The Literacy Breakthroughs Changing Special Education | Buying Local #78

00;00;00;07 – 00;00;10;19
Speaker 2
Welcome to Buying Local. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media. I’m here today with Lauren Leuzinger from Nourishing Minds Tutoring. Hi, Lauren. How are you?

00;00;10;21 – 00;00;12;00
Speaker 1
I’m doing well. How are you?

00;00;12;02 – 00;00;16;11
Speaker 2
I am good, I’m good. I think you said you said it’s your first podcast ever.

00;00;16;14 – 00;00;17;00
Speaker 1
And it’s.

00;00;17;00 – 00;00;25;06
Speaker 2
Yes, that’s kind of my claim to fame. I get a lot of, people’s first podcast, and then you’re going to love it so much. You’re going to go on to do 50 more, I’m sure.

00;00;25;07 – 00;00;28;03
Speaker 1
Oh, I’m sure maybe I’ll start my own podcast.

00;00;28;03 – 00;00;37;01
Speaker 2
That’s right, that’s right. You know, I do believe I keep telling Chris that you guys should have a podcast, but, you know, discussion for another time, maybe.

00;00;37;03 – 00;00;39;16
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And all of our free time.

00;00;39;19 – 00;00;50;28
Speaker 2
And all your free time. Exactly. Well, speaking of which, why why don’t we, why don’t you introduce yourself to our audience a little bit? About all the different things that you’re doing during the day?

00;00;51;00 – 00;01;24;27
Speaker 1
Sure. Well, my name is Lauren Leuzinger. I am a full time special education teacher at Chenoa Shenandoah Central Schools. I work in one of our self-contained programs, called Individual Skills Development, or ISD. So it’s a New York State alternate assessment track program. And it has a smaller ratio of staff to students. So there’s always, well, there will be one teacher, a maximum of six students and typically three classroom aides.

00;01;24;29 – 00;01;52;28
Speaker 1
And usually my population is predominantly non-speaking. If they, if they have not entered school with a communication device or a method for communication, we support. We complete an evaluation to figure out how we can support the students to develop communication. And we get started on that. So in my classroom, it’s a very highly structured setting.

00;01;53;01 – 00;02;20;18
Speaker 1
The students begin to learn the expectations of the classroom and my expectations for them as learners. By setting up the, the setting and the environment and the daily schedule. So there’s a lot of predictability and it’s very highly structured. So the students walk in at the start of the day, and then from the moment they enter until the moment they leave, they’re engaged in some sort of learning.

00;02;20;21 – 00;02;46;23
Speaker 1
It’s a very language rich environment. So we really work on modeling a lot of language and multiple modalities. Because a lot of our students with autism have deficits with communication and language. So the way that we, that work, the way that babies learn how to develop language skills. That’s kind of where we we start off with that.

00;02;46;23 – 00;03;13;28
Speaker 1
We provide them with so many opportunities to hear words repeated in a variety of contexts, to encourage them to use, to use those words for a variety of functions. Whether it is using it verbally. Being able to understand it and using gestures or using that communication device. So we’ll call it back. Alternative or augmentative communication.

00;03;14;01 – 00;03;43;29
Speaker 1
So, we do a lot of pre academic foundational skills. We work on academic skills. And based on what the students need. We provide them exposure with grade level content. So for many years I worked with second and third graders. I currently teach kindergarten students, which has been incredible because I’ve been able to get them when they’re new to school and our first learning how to be learners.

00;03;44;01 – 00;04;00;17
Speaker 1
And, that’s where I will continue to stay. Cheyenne is opening a kindergarten center next school year. So I will be moving over there. And will be one of the teachers in our program. Next school year. So I’ll be able to continue to do that.

00;04;00;20 – 00;04;17;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it’s it’s pretty. So you’re. This is your day to day, and then that’s going home at night and helping Chris, run nursing minds. The. Yeah, the tutoring operations. So. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you do have a lot of free time on your hands, don’t you?

00;04;17;03 – 00;04;20;06
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. So much free time. And with three children and sports.

00;04;20;12 – 00;04;29;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s. I’m curious, how did you get into this type of work or what kind of, pulled you into it in the first place?

