Shannon chats with Lindsay Kemeny about her new book titled 7 Mighty Moves: Research-Backed, Classroom-Tested Strategies to Ensure K-3 Reading Success. Both Shannon and Lindsay have classroom experience teaching Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students, so their discussion was filled with details and stories about the best instructional strategies and techniques teachers should use to help their students become fluent readers.
RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE
Shannon chats with Lindsay Kemeny about her new book titled 7 Mighty Moves: Research-Backed, Classroom-Tested Strategies to Ensure K-3 Reading Success. Both Shannon and Lindsay have classroom experience teaching Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students, so their discussion was filled with details and stories about the best instructional strategies and techniques teachers should use to help their students become fluent readers.
RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE
6.5 Best Reading Instruction Moves with Lindsay Kemeny
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Hello. Welcome to the Reading Teacher Lounge. We have a great guest with us today. Her name is Lindsay Kim. Did I say that correctly? Yep. Yes. [00:01:00] And I've, I've noticed her for a while on Twitter and Instagram and in this, you know, science of reading literacy space. And we are just so excited to have us have her with us in the reading teacher's lounge today to talk about her literacy experience.
And then also she just published an amazing new book called seven mighty moves, research backed classroom tested strategies to ensure K to three reading success. So welcome.
Lindsay Kemeny: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I have listened to your podcast for a while. And so it's an honor to be a guest.
Shannon Betts: I think you're going to fit right in because we, we share a lot of the same values and teaching practices.
So for listeners who might not know you, can you tell us about how you trained as a teacher and some of your teaching experience and what you're currently doing?
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, I first started teaching. A long time ago. I'm old. And and I was heavily trained in balance literacy. And I was teaching second grade at first.
And then I took a break to stay home with my [00:02:00] children for a little while. And I went back to teaching. And when I went back to teaching, I was teaching kindergarten and my son was diagnosed with dyslexia that same year. And so that's what caused me to really. pivot. I had to take a hard look at what I was teaching.
You know, took a deep dive into effective literacy instruction, was really angry that I hadn't been taught some of this stuff, and that some of the stuff I had been taught has been debunked by research. And so I just, I Like I just kept learning, learning, learning. And so you're asking about, you know, my background.
So now I have been certified with Orton Gillingham. I, lots of trainings, top 10 tools, reading every book you could imagine. I got my state interventionist endorsement and, certified through the Center for Effective Reading Instruction. So lots of things. I love learning. I've done letters training.
I just like, I can't get enough. I love it. So I've taught [00:03:00] kindergarten, second grade, and first grade. I'm currently teaching first grade. And I am still a teacher. So I, I wrote the book and everything and I, I do professional development. But teaching is where it's at for me. Like that's where I get my joy.
So I love being in the classroom.
Shannon Betts: Yes, well, we have the same classroom experience. I've also taught third grade, but otherwise it was K one and two for me. And I love that the book has so many pictures of your sweet students and you putting the practice, you know, you showing the application of all the suggestions that you make.
Lindsay Kemeny: And that's, what's fun about the book is all those, like, there's not a single stock image. It's all pictures from my classroom and videos from my classroom. So yeah, I love that part of it. It's kind of fun.
Shannon Betts: And so did you start learning about this and trying it with your son and then in your classroom, or did you try the kind of both places at the same
Lindsay Kemeny: time?
Yeah, absolutely. I start like, as I was learning, I was applying things both with my son and in my classroom [00:04:00] and just saw a huge difference. And I feel like before, I mean, I always loved to teach reading. That was always my favorite thing. But I didn't have a lot of clarity for like what to do with, you know.
Like how to create a proficient reader, I guess. I was,
Shannon Betts: I feel like Mary and I've said like we, we could help a decent reader become better. Yeah. How to take someone from zero to
Lindsay Kemeny: reading. Yeah. And that's what now I feel like I have so much clarity into what happens and I'm not just like facilitating reading activities, but I'm actually instructing.
So I, I don't know. It's so different. Yeah.
Shannon Betts: So what, how did this book come about?
Lindsay Kemeny: Oh, well, so back when my son was first diagnosed and then I started this journey, I told you I was like really angry. And so I started a blog because I wanted to share what I was learning and I just became really passionate because I thought.
You know, every teacher [00:05:00] deserves to know this stuff. Every student deserves a teacher to know this stuff. And so I started a blog. I'm not a huge blogger. Like I said, I'm a teacher. I'm a busy mom, but I would write some things and it got attention. Like so a lot of people were sharing it on Twitter. Emily Hanford would share it.
In fact, invited me to come speak with her back in 2019. Oh, wow. When the podcast
Shannon Betts: first came
Lindsay Kemeny: out. Yeah. Well, it was one of hers. I think her first, her first one was at 2017, 2018. That's right. Yes. So anyway so it was 2019, I got to speak with her. And so I think because people are sharing it so much, it, it got attention from people and it just so happens that some people from Scholastic saw my blog and read through it.
So they reached out to me a year ago and said, Hey, would you be interested in writing a book? And I was so scared, I'm still scared. I was just like, oh my gosh, this is my [00:06:00] mission. Like I need to share this. And you know, my son has always encouraged, like he's always said, you are the one with the brave voice mom.
You're the one with the brave voice. Aw. And so like I was thinking about that I need to have a brave voice. So even though it's putting myself out there and open to criticism, it's, I think it, it's important to, to get the word out. So were you writing
Shannon Betts: it for, I mean, I know when I make these podcast episodes, I'm basically writing it.
I'm making them from myself, like 15 years ago and saying stuff to myself, my past self, like, I wish you knew this, you know, who are you
Lindsay Kemeny: writing this to? I haven't thought of it like that, but I love that, but it's definitely to teachers and both teachers brand new to this information brand new. And, and also to teachers who, who know they they've done letters training.
