All right, we have started.
This is the reading instruction show.
I'm your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.
And today I have a very, very special guest,
Rhonda Schlumball.
Did I get that?
You did.
Thank you.
And she is a real life teacher,
not a fake one, from Alaska.
So Rhonda, you're telling me today is your first day back.
This is my 33rd year in education,
my 26th at the school that I'm at.
And what grade are you teaching?
Second and third combination.
Okay.
I have about 10 second graders and about 12 third graders.
Oh my.
So when you're reading, how do you differentiate when you have such a
wide variety?
Well, that's partly why I got a master's in reading in 2003.
But I, I think actually reading and writing is easier to differentiate
than math.
And so actually we have a hard time teaching math because the levels are so
specific, but reading, because teachers are used to having levels,
you know, kids coming in low and low.
And high and middle.
To me, it's easier to combine them and then meet kids where they're at by
a grouping.
Lots of whole class.
Instruction.
I like to use making words for teaching phonics because it'll hit those
lower skills in the beginning of the lesson for those kids that are still
learning like consonant vowel consonants.
And then it hits the higher kids at the end.
And it's in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a,
in a céu, it's yeah, up high for you and like,
fall in low and it's in it and because the lower kids are participating,
it kind of brings them up.
Okay, do use a basal in your teaching or do you use a workshop?
What, what do you need is.
Workshop, um, I have not used a basal in probably 20 years.
However, today.
I just got new materials that are being mandated by the state of Alaska.
I'm going to navigate that because I can't see that I would teach in that way.
So I'm a little bit apprehensive.
Tomorrow's our training.
I can't imagine.
Now, I'm old enough to remember the old days with basils in high, middle, and low group.
And you're sitting at the kidney-shaped table, working with the group, and the others are
in their seats doing seat work.
Yeah, there seems to be workbooks to go through, and that would be super boring.
My whole workshop teaches with authentic texts.
So I mean, for years and years, we have created in our school a book room that has multi-leveled
books, and I know thematically or through science, whole things, fiction, nonfiction.
And so over the years, I've just figured out how to put levels together for what I'm teaching
in the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year, at the end of the year, and it
kind of works.
Kids are engaged.
They love it.
Yeah.
Imagine that.
They're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, they love teaching.
They love writing.
Most kids love writing.
Yep.
When they can share their ideas, I'm guessing.
Yeah, totally.
I like to use...
What did they write about?
Oh, my gosh.
So at the beginning of the year, I like to use a lot of personal narratives, right, because
it's a good thing to do to get to know your new students.
And actually, I do follow Lucy Cawkins just because we adopted it as a school a few years
ago.
However, we've been told we can't use it anymore, but I'm still probably going to use parts of
it because she's put together some nice outlines and...
I differentiate and I go off of it.
I don't really follow it to the letter because I'm teaching, so it needs to come from me.
And I like to use a lot of Ralph Fletcher books.
Oh, my gosh.
His Marshfield Dreams, Stories When I Was a Kid, or Stories When I Was a Boy.
Stories When I Was a Kid, I think.
I use that all the time in the fall for personal narratives because he is writing from his
childhood and kids get a kick out of hearing those little short stories.
Then they can think, oh, I can write about losing a tooth and my grandma buried it in
the garden.
So...
Cool.
Now, do you have the same kids in second and third for two years then?
I have the third grader.
My third graders this year, I had a second grader.
So half my class is new, is old to me and half is new.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So you loop with them or whatever.
But you know what?
It is so amazing to have half-care class trained.
Yes.
You start the year running.
You don't have to spend that much time on management.
The kids know the drill.
They know how to use their book boxes.
You can have those kids train the other kids.
It's super, super nice.
And it's that Vygotsky thing you learn by interacting with other people.
Yep.
At higher and higher levels.
That's exactly right.
So who told you you couldn't use Lucy Calkins?
Well, Emily Hanford evidently came to Alaska in the spring of this last year.
And lots of people went down to Anchorage to see her.
I did not go.
And they came back saying that Lucy Calkins is bad.
Emily Hanford is good.
Yeah.
Evidently, she's a journalist and knows everything about reading instruction.
How many reading classes has Emily Hanford taught?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
But I've taught hundreds of kids how to read.
What was the reason why you were told not to use Lucy Calkins?
Just that she's bad.
I'm sorry.
Oh, she's bad.
Okay.
Bad.
Bad in a moral sense or no?
I don't know.
You know, a lot of people complain about her.
