. I use a lot of different kinds of texts. Because I want kids to see that there are lots of different ways to write. And there are lots of different purposes for writing. And so, yeah, I think that's really important.Matt Renwick: So, in your Google Doc, do you organize it in any particular way? Or is it just kind of a running list?Penny Kittle: It's just a running list. I mean, I should probably organize it better. But it's just a running list. And I copied a bunch of those, because they're very interesting. They're often patterns of language and interesting phrasing that I'm looking for, and I don't even know how many of those I would use if I were teaching right now, but that's where I collect them.Matt Renwick: Yeah, I'm sure they get in your brain, and then they show up somewhere else when you're writing and thinking.Penny Kittle: Right.Matt Renwick: I noticed your awesome library in the background. I was supposed to ask you about your wavy bookshelf, but I don't see it. That must be somewhere else.Penny Kittle: Oh yeah, that's in a different room, and honestly, it's because it was on this wall. My desk was turned this way, and I kept banging it with the back of my head, because it sticks out from the wall like a foot. I was like, I can't do this anymore. So it's gone.Matt Renwick: Oh, darn it.Penny Kittle: Yeah.Matt Renwick: But you had an interesting metaphor, I think in that same post I mentioned before, or just a visual, a library without books. So, to the point you're making was, we don't have writers, we don't have readers, and so making that connection for kids, and stressing the importance of building writers. So, just to kind of close things out, what classroom conditions are essential to help kids write for real, you know, write without rules, Matt De La Pena said in the forward to your book, and then writing for life. What are some essential classroom conditions? So you mentioned before, shared demonstration, that's a Heli-Dion.Penny Kittle: Yeah, yeah, and I think so much about teachers that are in classrooms right now, where they have a scripted curriculum, and I'm really connected to that idea that it demonstrates a lack of trust of teachers, and the idea that I was thinking today, because I was gonna be late to a doctor's appointment, and I was super annoyed with my husband that we were gonna be late, and I was watching every minute to be sure I could get there, and then I thought about the crowd that would be at the front door to the school that was always late. And I thought, what are the conditions that would make kids be like, I can't be late, I gotta get to first period? So, I think that it goes back to those pillars of engagement, right? We talk about this. So there's a science to engagement. We talked about the science of reading, but the science of engagement says that kids will use the skills and strategies we teach with greater persistence and effort when they're engaged. And then they learn more, right? Greater persistence and effort. So for me, it has to be that. So they need to write for real purposes and real audiences, and they need the conditions that say what they have to say matter, right? They need to be in writing groups so that they get more feedback than just mine. They're writing for, you know, and they'll, in a group of 3 or 4 other kids, often they may not want to at the start, but they become kids who share their writing. And when you have to read your writing to someone, or a part of your writing, and ask for help, you hear it differently. Those are essential conditions. We need lots of books, because the more you read, the better you write. That's just a simple formula. Wait, I wrote them down, what else did I put up here? Oh, relationships. So, it's not just the teacher, but the teacher has to have a relationship with reading and writing that is positive, and that knows its power, as well as its challenges, because I think when I first got my secondary credential, what was demonstrated in all my coursework was that I need to become an expert on texts. And that isn't what we need to be expert in. We need to be expert in kids and motivation, and learning how to talk to a kid that doesn't want to talk to you about what they're working on in a way that you can help them. We need to be really superb listeners, and so the conditions are, we have to be able to set up a flow within a class period so that I have time to meet with as many kids as I can, both as readers and as writers, and I need to have us write every day. I'm really into volume, right? We read every day, we write every day, we work on revision almost every day. So that the conditions are a kind of a mutual agreement that we're here to work. They have a playlist for every class, they choose it. Like, the cowboy one was always killing me off, but the boys in this one class, Outdoor Writing, all wanted this, you know, very cowboy-centered playlist, but that stuff helps them feel like it's their space, too. And I think that the teachers who, you know, there are teachers that I worked with every year who volunteered for everything, who were at every dance, and you know, they're just giving 110% to the school and the culture of the school. I love that, but they also have to be that in their classroom, so that their content comes alive and feels meaningful.Matt Renwick: Yeah. Trust the kids, trust themselves, yeah.Penny Kittle: It's so much about trust.Matt Renwick: Yeah. Well, this has been great, Penny. You've got your substack. What is the URL again? Is it...Penny Kittle: You mean my on Substack, I'm just Penny Kittle.Matt Renwick: Penny Kittle, okay.Penny Kittle: Yeah.Matt Renwick: And then you have the Book Love Foundation. Yep. Several resources, which I'll link in the notes.Penny Kittle: I have a YouTube channel that has all my interviews with Kelly Gallagher, and the different authors, and we're putting up... we just released a podcast today called The Moves Leaders Make. It's all about leaders we're interviewing, and those are on Apple, and we actually have about 4 or 5 seasons of Book Love podcasts on there, and there's a lot of places that you can find out more.Matt Renwick: Cool. Well, thanks, Penny, for being here, and good luck with your time, and your time to yourself. So, thank you for being here.Penny Kittle: Thanks so much, Matt.

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In this episode of “Read by Example,” I sat down with educators and authors Joe Schmidt and Nichelle Pinkney to discuss their influential book, Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities (Corwin, 2022). They explore the urgent need for structured, empathetic dialogue in K-12 classrooms, especially in today’s politically charged environment. Drawing from their extensive backgrounds in social studies education and leadership, Joe and Nichelle provide practical frameworks and strategies for teachers to foster productive conversations, empower student voices, and build stronger, more understanding classroom communities.

Key topics discussed include:

* The four foundational building blocks of civil discourse: Courage, Understanding, Belonging, and Empathy.

* The crucial difference between “contentious” and “controversial” topics.

* Strategies for moving classroom activities from debate to more inclusive discussions and dialogues.

* The importance of grounding student opinions in evidence-based sources and curated text sets.

* Practical advice for teachers on how to prepare for difficult conversations and build a support system within their school.

* How administrators can create a supportive “sandbox” for teachers and the importance of transparent communication with parents and the community.

After listening to this episode, you will walk away with a greater appreciation for supporting student conversations in every classroom.

Take care,

Matt

P.S. Next week Thursday, 5:30pm CST, I speak with Jen Schwanke, author of Trusted (ASCD, 2025). Full subscribers can join us for this professional conversation!