They're learning about science of reading, training science of reading, but. They're like, well, what does it look like in the [00:07:00] classroom? What exactly do I do? How do I, this is the application of it. Yeah. Yeah. So that was my goal.
Shannon Betts: It's the last, it going to let us, it's called seven mightymoves. Can we like really get into it and tell our listeners what the seven moves are?
We're not going to share every secret in the book. They're going to need to get the book, but especially for the pictures and the videos, like that is golden QR code. Yeah, scattered throughout to link to so much of watching what you explain. So, well, let's just start like, what is the first move?
Lindsay Kemeny: Okay.
The first move is intentional phonemic awareness. So honestly, before I didn't even know phonemic awareness was a thing. Like, that's embarrassing, but I didn't, I didn't know. And then I had to do several moves in this area because then once I learned about phonemic awareness and started teaching it, I had to kind of shift again and realize.
You know, we don't need to spend huge amounts of time on oral only [00:08:00] phonemic awareness, we can pare that down and learning that we want to get to the phoneme as quickly as we can. So, you know, if a child is stuck on rhyming and can't rhyme, don't just keep them stuck on rhyming and never get to working on blending and segmenting phone.
Yes. So so yeah, there's just like several I guess moves within this overall. I like that you started
Shannon Betts: it with that because we say, I mean, since season one, because that was my big aha moment. I gave the dibbles like nonsense word and also Phenemic segmenting fluency to my fifth graders who couldn't read and they failed the dibbles test, the kindergarten dibbles test.
And that was my like, Oh, this is why they can't read. Like that was my big aha that they don't have blending and segmenting. And so Anytime I meet a new reading resource student, that's what I immediately assess first, is their phonemic awareness, to see if there's some gaps in those areas, because if they have segmenting, if they struggle with segmenting, they're going to struggle with [00:09:00] spelling, and they struggle with blending, they're going to struggle with You know, reading and then, you know, it's a reciprocal relationship too.
So I appreciate that you said that. I also appreciate in the book that you did, you explained, you gave a more nuanced answer with the, you know, should it be done in the dark or not? And should you always show letters? And I appreciate that because, you said like sometimes like you said in the intervention space, which is what Mary and I've said to is that we might we try to do as much with letters as we can, but sometimes we want to make sure that they truly do have those oral skills and we'll pull the letters away for a second to make sure that they really can orally blended segment and take off sort of a cognitive load of looking at the letter memorizing letter sound to just play with the sounds.
And then we'll put the letter back in the
Lindsay Kemeny: activity. Yeah, I don't think it's so black and white. And so I get kind of frustrated. These people will say these blanket statements. Yes. You know, really arguing and maybe even getting a [00:10:00] little rude sometimes and I'm like, look, there's space and there's a lot of gray area here and yeah, and that's like I share that story of Max in there kind of showing, you know, when it was helpful not to have letters and when it's helpful to have letters.
So,
Shannon Betts: No, I really appreciate that. We had Wiley Blevins on last season and he just said, we just need to have more nuance in the conversation and, you know, in the science of reading community. And so I appreciate that you're bringing that to the table. Yeah. Can you share some of your favorite activities?
And then would you share with the listeners, some of those cute songs she used for letting us, I mean, I won't make you sing but they were so cute. That was part of
Lindsay Kemeny: my favorite part of the chapter. I'm not a singer. Well, let's see. I have, and I didn't make up these songs. And so but I share like the, the lyrics with one, I found the teacher who, who did those and we got to print her name and put it in.
And then the blending song it could never find, like, I know the teacher I learned [00:11:00] it from, but she didn't know who had actually written the song. So we couldn't print the lyrics in the book, but okay, I'll, I'll try to sing it, but I'm not a singer. I'll do the break it down song. The break it down song goes, break it down, break it down, break it down, break it down, break it down.
When I say the words, you'll say the sounds break it down. And so and then I'll give them a word and they will segment it. So it's just like a quick, fun way. The kids get all into it and it's just more fun than saying. Now I'm going to say a word and you'll say the sounds. It's just a fun way. It doesn't take a lot of time.
The kids get singing and then we just practice segmenting. And then I have a song for blending too. It's slide, slide, slippity slide. When I say the sounds, you're going to make them glide. And then I'll go, you know at. And they'll say met. And we'll just do several. So it's just kind of fun way. Blending and segmenting are where it's at.
And it's just a fun way to introduce those
Shannon Betts: and you, [00:12:00] they can't see, cause we're on the zoom screen and we're recording too, but we're recording the audio as well, but you were making little body movements when you were singing those. And so it really lends itself to that kinesthetic piece too, with the multisensory is that they're hearing it, they're seeing it, they're making movements as they're breaking it apart or putting those sounds together.
I
Lindsay Kemeny: love that. And if you want to see the movements, the QR codes are in there, right? It will show videos. Yes.
Shannon Betts: Well, thank you for sharing that. We like going on FCRR as well for phonemic awareness activities because they have so many, even for second and third grade. Cause usually, you know, it seems like kindergarten teachers are really great at those phonemic awareness activities.
And then it seems like the other grade levels think, Oh, we don't ever have to do phonemic awareness again, but
Lindsay Kemeny: yeah. Yeah. And I would add, I love word chaining. And so that's an example of when you're doing phonemic awareness and adding letters. So it's a combination of phonics and phonemic awareness.
And I love doing that. Yeah. Little white board. So [00:13:00] it's really easy to race the letter and then, you know, Yeah.
Shannon Betts: So let's move to move to, so now we've talked about phonemic awareness and now you're breaking into the phonics, but I think it was important that you titled this chapter Teach phonics! But that's not where you stopped at.