But I don't know, I've seen her do some beautiful things like creating Saturday classes online
for free.
And you know, as a teacher in Alaska, yeah, I mean, it's caught so much to travel.
I love that she creates things that are free and they're beautiful.
And I get up at four o'clock in the morning and listen to it and learn something new.
Oh my, and everything you adopt and adapt, I mean, it would be malpractice if you took
something and did it exactly.
Right.
Yep.
I think you're teaching your kids not a program or curriculum.
Exactly.
Tell me about this.
I think.
Go ahead.
Tell you about the what?
The book room.
Is that a library?
Is that something in your class?
No.
Well, I have a huge library because I've spent thousands of dollars on books over the years
and, you know, try to keep buying new, especially nonfiction, nonfiction and second and third
grade is where it's at.
Those kids, you know, really love those things.
So and trying to trying to reach my boys to make sure I, you know, have enough for them
and lots of graphic novels now.
But the book room was started even before I came to my elementary school, Solchia Elementary,
and it we just had a cabinet at first with the second and third grade.
I took her position after she retired.
I was a K the K one teacher then.
And we had, you know, just all these books that we collected sets of and then we would
teach from there and we would just pull out the books and we didn't even check them out
because it's just we only have back then there was only four teachers K to six.
Now we have three teachers K to five.
So it's a very small school.
But over the years, if there was ever any extra money or if our school district in, you know,
15 years ago is pretty progressive.
And if you didn't want to use the basil or if there was extra supplemental money, they
would give it to you and you could purchase book sets or, you know, things that you felt
you needed.
And so we have a really good book room, I think, and, you know, like we even have sets
of Mercy Watson K to Camillo's, you know, so that's a fairly newer series, and lots
of nonfiction as well, kindergarten through sixth grade.
So, Alexa, sorry.
Okay.
Amazing what can happen if you allow teachers to make choices.
And yeah, I mean, my motivation goes up right when I'm in control and kids motivation goes
up to when they are in control.
Now think about, well, I like what you said about nonfiction.
I was surprised.
Tell me more about that.
How many younger children prefer nonfiction?
I don't know, like I've never done a survey necessarily, I just know that through teaching
them kids love nonfiction.
And this is the age to grab them, I feel as a second and third grade teacher, just knowing
eight and nine year olds, they want to know about the world.
They are curious.
They, it's all, you know, all the facts that they can get about any kind of animal that
they're interested in or any kind of country, anything.
So, and I love that too, as a teacher and a farmer, I'm all about nonfiction.
So, and I like teaching them about, I mean, I feel like it's my obligation to teach them
about the trees in the boreal forest because we are in it.
I want them to understand about bird migrations and systems and salmon and things that are
in our environment.
So that's my job is to turn them on to where we live.
You sound like a magic teacher.
Well, I love it.
You can tell that.
And that's what builds the basis for the reading expository text later on.
Having that basis.
Well, what brings you joy in teaching?
The kids, totally the kids.
Every day I greet them at the door and then we have a morning meeting and something that
I've been doing for quite a few years now is reading lots.
I've always read to them a lot.
So I usually read a picture book first thing in the morning and then sometime during the
day, depending on our schedule, I do a read aloud.
And I used to read and they would just listen or they would draw.
A few years ago, I just thought, gosh, if they could just track, I think it will really
help them with their eye movement and strengthening their eyes.
And then you just never know.
It might just make them really take off.
And I really think that's true.
So I just try to have them track as they go as best they can.
There are a few kids that their attention spans are not very good.
And I usually have them come close to my rocking chair, but I have them open their books of
their chapter books.
And I'm talking Charlotte's Web and the BFG and indicate the Camillo book that I can get
my hands on.
So like the miraculous journey of Edward Tulane.
So and they turn on to reading like nobody's business.
And I just, I usually have a camera around my neck when I'm at school so that I can just
like do it one handed, you know, and then I put it in my newsletter and because I'll
be sitting there reading and they're tracking.
And I don't know if you've ever experienced a classroom of children just stuck into a
book and then feel, I don't, I don't know how to explain it.
If you haven't ever been in a classroom, it's just this magical thing where they're all
in it and then you'll come to a part where, you know, it's exciting or sad or something
and there's just a collective like presence, I guess, of all the children and and sometimes
we'll just stop and I love, love, love to do it so much because when kids like don't
know a word or there's, you know, something that they really connect to, they will ask
a question like, what does that mean?
Or, or, and I tell them, you know, I don't know every word you know, you've, you have
to stop me and tell me what you need to know and then I will, you know, explain it or,
you know, we're a community will help each other.