Official Transcript

Matt Renwick: Welcome to Read by Example, where teachers are leaders, and leaders know literacy. I am joined by two colleagues and educators who I have looked forward to speaking with ever since I read their book, Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities. Welcome, Joe Schmidt and Nichelle Pinkney.

Joe Schmidt: Thanks for having us, Matt.

Matt Renwick: You were both formerly high school classroom teachers and are now in leadership roles. Nichelle and Joe, would you share a little bit about your backgrounds?

Nichelle Pinkney: Hi, I’m Nichelle Pinkney. I’m entering my 21st year of education. It’s hard to say out loud. I started teaching elementary for a year or two, then decided I wasn’t ready for that season and went to high school. I went from first graders to 12th graders and started teaching government and economics, then moved into AP Government and Econ. I’ve pretty much taught everything at the high school level.

A few years ago, I wanted to help other teachers learn what I had, so I became an instructional coach at the middle school level. Now, I’m a curriculum director in my district, overseeing social studies and world languages, curriculum, professional learning, and teacher development. I’m involved in my state organizations, and I love social studies and students learning about the world we live in.

Matt Renwick: And you were just elected president of that organization?

Nichelle Pinkney: Yes, I’m president-elect of the Texas Social Studies Leadership Association, starting in February. I’m super excited because my dream has always been to fight for social studies, and I’ll get to do that through work with legislation.

Matt Renwick: Well, congratulations. Joe?

Joe Schmidt: I started as a high school teacher in rural Wisconsin. My first year was 9th grade, my second was 10th, and my third was 11th. I had one student seven times across our block schedule in those three courses. I left the classroom after nine years to become Madison, Wisconsin’s first Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator. I was also the state specialist for Maine, and since then, I’ve worked for a couple of national non-profits.

I’m currently the president-elect of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and will become president on July 1st, 2026, three days before America turns 250. I will be the lead host for the Chicago conference in 2026. This December, NCSS will also have a conference in Washington, D.C. (link to conference here). NCSS is the largest professional organization for social studies educators, with more than 8,000 members.

I went from being a classroom teacher where people said, “You have good ideas,” and I felt like I was just making it up, to a district coordinator, to the state level, always feeling that same way. That’s why I say teachers are humble heroes; it’s very rare for them to toot their own horn. I do more than 100 trainings with over 2,000 teachers a year, and almost without fail, someone will share something brilliant they “just made up.” Anytime I can help teachers celebrate and recognize their own expertise is a good day. That’s what has driven me: finding different venues to not only support teachers but celebrate them.

Matt Renwick: We have two knowledgeable individuals in the social studies realm here, and I’m honored. As a former principal, I learned that there’s so much knowledge in every classroom. It’s not about improvement but about surfacing that expertise so everyone can benefit. It’s great you’re in positions to connect colleagues.

I had your book for a couple of years after we did a statewide book study on it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t read it until I went to the Sphere Summit through the Cato Institute. I brought the book, and it connected perfectly with the sessions. I was back in my hotel room reading it while everyone else was out. It just really clicked for me. It feels like your book is so needed right now, especially as I see teachers self-censoring and avoiding certain books because they don’t want to deal with the politics or conflict.

I’ll start with how you frame your book around four building blocks of civil discourse: Courage, Understanding, Belonging, and Empathy. Can you say a little more about how you came to those four guiding principles?

Nichelle Pinkney: I’m an acronym junkie. Joe is very intelligent, and he’ll explain things, and I’ll say, “Okay, it’s got to be simplified.” We were on a call with our author mentor, Julie Stern, and I was just writing down words, trying to make it simpler. We knew all these components had to be there, but it had to click.

It was broken down this way because a lot was going on when we were writing this during COVID. We were at home—I think we were just stir-crazy. But seriously, the ideas of courage and understanding were huge. I think understanding and belongingness are huge because you can’t have the necessary conversations in our world today without them. And the courage part—as you said, you were at the conference, you had the book, and you felt a need for it. That was courageous. Then, instead of going out, you dug deeper into the book. You took the courage to build understanding, and now you’re applying the other pieces—belongingness and empathy—so these things can happen in a bigger venue.

Matt Renwick: So it’s like a simple first step. You don’t have to start by talking about immigration on day one. Maybe the first step is just to get your book or another resource to become more knowledgeable.

Joe Schmidt: Part of the impetus for the book was that as COVID hit, I was doing a lot of virtual sessions. People kept asking for sessions on what is now civil discourse. We were heading into the 2020 election, and people would say, “I told my department not to talk about the election; it’s too contentious.” I thought, “They’re not going to get this in math class.” We can’t just abdicate our responsibility.

But we had to acknowledge that this isn’t easy. It’s important, but it’s not easy. We always start there. We know this is hard, but it is worth it. We don’t want people to think there’s a judgment if you’re not doing it. The point is, let’s just do it. It’s hard, and we’re not going to be perfect at it. We made mistakes. But don’t just jump in on day one with the most controversial topics. That’s how you end up on the news.

That takes you through the progression: Is there understanding? Is everyone on the same page? Does everyone feel like they belong? Otherwise, you can’t have the conversation. My favorite, which is often overlooked, is what we put under empathy: students need to know that we can disagree and still be friends. This is not a zero-sum game. If I could get every kid to understand that their classmates, people online, and people in their communities are all human beings trying to do their best, that would be the greatest gift we could give society.

Matt Renwick: I’m thinking about schools that have banned cell phones. What are you going to do in the classroom in the meantime? How are you changing instruction? The kids want to talk about these topics, but they need structure and support. You mentioned “controversial,” and I liked how you differentiated it from “contentious.” What’s the difference?

Joe Schmidt: I was doing a presentation and realized the words felt different. A woman told me to look at the Latin sub-roots. The root of “controversial” is “quarrelsome,” which to me is fighting. But the root of “contentious” means “to strive,” which I believe is a striving for understanding. We can either be quarrelsome or strive for understanding.

Even if the definitions don’t feel different, I’ve never met someone who wants a controversy in their classroom. We strive to have contentious conversations. I’ve had to get on a soapbox recently to say that social studies is not controversial. Teaching history is not controversial. Is it contentious? Do people disagree? Yes, absolutely. That goes back to courage—this isn’t easy. But teaching this is not controversial, and I don’t ever want a teacher to have to apologize for teaching.