You said teach phonics explicitly and systematically. Yes. How do you define explicitly and systematically? And why did you include those words in a
Lindsay Kemeny: move? Well, because before I thought I was teaching phonics and if, and I would have said, Oh, absolutely. I'm teaching phonics. But when I look back at what I was doing, again, it was more like I was facilitating these activities.
So we did things like Word chaining. It was called making words. Right. Or
Shannon Betts: I could tell Pat Cunningham was the book. Which I really like a lot of her things. Like, I like brand name phonics, but you're right. It's like, it was sort of and it's haphazard without a clear scope and sequence.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. That's the key right there is [00:14:00] that you need a scope and sequence to follow.
And really I was so reactive like, Oh, we missed this concept in this book. So I'm going to work on that today. And there was, I wasn't following a scope of skills, right? A scope and sequence of skills. So that was a huge shift was changing and following and just knowing we can't leave things to chance.
And especially I'm teaching first grade now, and I'm going to start at the beginning and we're going to go through all, you know, the basics of the code.
Shannon Betts: Yes. First grade. That was so eyeopening for me the year, the first year I taught first grade, I was like, Oh my gosh, we go through every vowel sound, you know, like by October, November, like really deep into the long vowels.
And that's scary.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. And being explicit and clear about it. It's so funny. I think it was, I was at the Reading League conference last week and I think it was, I was in Louisa Mote's session and she was talking about a program where it was having ED and it was going like, Jump plus [00:15:00] ed, jump, ed, jump, ed, jumped.
And we all just started laughing like, what, what, like, what is that? And so now explicit, we're clearly explaining, Oh, look, the ed suffix, it can spell three different sounds. Here's when they spell them. And Explicit is like direct student friendly directions clear and lots of opportunities for students to practice and participate.
It's not boring. Get up there and just the teacher just lecturing.
Shannon Betts: There was a phrase you used in the chapter I thought it was really cute and it was, we've heard drill and kill before, which is awful and what do you say instead.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, drill it. Well, skill and thrill. It can be skill and thrill. And that comes from Anita Archer.
She's my hero. She wrote the forward of the book. And that's where I first heard that.
Shannon Betts: I love that. Just that it doesn't, especially because even if it might seem boring to us, because we know these skills, [00:16:00] it's not boring to the students because they have an opportunity to feel successful and to do something they know how to do.
It doesn't sound boring.
Lindsay Kemeny: And also why I think it's good to have routines because I mean the students know what to do and now they can focus more on the content and they're successful and happy and it's not boring to them. It's, it's nice that they know the routine of the day and of the lesson and what they're going to do.
I love that.
Shannon Betts: I've, I got that more and more into that every year of my teaching because then I wasn't focusing so much on telling directions. I was teaching content, not directions because they knew the directions every day. Yeah. So what components have you found to be needed in an effective phonics lesson?
What do you include in most of your lessons?
Lindsay Kemeny: Well, uh, so I like to start with a quick review, right? And especially if there's something critical to the, that day's content doing a quick little phonemic awareness of warmup. Introducing that new concept, and they need time to read words and spell words, [00:17:00] right in, in that lesson.
So those are huge. And then always more opportunities for practice. So I kind of give my, like, Typical phonics lesson plan. You know, the order's not set in stone. But then I also say, Ooh, and extended practice. 'cause that's the thing. And I heard Pam Kassner said this great quote where she said, if it's been taught but not mastered, there's probably a practice gap.
Oh. And I really like that. We, we need, you know, some students need a lot more practice than others too. Mm-Hmm. until they're automatic, so.
Shannon Betts: Oh, I like that a lot. Yes.
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Shannon Betts: I was going to say that, especially like I've noticed, especially in terms of the practice gap, guided practice. Like that. We need to do a lot more. The we do turn. It's like sometimes we do, and I think you mentioned that in the chapter, but I've also seen it in my classroom observations in the schools I've worked in where it goes immediately from the teacher does it to the students, do it.
But that guided practice is where that feedback can really come in and you can clear up those misconceptions.
Lindsay Kemeny: So yeah, it. And I love it. So it's that, you know, Anita Archer is the one that coined the terms. I do, we do, you do. And I did a training with her a year ago [00:20:00] and it was like a whole week long training with Anita Archer.
It was so amazing. And she talked about how, you know, it's not. Just I do, we do, you do, and that the order, it might be I do, we do, we do, we do, we do, we do, we do, you do, oh, we do, we do, you do. And then what was really interesting, she had this slide and she had all those we do's written, right? And some were in capitals, capital, capital, capital, and then some were lowercase, lowercase, lowercase.
And she did that intentionally because Within that, we do. So you're talking about like this guided practice. Think about the scaffolding we're providing and then pulling it back. That gradual release of responsibility.
Shannon Betts: Gradually having the students take on more and more ownership of that.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So it's like, oh, remember. We're, you know, we're spelling the word sick. Remember, after a short vowel, what's the spelling? CK. Right. And you're, so you're prompting, [00:21:00] but then you're pulling that back. And then maybe you're just giving them, you know, what the word. Luck this time, and you're not giving them that little verbal prompt to see if they can get that, you know, so I, I just thought that was really, I loved when she told me that because that is just an interesting way to think about it also that we do is that's, you know, pulling back the scaffolding.
Shannon Betts: I wish like it's administrators and teachers. It seems like they can only police sort of the teaching part of it. You know, and like our lesson plans and all of our lesson delivery. But to me, my lessons were always very fluid because I didn't focus so much on the teaching. I was focusing so much on the learning that my gradual release and that like, I do, we do, we do, you do.