00;04;29;14 – 00;04;53;07
Speaker 1
Well, it actually, it was kind of by accident. When I went to school for teaching, I got my dual certification in childhood and special ed, and I really only did the special ed because everybody said it would make you more marketable as a teacher when you were getting a job. And when I finished my degree, I finished my master’s in 2009, and there were no teaching jobs in the Capital Region at all.

00;04;53;10 – 00;05;16;07
Speaker 1
And I had gone to a teaching fair in Albany, and they were recruiting. One of the tables was a recruiting agency from London, recruiting teachers, to move over to London and teach. And I expressed interest just because I was so frustrated with the lack of teaching jobs in the capital region. And I ended up, being an I offered an interview.

00;05;16;08 – 00;05;44;17
Speaker 1
I went down to new Jersey for that interview, and I got the job, and I moved over there. And I was working for a teaching agency, doing substitute teaching. And when they try to place you in a school, and I was one of only two teachers who had a special ed certification. And so they put me forward for a position at a school that is, it was considered a public school, but it was entirely for students with disabilities ages 3 to 21.

00;05;44;20 – 00;06;07;28
Speaker 1
And I got the job. And I said to the agency, I don’t know if I really want to do this because I don’t want to be pigeonholed at the start of my career into such a specialized area of education. And their response was, well, we can’t guarantee you’ll get another job. So I decided to do it. The there was a really supportive principal who said, we don’t care if you’ve never done this before.

00;06;07;29 – 00;06;31;10
Speaker 1
We just want people who want to learn and, will love the kids. And I started in this building and it was, I found my calling. And so I was there for four and a half years until Chris and I, had our first son, and then we moved back here, and I got my job at Shan.

00;06;31;13 – 00;06;44;19
Speaker 1
That was I interviewed when I was still over there, and I had the job the first week that we were back. And I can’t imagine doing any other type of teaching at this point. I just love it so much.

00;06;44;22 – 00;06;49;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so did you immediately fall in love with it when you started teaching over in London?

00;06;49;23 – 00;07;13;20
Speaker 1
I did, and something that was very unique about that setting was that every single, staff member down to the custodians, every single staff member in the building was trained in the same method of teaching. So, it’s it’s an acronym called teach, and it’s based out of USC Chapel Hill, and it’s essentially a method method of structured teaching.

00;07;13;21 – 00;07;49;19
Speaker 1
So making, the structure in the classroom environment. So there are clear expectations utilizing visual supports because children of autism are visual learners. And really setting them up, develop teaching them in a structured way so they understand the expectations. And starting with higher levels of prompting and fading that prompting. So they do it independently. And, and we also had a consultant who would come over and from USC, Chapel Hill who would provide us with feedback on our teaching.

00;07;49;21 – 00;08;14;23
Speaker 1
We had a week long training. And I ended up becoming a trainer for this training that we offered to new staff and staff in the, in the region where I was working. And it just it came very naturally to me and it made sense. And I saw the progress in my students and it was just it was so exciting to see those light bulb moments happening all the time.

00;08;14;26 – 00;08;31;16
Speaker 1
And seeing the progress the students were making. So I knew that that this is what I wanted to do when I continued on. And, Chris keeps telling me I need to quit my job and join us during our business full time, but I don’t want to because I still love it so much.

00;08;31;19 – 00;08;57;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, well, I have to imagine that it’s not easy, but extremely rewarding. To your point. The light bulb moments. And when you know that I know that we had talked in our, pre-show prep call, you know, about literacy and what that can do for nonverbal kids and, yes, and adults for that matter. Right, right.

00;08;57;12 – 00;09;23;29
Speaker 1
It’s it’s and it’s an I actually got my master’s in literacy. So I, I have a certification as literacy specialist. So even before I got into the realm of special ed, literacy was a huge passion of mine. It’s always been something I’ve loved. And that was my favorite part of, the process of becoming a teacher. So as I’ve, but then it’s definitely a different world.

00;09;24;01 – 00;09;49;23
Speaker 1
Teaching non-speaking individuals how to read. And time after time, I will talk to teachers, new teachers in the district. I’ll go on to various forums online, and people just are at a loss of how to teach a non-speaking student how to read. And people are often too quick to give up because they think it’s never going to happen.