Nichelle Pinkney: I agree. The minute you say, “We’re going to talk about something controversial,” everybody’s bodies shift. Adults do it. Their mannerisms shift. What happens with students? History is contentious across the world; that doesn’t make it bad. We try to correct things throughout the process—not by erasing history, but through our actions. Throughout history, we’ve always strived to do better. We made a decision, realized it wasn’t the best, so we amended it. A Supreme Court decision was wrong, so we changed it. We are always striving to do better, not by erasing the past, but by learning from it.

Matt Renwick: That language was helpful for me, as was differentiating between “versus” and “or.” Those little shifts in language reminded me of the book Choice Words by Peter Johnston.

Joe Schmidt: I remember in the early days, if you had told me I was about to write 600 words on the difference between “versus” and “or,” I would have never believed you. But language does matter, and we need to be reminded of that.

Matt Renwick: It seemed to support a move away from a winner-take-all debate to a non-judgmental discussion of alternatives. Did you notice kids claiming more autonomy in their opinions when you shifted your language?

Joe Schmidt: The big thing is the difference between dialogue, discussion, and debate. I know I defaulted to debate as a teacher, but that’s rarely how the world works. A key part of debate is rebutting the other side. But a discussion is an acknowledgment of different views. If we’re deciding where to go for dinner and Nichelle wants Italian, I don’t lose anything as a human being if we go with her choice. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll get my choice of pizza.

That is freeing for students. It’s okay to have a different opinion—with the disclaimer that we’re still not being racist, sexist, or homophobic. If you like red and I like blue, that’s fine. If you want Italian and I want tacos, that’s also fine. Just because I didn’t get my way doesn’t mean I lost anything. I think that helps them be more authentic.

Nichelle Pinkney: I moved away from debates in my class around the 2012 election. It was getting so heated. If I were honest with myself, I wasn’t preparing students for what a debate should look like. What they see as a debate is completely different from what you would see in The Great Debaters or an actual Lincoln-Douglas debate. This generation sees a lot, but they don’t see what a debate should be.

Matt Renwick: Exactly. From what I remember, debates in the 1800s weren’t about calling each other out. It was more like a discussion where people would concede points. It seems things have changed.

Joe Schmidt: Kids have a perception of what a debate is. If you say you’re having one, they think they know what it looks like. They want the zinger, the viral moment, the mic drop. That’s why we try to move them toward discussion. There is a place for debates, but not for highly contentious, emotional topics where students expect you to pick a winner. I’m not going to debate someone’s identity. I don’t want to put a student in a position where they feel like a part of them “lost.”

If you’re going to ask a question for discussion in class, you need to ask one where you want a split opinion—50-50 or even 30-40-30. Don’t ask a question that puts a kid in the position of defending something you’re uncomfortable with. If the question puts fundamental values at risk, ask a different question.

Matt Renwick: So, how do you help kids separate their identities from their beliefs? The goal isn’t to change minds but to broaden perspectives.

Nichelle Pinkney: In the book, we talk about preparing students. I always start by saying that everyone has a bias, whether we want to agree with it or not. Our biases are preconceived based on where we grew up, the food we eat, the music we listen to, and so on. I used to tell my students to “check those biases at the door,” which means we’re not going to judge people or put them in a box.

From there, everything was rooted in research and sources. When students responded, it was always grounded in resources. Before sites existed that show where news sources fall on the political spectrum, I had to make sure I provided materials showing different sides. I grew up in a small town in Texas and had a very limited view until I went to college in North Carolina, where my roommate was from Connecticut. She had seen a world I had never seen. So, in my classroom, I made sure students could see other sides, because in some environments, you won’t get that. We used a thinking routine: “At first, I think this because I don’t know any better. But now that I see all these different sides, I may still think the same thing, but at least I’m informed.”

Matt Renwick: That sounds like you created awareness for the kids in a natural way about how our environment and culture shape our beliefs.

Joe Schmidt: I would work very hard to curate a text set with multiple perspectives using primary sources or different news articles. The shorthand with students was, “If you can’t point at it, it’s probably not evidence.” I curated the set for you; don’t ignore the ten pages of reading and then tell me what your uncle said on Facebook. You build that habit, and kids will start to reinforce it with each other. In a Socratic seminar, you start by saying, “I’m on page 3, line 17,” and give everyone a second to get there.

Using structures like sentence stems can keep conversations from boiling over. If you want students to speak in a certain way, give them the stems and hold them accountable. Kids are the best body-language readers. If they see you’re not consistent with the rules for everyone, the structure falls apart. If you’re consistent, it may feel rigid, but it provides the structure kids need to be successful.

Matt Renwick: You wrote in the book that a classroom’s strength lies in its ability to handle disagreements without breaking bonds. That speaks to a shared sense of humanity. You also challenge the reader: when you are fearful of teaching a topic, who are you thinking about? For me, it was a former school board where a few people were out to get teachers. How can leaders help teachers reclaim their agency to handle criticism when they bring in contentious topics?

Joe Schmidt: That question is from Dan Krutka. Often, when we say “my kids aren’t ready for that,” it’s really “I don’t want to deal with the outside factors.” I remind teachers they have to stay in the sandbox—the legal rulings are consistent that you can’t indoctrinate students. But then I tell administrators, you build the sandbox. If you want teachers doing this work, you need to support them.

I was working with a district where people wanted a middle school teacher fired for teaching current events. I told the administration they needed to release a statement supporting the teacher. That’s the job. But I know some administrators don’t want to deal with the pressure. So if your principal won’t support you, find someone who will—an assistant principal, a department chair, a guidance counselor. Don’t give up your agency. Think about this ahead of time. Don’t wait until all hell breaks loose to figure out your support system. Practice it like a fire drill, so when a situation arises, you are responding, not reacting.

Matt Renwick: The book is very thorough. You call that prep “Day Zero Planning.”

Nichelle Pinkney: As an administrator, I support my 250 teachers 100%, and they know that from day one. That’s our role; it’s what we signed up for. I can be that voice. I can say, “It’s in the standards,” or “It’s what happened.” Here in Texas, our standards are specific, and I can point directly to them.

Another big thing is that out of fear, we’ve closed our classroom doors. We need to change the narrative. The narrative is that teachers are doing something wrong. I say be transparent. I over-communicated with parents to the point where they’d say, “Oh my god, another email from Ms. Pinkney.” I would tell them, “In this unit, we’re going to talk about the principles of government. Here’s what they are. Please ask your child about them when they get home.” Very few parents visited, but they all knew what was happening. We have a loud group saying one thing, and we get quiet. I say we need to be loud. We need to put it out there and say, “This is what we’re doing. I would love for you to come see it.” Get your administrator involved. Invite everyone. Create an open-door policy so everyone knows what’s happening in your room.