It was so like, I was constantly like maybe going back. Oh, let's do a few more guided practice. Okay. Now you're going to do it independently. Nope, let's do a few more. I'll call it spontaneous group or whatever. And so I never really even almost knew what direction it was going to take because I was just paying so close [00:22:00] attention as to how well the students were mastering it and taking ownership of it.
Yeah. So I think it's just like that focus, like focus on the learning instead of the teaching.
Lindsay Kemeny: I love that. That's such a good point. Focus on the learning and not necessarily everything you're doing. Focus on how they're doing. I love that.
Shannon Betts: Well, and when your first few years of teaching, like, you're just like, how do I teach?
You know, you are focused on the teaching, but as I gained experience and the more I could, you know, kind of trust that I knew what I was doing. And I had lots of resources in my file cabinet and always had, you know, a printer that would make copies of my room. So, I mean, I could just spontaneously make copies if I needed to in my room and do an activity if I thought I needed it at the time.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Well, it just shows how important teacher knowledge is, right? And the more knowledge you have, then you kind of know when to go off the script. If you have a scripted program or whatever, you know when you need to pivot.
Shannon Betts: I was lucky though. I kind of had balanced literacy training too, but I never really followed it as [00:23:00] prescribed.
I was lucky enough to follow it. To find Wally Blevins resources, like very early on in my career, like year two or year three. And I love to soap and sequence. That's still the one I follow. And he has in his books, the syllable types and everything. So I've always just layered that in, even when I had to teach Lucy Coggins, I mean, when I had to teach other things, so yeah, I've pretty much only taught phonics explicitly and systematically, but I'm glad that you make it clear that that's how we need to do it.
And even when I did those Pat Cunningham activities, I. To the Wiley Bloodman Scopen sequence.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Good for you. I did not. I wish I could say the same. Yes, but. I don't know any better. At the time.
Shannon Betts: Yes, but you're right. Some of the activities that she suggested, like I do like the one where you know, I like for the vowel teams and stuff.
She just says, is it right? Thanks. That's, I think that's what she calls the activity. But like, if it's the word seed, like you spell it S E E D and S E A D and you see which one is the one that looks right. And I do like that [00:24:00] activity from her, but then guess the covered word we know. Oh, yeah, throw that one away.
Don't ever talk about it again. I know. Yes. So let's move on to move three. I think this one is really important because I don't think we talk about strategies enough.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Decoding strategy. And then what you just said leads into this because I had to completely abandon those three queuing strategies which is the things like, look at the picture.
Does it give you a clue? And the kids are guessing from, from the context or picture to figure out the word, right? So instead What prompts can we use? And I kind of have three main ones. First one, pointing prompt. I just have to point at the word they missed and wait because a lot of them will fix that mistake.
Or I point at the little part that they missed within the word. I use a pencil, you know, so I can point right there. Oh, that was and then they. sO pointing prompt, the first one, just pointing at the word they missed, then I'll give a verbal prompt. So if they don't, if they, you know, read it [00:25:00] wrong or they don't know it, I'll point to the part they, they missed and say, Oh, Oh, you spells out what sound out.
And then we go to the third blending prompt and I have them blend that word. House, house, and then they have it. So I don't need all these other cues and things. I love how Mark Seidenberg said the best cue to a word is the word itself. And that's what we need. They need to keep their eyes on the words and decode it.
Left to right, get in the habit of looking at the word to help them and not like up in the air or up at
Shannon Betts: you or reading your book. I knew how much experience you had because I have said so many times to students is the word of my forehead. Why are you looking at me? Why are you looking at me? You don't know this word.
Look at the book. Point to the word. So I know you've been there with those students where they're looking at you.
Lindsay Kemeny: I know and I know it's like they want to look anywhere else [00:26:00] except the word. Yes, yes. It's the beginning of the year now. So it's just like all over again. I've got to train them because a lot of them don't have, you know, by the way,
Shannon Betts: put a hand, like a visor sort of over there for me there.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. And even they, they just want you to, even if they say it right, they look up at you and they want that verbal. And I just am like, look back down. Did you get it right? Yes, you did. You can look at that word and see, you know,
Shannon Betts: one of the things I do too, I always make the students go back and reread the sentence.
And I'll say something like, Oh, now that you know, this word and all the sounds of this word, can you go back and read the sentence nice and smoothly? And I was just telling my teachers this cause last week I was giving them a training on kind of the new way to do guided reading. And I was telling them in my 21 years of I've never had a student go, I don't want to reread the sentence.
They always are excited to reread that sentence. And then that gives them another opportunity for that fluent reading that orthographic mapping to happen.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [00:27:00]
Shannon Betts: So, do you see any other common errors and poor habits besides that looking up thing?
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, the looking up, guessing, guessing, guessing, huge one.
And then they want to just they want to memorize the book, right? Or even if you go back and reread, sometimes they just want to hurry and say it like, like they've memorized it. And so I have to have them. Use their finger to track for multiple reasons. But one thing is sometimes when they memorize it and they just want to like, you know, rattle off the sentence having saying, Oh, your finger has to match your mouth, slows them down and has, you know, look at those words.
And then they're actually looking at the word and, and reading it. So I like that, but guessing is the biggest, you know, the hardest habit to, to break, I guess. And so. That's, that's the main one I spend my time on and in the, in the so I have a QR code in that chapter where it's, I had put up my phone was recording when I was working with a student [00:28:00] and who, who guessed a lot.
And so I got that on camera. And so I sent that to Scholastic so they could use it and then there were some by, there were some issues with that there's like some background noise and it was a little hard to hear. And so they.
I need to redo that video, but I was like, well, I could try, but I worked on guessing with that student so much and she's not guessing anymore. So I don't know if she'll guess. And they're like, okay, well, can you just try? I was like, okay. And so. I got, you know, I set up my phone and I got a book a little bit harder to see if she would resort to guessing and she didn't.