00;09;49;25 – 00;10;13;27
Speaker 1
And even I had gone to, because the science of reading has become huge in schools. And all the research that studied the, the, the process the brain goes through learning how to read. And I remember going to a training and having an administrator tell me like, oh, your your students are probably in that 5% who are never going to learn how to read.

00;10;13;29 – 00;10;31;23
Speaker 1
And it was very offputting because I didn’t believe that. And I still don’t believe that. And if you continue to persist and you present materials in an exciting way. Any, any person can learn how to read.

00;10;31;25 – 00;11;01;23
Speaker 2
I know, I mean, when I think about reading, which obviously is something that I completely take for granted. But when I think about if, like, I’m a I’ve always been a pretty avid reader, I love reading. I love the doors that it opens and the exploring you can do in a book. And, I just when we were talking about it was one of the things that really struck me was what an impact it can have on these kids and, and people when they’re able to open those doors through reading.

00;11;01;23 – 00;11;07;28
Speaker 2
Can you talk a little bit about some of the the impact that it’s had on, on some of the kids that you’ve worked with?

00;11;08;00 – 00;11;30;20
Speaker 1
Well, it’s it is so exciting to see. When you have that light bulb moment and the amount of families I’ve spoken to over the years who have thanked me for, seeing that progress in their children and thinking that they would never learn how to read. And then, the time that I spent with them, they really made huge gains.

00;11;30;23 – 00;11;53;09
Speaker 1
Like this school year, I have a student who she had a difficult year last year, and she was moved from a less restrictive program to my classroom. And I guess at home, her mom would never, but she would never participate in any kind of reading. Her mom would try and get her to sit down and do writing with her, and it would always lead to a meltdown and frustration.

00;11;53;12 – 00;12;19;28
Speaker 1
And she actually just said to me this week, she thanked me for, everything that we’ve done this school year because she comes home and she wants to sit with her. And she’s been I we read. We read books after books, after books in my classroom. And some of them go home with the students. And I encourage families to hold on to them and then keep them in a basket near their beds or somewhere where they can revisit them.

00;12;20;00 – 00;12;47;05
Speaker 1
And the student, the mom, indicated that she’s going into that basket and rereading the book with her, and she wanted mom to sit down with her. And, she has an AC device, and she was finding all the different vocabulary from the book that we’ve been reading and showing her mom where these different words are. And she’s starting to write sentences, and, she’s wanting to do writing at home.

00;12;47;06 – 00;13;42;22
Speaker 1
So just giving that exposure, making it fun. And not making it this laborious task. I always start and with any instruction that I provide to students, it’s without, without any expectations. So learning to read. Especially for a non-speaking students who might be lacking some prerequisite skills that they need for, more complex learning when you enter it with no expectations and you provide them with repeated exposure and practice in a variety of ways, and, just having it be part of the classroom culture or the home culture, part of the routine, it’s something that they, they, they naturally end up gaining skills, through that repeated practice.

00;13;42;22 – 00;14;08;11
Speaker 1
And, as with reading, we do the same thing with language development when we provide them with opportunities for language exposure without expectations. We’re not forcing them to read anything. We’re not forcing them to say anything. We might comment on something that we see in a book like, oh, I know you like to play on the playground. I see, Sammie is playing on the playground.

00;14;08;16 – 00;14;29;11
Speaker 1
Like, what’s your favorite thing to do? And just, just giving them opportunities to explore it without saying, oh no, you have to sit down with me and you need to look at the book and you must turn the pages, in order to be successful. Just giving them, making it fun and stress free.

00;14;29;13 – 00;14;35;09
Speaker 2
I’m curious, you had mentioned, a device earlier in AC.

00;14;35;10 – 00;15;08;06
Speaker 1
What is a AC device? So AC stands for alternative and augmentative communication. So, years ago, a lot of students with autism would get these books with pictures, lots of different pictures, and they’d be expected to find a picture for something that they want. We have moved away from that, with, with technology, it’s a lot easier to use an iPad, and there are various communication apps that go along with it.

00;15;08;13 – 00;15;30;28
Speaker 1
We also have gotten away from, from using they call it a textbook. We’ve gotten away from that because it’s very limiting. The only language that they have access to is the language that you give them. So with a communication device, so there are several different apps that you can purchase. There are a few in particular that I like better than others.