Matt Renwick: So, communicate, use the standards, and find leaders who will back you up. That’s all great advice. I think we’re out of time, but I will just say that this is a social studies book, yes, but it’s also a literacy book. It’s a book for any K-12 classroom. It connects so well to the speaking and listening standards that everyone should be teaching.

Again, the book is Civil Discourse: Classroom Conversations for Stronger Communities. I’m here with Joe Schmidt and Nichelle Pinkney. Thank you so much for joining me. Good luck with your school years.

Joe Schmidt: Thank you, Matt.

Nichelle Pinkney: Thank you, Matt.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this video demonstration, I share key journaling tools - simple tracking tools and intentions for success - to start my month. The ultimate goal is improving outcomes for teachers and students. That includes a sense of well-being, not just achievement. When others feel supported and successful, so do I as a coach and a leader. A written explanation is also available below if you prefer to read vs. watch.

Page 1: Monthly Timeline

This idea comes from The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll. It is a calendar for the month in a list format. On the first page of the month in a dot journal, I document one thing I did each day that stood out to me. For example, yesterday (Monday, September 1st, or “1M”), I took a tour of a stone cottage with my family with a realtor.

It’s not a calendar; I don’t typically add planned events ahead of time unless they are important. That’s what my digital calendar is for. The function of the timeline comes after you add your activities. It’s a tool for reflection. During weekly and monthly reviews (which I will share more about next month), I examine how I am spending my time and make changes if I am not happy with my actions.

One way to facilitate this reflection is to separate the monthly timeline into two columns: personal and professional. This helps me quickly assess where I am giving more of my attention and time: to work or to personal commitments. If you are limited on space in your journal, you can use a highlighting system to differentiate between the two, such as green for personal.

Finally, I like to track my key habits on the side of the timeline. For me right now, that is writing (W), exercise (E), and budget ($). I put a dot under each column. Again, a simple and visual way to track the positive habits I am trying to build.

Page 2: Monthly Intentions

I use the word “intention” purposefully. In the past, I have titled this page “goals”. The problem with this language, at least for me, is that my goals aren’t always in my zone of control. For example, I would like to hit a certain weight. While that is a great goal, a lot of factors and influences go into making that happen: watching my diet, exercising, and eating healthy foods.

So, intentions are not the same as goals, and they are more than just projects. They cannot be accomplished with one or a couple of steps. They exist somewhere above both goals and projects. More importantly, they are an aspiration for what I want to accomplish this month. It’s easy to fall into the “goal/project” list. For instance, in my current set of intentions (also divided by personal and professional), I initially listed “clean out attic” and “set up yearlong P.D. schedule”. These are projects. I revised them with clearer intentions: “Create the start of a studio space for art, storage, etc.” and “Provide high-quality learning experiences for colleagues”. They are more motivating and open. Projects and goals can exist within them.

Note: I don’t have more than a handful of intentions listed at any one time. I have dozens of projects saved in a task management app (Todoist). What I want to accomplish this month, I migrate over to my intentions page for the month. I aim to have no more than ten (10) intentions, an idea that comes from Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It’s a good constraint: just the right amount of options to choose from in the moment. We experience decision fatigue and procrastinate when we have too many options, for example, 20 different kinds of ketchup at the grocery store.

From there, my daily log should at least partially reflect these intentions. In the example below, from yesterday, I documented a tour my wife and I took of a stone cottage in our small city. We are exploring the idea of downsizing. This wasn’t part of our plan when I created my intentions list. Seeing that it is important to us, I will add it. Not as something to accomplish to prioritize. That means it will get more of my attention than other, lesser requests for my attention.

Likewise, today (9.2.T), I noted that I wanted to capture insights from my interactions with coaches and leaders during school visits. So I created a custom collection on the next page as a simple tool for this purpose. This became another intention on my monthly list.

When this coaching log is complete, I can review all the insights and determine what the common needs are with clients. I may use A.I. to help me with this analysis (I masked the names). While technology is helpful in this way, I find paper and pen to be most beneficial for seeing everything all at once. Digital tools have a way of hiding my commitments - out of sight, out of mind.

Next month (October), I will share more about daily logs, as well as how to start a brand new notebook! Let me know what questions come up for you from this post in the comments. Paid subscribers can also join me for an “Empower Hour” on Thursday, September 25 at 4:00pm CST to discuss these topics in real time. Register below.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Matt speaks with Regie Routman, longtime educator and author of many books, including The Heart-Centered Teacher, for the inaugural episode of Literacy Unscripted. This podcast series challenges traditional approaches to literacy teaching and leadership.

In this professional conversation, Regie and Matt explore the meaning of belonging in schools, the impact of a single teacher, and the crucial difference between curriculum as a conversation versus a rigid script. Listeners will walk away with an appreciation for creating joyful and empowering learning environments for every student.

Key Discussion Points:

* The Power of Belonging: Regie and Matt share personal, resonant stories about the first time they felt truly seen and valued by a teacher, highlighting how these moments can alter a person's life trajectory.

Check out Regie’s latest article for MiddleWeb on belonging in schools here.

* Beyond the Script: They advocate for professional knowledge over prescriptive curriculum, likening skilled teaching to a chef who can create a masterpiece with limited ingredients by mastering the basics, rather than simply following a recipe.

* Celebrating All Strengths: The conversation emphasizes the importance of seeing every individual—from students to bus drivers and cafeteria workers—as a valuable contributor with unique gifts to share, fostering a sense of shared ownership and equity within the school community.

* Trust and Autonomy: They discuss the transformative power of giving students genuine agency, citing a real-world example of students managing their school library, which led to increased literacy, empathy, and leadership skills.

Read here for more information about the school library book budget project.

Take care,

Matt

P.S. Join other school leaders and me this October for the first cohort of my new course based on my book Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. Over four weeks, you will learn key strategies and skills for engaging in coaching conversations that lead to lasting schoolwide literacy excellence. Join the waitlist today to secure your spot for this fall.

Official Transcript

Matt: Welcome to Read by Example. This is a special series called "Literacy Unscripted." So, I'm talking to literacy experts in the field who have pushed back on a prescriptive approach to literacy instruction. And it's very appropriate that my first conversation is with Regie Routman, who I've spoken with multiple times—a colleague, a good friend, just the person I go to whenever I have a question in this regard. So, welcome, Regie.