Oh, wow. You were a very effective teacher. I was like, so proud, but to, you know, to Scholastic, I'm like, well, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, you know, the good news is she's not guessing bad news. You're going to have to stick with that original video because she's not guessing anymore.
Shannon Betts: [00:29:00] That is a good problem to have.
Lindsay Kemeny: It's a good problem. It's because it's hard to break that habit.
Shannon Betts: Another thing I do with the student's fingers sometimes is like, like the other day I was reading with a second grader was a book about Westward Expansion. Actually it was from geodes, which I think is the series that you were excited to buy in your text chapter.
But it was, she, she couldn't read the word tribes. And I've seen this before where they can't recognize the vowel sound when there's suffixes in the word. And so I cover, I used like the pinky because that's the smallest finger and I covered up the S and as soon as I covered up the S she said tribe, and then I uncovered the S and tribes.
I don't know why they can't see that. You know that, it's like they can't see that final E. when there's a suffix on it. Yeah.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. It confuses them.
Shannon Betts: Yeah. So sometimes I'll do that where instead of pointing, sometimes I'll have them use another finger to just sort of cover up a piece of the word or if it's a multi syllable word, send out just the first syllable, the second syllable.
Lindsay Kemeny: I [00:30:00] will cover too. And that's really Helpful for so like I'm beginning the year first grade right now. And so I have a student, Oh, she, she's actually, she's missed so much school. So she is really struggling with that blending. So if you just had a CVC and it's like op and right away, she like flips it pot, or she just says trap.
She says something totally different. And so what I do is cover that the last. Letter and go, ah, and then I have her blend those two together. Ta. Okay.
Shannon Betts: What is that called? Cava? What is that called? Coda?
Lindsay Kemeny: Continuous blending. It's oh, oh yeah. Body coda. Body coda. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Same kind of thing or continuous blending is another way or success blending.
And so that's really helpful to just use your finger to cover part of the word. Kind of like what you were just saying. Mm hmm.
Shannon Betts: Awesome. Well, with those decoding strategies, they need to practice them with decodable text, right? [00:31:00]
Lindsay Kemeny: Yes. Absolutely. I love decodable text.
Shannon Betts: Yes. So which are your favorites or do you have a good, you know, do you have some good curriculum at your school that already includes some decodable text?
Lindsay Kemeny: Oh, I've just I've just. Written grant after grant after grant to get lots of decodables, like I, you can't have too many decodable texts when you're a first grade teacher or a kindergarten teacher. Right. So there's a lot that I like And what I like is having varying, like some of the codables have very high percentage of decodability, and some are lower.
And that's, I don't think we talked about that enough but what I do is I will transition students from high decodable books to lower decodable books before. Then giving up, you know, getting a regular authentic text. So it's kind of a nice way to transition them out of them. So I love Flyleaf Publishing.
Yes. I love those. I just recently got some books from Whole [00:32:00] Phonics. Have you seen those? Those are adorable. And I Don't have enough. So already I'm like, I need to write a donor's choose to get more of those. I have geodes, you mentioned geodes are harder because they're the decodability percentage is less.
There's more. So not all my kids can read those at the beginning of the year, but that's what I like to transition them into after. You know, they're a little more solid. I had the laugh a lot phonics readers from Scholastic. There's like the short vowels, laugh a lot readers. Those are really cute and big, vibrant pictures.
I know there's like a bunch of others that I'm, Oh, half pint kids. And kids are great, especially for kindergarten because there's so many that are at that CVC level. And sometimes a lot of decodables quickly go into harder concepts. So I love Half Pint because they have tons that are at that simple level.
Shannon Betts: That new UFLI reading curriculum that Florida gave they have great decodable stories for each of their [00:33:00] lessons. And then they also have that great Google table where they've aligned their curriculum with all those other series of decodable text, which is useful. I go to that like every week.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yep. I do too.
And those ones are free. So, and those are just passages. So I will like to use those passages that I print out in my whole group. And, but in small group, I prefer to use like a book that they can hold. Yeah. Nice. With, with great pictures, you know, and
Shannon Betts: I know you're like me, cause we probably started teaching in the early two thousands at the same time.
Like that, those books did not exist back then.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, I know. That's why it's so exciting because I, and I tell people if you're turned off by decodables and you're like, I hate decodables, you need to. Go and see what else is out there because there's more and more, you know, there's like a variety. Now there's so many options and they're better.
They're so much better.
Shannon Betts: But do you have some first graders in your room that are pretty fluent readers that you're using to?
Lindsay Kemeny: Yes. So, and like, so a lot of those can use geodes. You know, those are great for [00:34:00] building knowledge and they don't sound like a decodable. They're really, I think they call them readables now because the, ah, I like that.
That's what they're calling them. So I can use those for them. And of course, authentic text too.
Shannon Betts: So you do a lot of read aloud. Do you do shared reading too?
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. So well defined shared reading, but yeah. Yes. I mean we all kinds of codables are not the only thing that they are being exposed to so I do read aloud to them and we discuss and we'll have, you know, our shared readings like a, you know, we're all reading a text together.
So at the beginning of your first grade, it is still kind of decodable that for them, because they really shouldn't be reading complex text until they're not an emergent reader anymore. But. That the, the texts that we're reading all together get harder throughout the year. And so, you know, by January, they're a little more complex and then they're getting more authentic and not decodable.
And that's kind of fun. It's just fun to see, especially first grade, you really see them start [00:35:00] transitioning out of home. The second half of the year.
Shannon Betts: January is so exciting.