00;15;31;00 – 00;15;58;19
Speaker 1
But it gives you, a board essentially. And it’s, it’s interactive with touch, to access tons and tons of vocabulary. So, when we’re using these devices, we are teaching them motor planning. So just the way with with motor planning, when you’re learning the code on your cell phone or a phone number, and you learn how to do that without even thinking about it, that’s motor planning.

00;15;58;22 – 00;16;20;16
Speaker 1
So because it’s it’s a different way for communicating, but some of our students might never become verbal speakers. We teach them an alternative way to develop language and communicate with others. So on this app, they’ll have access to it. And we teach them the motor plan. So all day long, they will have access to this device.

00;16;20;16 – 00;16;51;15
Speaker 1
And my staff and I model language. And we do focus a lot of our attention on a set of words that are called core vocabulary. So core vocabulary comprises about 80% of the language that we use on a daily basis. Words like I, you like want help, need go. Stop. We can use those in a variety of contexts so we can use it for commenting.

00;16;51;15 – 00;17;16;14
Speaker 1
We can use it for making a request for asking for help. And we we try and use those languages that those words as much as possible to teach the students how to communicate more effectively. And then nouns and verbs and things that are more contextual words are called French words. And those are things that we’ll teach a bit later on.

00;17;16;16 – 00;17;42;20
Speaker 1
I’ll incorporate some of it when we’re working on vocabulary. But I also always, always use those core words. So, I might be reading a book and it will have sentences and sentences on the page, and I might pull out like three core words that they’re trying to portray in that, in that page. And we’ll show them this, that will show the students how to put that together on their devices.

00;17;42;25 – 00;18;03;17
Speaker 1
And again, without expectations, if they don’t know how to use it yet, we’re just showing them how to do it and we’ll model it verbally. And it’s something we do over and over and over again. Just because like with children, when babies learn how to talk, they’ll hear the word mama a thousand times before they say the word.

00;18;03;20 – 00;18;13;12
Speaker 1
Then we have to do the same thing with vocab, with the core vocabulary and and teaching language. Before we expect them to use it themselves.

00;18;13;15 – 00;18;40;14
Speaker 2
It it sounds like a I’m thinking about the process of, you know, obviously nonverbal does not mean non communicative. Like they can communicate just we can’t do it verbally. But I’m thinking about like, you know, practicing sight words with my with my son. And he’s verbal though. And he can talk to me no problem. Right. So I get that instant feedback to know if he’s understanding or not understanding.

00;18;40;14 – 00;18;51;17
Speaker 2
And I’m just I’m thinking about that, about how like, how do you know if they’re if the message is getting through or they’re understanding what you’re trying to teach them?

00;18;51;19 – 00;19;19;05
Speaker 1
Right. Well, so we do a lot of receptive understanding. So if they’re not communicating verbally to answer questions, we might have a set of questions that we have available to them. And they circle their answer. If they’re able to use their device functionally, they might use their communication device to, to do that. Something to keep because yes, certainly non-speaking does not mean non communicative.

00;19;19;05 – 00;19;58;19
Speaker 1
And that’s our job with our non-speaking students to figure out how to communicate. A lot of our students, when they cannot communicate, become frustrated. They might exhibit some really challenging behaviors. My favorite phrase regarding that is behaviors communication. So a big part of my job is figuring out if a student is exhibiting a behavior, what are they trying to communicate with me, and how can I help teach them a more pro-social way to, ask for that help they want need or the thing that they want, or feeling frustrated because they don’t understand what I’m asking.

00;19;58;21 – 00;20;26;29
Speaker 1
So prior to some of those academics, if I want the students to work on those academics, we also have to address certain foundational skills. Like being able to sit and attend to tasks. Being able to match objects and match pictures and be able to recognize that, that this object is also represented by this picture that doesn’t look exactly the same.

00;20;27;01 – 00;21;10;09
Speaker 1
Being able to do some visual discrimination activities. So working on putting puzzles together and putting, shapes into a cube sorter. There’s a, there’s a whole host of skills that we address before we can even expect them to show us that they’re demonstrating some of those skills. However, I always focus on that exposure piece as well. So even if a student’s not showing me that they’re ready to read those, cite words or write their letters, whereas providing them with consistent, exposure and opportunity for taking in that information.