Regie: Thank you, Matt. It's great to have a conversation with you and not have it be about a technology problem.

Matt: Always happy to help there, too. But you've got an article with MiddleWeb about building a culture of belonging, and I just thought it was very appropriate for this time of year. If I were still a principal, you know, I'm trying to motivate my staff or to help staff kind of take a step back and think about what's really important. I'm looking at one of your articles that you've written in the past. And this one is also so good around belonging in schools. And we were chatting before we hit record about when the first time we felt a sense of belonging in our educational experience. And I thought your story resonated with me. So if you don't mind sharing, Regie.

Regie: You know, I don't. It's a great question, actually, because I think when I think back about when did I feel a sense of belonging, it wasn't until I was an adult and I had attended an International Reading Association conference. I'll tell that story. But when I was went through the grades, I never thought that I was had any kind of special talent. I don't remember forming a close relationship with any teacher K-12 or even in college. Part of that, I think, was that I didn't grow up in an intellectual atmosphere. And my parents were fine with me just going to college and finding a husband. And I did really well in that regard, but they weren't really interested in what I was going to do with my mind. And I hadn't thought that much about it. You and I are very different generations, and you know, my mother didn't work. And so they just thought, well, you know, you'll find a nice husband and you'll be a good cook and a good mother. And I didn't have anybody in... I never had a teacher who said, "You can be more than that," which I think is so important. I never felt even in high school that I belonged with any particular group. I didn't mind. I wasn't a member of the popular club, but I think I didn't know that I was missing that until I went to my first International Reading Association meeting, which was after I was married and had two children. And the only reason I was able to go—I was working as a reading specialist in Shaker Heights, Ohio—was that every seven years they sent the reading specialist, but my term came up because I couldn't have afforded to go.

And I think the thing that was shocking, because I had never been to a national conference or even a local conference, was seeing women intellectually challenged. And I met Marie Clay and seeing what was going on across the world. It was just eye-opening for me. And so I think that was the first time that I felt a sense of belonging. Not initially, because I didn't feel that I was any part of that, but I was so inspired. And I was inspired by leaders. I just have this picture here. This was the person that made me feel that I could belong.

Regie: So he was the father of shared book experience. He at one time was in charge of Scholastic Australia, and he told me that he never should have been in charge of a publishing company because he said he ran them into the ground. I mean, he was great. He was a brilliant literacy professor, and he was just such a kind person. And he saw something in me. He showed up. When I was speaking about belonging, I knew I had to get back to the International Reading Association. I was so stimulated by the people that I met and what was happening all over the world that I didn't have an idea about. I'd been reading about it, but to actually meet the people that were, like Don Holdaway, like Marie Clay, that were making things happen, and that they were so forthcoming and treated me as an equal. And I knew the only way I could get back to the conference, and I was really feeling this sense of, "I want to be part of this," was to get my district to send me. And the only way that that would happen is if I wrote a proposal, which is what I did and got accepted. It took two years. I didn't know how to write a proposal because that's its own genre, right? And so then when I didn't make it, then the next year, and Don Holdaway showed up at my session. I couldn't believe it. He said, "I've come to learn from you." And I'm like, "What are you doing here? I don't know anything yet." And we became close friends, and he became my most important mentor. And I think that was because he wasn't just about literacy. He was all about bringing joy into learning. And nobody was really talking about that then. We're going back many, many years, bringing joy into learning and also the importance of the social-emotional. It was all together. He was teaching in a one-room schoolhouse for kids that were not learning to read well. And he had like K through 8 all in one room together. And he invented the shared book experience where he created a big book and so had the kids gather regardless of their age around. And so they could see the print as he was reading. And it was that whole bedtime experience, very nurturing, very loving, very comforting. And so that was a big deal. And he was at my house, and I brought him into the district, and we really became close friends and colleagues. And I felt that was the first time because I was not... I don't have a PhD. It was the first time I thought, "Well, maybe I could be an influencer. Maybe I could write a book." You know, and then I was encouraged to do that. But not by any of my teachers K-12. It was when I saw, you know, sort of the broader world.

Matt: You had to seek out your own mentors.

Regie: Yeah, I really did. What about you? When was the first time? It's a great question. When did you experience belonging?

Matt: I remember in high school, one of my economics teachers... And I was not like a straight-A student. I wasn't a bad student, but I was, you know, I struggled at times with attention. And I remember my economics teacher said, "Oh, hey, Matt, you're getting an A at the top of the class." And I said, "Oh." And he looked at me, and I was very surprised. And he's like, "Why are you surprised?" And he's like, "That's where you belong." You know, and just that phrase of like, "This is where I expect you to be." And I kind of... It's not the same experience, but a similar experience where I didn't feel like there was a hierarchy between, as much as, you know, as we typically have, between teacher and student. And it sounds like a similar relationship with Don Holdaway. You know, "I had high expectations for you."

Regie: Yeah, I didn't see myself as that smart. Nobody had ever said, and I didn't think about it. But one teacher can do that. My granddaughter, Katie, who graduated college several years ago, had an economics teacher who saw something in her and had her stay after class and say, "You know, Katie, have you considered economics as a field? Don't let those boys in the class that are talking over the girls. Don't let that. You have a good brain. You have a lot to offer." That one teacher caused her... She never thought about economics. She majored in economics, has a degree in economics, and is working in economics. And it was a teacher who saw that, and it was a female teacher encouraging another female. I think women, it's still hard to get the same recognition, unfortunately, that men do, especially if you're a person of color, you know.

Matt: For sure, yeah. It's much harder. It's not an equal playing field.

Regie: I want to say one other thing about belonging. The reason I wrote that article, and Matt, you can put the link up for that because I know that it's made into... It's in PDF... is I was working when my last book came out, The Heart-Centered Teacher, I was working with a school district, Walnut Valley, California Unified School District, and I was so impressed with the way they start each school year with a big theme. And the theme last year was, "You are welcome here." And what surprised me about that, because I'd never seen this before, they did a big welcome day, a couple of days, where everybody was invited, almost like a rally, you know, like we're going to start the year off great and you all belong here. But what was different about it, Matt, was that it wasn't just for teachers. The people that attended were the bus drivers, were the nutrition workers, were the social workers, anybody, the landscape people, anybody that was employed in the district was on equal footing as any teacher or principal or administrator. I'd never seen that before. And it said a lot about equity and what they really believed. And the belief being that each one of us has something to teach a child or see in a child. A bus driver's comment to a child. Somebody in the cafeteria can make that child's day or not, right? But that was very, very powerful to me.