Lindsay Kemeny: January, February. It's amazing. So yes, it's not the only thing and it's important to know you do have to transition out of them.
So sometimes I worry that people are overcorrecting and thinking, Oh, science really means we only have decodables now. No, they're like training wheels. Yeah. And once they're And then you have to move out of them.
Shannon Betts: Right. We had Emily Gibbons on last year and she was saying the same thing. She's like, you wouldn't keep your child on training wheels on a bike forever.
Training wheels off.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yes, exactly.
Shannon Betts: It's helpful to think about it in analogy like that. So. All right. Move five. Embrace a better approach to teaching quotation marks, not just sight words.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. So I was taught that a sight word was a word that can't be sounded out. That's what I, I think that's really common.
And you go and look at like the free, the, the fry list or the dulch list. There's so many words on there [00:36:00] completely decodable in it. God, you know, yeah. There's no reason to teach, you know, teach those words differently. And additionally, it's not. The most efficient way to store words by visual memory.
There's a limit to how many words you can memorize as a whole visually. So we don't want to do that. And so we, we do want them to hear the sounds in the word and connect them with those letters that they see in the word.
Shannon Betts: So do you do sound mapping with the students?
So so the way I say
words and how many do you do like a week, like, or is it part of your curriculum since your first grade?
That's, that's really interesting to me.
Lindsay Kemeny: I know. Well, and when I taught kindergarten, that was one thing I was really frustrated by was like some of these, uh, curriculums and some districts who would have them teaching high frequency words at the very beginning of the year. And I'm like, They don't even know their [00:37:00] letters yet.
How does that make random symbols on a flashcard? Yeah, yeah, that makes no sense. And in, in kindergarten, I was very much like, we will not be introducing any of these words for a few months, you know First grade. Yes, I probably do two a week. Maybe I don't I don't like to do too many because we're practicing spelling them.
And so we practice that but we might do, you know, we might do three one week but I try to keep it around there.
Shannon Betts: Okay. And do you. Are they part of your spelling. Like instruction for the week. Are they part of your, so
Lindsay Kemeny: I mean, instruction is really, Oh, do they align with my, so if possible, yes. However it just, it like depends when you need them in certain books.
So if you have, like, I have a curriculum I'm following and then I just need to teach them. So they're not always embedded with the, with the phonics concepts, but I don't teach the ones that are completely [00:38:00] decodable, like in it, right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to,
Shannon Betts: you're mostly teaching them. The ones that have it, or that have the schwa or something.
Lindsay Kemeny: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Shannon Betts: Okay. So then you can, then you only need to teach a few a week. Yeah.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. So and that's what's great is you can take your list and pare it down. Mm hmm. And you're like, oh, there's so many of these. My district says I have to teach these a hundred words. Oh, look how many are completely decodable with just the alphabet.
We'll take those out. You don't need to teach those. And then could you do that when you teach th, you know, you'll have to see if you need it sooner for a story, you might have to teach it sooner. But yeah, so you can kind of reorganize. So how I teach them is it will say the sound, tell me the sounds in of and then we're going to do those lines.
We do sound, I call them sound lines. We just draw lines on our whiteboards and then I'm going to. Say, okay, look, here's the first spelling. I chose of, it's a really hard one because it's [00:39:00] really unusual, but the O is the you know, the F is spelling the V and we talk about that. Oh, also the V, if we turn our voice off, it's, that's the F, you know, so, um, anyways, we point out the irregular part and then we rewrite it again.
So anyways, just the idea that was fast, but if you, if you get the book, it's in there and some videos, but Thank you. It's just you want to think of connecting the sounds and the letter and you want to connect it to meaning too, which is really hard with a word like of we're going to use it in a sentence, but it's a function word.
So that's tricky. But I always say
Shannon Betts: United States of America or the three of hearts.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. But anyways, that's how they'll store it in the memory by. Connecting the sounds with the letters and the meaning
Shannon Betts: I like, I like that you included the meaning part because like I've added that to my steps of sound mapping, you know, where it's like tap it, map it, you know, whatever.
I always add the step, use it because I think [00:40:00] it is so important for them to connect it to that meaning. And that helps you were talking about how many times you have to, a student has to practice. I feel like if you add that, use it step, it lowers the amount of repetition they'll need. Yes.
Lindsay Kemeny: And then another fun thing to do with those irregular words is that like mispronunciation correction.
So, you know, they might we might look at the word what and go at what. Oh, and then they switch it and change it to what you know. And my students would just like had so much, they always have so much fun coming up with those. Like you know, I shared, I think the word friend, and then every time I said the word friend, they would go fry and fry.
And they thought it was so funny and they would remember those, but it would help them spell it.
Shannon Betts: Yeah, you were talking about we nest day for Wednesday. Yep. We nest day.
Lindsay Kemeny: I still do that in my head. How many of us still do that? We totally do.
Shannon Betts: So and together is to get her . .
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. It's fun.
Shannon Betts: I wrote a quote [00:41:00] down from that, from that chapter that I loved so much.
You said when students become such expert memorizers. Their limited ability to decode goes undercover. And I think that's, that was what was happening in those like early kindergarten classes, where they were like, you're going to learn a hundred words, you know, the first two months of kindergarten, but they weren't, then those decoding skills were going undercover and we were asking them to become expert memorizers instead.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. And some of those kids with a weakness in phonemic awareness, this is what they're doing. They're relying on memorizing, memorizing, and some of them are very gifted so they can. Memorize a lot of words and it won't be until they're a little bit older when they realize, Oh my goodness, they can't read.
And I know I was talking to an adult, he actually has dyslexia. And he was like, that's what I did. I memorized words. That's what I did. It was like, they don't realize the connection between the sounds and the letters. And, you know, the a lot of us have those screeners with [00:42:00] nonsense words. And this is why those are so important, because you can have a student that you're the teachers like, oh, they're reading but they couldn't do these nonsense words up.
That's like a red flag. Yes.
Shannon Betts: Maybe they're not as good a reader as you think. Yeah, right. Yeah. So well I think Even though, like, I, I get why you put move one, two, three, four, and five, phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding strategies, decodable text, and then those high frequency words. Those are my first five moves, also, when I meet a struggling reader, but I appreciate that you didn't stop there, because it is so important.
You know, sometimes science of reading is, you know, said, Oh, we're just phonics, but that's not, that's the only just, you know, a little bit of Scarborough's reading rope. So you move on into move six and seven move six being about fluency and move seven being about comprehension and vocabulary. And I think that's so important.
So let's move the conversation there. Okay. When do you decide [00:43:00] when to work on fluency as a focus with your students? Are you doing it all the time? Or is it more like You know, when you're transitioning the students out of those, you know, decodable text.
Lindsay Kemeny: Well, you can be doing fluency all the time because fluency starts at the letter level, and then at the word level, and then at the connected text, you know, level.
So fluency is a combination of accuracy, rate, and prosody. Accuracy and rate. Together that's automaticity and that's what we're working on. So even with the third letter sounds, we want them to be automatic with their letter sounds. So as you're focusing on getting those letter sounds quick and automatic, that is part of the fluency, right?
And then going to the word level, being able to be fluent at the word level and going to the text level. So, so it's not like we have to wait to start working on fluency. You can be doing that all along. And so. [00:44:00] Yeah.
Shannon Betts: And so do you do stuff whole group with the students? Do you do it small group one on one?
Lindsay Kemeny: So one, you know, one of the ways is increasing the opportunities for practice. You can do that in whole group and small group because that's going to bring that automaticity piece. And then, yes, I'm also doing this in In small group there's I have a couple strategies as I'm reading with students that I like to work on.
If students are already automatic and accurate, then we're going to pull in that prosody, which is like the expression and intonation, but it doesn't always I don't always have to wait for example today. I was working with one of my groups, and the word, the book said, can Zack, with a question mark, and. So they're just reading can Zach, Zach can't whatever, but I stopped him and look, see the question mark.
We're going to read this one. Can Zach like a question. That's just a little, you know, and
Shannon Betts: that's a very simple [00:45:00] text, but you're bringing fluency into the conversation.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yep. And we're repeated, repeated readings are you know, yeah. Proven to be very effective for fluency. So we're reading texts multiple times.
I also in the whole group, I have a great partner reading routine that I've been using that I learned from a researcher, Dr. Matt Burns. And I share that it's, it's more appropriate for second grade and up, but I do it. I do a version of it starting in first grade, but I wait, I wait for that until like.
January when we're talking before, when they're a little more ready. For that. So anyways, yeah, I just want to like shift the mindset of thinking we work on fluency later because we're, we're doing the building blocks now.
Shannon Betts: I love that. Especially because like I have learned that, you know rapid automatic letter naming is like a, you know, it, it, it's a good, like almost like indicator if somebody is going to a struggle with reading later if they're not good at rapid automatic letter naming. So [00:46:00] yeah. I do like those fluency suggestions that you have in that fluency chapter. I even more like all the little bitty comprehension activities that you focus on. I feel like chapter move seven, chapter seven is like really a glimpse into your classroom of like all the different kinds of varied things that you do because Sorry, move seven.
I'm going to tell the listeners. Move seven is improve comprehension by developing vocabulary and background knowledge.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, I love this move, too. And I love sharing all those ideas. But really, this is a an error I was making before it was just not realizing how important background knowledge and vocabulary is to comprehension.
But researchers have known that for years. And it's not like we reading comprehension is like the skill where you're like, I have the skill and now it transfers. Oh, I have reading comprehension. It's going to transfer to every text I read now. It's not how it works and the ability to comprehend is so dependent on so many like a [00:47:00] wide range of knowledge and skills.
So I love this quote that It's reading comprehension is the orchestrated product of a set of linguistic and cognitive processes. And I just love that it's an orchestrated product of all these different things and that comes from an article, their castles wrestle a nation it's an excellent article but there's just so many things going on it's multifaceted it's so complex.
And it's
Shannon Betts: hard because we can't just like You know, you know, screwdrive the student's brain and drill it and open it and see what's happening because it is a process that's happening as they're reading and they're constructing meaning from this text and what meaning are they constructing from the text.
And we don't actually measure that meaning until we ask them to answer some comprehensive questions or tell us about the story after they've read and so there's no way to kind of see it as it's happening.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, there's just so much going on there. It's really hard to [00:48:00] assess. So
Shannon Betts: how do we get students?
I'm struggling with this because like, first off, like, how do you just get students better background knowledge that you can't do it? You can't fix that in one day. You have to just sort of, yeah, that is embedded in all of your teaching routines and all of your book choices and curriculum choices and things like that.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yep. It has to, that knowledge has to accumulate over time. So just be thinking about how we can build that knowledge over time, over the course of the. Over the year, right? The time
Shannon Betts: when we have the students. And then do you also teach comprehension strategies? Yes, there is an isolated skills, like,
Lindsay Kemeny: yeah, there's still a place for those strategies.
And I love the reciprocal reading strategies. If you've learned, if you've ever heard of those which is, you know, summarizing, predicting, questioning, visualizing. So those kinds of things, it's just that we don't have to do that forever. Like. So we don't have to focus too much on those strategies and the [00:49:00] research has shown that, you know, I can't remember how many hours of instruction, but it's a lot smaller than what we tend to do.