And so, oh my gosh, the discussions that second and third graders can have about the world
and kindness and character development, it's just truly a gift to be able to be president
when they are making all these connections.
So I really wish people everywhere could, could be in a room when that happens.
Sounds like you're having some flow experiences, some people experiences with children and
they're fully engaged.
Yeah.
Do you have behavior problems when children are fully engaged?
No.
I actually, I actually don't have very many knock on wood behavior problem.
I mean, I have, of course we have, but I learned something really important from a mentor,
teacher of mine.
She always said, you can't take anything out from a child until you put deposits in.
And so I think about that all the time, like, you know, I try to make connections, like,
you know, the K-1 teacher, I see those kids in the hall and I'm always trying to put a
good positives thing into those kids that I see coming up to me because then I can correct
them and, you know, take a withdrawal.
So that's my, that's my, that's my MO.
I'm going to steal that idea and teach it to my undergraduate students.
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
So much of learning is the emotional part.
Yep.
And I have a child that is possibly autistic coming up to me and all I know is he has a
fetish with cats.
So I already have thought that my first read aloud that I don't have a set of is the grand
escape about the cat.
I don't know if you're familiar with that book, but I'm trying to remember the author,
which I'm blanking on right now.
But it's all about some cats that like sneak out in the night.
And so it's a super good one for the beginning of the year because it's not, it's very easy
to comprehend.
So I'm going to start the year with that.
So imagine the money being spent on the science of reading new curriculum.
If that money could be spent instead on books, what do you think the difference would be?
Well, I think the difference would be amazing.
But I also think we need to spend money on teachers and professional development.
So I guess that's where I've been having a hard time lately.
You know, like, what do you mean there's no phonics taught?
I've been teaching phonics my whole time.
What do you mean, you know, we're not, I don't know.
I just can't understand it, but then I think, well, maybe there are teachers that don't
know these things or maybe they just, I mean, I guess I've always been a studier.
And so, and I've taught in a small school where if I don't do my job, it's totally reflected
on me because I'm the only third grade teacher.
So yeah, so it's, I have the weight on me and I understand that and it's good.
That's a good thing.
It's the joy of having a small school versus these big shopping mall schools.
Yeah.
And there's lots of things, there's lots of practices I see happening in schools, things
that are maybe not research based at all.
So I don't know if you're familiar with what to read, but there's, I don't know, my district
is all over it.
And I don't really know exactly how it's being used because in bigger schools and maybe,
and maybe that's a solution in bigger schools, you know, if they're having success in it,
then fine.
But in our little school, I mean, you know, I have second graders and third graders, I
have, you know, some of them are probably first grade readers, kindergarten readers up
to fifth grade readers.
So that's a beautiful thing, actually.
Because I think that those, those sometimes those less mature readers have the most insight
or different, different way of thinking and they bring it out while I've been doing a
read aloud.
So disability doesn't mean a thinking disability.
Yeah.
Or an imaginary disability.
Yeah.
Or an emotional disability.
Mm hmm.
They're still, they're still connecting.
Can you remember back to when you started teaching what that first year was like for
you?
So I was, I was teaching in Texas then.
And my first year teaching, it was awful.
I taught in a school, Shenandoah Elementary, and I had, there were eight teachers, six
to eight teachers per grade level.
It was a huge elementary school.
And I had the most beautiful second grade class.
I, I student taught in first grade, but then I got this second grade position in Texas.
So but then right after Labor Day, the weekend of Labor Day, the school district decided to
put me into fourth grade because they had an influx of fourth graders.
And so over the three day weekend, I had to switch my classroom out for fourth grade and
you know, brand new teacher and then teach fourth grade.
And so all my kids went away and I got all these new kids and how they decided, which
the principal decided, they took the last enrolled from every classroom and gave me
those kids.
And so you can imagine those are the, those are the kids that usually have the most behavior
problems because they're the parents that, you know, just didn't do it to the last second.
Not, I mean, that's what happened anyway.
And I had kids in their fetal position.
I had, I had really abused kids.
I had kids that had just came from Taiwan the weekend before and didn't speak any English.
And I cried every single day.
I went home and my husband said, why do you want to be a teacher again?
And I said, good, I love that.
And so it was so hard that first year was awful.
But I stuck with it and stuck to my guns and I probably learned everything I needed to
know that year.
Wow.
You know, we think we can create a finished teaching product in three semesters of undergraduate
and you pointed to the importance of teacher professional development.
Tell me a little bit more about that.
How you see that the importance of teacher professional development.
Well, partly I think we have to, we have to find master teachers and put and put people
that are beginning teachers with them, either in undergraduate school or those first couple
of years of practice.
And I often think about, you know, you're not an expert at anything that Malcolm Gladwell
book, he said 10,000 hours until you're an expert at anything, which is about eight years
of teaching.
I figured out.
Wow.
So, if that's true, then, you know, that takes a long time to get good at this practice.
And we always say that teachers are practicing, right?
And so think of it like a doctor is also having a practice.
And I actually quit a lot of teaching with doctors because, you know, if you go to a
doctor and you prescribe, you're prescribed something, the doctor looks at the whole person
and then they prescribe medication.
But if you need it and then, but people don't react the same to the same treatment.
So the doctor might have to do something different.
I mean, there's general things that work, but sometimes they don't always work.
So it's exactly true with teaching reading.
And if it's not working, they don't keep doing it.
Right.
And I think that's our obligation to switch it up.
If it doesn't work, change something.
But professional development, I belong to the International Reading Association, or wait,
International Literacy Association now, I used to be reading.
I'm also the, this year, the president of my local chapter.
But I just believe in connecting with teachers and, gosh, in Alaska, you know, 15, 20 years
ago, I got to go on retreats.
We got to put on conferences here in Alaska.
I mean, we've had Regie Routman here.
We've had Ralph Glutcher has come to Alaska.
Richard Allington has come a few times.
You know, I've gotten to hear really amazing teachers and researchers and I've gotten to
go to conferences, you know, in Chicago and other places.
And I feel like that is super important.
But I also believe conferences are great.
They're great shot in the arm and they're good to hear if you're hearing a real researcher.
But it's only a shot in the arm.
And I think the best professional development I've ever gotten has been things that are
long term.
So like the National Writing Project.
So we had, in Alaska, we had something called the Writing Consortium.
And so it was based on the National Writing Project.
And so teachers would go for, you know, two weeks to a month sometimes, like retreat style
and you would like work on writing for that whole time and you'd be a better writer yourself
so that you could be a better teacher of writing.
And so I've done that.
And so I think just studying it.
Professional learning communities, PLCs are important.
Book studies are important.
So but it takes a lot of time and new teachers don't come in.
There's no way you could actually really be ready unless you spend about five years,
you know, following a mentor or teacher probably, I think it's too hard.
It's too hard of a job.
We prepare them to begin the journey.
Yeah.
And the one and done workshop, you're right, doesn't work.
It's contact over time.
So you have a chance to think and synthesize and talk with others and try out these new
ideas.
That's how professional development happens.
Yeah.
The difference between a novice and expert is the 10,000 hours, but it's also knowledge.
Right.
Situations.
Yeah, an experience, understanding how literacy happens, how learning occurs.
Well, as you think about the science of reading and the impacts, how do you think that's going
to impact your class and your ability to teach?
Well, as a master teacher, at least I think I'm a master teacher by now.
I think that I'm going to wade the waters and avoid the rocks.
So, you know, I'm just going to do what I know is right because deep down in my core,
I cannot.
I cannot just follow, you know, Bonnick's lessons for an hour.
I just can't.
I'm not going to do that to kids.
Because I know that I would be robbing them of joy.
I do teach Bonnick's, but I'm just not going to do what they're telling me to do.
I'm not going to follow the basil.
I can't do it.
And you can still teach the skills in the basil.
Yeah.
I can't.
Teach it your own way.
Right.
Exactly.
I will.
I will look at the skills and I'll make sure that I'm doing it.
Actually, I was doing that a little bit today and I was like, oh, see, look, making words
has doubling the consonant before the suffix.
This youth life thing also has that.
It's all the same.
You can do it.
Well, what would you like parents to know about teaching reading about how you do things?
Well, I write a newsletter every year and try to help parents understand how to read.
But mostly I just want parents to help their child find joy in it and help them find books
that they love to read and set up a place for them to read at night and just support
their child wherever they are.
I had a little girl that I tutored a little bit at our farm at lunchtime a couple of times
this summer and she would come down from her farm and we'd sit at my picnic table and do
some reading together and then she would help me out a little bit on the farm and I'd give
her flowers and then she'd go home.
But finding the joy and not stressing too much if a kid is not like quote unquote on
level, just keep working and not giving up and keep trying things until the child gets
it.
They all learn in different ways and at different rates.
What would you like my undergraduate pre-service teachers, what advice do you have for them?
I'm going to show them this by the way.
This is good stuff.
Gosh.
They're wondering how they should teach reading.
They're going, oh my gosh, what do I do?
Well, I think you just have to start.
You have to know that all those pillars are important, but plus writing, I would say actually
focus on writing.
Focus on how to be a writing teacher because you apply what you know about language in writing
and then you know you have something concrete to know where a kid is.
Actually I think about that a lot.
When kids write, they can only write at their level.
They can't write below it and therefore you know you're writing that zone of proximal
development.
You know exactly what they need.
I think teaching reading through writing is very magical actually because kids will connect
so like any kind of genre.
If you're reading information books, you should be writing information books in tandem because
it really cements it and then kids really get it.
If you're reading opinions, you should be writing opinions.
So connections.
I wish you would have been my third grade teacher.
Well, that sounds good.
Well what else can you tell us about teaching reading?
That's a very general.
What's worked for you and what hasn't worked for you?
What's a failure that you've made?
Failure.
Well what's worked?
Let me go back.
Yep, what's worked.
Okay, here's something interesting.
I always think I can teach anybody to read.
I just got to figure it out, right?
Yes.
Okay.
So I taught a blind boy how to read.
Truly, I mean he had no vision at all and he had to learn to read Braille.
He obviously had an assistant to help him, which happened to be my really good friend.
And she would Braille all the little books.
I wanted to give him the feeling of being just like all those other kids, but he taught
me so many important things.
First of all, so we would, I have like little story box books in my classroom.
He was like a second grader when I had him and we would put Braille, see through Braille
on the pages that I still have some of these books in my room.
I had charts that she would put Braille on so that he could go up and feel and point
to words.
Just like the other kids.
I'm not kidding you.
It was just magical.
And sorry, my dog.
And she, but what was so good about having this boy was that I had to explain things
a lot better because he had to understand it.
So I was buying toys that were replicas of whales.
So when I read a book about whales, he could touch it and feel what a fluke was or, you
know, oh my gosh, that kid taught me so much.
So that kid went to college.
And that's all I know.
Like I don't know where he is now, but I do know he graduated and went to college.
So that makes me happy.
But then I've also taught kids that were autistic and didn't have much vocabulary or even, well,
we didn't know.
Actually, we didn't know how much he understood.
And so he, I was trying to get a handle on how much Comprehension he had.
So, but he couldn't tell me sentences.
And so I would have him read a story that he didn't know.
I was trying to benchmark him.
So I gave him a story that he didn't know, but I had copied out pictures of the book
that he just read.
And then I would, and then I had the aid help me and it was, which happened first, which
happened second, and he'd find the pictures or where's the character, you know, and I
would ask him questions and he would understand it.
So I could kind of get it a handle on how much he was getting out of those books because
he couldn't say all the words that I could understand.
But here's the thing.
He lives in my community still.
He reads Harry Potter.
Oh, he's like 20.
How does he know 22?
I think.
Yep.
But he, he, he reads Harry Potter.
And so to me, that makes me so happy because that kid learned to read, but he got, he
learned to read him with story box books and a stack.
He had to have like a lot of repetition because he couldn't focus for very long.
And so there was an aid with him and they would just read the next one, the next one.
And she would, she would just have him read the next book and the next book and the next
book and they'd go through a stack and he would do it.
But if it was a long book, he couldn't do it.
But those short ones, he felt accomplished and he would.
So I'm not kidding.
We have stacks of books that he would go through every day.
Wow.
I know.
Well, Rhonda, it brings me joy knowing that you're a teacher.
Thank you.
And there's teachers out there.
It really does.
It gives me hope.
And I hope you don't retire for a long, long time because we need teachers like you in
our classrooms.
Yeah.
And we just, yeah, I think this is my last year though, which makes me so sad, but maybe
I'll help at the university.
Yes.
It makes me sad that we don't honor the wisdom, the experience, the knowledge and expertise
of magic teachers like you.
And that's the sad part.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yes.
I will keep working for education though, some way.
Maybe at my farm have a different reading thing.
There you go.
You could have a reading camp at your farm.
Yeah.
So, any last words?
No, but I just appreciate that you took the time to talk to teachers like me and I'm always
happy to help people.
So, if any of your students need help, just give them my email address.
We'll take you up on that.
All right.
Thank you, Rhonda.
Okay.
Thank you.
On this shown bloom.
Bloom bomb.
Yeah.
You bet.