And this year, in fact, I just got an email this morning from the assistant superintendent, and this year their focus is on stories. I forgot what it was now because I just read it one time to you. "Stories always win." The importance of stories in teaching and in learning. And that's what, and I'll just give a plug for my book, my last book, The Heart-Centered Teacher, because they actually bought a copy for all of their staff, which included the bus drivers, the nutrition workers, and whatever, because of the stories. They said, "We like that you were story focused." And it is all about the stories and what kids come to us with and that we can see that. And that... I never felt seen in school, and that's a very big deal. And I think it's not that hard. I don't think it's that hard for a teacher to make every child feel seen.

You know, one of the stories that I tell is the story of Ted, a 54-year-old man that I taught to read during the pandemic. We only had just two phones and no visuals. And I tell that story in The Heart-Centered Teacher. But until I saw who he was, probably he had a label of dyslexia. I don't know what it was. Probably he was in special ed. I never asked him. Probably, well, I know that he couldn't do phonics very well. We didn't start there. Until I could see him and know who he was as a person, I really couldn't teach him. I didn't know how I was going to teach him. So I had to start with recognizing his brilliance, because we all shine in some area, and not seeing him as less than, instead of disabled, "differently abled." He had gifts, and it's really seeing, I think, every child's gifts.

I think the first time my son Peter was seen in elementary school, I can still remember it, going to a teacher's conference, and the teacher saying, "Let's talk about our boy Pete." And it was just like, "Wow." Just like, "I really like this kid." And then he blossomed. That was fifth grade. She saw him. He was very quiet, but a quiet style of leadership that she brought out. And very smart, and she challenged him intellectually. But up until that time, I think he was pretty invisible, you know, because he was quiet, well-behaved, you know.

Matt: I think about the impact just one person can have and how it trickles down to so many other experiences, Don Holdaway empowering you, and that led to so many other districts you worked with, Walnut Valley, and just all the people that you've reached.

Regie: It’s accepting people as they are, not as we wish them to be, which is so hard, right? We know that from being married, from being colleagues, you know, we want people to be the way we want them to be, and that's not our job.

I think one of the things that's really important at this time of the year, at the start of the school year, but true for all year long, is I think one of the ways we create a sense of belonging is that kids feel that this is our school, this is our classroom. That's huge, not just "my classroom." Some of the most beautiful classrooms that I've been in... You can tell right away that this is the teacher's classroom. Every bulletin board is perfect. The commercial charts are up there. Where are the kids? You know, you can tell when it's "our classroom" because the kids' work is everywhere. The charts, the routines, the rules are written with the kids. And kids are different in classrooms like that. They know their voices are valued and that the teacher is not the only teacher in the room, that everybody in this classroom has a lot to teach us.

And, you know, really seeking out what people's strengths are and celebrating them, starting with the first day.

Matt: You just gave so many ways to start day one and beyond in a positive way. You list, you know, in your article, kids need to be safe, cared for, seen, empowered, make their voices heard. And like you said, it happens on day one and then really every day.

Kind of transitions into empowering each kid and giving them some autonomy. And you talk about curriculum as conversation versus like a predetermined script. As you know, we live in very difficult times right now with all the challenges, all the requirements. How do leaders help teachers make this shift to help kids move from compliance, especially at the secondary level where they've kind of gotten used to a diet of just "tell me what I need to do and I'll do it," to genuine ownership in their learning?

And then on the flip side, you know, if you're not lucky enough to work at a building where a leader's, you know, empowering you and trusting you, how do teachers help leaders see the benefits of autonomy, choice, you know, curriculum as conversation, you know, and pushing back on the micromanaging?

Regie: That's all? Sorry. That's the whole ballgame. One of the things before I get into that, I want to be sure to mention your book because that's, I think you deal with that quite a lot, you know. How do we set up a system? How do we set up a structure that is not a binding in terms of confining us despite all of the standards and the rules that we're supposed to follow? And I'm very honored to hold this up because I wrote the... honored to write the foreword. And you do a lot of that in here in terms of how do we... how do you help leaders become coaches rather than... yeah, it's really the essence of that, where you're providing the foundation so that people can shine. I think the rub is that you have to have professional learning going on. The only way that you can take all the requirements and as a very knowledgeable teacher decide, "Yes, I have to teach the science of reading because it's mandated and I don't have a choice, but I can do that in a way where I will be a positive deviant." That's a term from Atul Gawande, who's a surgeon and a writer. And where you're kind of breaking the rules, but in a good way because we're here for the kids. We're not here to be so structured that there's no leeway in how we teach. I think one of the things we have to do, and this only happens if we have a high degree of professional learning, and all of my work is about that.

The professional learning is something that people don't value enough. Even if you're in a school where there's no professional learning going on, you want to find a colleague, even if it's just one colleague, and read professionally and talk about what the research is saying.

And the only way you can get around some of the requirements that don't make any sense... you'll get the high test scores, but not because you followed any particular curriculum, because you really know what you're doing, so that you can, instead of spending a half hour a day on phonics, you could spend 10 minutes a day, because the goal is we want readers. We don't want just "phonicators." We want readers who love to read, who read across genres. And you have to be so knowledgeable. It's like for me, the analogy would be, I'm a really good cook. My husband just told me that today when I fixed lunch. I probably do my best cooking when I have my least amount of resources. I don't have so many choices because then I can really be creative. But I know the basics. I know how to make a sauce. I don't have to read the recipe every time. That framework of teaching reading is in here from all the study that I've done over the years.

So for that adult student that I was working with, I didn't know how I was going to teach him. I knew I would teach him because I know how to teach reading. I have a degree in learning disabilities, teaching students with learning disabilities. And none of that really mattered. The main thing was I had to get to know this child... this adult. And how can I find a way in? That's our job. That's our responsibility. And we had to be very creative about that.

Matt: It's a hard balance sometimes.

Regie: It's a very hard balance. And if you're not knowledgeable, and I think we don't value professional learning enough, if you're not knowledgeable, you're going to be bound by that script, you know. And you have to make it your own. You have to make it uniquely your own.

Matt: I just delivered some professional development. I delivered some PD around, it was co-teaching with teachers. And that was the one thing they said as a critique was, "We didn't have time to practice those skills," you know, so that knowledge is not just that declarative knowledge, but that experiential knowledge.