00;21;10;11 – 00;21;16;12
Speaker 2
It sounds, it sounds amazing and daunting all at the same time. That’s.

00;21;16;14 – 00;21;33;10
Speaker 1
It’s not it was. And and as a new teacher, I remember like when I think back of when I first started, I remember I had a student who was a reader my first year of teaching, and I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Because he was non-speaking. Like, I have no, I don’t even know what to do.

00;21;33;12 – 00;22;01;21
Speaker 1
And now I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. And I’ve taken on a role in the district to really try and support new teachers and develop materials that other teachers can use, because almost every new teacher who starts struggles to figure out how they’re going to meet the needs of of students with such complex needs. So I’ve, I’ve tried to support teachers as much as possible.

00;22;01;21 – 00;22;25;19
Speaker 1
I’m always mentoring a teacher. I share all of the resources that I make. I’m trying to I’m working collaboratively with our administrators to develop some more video tutorials and things like that for teachers. So when they get started, they don’t feel as overwhelmed with everything that they’re expected to do to help our students.

00;22;25;21 – 00;22;31;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think if I was a new teacher walking into that role, I would be terrified.

00;22;31;21 – 00;23;01;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s a lot. And we’re very fortunate. We have instructional coaches. We have behavior specialists. And when I first started at Gen, we did not have access to that. So I was truly on my own trying to figure out the new system and how it was going to work for me. So I did a lot of trial and error, and there were many tears shed, and many times that I came home and told Chris, like, maybe I need to join our business and you can go back to work.

00;23;01;25 – 00;23;23;17
Speaker 1
But but now that I’m on the other side, I’m trying to do as much as I can to support teachers because, our students deserve it. A lot of our students, they they don’t get as much as they should. Because people don’t always know how to help them. Yeah. But they all have so much potential and are able to do so much.

00;23;23;18 – 00;23;28;08
Speaker 1
If we give them the right, the right resources.

00;23;28;10 – 00;23;37;08
Speaker 2
What do you think is, you know, a misconception about autism and literacy that you wish you could just erase overnight?

00;23;37;10 – 00;24;09;16
Speaker 1
Well, I think a lot of, a lot of professionals think that if they haven’t hit middles, if they’ve hit middle school and they’re not proficient readers, that there’s no point in doing it. The amount of times I could count and probably run out of fingers and toes, of the amount of people who I’ve heard that, once you’ve reached middle school, like you’re just going to be reading road signs and, and functional words that you’ll see in the environment.

00;24;09;19 – 00;24;32;06
Speaker 1
But there’s it’s never too late to teach a student how to read. The one caveat with that is you have to think about making it age appropriate, and age respectful. So you don’t want a 15 year old. I mean, I could go off on a tangent about it because you out of you want to respect their special interests.

00;24;32;06 – 00;24;58;23
Speaker 1
If they have a special interest in a 15 year old, a Sesame Street, you don’t want to say you’re not. If they really enjoy that, like there’s a time and a place for that where they can enjoy that even if they’re 30, 40 years old. But we want to make it age respectful for them. And give them exposure to content that their typical, neurotypical peers might have exposure to.

00;24;58;26 – 00;25;29;17
Speaker 1
But you can do it. There’s so many things out there at this point. There’s, there’s a book called Comprehensive Literacy for all, by Doctor Karen Erikson. And, I believe it’s Eric Copenhagen, and it talks. And this is like the Bible for literacy for students with complex communication needs. And they’ve they they also work at UNC Chapel Hill and they’ve developed some, resources.

00;25;29;17 – 00;25;52;05
Speaker 1
There’s one in particular called Monarch Reader where you can go on there and it’s a library of free digital books that have been created by people, by anybody. If you create a free account, you can have your classroom create one, you can create one yourself. Some of them have come from staff from monk, Chapel Hill and other places.

00;25;52;07 – 00;26;18;25
Speaker 1
They use some of those books in our alternate assessment, that is standardized for our program, from third grade on. And you can find age appropriate content, but it might only have one sentence on the page. And so and you can and there are other resources where you can adapt the language of, a text to make it simpler.

00;26;18;25 – 00;26;42;03
Speaker 1
So it’s understood by whoever’s reading it. Because I’ve had I have had families in the past who I’ve discussed with them before, and we continue to discuss it at Shannon as we’re trying to continue to improve our program K through 12, because we don’t want our students to be stuck in perpetual preschool. So you need to move the learning forward.

00;26;42;04 – 00;27;07;26
Speaker 1
You need even if they haven’t mastered a skill, you need to believe that they can continue to grow and learn other skills, whether it’s with reading or math or any other academic skill that they’re working on. And so I like to just keep that has teachers keep that in mind that it might not be appropriate to play the same song in fifth grade that they’re listening to in kindergarten.

00;27;07;28 – 00;27;18;20
Speaker 1
You need to try and you need to get creative and dig a little deeper to find things that are, age appropriate for the students with whom you’re working.

00;27;18;23 – 00;27;30;27
Speaker 2
I know you mentioned earlier that you’re now working with kindergartners, which from this conversation sounds like that’s probably really exciting because now you’re getting to these kids when they’re a lot younger and able to develop.

00;27;30;29 – 00;27;32;03
Speaker 1
It’s a dream career.

00;27;32;04 – 00;27;59;13
Speaker 2
Yeah. But it also makes me, you know, want to ask the question for older, like, I assume that you’re just working with school district kids or kids that are, you know, that are of that school age, K through 12. Okay, what what do adult, autistic nonverbal people do, like, if they haven’t, like, is there? I mean, is that something that in nursing minds is getting into or are there programs out there or.

00;27;59;14 – 00;28;27;26
Speaker 1
I would love to to get into that more, and collaborate with more partners. In the Capital Region, like Aim services or one of the other local organizations that services adults, and works collaboratively with adults who have disabilities. Because as I said before, it’s truly never too late. And making it fun and engaging is a big step in the right direction.

00;28;27;29 – 00;28;56;02
Speaker 1
Having consistency. Repeated practice of skills. And the book that I mentioned before, comprehensive Literacy for all, it’s a nice resource for people if they’re trying to figure out how to, how to dive into literacy instruction, because it has two forms of literacy instruction. There’s emergent literacy and there’s oh my gosh, what is, conventional literacy?

00;28;56;05 – 00;29;25;06
Speaker 1
And there’s a series of questions that you’re supposed to ask yourself about that student to determine which avenue you follow. So with emergent literacy and I don’t have them in front of me. So, I may forget some of them, but you want to know if if you want to ask the question of, does the student, or individual, do they know most of their letters most of the time?

00;29;25;08 – 00;29;48;18
Speaker 1
Will they do they have a form of writing so it doesn’t even they don’t even need to be able to write with pen and paper. You can also use an alternative pencil like a keyboard. With students who have mobility difficulties, you might have a flip chart with with letters, and they might tell an, a partner when which letters they want.

00;29;48;20 – 00;30;16;07
Speaker 1
You can use a low tech keyboard where it’s just pictures of. Or it’s just a printout of all the letters of the alphabet. On those AAC devices that I was mentioning before, there’s always a keyboard in that app. So spelling is a big part of it. We want a word. I just recently actually went to a two day intensive workshop with Doctor Karen Erickson, who wrote the book that I have been mentioning.

00;30;16;09 – 00;30;41;01
Speaker 1
And one of her biggest, one of my biggest takeaways from that was the importance of teaching students how to spell, because, she said, if you teach students how to spell, and you incorporate that into your instruction, that will open all of the language up that they could possibly need. Because even these apps that students are accessing, you’ll find that there’s a word that’s not there and someone has to add it in there.

00;30;41;04 – 00;31;07;03
Speaker 1
But if you teach students how to spell, then they’re the the sky’s the limit for them. I believe it’s I, I got off track. Being able to recognize letters, having a form of writing, participating in a shared writing experience or sitting with an individual and, and participating somehow in a book, and they don’t even have to be looking at the pages all the time.

00;31;07;09 – 00;31;33;09
Speaker 1
They don’t have to be responding, to things that you’re telling them. You could be reading to them, but will they participate without knowing, like, oh, I’m going to get this candy at the end? And I know there’s a fourth one and I’m blanking on it, but, for listeners, so you can look it up and look at those questions, and if they answer yes to all of them, then you focus on conventional literacy.

00;31;33;16 – 00;31;57;21
Speaker 1
So that’s where we really focus on targeted phonics instruction, phonemic awareness instruction. A lot of word work in developing sentences if they are not ready for that. You focus on the emergent literacy piece. So, having a structured routine of, a letter of the day is something like a lot of school classrooms will do a letter of the week.

00;31;57;24 – 00;32;17;17
Speaker 1
But if you focus on a letter of the week, it takes you 26 weeks to get to through the whole alphabet. And so you spent almost the entire school year before they even get to that last letter. Whereas if you focus on a letter of the day, they have, every 26 days, they’ll have exposure to that.

00;32;17;19 – 00;32;52;14
Speaker 1
So I’ve already set up my classroom for next year, and starting the first full week of school. I’ll have six cycles of letter of the day, and I’ll end on June 4th with that. So the students will have lots of opportunities to have that exposure. You teach the letter, the letter name and the letter sound together, which is something that, I always used to start with the letter sound because I thought, oh, well, if they if we have to teach them one, I would think the sound is more important because they need we want to well, for focus on that phonics instruction.

00;32;52;17 – 00;33;18;10
Speaker 1
But the sound the there’s so much complexity with it because there are actually these are 52 or 54 sounds in words that we would hear. So it’s not just as simple as like a long sound in a short sound. So letter names, letter sounds and giving them lots of opportunities to practice how they form those letters.

00;33;18;12 – 00;33;54;00
Speaker 1
And then exploring different set like what the beginning sound finding words that start with that sound. Being able to look at a sentence and start to identify where those letters are. And again, they’re not going to be able to do that the first time. They might not do it the first year that they’re doing it. But never giving up on our students and knowing that it’s something that can come if you persist and you are consistent and you’re thoughtful in what you’re presenting them.

00;33;54;03 – 00;34;16;27
Speaker 1
Because I’ll throw my other phrase in. Something I say all the time in my classroom is presume competence. Our students might enter school not showing a lot of skills. They might enter high school adulthood. They might enter. They have not showing a lot of skills. But if you set the expectation up here, they’re going to strive to to meet that expectation.

00;34;16;27 – 00;34;33;22
Speaker 1
If you set the bar low thinking they can’t do anything, they’re not going to do anything. But our students have so many skills that they’re capable of achieving. If we really, if we push them forward and, and believe that they can do it.

00;34;33;24 – 00;34;45;25
Speaker 2
I love it. Lauren, if people want to learn more about this, about the work that you’re doing, or they want to learn more about nursing minds, how do they how do they find out more? How do they how do they find you?

00;34;45;27 – 00;35;13;12
Speaker 1
Well, they can they can find our website, nursing minds tutoring.com. My email is Lauren at Nursing Minds tutoring.com. I love working with families. I love working with teachers. I can do instructional coaching with school districts. I work directly with students. I provide support to families if they just want to set up a better routine at home, or if they are struggling with certain things.

00;35;13;14 – 00;35;25;23
Speaker 1
I have almost 20 years of experience, and I’ve I’ve seen it all. And, I love these kids and and would love to help families who who need it.

00;35;25;25 – 00;35;28;12
Speaker 2
Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

00;35;28;14 – 00;35;30;02
Speaker 1
Of course. Thanks for having.

00;35;30;02 – 00;35;42;24
Speaker 2
Me. Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation. And it’s very eye opening. And, yeah, just really wild and glad that kids are getting the help that they need, you know? Yeah. For sure.

00;35;42;26 – 00;35;58;26
Speaker 1
And I hope that the message can get out because we need more people who who share the same message and are striving to do better for do more and continue to improve their instruction.

00;35;58;28 – 00;36;01;14
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Thanks so much.

00;36;01;18 – 00;36;02;23
Speaker 1
Awesome. Thank you.

00;36;02;27 – 00;36;16;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, thanks, everybody for listening. You can find us at buying local.us. Our podcasts are Apple, Spotify, Rumble and YouTube. And thanks everybody will you’ll hear from us next week.