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This is the Reading Teachers Lounge where listeners can eavesdrop on professional conversations between elementary reading teachers. We are passionate about literacy and strive to find strategies to reach all learners. Shannon and Mary are neighbors who realized that they were “literacy soul sisters” at a dinner in their Atlanta neighborhood. Once they started chatting about reading they haven’t really stopped. Come join the conversation.

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Reading Lessons with Jennifer Serravallo

July 01, 2024 • Shannon Betts and Mary Saghafi • Season 6 • Episode 20

0:00 | 1:03:21

Shannon and Mary chat with Jennifer Serravallo, whose literacy work they have long admired. Jennifer shares how her view about reading instruction have evolved over time. Jennifer's written a new book showing teachers different structured models for responsive teaching called Teaching Reading Across the Day, and she gives us many ideas from us the book about how teachers can apply the art of teaching to set up their literacy blocks to best meet their students' needs.

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6.20 Reading Lessons with Jennifer Serravallo

Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge. Come join the conversation with other curious teachers as they discover teaching strategies and resources to reach all of their learners. I'm Shannon.

Mary Saghafi: And I'm Mary. And together, we bring an honest and experienced point of view to the topics we cover to shed light on best practices.

Whether you're a new teacher seeking guidance, a seasoned pro looking for fresh ideas, or a curious parent, Our community offers something for everyone. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and cozy up in the virtual lounge with us and eavesdrop on our professional conversations.

Shannon Betts: Listen, learn, and immediately add to your bag of teaching tricks.

Find what works for your students with us in the Reading Teachers Lounge.

Mary Saghafi: Hi, welcome to the reading teachers lounge. We're really excited to have a bonus episode to share with y'all today. This is a bonus from season six and we are so excited because we have a special guest. [00:01:00] We have Jennifer Saravallo with us today. She has a new book out and we can't wait to chat about it.

You probably recognize her name cause likely you have A few of her teaching books on her shelves, just as Shannon and I do. So without further ado, I'd love to introduce Jen Saravallo. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do within the world of literacy?

Jennifer Serravallo: Sure. Hi, Mary and Shannon.

Thanks so much for having me today on your podcast. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, so I am, I'm a teacher at heart. I started off my journey as a teacher in New York city public schools, literally packed up my, my U Haul and moved straight to New York after college and knew I wanted to be a teacher from a really young age.

Actually, I remember like designing my classroom. When I was like seven years old, it's like, this is what I wanted to look like. You know what I mean? I've always wanted to be a teacher. So yeah, so I, I moved to the city. I taught in two different New York City public schools. And then I started doing consulting work, [00:02:00] supporting schools, mostly in New York, but also around the country.

And after some time doing that, I started writing books about teaching, and I got really into writing about reading and writing instruction, and those books became very popular, and I got more and more offers to do consulting, and now I actually have a consulting team that helps me support teachers around the country with my books and resources.

Shannon Betts: Like Mary said, we have a lot of the first editions of your books. I call them the target books just because they have those kind of circles, especially like the reading and writing strategies books. And we followed your guidance over the years and we've seen actually a lot of your messaging change as you've journeyed into the research.

And so can you tell us a little bit about that journey and what you've learned and how you're teaching and messaging and consulting may have changed over that time? Yeah.

Jennifer Serravallo: I am at my core. a learner, I've always just gobbled up information. I can't stop reading stuff. I can't stop [00:03:00] listening to podcasts like yours and other, you know, literacy podcasts.

I, I'm constantly listening and trying to get better and get better and get better at what I do. And a lot of what I do in schools is to support teachers at getting better. And I think that's one of the exciting things about our field is you're never really done learning. There's always new research coming out.

There's always. a kid that really makes you rethink how you do things and you want to try and change to be better for them, right? So I find that exciting. My first book I published in 2007, it's a book called Conferring with Readers, and it was the very best advice I had at that time about how to work one on one with students to, to, to drive their reading.

And. Years later, I, I got better. I got better at conferring, I learned new things, I read new research, and I published a book called Teacher's Guide to Reading Conferences. And now, I feel like I've learned more things, even though it's been another five years, and I have this new book, Teaching Reading Across the [00:04:00] Day, which mentions conferring, but it talks mostly about small group instruction and whole class structures.

So I think this is because, again, I'm just always reading research, I'm always listening, and I'm in classrooms, and I'm supporting this consulting team, and we're just constantly responding to feedback, responding to new research, responding to new best practices and new ideas, all with the goal of supporting students and supporting teachers.

You mentioned the Target book, right? So that's what was that? 2015, I wrote the first edition of the Reading Strategies book. I now have the Reading Strategies 2. 0. I chose to call it 2. 0 and not second edition because I felt like it was such an evolved, massively changed version that second edition didn't quite do it justice.

Sometimes people do a little fancying up of a few things and say second edition. This is so so rewritten. So Some of the things I did, for example, was I removed for those of you familiar with the first edition, I have levels. a level range that's [00:05:00] recommended for each strategy. And I realized that wasn't really helping teachers be precise in selecting the right strategy for the learner or the right strategy.

It kind of matches the book maybe, but it didn't really match the learner, which is really the intention. So I changed all of that to be organized. All of the chapters are now organized according to skill progressions so that you can really use the skill progression as an, if then, so if my students reading word by word, then these are the strategies that are going to help them with their phrasing.

If the student is reading indecent phrases, but sounds kind of. flat or without intonation, then these are the strategies that are going to help them with intonation. That's so much more helpful than saying this is good for level J books, right? So that was one example of me being in classrooms with teachers all the time realizing a misunderstanding or a way that they were using it that I, I kept tipping them off to no, no, think about where they are in their journey within this goal.

That's going to be more helpful. And then I thought, Oh, I just need to reorganize the chapter that way. Right. And then [00:06:00] of course, we've got Research. We've got research impacting you know, impacting the kind of advice I give in my books. And probably the most dramatic example of this is the the research around word level reading.

And you know, in particular, Linnea Airey's work around orthographic mapping and really understanding how words become automatic for, for readers, that they have to really match grapheme really be able to decode that word until it becomes an automatic sight word for them. I mean, I'm embarrassed to say, but also I feel like I'm in good company because I feel like a lot of teachers.

Just didn't really know that. That is not, I can remember my, my certification exam in New York State when I became a teacher. I had to evaluate a running record for the certification exam. You know what I mean? It wasn't like this weird thing that people did miscue analysis on running record. This was what everybody did.

It was what I learned in college. It was what was in every book I'd ever read. And it was in [00:07:00] 2015, my best advice was to prompt kids. Think about what makes sense. To help them read the words, and now having really, you know, this, this Linnea Ayer's research isn't brand new, I probably should have known about it, but nobody was talking about it, it wasn't in a lot of the professional books, it wasn't what I was hearing at NCTE or ILA or any of the national, you know, well regarded conferences, and so once I started reading it, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to change this and I actually released the third chapter, the word level reading chapter for the reading strategies book for free.

I just made it available for people because I was like, I, this is a bet. This is better use this instead. Right? And so now, yeah, I've, I've been able to. put some of my older books out of print. It's at my request. You know, don't, don't get that older version. Please use this one instead. This is my newest, latest thinking.

This, this matches the most current research. This is informed by the last, you know, several years or in some cases, decade of [00:08:00] work that I've had in classrooms with teachers and students. This is my best advice right now. And I gotta be honest, in five years, I might have new advice because I'm always learning.

I'm always paying attention to research. I'm always learning from kids. I'm always learning from teachers.

Mary Saghafi: I have to just share that when I listen to you speak this way, it feels so, one, relatable because Shannon and I have sort of been in this bubble as well. However, I think what's so impressive is that your thinking and your way of being able to kind of elegantly state when you know better, you do better.

And being able to like share that information with people. And then also like, really just saying like, Hey, this, this work is better now. So, so go ahead and try this out. That's really what a reflective teacher does. And so you're modeling this at a leadership level. And I think one, that's very impressive, but I think a lot of people could take notes from that.

It's okay to say, I have evolved thinking [00:09:00] or because we are expecting and anticipating that our students are also going to have evolved thinking. That's why they are students. We're raising up the next generation. So I think it's just, it's really elegant the way that you say it. And also, you know, take heart that it's not an easy road.

However, just keep learning. That's what, what it's all about. Lifelong learners are who we're trying to grow. We are lifelong learners as well. And we shouldn't forget that or get stuck in our ways. So,

Jennifer Serravallo: Thank you for saying that, Mary. Yeah, I mean, I, I've got to be honest, like sometimes there are certain people who want to I'm just going to say bash.

I don't know another, another verb to use, but oh, she's changed. So she, why would we trust her now? Because she didn't know this before. She should have known this already, right? There is this way that, that there's I don't know, there's kind of this, this bully mentality out there that some people. I feel like is the way to get people to be on your side.

And I just think that shows a misunderstanding of [00:10:00] teaching and learning. It shows a misunderstanding of the profession. I mean, it's often not teachers that say these kinds of things. But I think it's really important to model this because we're in a, we're in a big shift. We're in a moment of change right now.

There's a lot of states adopting new core programs. There's states that have new legislation. They're being asked to change. And I think the worst thing you can do when you're trying to get people to change is to say you're, you are wrong. We don't trust you anymore. Or if you didn't know this before, we're just going to dismiss everything you say now.

Like you have, I love I'm just listening to his podcast this morning, Adam Grant. Do you know his book Think Again? Yeah. I just think his message is so perfect for this moment and, and for, for teaching and learning generally. I gotta get him on my podcast. He just talks about how important it is to rethink.

And that is, that is critical element of a reflective, responsive continuously learning educator, and that is the spirit I think we all need to have in this profession.

Shannon Betts: I [00:11:00] agree with what Mary said, and your stance on this is just really refreshingly positive. Like, you, I mean, as you were telling your story, You were smiling and you weren't like kind of coated in these like shame and blame kind of clouds that some of us myself included when I've kind of talked about like sort of my not as effective practices in the past, you know, but you're just you're modeling in a way of just like, look, I had good intentions back then.

It's not like I was trying to mislead you. That was the best advice at the time. And now I've read the research even more, and this is, this is more effective advice. And I do think it's also really powerful that you have let some of your books go out of print. You gave away that chapter three for free, like you're being very transparent and open and We're, we're not some of the ones bashing you, I promise.

We admire, we admire your stance on this a lot.

Jennifer Serravallo: So thank you. I appreciate that. And I think the large [00:12:00] majority of teachers also feel that, you know, yes, it would be lovely if I knew today, I knew five years ago what I know today, but that's never how learning works because learning by definition is, is coming to new understandings and new ideas.

So we all just have to make room for that and make space for that and not for nothing, but. You know, there's more than a thousand new educational studies published each year. I think that they would be not published if they didn't tell it, teach us something new. So we've got to be aware of the research and be willing to shift and change.

And we're in a moment now where we're changing, but we probably will change again. And I hope I can continue to be a leader. in taking that research and making it feel accessible and doable for the classroom, because I think that's, that's one of the things I'm good. I'm good at synthesizing and I'm good at application, right?

So that is a role that I take very seriously and I take a lot of responsibility for it. And so again, when there is new research to apply, I, I read it, I try to understand it. I practice things in classrooms, and then I share what [00:13:00] I've learned.

Shannon Betts: Let's speak about the research for a second, because like, when I was reading your newest book, I mean, when I got to the reference section, you know, I just kept paging and paging and paging and paging.

You read so many studies directly. We appreciate you doing that work so that we don't have to do it all. You synthesized it and summarized it for us. But what if a teacher wanted to read some of that? Directly, like, what would you suggest? Where would they start?

Jennifer Serravallo: I mean, I have all the articles in Google folders, so you could ask me.

Okay, no! We might, after we stop recording! I might just share my whole folder with you, but but no, seriously though, it is tricky because a lot of this stuff is paywalled. Actually, I'm not sure I should have even offered to share it. Maybe that's not legal, but it is behind paywalls, which is wrong.

And a lot of people are, are trying to change that. There are definitely professional organizations and certain journals that are trying to make it possible for teachers or anyone that's [00:14:00] interested to read this research firsthand, especially research that's funded by like. Our government tax dollars, like anything that's funded by IAS, like it should be free.

Shannon Betts: Because we've already paid for it. Yeah, we've already

Jennifer Serravallo: paid for it. Exactly. Like it's wrong that it's behind a paywall. You know, generally, if there's a particular article, and it's not too arduous to email the author, authors of the articles are usually very willing to share. Sometimes your public library has subscriptions to some of the research databases.

Personally, in order to get access myself, I hired a research assistant, somebody with access. So that they were able to search and find and I'd read an article and I'd say, Oh, they cite this other one. Can you go get that one for me? Right. And then they'd go get that one. And then, you know it was like a domino journey where that's really one article to the next.

Okay. Exactly. Cause most articles start with sort of a lit review. Other things published on this topic in the field so far, then they get into their method section of here's what we [00:15:00] did in our study. Here's how it went. Here's our conclusions and our results, right? That's usually how they go. So I would, in reading the introduction or the beginning of the article of the lit review, I'd be like, Oh, that one sounds interesting.

Oh, that one too. And then so I'd send my research assistant a list of other articles, I'd get those and I'd read, you know, and so on. So so yeah, for, for the everyday teacher. Library or email the studies author, but that's kind of clunky sometimes. There is this like dark website that is what is it called?

What, for literacy nerds? I love this. No, it's for all research. Have you not heard about this? No. I'll send you a link after we're done recording to this really like deep dive journalism on this particular site. It's called sci. hub, S C I dot H U B. And it was started by these like rogue people who were like, science should not be paywalled.

So it's not just educational science, it's everything.

Mary Saghafi: And

Jennifer Serravallo: so they, I think it's someone working out of Russia actually, so created like [00:16:00] this massive database of all the articles out there that existed, but they got shut down about two years ago, or they're, they're, they're in court right now kind of battling over it.

So you can basically get stuff two, two years old and older, but you can't get most current research through this particular site. So, I know it's like the dark secret

Shannon Betts: info. That's awesome.

Jennifer Serravallo: So that's another way you can kind of work. Okay, sometimes Google Scholar. This interview is getting more and more

Mary Saghafi: interesting.

Jennifer Serravallo: I didn't expect you to talk about this with me today. That's okay. We have lots

Shannon Betts: of lawyers in our family

Jennifer Serravallo: if

Shannon Betts: Well, let's talk about one other thing about research, because like, especially woven through this latest book, you, you weave the active view of reading in every single section. So why is that like the model that really resonates with you?

Why is that sort of the centerpiece? And we agree with you. We love Nell Duke's. Active view of breeding.

Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. So I mentioned a bunch of other [00:17:00] ones like the deer model, DIR for thinking about comprehension or the simple view or Scarborough's rope. They're all like really helpful models. I personally love the active view because of the inclusion of the executive functioning skills.

And the way that they position strategies as undergirding everything, so those who aren't familiar, the first bubble with arrows leading into the word recognition and the reading comprehension or the language comprehension section, um, It shows that those things are foundational, like if you don't have engagement, you don't have motivation, kids aren't active in their reading, and that's the description or the definition of strategies, that they're actively participating in their reading experience.

They're trying to make meaning, they're trying to decode the word, they're trying to be fluent. Without that, it's hard to get, gain a lot of ground anywhere else. I also think the overlapping area, that purple area in the middle of Where, where you're seeing things like fluency, which by [00:18:00] the way, isn't included in a lot of the other models.

That's a critical contribution as well. I love Nell Duke. I love Kelly Cartwright and Kelly Cartwright's book, Executive Functioning and Reading Comprehension, I think should be required reading for everyone. Oh, it's

Shannon Betts: one of Mary's favorite

Jennifer Serravallo: books. I love it. I love it. And I think that it explains, I think the reason I love it and people that work with kids love it.

is because you have kids like this every year. You have kids who are like, you can decode the words, when I'm reading to you, you understand it. What's going on with your independent reading comprehension? What, what, what explains the challenges? Or I think, I don't have any data to back this up, but I feel like It's so common now for kids to have ADHD or to have some attentional challenges or to just have executive functioning challenges coming out of the pandemic, maybe, maybe it's the, you know, the prevalence of screens and the kind of dopamine fix that kids are getting from it.

You know, the apps and the, you know, I don't know what it is, but I just feel like there's [00:19:00] more and more kids that have difficulty sitting still focusing, sustaining, sustaining comprehension and managing the various thoughts going on in their head. I just feel like Kelly Cartwright's research. It's just so important and it's current and it's, it's not something that was around even in the time of Scarborough's Rope, which is a really important model to know about as well, but that research is newer.

So I just think that, I just think it's comprehensive, I think it's current, and I think it, it just makes a lot of sense to people who have understood and have worked with kids with a variety of different reading challenges and reading needs.

Mary Saghafi: I totally agree. And I think that it makes clear, you know, we say this huge umbrella term of executive functioning and everyone understands that.

What it means. But as an adult, there are so many processes that are broken down you know, just to get from point a to point B, we it's subconscious. All of these are subconscious. So throughout season six, we've really been saying like, make the [00:20:00] invisible visible to these kids. And that's sort of what I really gathered from Kelly Cartwright's book is that, You know, you have to be so explicit in how you're sharing the information and what is your own thinking process and being able to break down your own thinking process is a challenge.

It requires a lot of practice and preparation and I think more than anything you need to watch other people do it and watch their language as they share it with kids and watch to see is it resonating with kids. Oh, I'm supposed to be imagining what the character looks like. Oh, I can mouth what that character is saying.

And you know that they're really comprehending when they're doing some of these actions that you can kind of see, but oftentimes they're invisible. And so, you know, not only that, you know, that it's motivating for them. So sometimes the invisible is what is your motivation? What is [00:21:00] the why? So yeah, I could talk about Kelly's book.

All day long. But I agree, and I do think that it is so critical in understanding reading, especially for those students when you say, well, they know how to decode, so what's going on? They're just being lazy. Nope, we need to take that away because it is not typical for a kid to be quote unquote lazy. I

Jennifer Serravallo: totally agree.

Pretty much never laziness. If it comes out of your mouth, you

Mary Saghafi: should be thinking, huh. There must be, this must be a me issue rather than a kid issue. Not to say that kids are going, not going to be frustrated and you're not going to be frustrated with them or that their actions are doing something to distract away from what, you know, you want them to do.

But the intrinsic reason is usually not laziness. So no,

Jennifer Serravallo: I think it's always, I totally agree with you. Kids want to learn. They want to get better. They want to be [00:22:00] smart. They, if they're not doing the work, there is a reason why it could be anything from anxiety, like being, like being afraid of being wrong in front of their peers.

It could be malnutrition. It could be exhaustion. They didn't sleep well. It could be utter frustration at the task to the point where they're shutting down. But I, I don't believe there's such a thing as laziness. At all. I think we,

Shannon Betts: alright. Well let's get into the heart of the book, which is those lesson structures.

And I'm just so curious, like how did you land on sort of that. organization. It's, it's fascinating. I've never really thought about classifying my lessons as each kind of different type. So just will you give sort of like an overview and purpose of those structures and sort of an understanding of why you set it up that way?

Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. So the book has one chapter on basically what [00:23:00] is reading and I use the, you know, the active view to kind of talk through what are all the different elements and aspects of reading. One chapter on What is explicit engaging instruction, right? What are the, what are the elements of any kind of lesson that you're going to use?

What are the elements of an explicit engaging lesson? And then some tips within that of different ways to scaffold and things like giving feedback and prompting and things that kind of apply to everything. And then I get into nine different chapters, each about one different lesson structure. These are honestly the only lessons I ever teach.

These are the only kind of ways that my lessons go. And I think it's probably no surprise to anyone that's ever read one of my books that I really love structure. Structure is comforting to me. Like all of my books are very well organized, very well structured. You find what you're looking for. You know how to go from part to part.

And I think I teach that way too. I have a structure that I use to help me simplify and streamline my planning. My structure while I'm teaching helps me pace my [00:24:00] lessons. And it allows me the freedom and flexibility within that structure to innovate, to be responsive, which is so, so critical in making sure a lesson is effective.

So these lesson structures, some of them are things probably people. know very well, like a read aloud lesson, like who doesn't read aloud to their kids, right? But I have a very particular way that my reading read aloud lessons go, how to incorporate, you know, both reading, you know, skill and strategy goals, as well as content, knowledge, vocabulary goals, and to each one, the kinds of ways that I prompt kids to interact the kinds of ways that I model my thinking during a read aloud lesson.

So there's very, specific kind of moves that I use within this overall structure and a way that I use this structure to pace myself. So even people that use read aloud already, hopefully we'll get some new tips on how to make their read alouds even more effective. So they're all kind of like this, like Phonics and spelling lessons.

Yes, we've all done phonics and spelling lessons. I have created a way to make the lesson [00:25:00] go that I'm making sure that I'm both focusing on encoding and decoding, that I'm reviewing prior material and teaching new material, that a good chunk of the lesson is spent in texts or helping kids with connected text writing.

So like dictated sentences. So it's got these research based elements to it and it flows really well and it's not going to take up your whole day. I write about vocabulary lessons. This one's maybe going to be new to people, but how to take the research about how we learn best through not just individual words by themselves, but we have to create connections.

In our brain, and those can be semantic connections, they can be meaning based connections, they can be morphological connections, this word's kind of got the same root as this word and therefore the meanings are kind of similar, but we've got to help kids to connect the new word to known words and to help them create networks of words.

So this is a short, you know, 10 minute lesson where you revisit words that they've learned in other contexts. Maybe during a read aloud, maybe during a science lesson, [00:26:00] and really dive deep and help them form connections.

Mary Saghafi: I'll share with you really quickly with your vocabulary. I had a private tutoring student yesterday and I used your vocabulary lesson structure to, to use the, to teach the word disingenuous.

And so I had previously on the podcast. You must have used

Shannon Betts: the poem too, right?

Mary Saghafi: I did use the poem as well. So we have a book called Colossal Words for kids. And we had the author on previously this season. She's fantastic. And my kids in tutoring practice have really enjoyed it. But I think that the shift from my mind to be so intentional about teaching vocabulary, even to my private tutoring students, who, you know, Most of the time I'm working on really structured phonics lessons, but I can still move and do these moves within the lesson to continue to teach morphology and, and even still saying like, Oh, I hear a schwa sound.

Where do you see the schwa sound in this? And going through. [00:27:00] So anyway, I just, I have to commend you because it helped me shift even just a piece of my lesson by using a more of a structured. Lesson, and not only that, it's, it's something that you're already doing, but now you can kind of like confirm that you're doing it.

So, so did I teach vocabulary? Yes. But do I know that I taught it, you know, in a systematic and more explicit way? Yeah, I can check that off the list. So that's, that was something I wanted to commend you for.

Jennifer Serravallo: Awesome. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think because our language, English language is morphophonemic, it's important that we don't just think of phonics as just sounding out and knowing letter sound correspondences, but we've got to incorporate knowledge of morphology.

I mean, Freddie Hebert's got a great new book on vocabulary about this. This, this chapter also stands on the shoulders of Tanya Wright's research. Of course, Bringing Words to Life by Beck and McCowan, not a new book, but right. So all I've read all these books and I've also read the research and I'm like, how can I make this [00:28:00] feel really doable?

So I'm so glad to hear you're able to just like read the chapter and use it right away. That's awesome. So other chapters, I've got a chapter on what I call focus lessons, which might be anything from a small group strategy lesson. So pulling kids together, focused on a particular, like a skill based need.

I mentioned fluency before, so like this is a group of kids that are working on reading with more expression. I'm going to teach you a strategy for how to do that, like paying attention to punctuation, or thinking about how the character's feeling, or you could also do these whole class, you could also do these one on one but really drilling down in a particular strategy that's going to be high impact.

There's a chapter on shared reading lessons. Again, hopefully people have used shared reading as relying on the research around echo reading, choral reading. And I have a really helpful lesson structure of how do I plan for this, what are the ways that I'm responsive to kids in the moment and what are the kinds of skills that I'm, I'm, you know, best equipped to focus on based on this kind of lesson structure.

Close reading. I have a chapter on close reading lessons, which [00:29:00] I think what's happening right now is a lot of schools are moving toward more time spent in grade level texts. without, you know, I think the idea of, you know, a lot of independent reading time where kids are in level texts or texts that are kind of just right for them, that's becoming a little more, more out of favor.

I think there's a lot more instruction around how do I handle a grade level text. And this is based on some compelling research that shows that we've got to give kids regular access to grade level text if we want them to grow, if they're always in texts that are You know, at their quote unquote level or just right for them.

They're never going to experience what these harder texts are and we're limiting them vocabulary syntactically, you know that themes and ideas that are in these higher level texts, we've got to help them with that. So close reading lessons are one structure that helps you do this. So I advise people, you know, if you have a new core reading program and there's a text in there that your kids are supposed to read independently, but you know, they will not be able to read, maybe choose a close reading structure or [00:30:00] a text that you want kids to really be able to look at, read and reread, maybe annotate as they read, maybe close, you know, choose a close reading structure.

And close reading is not new. It's something that I think became really popular in 2012 or thereabouts with the Common Core Standards being released and the discussion of close reading. But the idea of being a lesson structure, like here's how you actually do it, here's what it actually looks like in practice.

I just didn't see a lot of that written about, so I wanted to include a whole chapter on that. One chapter on guided inquiry lessons, so helping kids to, you know, they can inquire about a lot of different things. They can inquire about. Themselves in their own work, and this relies on the Orleans on the research around the importance of goal setting.

And reflecting on my own work how am I doing as compared to what the expectation is? What do I need to do to improve? How am I going to get there? These conversations are really critical, and so guided inquiry is a lesson structure you can use to do that kind of goal setting and self reflection work.

Shannon Betts: Can

Jennifer Serravallo: I

Shannon Betts: interrupt real [00:31:00] quick? Like, how does that fit in with like that explicit instructional model? Because, like, I grew up, I was trained in constructivism, and then, like, I've had to, like, kind of unlearn some of those things, but you're saying there is a place for some inquiry. Yeah. It just needs to be guided.

Jennifer Serravallo: I, yeah, I think that's the distinction. It's not like, so. What do you notice? Right? And like super, super, super, super open ended and you'll just accept whatever the kids say. Like, actually, I don't think anyone that writes about inquiry actually thinks that that's a valuable use of time. That's just like, what do you see?

You know, like, what we need to do instead is guide them and have some sense of where do I want them to go? So, for example, with the example I just gave with goal setting, it's not like the teacher is just like, Open up all the notebooks you have in your desk and look across them and say, what do I want to get better at as a reader?

Like, that's not really going to drive them toward a goal that's the most effective. Because what kids will say is, I want [00:32:00] to read more. I want to read harder books. They're just going to, you know, guess at what you think you want them to say. Instead, the teacher ideally will have done some assessment ahead of time.

So maybe you've, you know, read a lot of texts to the kids and asked them to stop and jot. And during those stop and jots, intentionally ask them to jot about theme, and character inference, and summary, and right, and so you say, bring those jots and let's have a discussion about what felt easier to you, what felt more challenging, and what do you think would be helpful, what do you think would be most helpful to work on going forward so that you're more confident answering questions like these, like that's a very different kind of inquiry, where you're putting it in this child's shoes to do that reflection, to do that thinking, but the teacher knows these questions.

What the right answer is. The teacher knows where the child's, and, and if the child's like, I don't know, I think they're all good. Then the teacher's ready with a skill progression and saying, okay, well, when you're answering questions like these, like this is the range of kinds of responses you might have, you [00:33:00] know, some people when they're asked about a big idea in a story, just say like one word.

Other people say a sentence. Other people tend to, like, where do you think yours falls on the skill progression? That kind of guidance helps kids to really refine their reflection and be articulate about what do I need to work toward and have a clear vision for what it looks like to improving to get better.

So that feels very different to me than just saying, and I think there's an explicitness in that right there's an explicitness and a clarity or clarifying for kids, and you're not leaving you know part of the. You know, the mantra of explicit instruction advocates is you're leaving nothing to chance, right?

When you're being explicit. And I think when you have skill progressions to guide evaluation, when you know where you want to lead them to, you're being very clear, right? And you're not leaving it to chance versus just what do you want to work on as a reader. Right.

Mary Saghafi: I think it's so critical to have these discussions about what does it look like in the classroom.

So when you have this, I think that a lot of times [00:34:00] adults, you know, we can conceptualize and then we're like, okay, yep. Got that. Check the box. But then when it comes to being put on the spot, having the language to really help know and guide students through that you get a little uncomfortable or it feels like you have too many things to do.

So I think that this conversation that we're having about, you know, what does it really look like? What happens if a student doesn't know how to set a goal with this? And, and knowing to say, Oh, let's start at the sentence and word level. And then like, let's work out. I think that that is the critical piece that this book is sharing, especially for new teachers, because I remember being a new teacher thinking like, wow, there's a lot of things that I am responsible for in the classroom.

And okay. Got it. Yep. That's in my. pocket. Got it. But you don't really have your bag of tricks yet. And I feel like this is a good example of making the invisible more visible when we talk about what it looks like. So I think that what I really [00:35:00] noticed within your book is that you're sharing a lot of the executive functioning that the teacher needs to do in the classroom.

Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah, so a few ways I tried to do that was on every, every chapter has a repeated structure. I love structure. And in each chapter, one of the elements is a section that's about responsive teaching. And I set it up like an if then chart. So, you know, these are the predictable things that are going to happen during a guided inquiry lesson.

Kids are going to be really vague. They're going to be open ended. They're not going to, they're going to say, I don't know. They're going to do this. They're going to do that. And then I give the teachers, here's what you say back, or here's what you do in response to that to try to continue to guide them.

Another thing I did in this another repeated structure is I have lesson plans that I've annotated that go with video examples that are me teaching in real classrooms. And I didn't edit these videos. I mean, they're edited because they're two cameras, we had to merge the cameras together, but they're not, I didn't cut out like five minutes of a lesson to make it look shorter.

I didn't [00:36:00] go back and do a second take on anything. I didn't do that kind of stuff. These are real, like start to finish, this is how it went in the classroom. And sometimes I deviated from the plan. So in the annotation, I explained why I did that. Sometimes something didn't go very well. So in the annotation, I explained, here's what I would do next time in response to what just happened in this moment.

Sometimes I plan to do it as a turn and talk, but the kids just sort of called out their answers and I rolled with it. And in the annotation, I say, here's why I decided to let that go. Right. So I think these, I hope that these real life examples of me responding, me deviating from a plan, me listening and being an active participant in these lessons gives people more examples, more, you know, it helps them to envision the kinds of likely scenarios that are going to happen in their own classrooms.

Mary Saghafi: I think that not only is it an important for new teachers, but also for administrators. You know, when you are setting [00:37:00] expectations for your teachers, you need to be really clear about what the expectation is. And I think sharing and modeling, just like we do with writing and using an exemplar is really what you've provided for, for teachers in this light.

And so I think that it, it again, gives a structure for an administrator to say, Hey, look how this lesson deviated, but we still stayed on track. Or look how, look what her you know, responses back are. I can see clearly in this lesson where she was going. So I think that this is such a unique tool that can be used so many, Teachers in general.

So not only if you are you know, a strong teacher who has already been practicing and you want to just kind of level up your practice to match most current practices, but also for administrators. And I want to like shout that because I feel like that's where teacher frustration is really high from what we hear from other teachers is like, I'm asking for help, but [00:38:00] I don't know what the expectation is.

Or the administrator says they're just not doing it. And I don't have time to teach them or whatever the fill in the blanket is. I doubt that it's really that hard and harsh, but I think that it. It feels hard and harsh when you have someone coming into your classroom monitoring what you're doing in your profession, and you feel insecure about it in any way.

And so it feels really, you get defensive, and I hear that language a lot from teachers, that they, they get defensive. So I just wanted to kind of throw that plug in, because we do have some administrators who listen to the podcast, and I want to share that in the light of, in light of this.

Shannon Betts: Yeah, Mary, not only are those administrators walking in the classroom and sort of immediately looking for, you know, things to correct, but they're also, as they're walking in the classroom, they're picking up the lesson plans from the folder outside the door, and they're just watching it.

I mean, they're just flipping from page to page to see if you have deviated from it at all. [00:39:00] And The more experience I got as a teacher, the more I deviated from my lesson plans every single time. And so I love, I've never used the word responsiveness before, but I'm like, that's what I am. I'm a responsive teacher.

I mean, there were times when I would literally like scrap a lesson, go to my computer, print out new activities and like start from scratch in the moment if they were not getting it the way I was messaging it at first. And so I appreciate. That you explain that balance between planning and responsiveness, and that it's expected of a crafty teacher, an experienced teacher.

But then also, the way you annotate those lesson plans, again, adds so much authenticity to your book, because you're, you're walking your talk. I mean, you know, you're giving these ideas, but then you're also saying, okay, you know what, but it could still be done differently, you know, and so I just, I appreciate that.

That was a very powerful, you could have had the book without those [00:40:00] videos, but it's just so much more powerful to have that many videos, especially because you, in all of them for all the lesson structures, I noticed you included an upper grade and a lower grade example, and not everybody does that because a comprehension lesson is going to go very differently.

for a first grade classroom to a fourth grade classroom. And I appreciate that you show that difference.

Jennifer Serravallo: Thank you. Yeah, I tried to show upper grade, lower grade, and science, social studies, and ELA between the lesson videos and then the vignette that starts off the chapter. So people have an, I can see like this works in science, it works in social studies, it works in ELA.

It works with first graders. It works with sixth graders. It just, there's elements that are the same no matter who you're, you know, the age of your student or the subject you're teaching, but there's also tweaks you need to make or ways that you, you know, the language feels a little different or the pacing feels a little different based on the student.

So. I actually think I, I conceptualized this book from the beginning as leaning [00:41:00] very heavily on video. And I think I did that because as a teacher myself, especially like as a new teacher, I remember reading professional books like this. And it just sounded really good. And then I went in my classroom and I tried it.

I was like, why is it not working? Like it says in the book, right? And it wasn't until I had coaches in my classroom modeling for me with my kids. It was like, Oh, this will look like that. And this was, this is, you know, back before there were really video examples out there available. But now I think that we, because we have this technology, a QR code, you scan it, you could watch the video right there as you're in the midst of the reading the chapter that this, this multimodal.

format of professional books, I think is critical. So I'm showing you and I'm telling you it's both. And Oh, you're recording. That's okay. I'm, I'm showing you and I'm telling you both. And and, and I'm, yeah, I hopefully making it real for you because I, I actually do. I would tell you about the, the, we did the, all the videos in two days, [00:42:00] in two class, in two schools.

So that's intense. Wow. It was very, if you've ever videoed in schools before, you know, that it takes time to set up the cameras and the microphones and the moving from classroom to class. I mean, I was in first grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade science room. Like we were moving down the hall or in a room, go, go, go, go, go.

And I told this camera crew that I worked with was brand new to working with me. And I said, it's going to be fast. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just make sure you can hear the kids and you can hear me try to keep the camera on me. And we're just going to, we're going to do everything in one take. And they thought I was nuts because they're used to doing like, you know, Pepsi commercials where they do a million takes and get everything perfect.

And I was like, no, no, no. We are, we, this is like gorilla. Video recording right now, and I said I want it this way because it's got to be real because teachers have a BS detector They will know if this is not real They will know if I've done five takes to get it perfect and people appreciate [00:43:00] the announcements interrupting me They appreciate the kid picking their nose.

They appreciate that. You know that like I ask a question and nobody responds I want to see into those questions that are coming, and there's just dead air. What do I do? We've all been there. Yeah, we've all been there. And there's, I kept all that in because I wanted people to see, like, what do I do? When I ask a question and the kids give me blank stares, what do I do?

Because you've got, those are the kinds of moments, those are the kinds of things you've got to be ready for and you've got to have something to say that gets them talking. In that particular case, It was, you could say, I don't know, but maybe. If you're not really sure. You could take a risk. And sure enough, that prompt got someone.

You added a

Shannon Betts: scaffold right in the moment. I added a scaffold and

Jennifer Serravallo: a prompt that made, like, I was reading the room and I was realizing they're afraid of taking a risk. They don't want to be wrong. I mean, plus the kids too, there's like multiple cameras on them. So it's like super high risk, you know, but I gave them permission to make a mistake and to take a risk.

And sure enough, they started talking. [00:44:00] So. You know, I think it's, I, yeah, like I said, I think it's just important for teachers to see examples that are real like that. So they have the language and they have the moves that they can use themselves in their own classrooms.

Shannon Betts: But also powerful to have the videos and then to have your annotation as well, because like I just changed schools.

And so I went through all my old files. I did that every year, you know, every time I moved schools and I found like all my college papers and things and the observations that I did pre service, I was always remarking what the students were doing. Does that make, you know, this kid got up and walked around the room.

This kid went and sharpened the pencil. This kid blurted it out. And I remember my first year's teaching when I would go back and look at those. I'm like, man, I wish I had written down what the teacher did in response because then I started, you know, as a first year teacher, I'm like, what do I do when a kid does that?

You know?

Jennifer Serravallo: And so

Shannon Betts: I think your annotations bring that focus back to the teacher, you know, and say, look, okay. With that dead air. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How did she [00:45:00] respond? And then that puts you in that place and go, Okay, well how can I respond next time when I have the dead air? Or just for that, for an example.

Jennifer Serravallo: I actually think that's pretty sophisticated that as a pre service teacher you were looking at the kids because I think what most people's inclination is to look, just kind of follow the procedure of the lesson.

The teacher did this and the teacher did this and the teacher did this. So I think the fact that you were already kind of trained on the kids is kind of interesting.

Shannon Betts: Well, I mean, that is definitely, I guess that is why I'm a responsive teacher now. But when I was a brand new first year teacher and didn't know how to be responsive, I was deer in headlights.

Anyway, there was one moment when our principal had to like come and take over my class because I was crying in the

Jennifer Serravallo: hallway. We have all been there. We have all been there. But it is like this, it's this this responsive cycle, right? The kids are responding to us, and then we have to respond to the kids.

So like the fact that someone's getting up and sharpening a pencil and not doing that, like that's a response to something. Why are they doing that? And then we have to look at that and say, no, how am I going to [00:46:00] respond to get them back? refocused on what it is that's the, the target of this lesson. Teaching is just so fun.

It's so complex and so nuanced and so, just such an exercise in thinking and evaluating and I just, that's just the best. But can we ask you if you're, Can we ask you a few more

Shannon Betts: questions,

Jennifer Serravallo: or do you know, I didn't finish all the lesson structures. I mean, that's okay. There's two more. One is readers theater, which is a really strong research base.

And I, I, I take it a little step further beyond just the procedures of readers theater. Which by itself is really helpful, but how do you turn that into a lesson structure and coach Indicates as they're practicing their scripts? And then the last one is conversation lessons. So helping to elevate the discourse, whether it's whole class, small group, book clubs, grand conversations.

Like, how do you really teach into conversation to help the speaking and listening skills improve in your classroom? So that's all of them. So go ahead, ask me whatever's on your mind. Well,

Shannon Betts: I noticed that the lessons were very short. You know, I mean, like you go through the, [00:47:00] I do. You know, we do, you do within like almost 10 to 15 minutes in each of those lesson structures.

So my question is like, what happens the rest of the time? And like, what would it, what would a 90 minute literacy block look like when you have to put in vocabulary, grammar, writing, reading, phonics, all the things? Would you combine some of those lesson structures? Would you pull, would you use those lesson structures to, you know, be the delivery model of some of the basal?

Resources and activities like what would that look like for it

Jennifer Serravallo: to be all put together in your mind. I love this question and I think I was anticipating this question not just from you but generally from people that read the book. And at one point I had planned a kind of putting it all together chapter.

Like, what does a day in the life look like where I'm using these different lesson structures? And I got so in the weeds that I was like, I think I can't write this as a chapter because I think this is a whole other book. [00:48:00] And the reason why it's a whole other book is it depends so much on your kids. It depends on the curriculum you're using.

It depends on the program you're using as a resource. It depends on so many things. For example, I'll just try to give one example and I'll try to not get in the weeds here. Let's imagine I'm working in a school. I'm a first grade teacher and I'm working in a school where most of where we have half day kindergarten.

So my first, you know, already, right? That's a different first grade classroom than a first grade classroom in a district with full day K and my kids are coming in and maybe in a high poverty town. And most of my kids come into first grade not knowing their alphabet or knowing a few letters and sounds.

What does my September, a day in the life of September first grade look like compared to a school where my kids are coming in reading chapter books in first grade? I can't have the same flow of the day. I can't say first grade should have 25 [00:49:00] minutes of whole class phonics every day. Not necessarily.

All right, that, that first grade classroom where most kids are reading chapter books, I might choose to not do 25 minutes whole class every day. I might choose to do some whole class phonics instruction for where most of the kids are, but I might be doing a lot more small group instruction to target the kids based on assessments and give them support where they are.

I might do a lot more geared toward fluency and comprehension for that class, like I might incorporate much more reader's theater lessons. I might do a lot more conversation lessons. I might do a lot more read aloud, right? And I might have independent reading time because I know that those kids are fluent readers and they can sustain reading and benefit from that independent reading time.

But in a first grade classroom where kids don't know the letters and sounds to suggest 20 minutes of independent reading, what are they doing? That's not a good use of time, right? They're flipping the book, looking at picture. I mean, they could spend a little time with books by themselves. Sure. But no, I'm going to, that, that day is going to look really different.

That day is going to [00:50:00] include a lot more phonics, probably whole class and some small group. We're going to do a lot more shared reading probably. So I'm guiding them through texts. I'm going to be using different text types. I'm going to be using more decodable texts, even in my shared reading lessons to help them have that practice, to apply what they've learned in phonics lessons, to connect to text reading.

I've got to really support their language comprehension, so I'm doing a lot more read aloud. I'm thinking about my, you know, my content that I'm teaching them. I might be doing more explicit vocabulary lessons. Like, so it's just very dependent on my kids. So I started getting in the weeds and I was thinking, the only way to do that question justice is to show a class.

Like, show the data of a class. Like, here are my, here's the grade level, here's the grade level standards for this grade level, here's the core program I'm using, here's the you know, the particular needs of this class. Now here's how I design my day, knowing all of that. But also, yes, people can use these lesson structures to make adaptations to whatever core program it is that they're using.

So I gave an [00:51:00] example before of a text that's maybe assigned in the core program is independent reading, read the read this text and answer these questions where we know it's too hard for the students. You might choose instead to do shared reading. I talk about the research studies that Melanie Kuhn and colleagues did called Fluency Oriented Reading Instruction.

Where you read and reread in this case, it was like a basal reader, a core program, read and reread the selections across the week in a shared reading kind of format to help kids with their accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. And they had huge gains you know, across the week. So maybe I'll choose to do that instead, or maybe I'll choose a close reading lesson because I really want to weave in some annotation.

You've got to be looking at your students data. together with the resource that you're using, the core program that you're using and then making these decisions, you know, about how to make adaptations, right? Or maybe, maybe I have a selection that I really think would be more engaging as a reader's theater lesson, so I'm going to be doing more reader's theater to help them explore that particular story, things like that.

And then I think, you know, [00:52:00] another application of this book is the science and social studies teacher, Who really regard themselves as content experts or even in the elementary classroom. Oh, it's science time. So we're doing all hands on materials and science explorations. Well, literacy has a place there too.

All right. And the, and the science teacher assigning textbook reading should also be thinking, what kind of supports am I offering kids for how to do that textbook reading right or who's asking kids to summarize or Their textbook or provide an outline summary of what they've read. Like the kids need strategies, they need instruction.

They need guided practice and how to do that well. So I think some people are going to be using this book to help them with that.

Shannon Betts: Please tell me you're writing that book about how you'd put it all together. I've

Jennifer Serravallo: had this book, this book idea called fitting it all in. I've had this idea for like a decade.

Shannon Betts: That's been our theme of the season is putting it all together. That's what we've said on most every episode, because that's, yeah, You know, we've learned all these discrete things about like, this is what [00:53:00] great teaching is, this is what the research says, but then how do you, how do you weave it all together into this cohesive instructional program that's right for your unique students?

Jennifer Serravallo: It's like the question is what is it and what is all and it depends on the kid, but that is like to do, like I said, to do that topic justice, I'd have probably like, I don't know if that'd be a fun book to read though. It's like, here's a class. Here's how I'd organize my day. No, no, if

Shannon Betts: you had videos, I think it'd be great.

I mean, I guess, but then it wouldn't be a fictional class, but still. Also, I think would be a really good book is like I really love your skill progressions like We'll have to share a picture on social media from your book, but like the little circles, like for example, how you say like, this is how, you know, just the understanding of main idea, you know, which everybody teaches main idea, you know, but this is how it looks from like simple to more, you know, sophisticated thinking.

If you had a book with all the standards and all the skill progressions, I think that would be really interesting. I don't, that must be the book

Jennifer Serravallo: I don't own. Yeah, so it's the, it's the new target book. So the range [00:54:00] strategies 2. 0 has skill progressions for all different goals. And the strategies in that edition are aligned to the skill progression.

And again, I need to

Shannon Betts: get it. I

Jennifer Serravallo: just, I just downloaded that new chapter three, but you're saying I need to get the. Well, I'll send you a copy. It is it is, I think, game changing and teachers that have used the second edition have said it's just game changing for them to have the skill progression there, just to understand what development looks like around understanding character or understanding main idea or fluency, like what does it look like as you develop within those skills, but also Making sure that the strategies I'm teaching are actually just right for the kids at that moment of their development.

And then for writing my writing skill progression. So I have this, I have skill progressions for elaboration. Like, what does it look like as you add more detail to a story from the beginning to end? Or what does it look like to organize your writing if you're thinking, and those are more aligned to To genre and text type.

So I like organization progression for narrative organization, progression for [00:55:00] informational text. So that's according to my 10 goals from my writing strategies book. So that's, those skill progressions are in teaching writing in small groups, which I wrote literally during the pandemic while my kids were on online zoom school, and it came out right after in 2021, that one's got a purple cover.

Yeah.

Shannon Betts: Awesome. So can I ask a few more things about this book? So one thing I want to ask you about is student engagement. Because you just keep, we love promoting student engagement. And I think even the way you described guided inquiry and like getting the students involved in their goal setting is a way of, you know, promoting that student engagement.

But if you would explain some of the other Okay. Things that you do during the lessons to promote student engagement. And then this might be related to that question, but like, what are some of your go to like scaffolds and for learning support and then also for challenge in the moment, like, what are some of those things that like, like you said, like that dead air time where you're like, okay, I'm gonna pull from my bag of tricks and I know what to do in [00:56:00] this moment.

Jennifer Serravallo: Yeah. So student engagement is critical. I think, first of all, we have to plan for it. So part of, part of the planning protocols that I share in the book, and like I said, there's a repeated structure for every one of the lesson chapters, and there's a whole section on how do I plan, and one of the considerations I have to make is how do I keep kids really active and working and doing the work in this lesson, and the way you do that is a little unique to each lesson type.

So it's hard to give kind of a broad answer. But I'll give one example, like in a close reading lesson, I want to think about how am I modeling for kids, but also prompting them to either stop and jot on the text, to turn and talk with a peer, to do some of the reading themselves in their head, to do some of the reading corally or echo you know, out loud with a partner or echo me as I'm reading to the class.

So I'm thinking about. Actively involving them in the reading, actively involving them in the thinking, and every moment in the text, of course, aligned to the different [00:57:00] goals that I have for literacy and then for content and vocabulary. And probably my go tos of what do I do in response. Also are a little bit unique.

There probably are trends, but they're a little unique. And that's why I have that responsive teaching as a repeated structure, although the structure is repeated, the advice is unique to each individual lesson type. And it depends a little bit on, you know, what exactly is going on in that tech in that lesson type of what I want them to do, like how I respond to a student.

In a reader's theater lesson where I want them to better track the dialogue and make sure that they're not losing their place on the script is different than how I'd respond to them in a phonics and spelling lesson when I want them to apply their phonics skills in the moment. So because the content of the lesson is different.

My moves within it are a little bit different as well. So I tried to unpack them in the book also.

Shannon Betts: Hey Reading Teacher Sounds community, it's Shannon here and I'm excited to let you know that tickets are on sale now for Educate and Rejuvenate. This is an event we took [00:58:00] part in last summer and it's happening again this summer.

It's a virtual teacher and homeschool parent event hosted by wife, teacher, mommy. This year it'll be happening on July 16th We choose to take part in this event because Educate and Rejuvenate is a one of a kind experience designed to help you learn new teaching skills. It teaches you how to use your muscles, manage stress effectively, and improve your overall health and wellness.

With a diverse range of workshops, sessions, and activities, you'll have the opportunity to explore various teaching topics, a lot of literacy related ones, in addition to helping you with mindfulness, self care, communication, and more. Join us for our session about Literacy, Scope, and Sequence, and we'll also be participating in the live events and the panel about literacy.

Mary and I know that the past few years have been challenging for many of us in teaching, and that's why this event is special. more important than ever. It's a chance for you to take a break from the daily grind, rejuvenate your mind and body, [00:59:00] and connect with like minded individuals who share your passion for growth and learning.

You can check out the link to purchase your ticket and find more about the event in our show notes on your favorite podcast app, or you can go on our website at readingteacherslounge. com backslash quicklinks and you'll find the information there. We look forward to seeing you. In July,

Mary Saghafi: you have shared so much amazing information. We could literally chat with you about every single topic and be like, can you just break that down for us, but instead we're going to share that all of our listeners. get your new book teaching across the day. It's got so many amazing valuable tidbits.

And I think for me, what I really love is that it really shows this is the language that you need to be using, or this is the structure. This is the invisible becoming visible for teachers. So thank you so much [01:00:00] for this book and for your previous books too, because I think your way of articulating what teaching is, is.

V very much aligned with how I like to teach, but I don't necessarily have the same vocabulary and like organized brain that you have. And I think that it's amazing that you can share this with so many teachers. 'cause I think a lot of teachers are seeking this information. So cheers to you on a great new book.

Oh, thank you so

Jennifer Serravallo: much. And thank you both for having me on this great podcast.

Shannon Betts: Oh, it's been so, it's been just an honor to finally talk to you and pick your brain and if you ever like see someone running up to you at a conference, it's gonna be me. I don't wanna be like .

Jennifer Serravallo: Tell me more. Tell me more. We'll have to give each other a hug when I see you.

So sweet. Thank you both so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.