Regie: And that's why I think that's why it's so important for the principal to be a coach to have that job embedded. And to ease things so that they do have time. There's only so many hours in the day, but it's what you prioritize. It's what you prioritize.

The phonics issue is a whole other thing. And when I was in college, that's all I learned was phonics. I didn't learn anything about teaching reading comprehension because I was in college way before you. I'm a lot older. So I didn't know anything about teaching reading comprehension. You know, I think you have to be a reader yourself. And if you get that, if you are teaching reading well, and you're really focused on what kids are interested in, and you have a classroom library, and Matt, you've written about, and I've included it extensively in my book about how you and Micki Uppena, how you developed this program where the kids were running the library. And I mean, it's brilliant. So include that. It's, you know, turning over the control of the library to students is major. I still never have read anything like that. And so, but how does that happen? You have to trust kids. You have to lay the foundation. But it's a beautiful thing to see when it actually happens. And the kids see school very differently then. They have choice. They have purpose. They're treated as leaders, people who can actually make decisions. They're trusted.

Matt: That was one of our sayings was, "Kids learn to make decisions by making decisions." And they're going to make mistakes, right? And it was like $5,000 that they got. It wasn't a small amount, you know, and I think that that trust that we had in them was crucial.

Regie: Talk a little bit about that because what you did and what you and Micki did in that program is a model for getting kids to buy into... they didn't see the library as just for them. Their vision expanded, which is what we want. Kids to leave school not just thinking about how they can make a lot of money or what they can do for themselves, but how do we actually care for others and include everyone in the decision-making? And that was pretty amazing.

Matt: Yeah, I think it took a lot of humility to say we don't know what the kids want and then to give them the tools and the...

Regie: And you were telling me, I'm just going to interrupt. You said "what they want." You mean what books they want in the library?

Matt: Right, yeah, what books they wanted. But beyond even that, like what do they want the library to look like, you know, and we took on more of a role of a guide on the side versus a lot of direct instruction. So we had to take a step back, you know, physically and professionally for them to make those decisions. For me as an administrator, a lot of my work was removing obstacles and increasing the supports to make that happen, which there isn't a lot of fanfare, there isn't a lot of spotlight on that, but it's like, I don't want to call it the dirty work, but it was like the grunt work, you know, that finding the money and attending meetings and going to the board and explaining, you know, what we're doing and crunching the data.

Regie: But you didn't keep that hidden. You shared that with the kids.

Matt: Yep, we shared it with the kids. We said, "Here's what the kids are wanting in terms of books, but also here's how you're growing as readers too. Like if you're a part of this group, your achievement scores are going up." And so there was a very virtuous cycle of learning there too.

Regie: And you said, you said they became librarians.

Matt: Yeah. They very much were advocating for certain kinds of books, you know, from their perspective, but also they took... they were doing some perspective taking. Like I remember one girl said, "I really want books on ADHD because I want my friends to understand what it's like for me," you know, so that empathy, that self-compassion, agency, all that shined through. And it's hard to measure, right? But I think through some of those anecdotal quotes and observations, it was just a cool thing.

Regie: And it just comes back around to where I think where we started, which was, you know, "When did adults see you?" You know, when did you have that culture, that sense of belonging? And we both acknowledge it was when adults said something to us, but I think it's also what adults do. You created an opportunity. You created an opportunity that allowed them to belong and to shine. An opportunity that very few kids have. It's like, "No, no, you can't do this because you haven't been trained as a librarian." Right. And you took away that, you know, the usual thinking and made it possible for them to see themselves in a role that even other teachers hadn't seen.

Matt: Yeah. We reduced the positionality, I think someone called it, of "us" and "them." So that gap, that hierarchy kind of went away. That's great. Just that permission that they had to make decisions. Now, I don't remember ever saying anything to any kid, like "you can do this." So I think that's maybe a lesson to take away for listeners here is even if you don't say something like maybe what we heard as students, you know, you with Don Holdaway, me with my economics teacher, what we do can speak very powerfully to just the environments we create.

Regie: And also maybe a good place to end is it's all about celebration. I mean, the classrooms that are joyful, the reason that I loved the work was the joyful moments of seeing a kid do something that they didn't think they could do, that perhaps you or other students or the way the culture is set up where they felt that they belonged as part of the culture made things possible that the child and even we maybe didn't know that they could do.

So I think the celebration, that has always been a huge thing for me is to notice, to become a noticer, to notice what kids can do and then comment on it. I was thinking about that today before we met because it's a beautiful day in Seattle where I live. And I was just taking a short walk around my house and outside and I came across, oh, I would say half a dozen perfect spider webs and they were absolutely gorgeous the way the sun was hitting it. And I actually changed the way I was walking so that I wouldn't disrupt this web. But it was not just... It was magical because I allowed myself to see it. I wasn't rushing somewhere. I was very careful that I didn't destroy it, that I could just kind of be in the moment and say, "Wow." And I think that's one of our biggest jobs actually as teachers and parents is to help learners know... is to, and parents, is to help learners notice things. "What did you notice about what this author did? What did you notice on the way to school today?" Because I think we go about our lives so quickly, and especially today when we're all kind of, I don't know what the word is, I don't know, in a state over the world and what's going on and enough said about that.

So, you know, you have to sort of slow down and celebrate the beauty of the physical world, which is there, and appreciate all the strengths that students are bringing, and teachers as well. And it's difficult to do if you are, you know, constantly reading from a script and you're not giving the room and space and trust for kids to give us those moments that, you know, we're celebrating.

Regie: And if you're reading the script, the script has to be internalized. The framework has to be internalized. If you're reading the script, you're not noticing the kids. Your focus is on, "Well, am I getting the lesson in? Did we cover all the points?" And you're not noticing the kids. "What are they curious about? How can you take what's required by the standards and make it fit the difficulties that we're having with clean water and homelessness and put it together in a way that the kids are engaged and this is something they really want to learn about?"

Matt: Yeah, and your article speaks so well to that. And again, I think it's the perfect article to start at the beginning of the year with your staff as well as your book. Thank you for being an influencer, Regie, and continuing to do this good work and sharing your wisdom.

Regie: And let's have another conversation. It's great talking with you. And it's been nice that we've gotten to know each other first as colleagues. I think I met you at Wisconsin Reading. We might have had lunch together at a table with your teachers. And then we've become friends over the years, and that's been delightful.

