Warning! Warning! Enemy Approaching!

(A post about the shortage of reputable Structured Literacy PLD* in New Zealand)

*Professional Learning & Development

My attention grabbing Lost in Space analogy is for a good reason, though slightly exaggerated. Be careful out there...Let me explain.

I’m feeling pretty proud that my principal has confirmed that we’re switching to Structured Literacy (SL) schoolwide next year and we are signed up with a reputable PLD provider. (We will have seminars, workshops, online lessons, in-class demos and on-going mentoring for at least a year, probably three.)

However, not all colleagues in our SL community are fortunate to be approaching this shift schoolwide. Some are only doing it in their junior teams and some are all alone in the wilderness of ‘Balanced Literacy Land’.

Structured Literacy PLD is scarce out there.

Like a scene from Lost in Space, SL novices are in an alien desert and thirsty for knowledge and they are reaching out for something, anything to quench that thirst.

Imagine their relief when they google PLD in the EdGazette online, and up pops an advert with tantalising words, including ‘systematic’ and ‘structured’.

This is what I tried out last night and I was scared for the novices out there, hence my warning.

Now, I don’t want to be slammed with a defamation case, but a sound defence is that my opinion is based on researched and peer-reviewed facts, hence my warning: Buyer Beware!

Some PLD courses out there - tempting novices with enticing words like ‘systematic’ and ‘structured’ - are still based on Balanced Literacy and their authors defend the role of a bit of phonics, a bit of sight word memorisation and a bit of other stuff - you know, a ‘balanced diet’ of what has been used in our classes for years and with unsatisfactory results!

The problem with this approach is ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’, and a bit of your class will get it and a bit of your class will not. Science has shown that the BEST results for all students comes from an explicit Structured Literacy approach that is diagnostic, systematic and cumulative AND uses a systematic synthetic phonics programme from the start.

The other important point is what we now know about memory and cognitive overload. You know what this is, it’s when your brain hurts from trying to remember too much at once! (Like how it feels when you're trying to learn about SL!)

Yes children can learn sight words by memorising them. I admit I used to teach my students that way. But then they plateaued and got stuck, at around about orange or turquoise levels, and progress was slow.

This happens when children have filled up their memory banks with sight words and they have not orthographically mapped them in their brains, sound to print. In a way, it's like stuffing the letterbox at your gate with junk mail rather than using the more efficient email.

Automatic recall of ‘sight words’ is what happens when readers have mapped a word by sound into their long term memory and then it becomes readable ‘by sight’. But to get it into long term memory it has to be by sound work first, not ‘look and say’ as if it was a picture. Re-reading words already mapped by sound is a valid practice, but it has to follow the sound work first.

Sadly, some popular BL resources use picture clues and context in sentences to get children to memorise a set of about 50 high use ‘first’ words. Even worse, often the job is given to well-meaning teacher aides, who just follow the instructions.

Even more problematic is how these ‘intervention’ programmes are often used with our most struggling learners and we perpetuate their struggles by focusing on such memorisation. Such ‘pictorial reading’ is how poor readers read, when their brains are scanned, not how good readers read. 

As teachers, once we know better, we should do better.

So, Buyer Beware: Be a good reader and ‘read the fine print’ before booking any bitsy PLD in the holidays. A short course on ‘phonics’ or a short course on ‘words’ will be like drinking salty water. It will seem to work at first, but will not sustain you in the long run (nor your learners).

The Science of Reading  takes time to get to grips with at first, but it is better to go slow and steady than to dash off on a false start. (Really mixing up my analogies now!)

Thirst for knowledge but be sure to check that what you are drinking is really ‘pure’ and healthy for you and your learners in the long term.

And, if you’re finding it hard to get PLD and not keen on a DIY route, write to the MoE and your local MP. Tell them what you want and why. Let’s lift our reading results and sustain the gains.

Here’s some links to help: 

The Science of Reading: a top-level primer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fQyaoGjIo) (Includes lots of links to other readings in the notes.)

What is the science of reading? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkJ6VvDr2M)

https://sarahsnippets.com/how-do-we-learn-new-words-orthographic/

https://www.reallygreatreading.com/content/make-tricky-sight-words-sticky-really-great-reading-blog

https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/dyslexia-and-learning/understanding-structured-literacy/

https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/support/looking-for-pld-for-your-school

https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/initiatives/connecting

NZ Teachers - Structured Literacy and Using Decodable Texts 

Lockdowns, wall banging and ripples of change

A teacher reflects….

This is a post about hope.

Last Tuesday, I had been in lockdown for 5 weeks and, apart from creating online classroom lessons, I had been able to dedicate a chunk of my time to my dyslexia advocacy work. Likewise, in my previous three lockdowns in Auckland.

A silver lining of covid-19 restrictions has been the chance to spend time on professional readings and webinars, visualising a Structured Literacy future for my school, rather than commuting, doing duties or prepping at the copier.

But on the eve of the start of my sixth week at home, I had hit a wall and was moaning to my husband about how frustrated I felt about effecting change. “I don’t think they get it. I worry all my work has been for nought. Why don’t they understand how important this is?” 

Six days earlier I had sent a large report to my principal with my roadmap for ‘how’ I thought our school could transition into Structured Literacy and transform the lives of our learners. The response….silence.

Earlier in the year I had made a presentation at a staff meeting, sowing the seeds about the ‘why’ and ‘what’. In the interim, I had been working alongside other teachers, and dropping Structured Literacy tips into the afterschool conversations in the workroom. 

You see, I am just an ordinary teacher, not in the leadership team and not even a 5-day-a-week one either. I am just a little pebble trying to make a ripple in a big pond. And I was worried that Balanced Literacy stalwarts in the senior leadership team were going to drown out my message.

This month, annual reports were being written, budgets tallied and strategic plans made for next year. Time was running out…

In desperation, yesterday, I resent my emailed report to the principal and asked “Did you get this? What do you think?” He’s a man of few words but the joy of hearing ‘yep, we’re signed up, starting end of year’ was immense, intense, like a heavy load had been lifted from my shoulders and I was buoyant, no longer drowning in guilt.

Guilt...about letting teachers dismiss my noticing of the early signs of my own son’s dyslexia and waiting for five years to intervene.

Guilt… about training as a teacher and not having the nous to challenge the lack of specific ‘training’ about teaching literacy.

Guilt...about acquiring ‘stuff’ and ‘resources’ for my classroom, rather than acquiring ‘knowledge’ first and foremost about my learners.

Guilt...about teaching ‘balanced literacy ‘ and 3-way cueing and basically failing 15 years of struggling readers, until I learned better.

The first lockdown last year gave my husband and I time to reflect on our working lives. Did we have enough savings to cope if he lost his job? Did he want to take early retirement? Had we been successful in either of our careers? How did we measure success in that regard?

I reflected that I had entered teaching inspired by my brother, a dyslexic, and my dream had been to help more people learn to read and write. I couldn’t honestly say I had achieved that goal, because every year I had so many ‘target students’, teacher code for struggling students.

So my husband and I both set work and non-work goals, and one of mine was to refocus my teaching so I could transition from the classroom to specialist tutoring. 

Although I had been expanding my knowledge around struggling learners in the previous two years, my study intensified from autumn last year and that is how I found Spelfabet, the DEB (Dyslexia Evidenced Based) support group and Lifting Literacy Aotearoa. I found others like me, people passionate about equitable access to education for all.

So my goal shifted from training as a specialist tutor to helping my colleagues, school and wider teaching community learn how to transition to using Structured Literacy. I wanted to lift up many more learners through systemic change in our educational sector, rather than just the few who could afford tutoring.

In my teaching career, I estimate I have failed at least 75 students, if I count 5 ‘target students’ per year who were struggling readers and writers.

It is with great satisfaction that I know moving to Structured Literacy at my school will help 200 children per year, including the 40 to 50 children who would usually be our ‘target students’.

So the good news is, even if I change jobs or I retire to become a ‘lady who gardens’, at least I can leave my school knowing the torch has been handed on to others. My teaching colleagues will learn how to ensure all our students can be successful at cracking the reading and writing code. It won’t necessarily be easy, for teachers or students, but perseverance will pay off.

Remember I said this post was about hope.

Advocacy can be lonely work. You may be alone in your school, or a parent struggling with your child at home. You may feel like you are banging your head on that ‘wall’.

But by sharing our knowledge and supporting one another in our network of dyslexia advocates, we can make change, even if it is one child at a time. What wonderful results we can hope for if we can make it one school at a time!

Be the change you want to see, and don’t give up!

One ripple can turn into a wave.