We tend to just go overboard with that
Shannon Betts: because we need to be, I guess, watching more for the transfer of that strategy and the use of it. And the student being flexible on saying, Oh, I'll use the strategy now, or versus I'll use this strategy. Not just I'll use predicting all the time.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. And and then just thinking about how the vocabulary and the background knowledge.
You know, plays into that. And I share the story of with my son, because I have a son with dyslexia and I worked with him a lot and he wanted to read a book on black holes as part of our, you know, when we're doing intervention together. So I got a book from the library and he was reading it aloud to me.
And. And let me tell you, he was obsessed with black holes. He had listened to podcasts, he had taken a class, he had watched videos, he had read other books. He know, he knew everything about black holes. And I was like, I didn't. And so he was reading that passage and I'm [00:50:00] like, wait, stop, wait, go back, huh?
What? And I. Like there was all
Shannon Betts: you were the one who had the comprehension break.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. I was like event horizon quasars. What is this? I couldn't understand what it was describing. So even though I can decode better than he can, he was comprehending that book better than me. That is a huge example. Yeah, that shows how important background knowledge and vocabulary is.
So that's in my classroom. I have to think about how can I focus on that more? Don't just like No really intentionally teach those vocabulary words. Don't just go, Oh, whoops. We didn't get to it today. You know, like, so,
Shannon Betts: so you were when you as the reader with your son, you were monitoring your own comprehension.
So you were using some strategies recognizing it broke down and then you asked him questions.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah, that's true. I use those strategies.
Shannon Betts: And you, but you, you knew which strategies to use at the time. So yeah, so I see that there's a time and place where we should teach those comprehensive strategies, but we need to [00:51:00] teach them in a flexible application way.
And so I love all your strategies for teaching vocabulary too. You give some great examples, like your vocab. Daily routine in here. Also the oral language that you did. And then the, I love sophisticated class words. I'm using that starting tomorrow.
Lindsay Kemeny: It's so cute. And it's so fun to hear them. Well, and even if you just pick a couple of those words and like, I'm going to start using that.
So I remember being Instead of calling our big books, big books, I call them anthologies. And I remember at first the kids are all, I'm like, okay, get out your anthologies. And they're all like, look, what is she talking about? What's an anthology, you know? Oh, that's the big collection of stories, your anthology, get out your anthology.
And then soon they were using that word, you know, and it's so fun to hear them. So just even picking a couple of those sophisticated words that you could use, you know, that week. And just think about how you know, I love it. You have
Shannon Betts: [00:52:00] accumulate, allocate, all of these could just be, you know, distribute issue, replenish, stockpile, all those, just talking about classroom supplies that yeah,
Lindsay Kemeny: those are great.
We're out of the papers. We need to replenish them. Yeah.
Shannon Betts: And what I think too, is that you could one standard I have such a hard time teaching is shades of meaning. Oh, yeah. Ever give enough time to shades of meaning. And so I think that those would be great opportunities where As you're talking about the synonym, it's not really a direct synonym.
It's more like a different intensity of passing out or allocating or things like, you know, and you can really have like a good discussion with the student about which is, you know, the best word to use in that situation. Yeah. Which is, that's what we want them to be just like flexible with comprehensive strategies.
We want them to be flexible with vocabulary. So I love that. One other thing that I thought was really, really interesting. And I'm saying this because I'm reading a lot about comprehension on my own because we're about to do a bunch [00:53:00] more episodes about it following the episode with you, that's airing.
And what I realized is how important comprehension How, how closely tied text reader context and purpose are. I don't think I realized how much those all went in together with comprehension and so I kind of cringe about the fact that sometimes I just told students to go read. And I didn't really give them a purpose for reading, even if the purpose was just go enjoy the book, like, that's a purpose, and that will inform the level of comprehension they have versus a purpose like.
Go read this chapter well enough so that you can explain it to me. That's a different purpose and I'm going to pay attention to the book differently. So now that I've learned that about comprehension, I'm kind of paying attention to that purpose piece, but I appreciate that you mentioned this in this chapter, because that was something new to me.
I'm, I'm constantly learning all this stuff too.
Lindsay Kemeny: Yeah. Well, we're always learning and there's always more to learn. And, and that's the thing with science too. We talk about the [00:54:00] science of reading. Well, you know, we're going to be.
Shannon Betts: It's know it. It's best to do it today. I'm not saying this is, I will do it tomorrow as I keep learning.
Lindsay Kemeny: Exactly.
Shannon Betts: Well, anything else you want the teachers to know while we have you hear about just really good instruction routines to do.
Lindsay Kemeny: Thank you. Yeah, no, I'll just say that if you, if you get the book, don't skip the conclusion because that's very important to me and to my, I really share, you know, kind of the story of my son a little bit and how he's doing and it's just like, it's my favorite section of the book.
Shannon Betts: I think my favorite section is just the, where you keep doing, stop doing, start doing.
Lindsay Kemeny: Oh yes, so there's a keep, stop, start at the end of each chapter like a quick little. Lerb, I guess. Yeah.
Shannon Betts: Yeah. And I appreciate that. That just, that helped me kind of I guess submit my own learning. Yeah. Well, you're a good fit in the Reading Teacher's Lounge.
I wish you could be here all the time.
Lindsay Kemeny: [00:55:00] It was so fun. I enjoyed the conversation. And
Shannon Betts: where are you? Maybe I can come see your classroom sometime.
Lindsay Kemeny: I'm in Utah. Okay.
Shannon Betts: Oh, that is very far. We're in Georgia. Where are you? We're in Georgia. Yes. If I ever get out your way, I would love to come see your classroom.
Okay. Well, thank you for sharing your time and expertise with everybody here in the Reading Teacher's
Lounge.
Lindsay Kemeny: Thanks for having me.