And I don't know if people know that you are also now, which I think is fabulous, you work at a bookstore, an independent bookstore.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, one day a week. The dog and I, she brings in the customers, and I try to seal the deal, have them walk out with a book or two. But yeah, it's been fun, and it's just nice to see that side of reading too, and people coming in and just... You get to see all the latest books coming in.

Matt: Yeah, it's barely work, but someone's got to do it.

Regie: Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you. Always a pleasure.

Matt: Likewise, Regie. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this launch episode, host Matt explores the tension between literacy mandates and the messy reality of school leadership and teaching. Drawing from his experience as a principal and systems coach, Matt introduces the concept of "scripts" in education—from literacy curriculum programs to unwritten cultural rules—and examines how they can both support and constrain professional judgment.

Matt shares why he believes educators need to move beyond being "curriculum deliverers" to reclaim their roles as thoughtful professionals who use resources as guides, not gospel. He outlines the four core themes this series will explore: recovering autonomy, identity, humanity, and agency in literacy education.

Whether you're a classroom teacher feeling overwhelmed by mandates or a leader seeking to balance compliance with authentic learning, this episode offers a framework for going "off-script" in healthy, productive ways that put students first.

Perfect for: Teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders who want to restore professional wisdom to their practice while working within existing systems.

Join the conversation: Monthly virtual discussions are free for all listeners, with implementation toolkits available for full subscribers.

Duration: [6 minutes]

Read by Example is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this community, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Official Transcript:

Earlier this month, I along with other coaches and consultants spent two days supporting three district leadership teams. Our goal was to help them develop a strategic improvement plan for the coming school year.

If you've been through this process before, you can imagine the process:

* Assess current reality through a data dig

* Use systems mapping and root cause tools to identify the most important needs

* Select an evidence-based improvement strategy (EBIS) to implement across the organization

It's calming to put together a plan of action. You can see it written out on paper or on a screen. You can imagine the ideal journey that your school will take to achieve the desired results.

And then you begin to imagine all the obstacles that can come up: all the other initiatives currently in place and also asking for your attention; the one teacher team that struggles to hear each other's ideas; the reality of your students arriving and caring little about your agenda as they have their own needs to be met.

Yet even these areas of responsibility can be responsibly addressed with some careful planning.

* Too many initiatives? Create a priority list with your leadership team, and break them down into manageable projects and next actions.

* Teachers not getting along? Ensure staff meetings and professional learning days explicitly teach collaboration skills, using data and not egos to drive conversations.

* Students displaying challenging behaviors? Set up bi-weekly student study meetings with your pupil services team to address these unmet needs with systems of support.

Now we feel even more comforted, more in control.

Having gone down this path for several years as a principal, I can say with confidence that as nice as these plans are, the journey we took as a school never followed these scripts. We have to be adaptive and responsive to the unpredictability of life. That requires a toolbox of skills and resources beyond any plan. As Seth Godin notes, strategic planning has nothing to do with strategy.

And that's what these plans are really, right? Scripts. Actions, settings, and dialogue. They're everywhere in schools when you take a moment to think about it.

* The literacy curriculum programs

* The mandated and banned instructional practices

* The behavior lesson plans for common areas

Some of the scripts aren't written out but are still just as present and powerful. Who you can talk to and trust in a building, and who you cannot. What a school culture celebrates and what is taboo. To veer from the script invites risk: of not belonging, of being ostracized, even when what we want to say aloud supports what's right for each and every child.

I am not entirely against scripts. For example, I often referenced our student handbook when making disciplinary decisions for students. The literacy curriculum resource we purchased and implemented at my last school had lots of culturally relevant texts and authentic tasks. But we used these resources as guides, not gospel. In the end, it was our wisdom, judgment, and sense of professionalism that determined whether we were successful as teachers and leaders.

That's the purpose of this post and future ones within the new series Literacy Unscripted. It's a learning journey to discover how educators like you and me are going off-script in healthy and productive ways. It's an attempt to combat professional erosion to ensure students have access to excellent and engaging learning experiences.

Specific themes I'll be exploring include:

* Recovering a Sense of Autonomy - How do we create the conditions for staff and students to make meaningful decisions on behalf of teaching and learning? What opportunities are there within a scripted literacy experience for authentic choice as readers and writers?

* Recovering a Sense of Identity - If a mandated literacy program does not adequately represent who students are and can be in our classrooms, where else can they see themselves and the world through text? What moves can faculty make within these constraints to truly serve as teachers and not merely curriculum deliverers?

* Recovering a Sense of Humanity - How can we address harmful perspectives perpetuated by insensitive curriculum materials while not stressing ourselves out? How might we leverage our knowledge and position to create life-affirming professional spaces?

* Recovering a Sense of Agency - When we see the disparities created by a scripted literacy experience, what tools and mindsets do we need to empower both ourselves and our students to resist? What oversimplified narratives about our students might we challenge through action research and student-led inquiry around meaningful projects and tasks?

These are questions I will be pondering. I hope you will too, by joining me in this podcast series and learning journey.

Here's how you can participate:

* Join us for monthly virtual conversations around specific topics related to literacy and leadership. (free for all)

* Engage in online professional dialogue through comments and the chat feature. (free for all)

* Download an implementation tool kit that will accompany the video recording of our virtual conversations, to use as resources to support your school's PD plan. (full subscribers)

More information to come. Please reach out with any questions you have.

Take care,

Matt

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Happy Monday! This week’s focus is on being a noticer vs. a judger during classroom visits.

📚 PROFESSIONAL STRATEGY

When informally observing classroom instruction, shift from judging to noticing. Start by acknowledging what you see and hear without evaluation: "I'm noticing..." rather than "This is good/bad..." Naming our observations keeps them at an objective level; noticing activates the brain’s prefrontal cortex which moderates emotional reactivity. We create mental space between what we observe and any premature conclusions we might draw about a teacher’s practice. We can respond then more thoughtfully with our feedback.

From my Choice Literacy article: "Off the Hook: How to Engage with and Reframe Our Obstacles in Order to Reduce Anxiety and Stress”

🌱 PERSONAL TIP

Start small in your observations if classroom visits are new to you. Begin with one aspect of instruction. Share what you noticed with the teacher, followed by a genuine question. This can lead to noticing/sharing two aspects of instruction, and so on. Build on success.

📢 FOR YOUR TEAM & SCHOOL

Today's Quote:

Joke for Announcements: Which month of the year is the shortest? May. It only has three letters. (Source: Reader’s Digest)

Bonus: Check out the Four-Week Instructional Walks Tracker in the printable version of this memo below!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe