S8 E 1 New Season, New Stories

Season 8

Oct 2

Shannon and Mary open Season 8 of The Reading Teachers Lounge with stories and strategies every elementary reading teacher can use. They reflect on the podcast’s journey, share how a former student with dyslexia is thriving as he gets ready for college, and highlight practical ways to teach morphology and word study using Canva. The episode includes summer tutoring takeaways, phonics, and structured literacy strategies for struggling readers, and tips for balancing teaching with family life. Shannon and Mary also preview upcoming episodes packed with best practices from the science of reading, as well as opportunities for listeners to connect with other reading teachers through our exclusive bonus episodes.

Transcript:

8.1 New Season, New Stories

Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Hey Mary, another episode of the Reading Teacher Lounge is here.

Mary Saghafi: This season, Shannon and I are diving into new topics and insights about best practices, sharing more teacher tested strategies, and bringing you engaging conversations with fresh and possibly returning guests.

Shannon Betts: Whether you, you're a teacher, tutor, or parent.

You'll find practical ideas and real talk to support the readers in your life

Mary Saghafi: because teaching reading is tough, but you don't have to figure it out alone.

Shannon Betts: Join the conversation and level up your teaching with us every episode in the Reading Teacher's Lounge. Hey, listeners wanna hear what real reading instruction looks like in classrooms right now, along with our regular bi-monthly guest episodes, we're still offering exclusive bonus episodes for our paid subscribers this season.

Those bonus episodes feature real reading, teachers, sharing how they teach and what their students need. For just $5 a month, you'll get all our regular episodes ad free [00:01:00] plus those extra bonus conversations. Sign up through the link in the show notes or join us at Patreon @patreon.com/readingTeachersLounge

Come join the conversation. We'd love to have you in the lounge.

Mary Saghafi: Welcome Teachers Lounge. It's a new season, season eight. Here we are. I didn't think we'd get to season eight when we started. I, yeah. It's. I don't know. It just kind of is such a lovely opportunity for you and I to share and bring other voices into the conversation.

I didn't expect this either, but it's just kind of evolved and keeps the evolving.

Shannon Betts: It's also like an oral record of our teaching over the years.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah, that's really true. The other day my daughter told her teacher, it was like, you know new something unique about me. And she, it was like a true or false and it was, you can find both of my parents on Spotify.

Shannon Betts: Oh, cute. [00:02:00] That is precious.

Mary Saghafi: Isn't that so funny? And so my husband's band recently uploaded a few things. Their band's name is Cherokee Ave Project, if you're interested.

Shannon Betts: But I'll link it in the show notes.

Mary Saghafi: But that is kind of a fun fact, but it is kind of nice to you know, have this oral record of our teaching career.

Shannon Betts: And I mean, when we started, I had just gone back into the classroom. Second grade

Mary Saghafi: you did? Yeah.

Shannon Betts: Yeah.

Mary Saghafi: You went from reading specialist to a second grade general ed teacher, and I had been out of the classroom for two years. But, and actually this leads into one of the things I wanted to really chat with you about today.

I was working with Rigby, which is a student that we've been talking about since

Shannon Betts: season one. Yeah.

Mary Saghafi: Yes. One of our, our longtime listeners would recognize and he's a student that I actually started teaching with. He was part of my classroom. And then after my first baby [00:03:00] was born and I stepped away from the classroom and dove more into tutoring.

His family was really the one that got me interested and more proactive in the advocacy piece. And I love this so much, my heart could just explode, but he asked me to write his recommendation letter for college this year, and so I So is he a high school senior this year? He is. Wow. I know. And he's, so where was he eight years ago?

Fourth grade, eight years ago was and he was, he might have been fifth grade when we started. Okay. Okay. He is thriving. He's doing so great, and it was such an honor as I was like boo-hooing writing his letter of recommendation. I'm just, I've always been so proud of him. But it's really lovely to see because he has dyslexia, so it's really nice to see.

Shannon Betts: Students with dyslexia, they, they can, they obviously can still thrive. And he, he was very gifted in a lot of different areas from what I remember [00:04:00] you saying. And so he was able to almost, if I remember correctly, like use his dyslexia as a superpower.

Mary Saghafi: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would say that he wears his dyslexia as a badge of honor, which I think is such a high compliment to himself for recognizing what his needs are and really embracing himself for who he is.

And that this is just a part of him and it's something that he one is proud of because he recognizes that his struggle has been really unique for a young person. Mm-hmm. And to be able to work so hard to remediate you know, his ability to read. And I I was just thinking back about how. It was one summer and I believe he was in second grade at the time, and his mom just texted me a picture of him sitting on a lounge chair outside reading a book.

And while that's like such a lovely, you know, summer vacation kind of thing, it [00:05:00] was the first time that he independently chose a book to read and then independently went and enjoyed reading it and it was just, ugh, such a special moment.

Shannon Betts: So did you mention a lot of that stuff in the letter?

Mary Saghafi: I did. Okay, good.

I did, and I also talked about how he and I went to the Georgia State Capitol and we advocated for Oh, right. To get the dyslexia law passed here in Georgia House Bill. Yep. Exactly. House bill 48. And now I'm really seeing that all of that has been implemented in the state of Georgia. And I'm.

Seeing the repercussions of this bill now, and so it's kind of, it's pretty unique. Pretty much. Yeah.

Shannon Betts: We probably mentioned that in like ages ago in the seasons too, when y'all were I'm sure I did, yeah. Over there. But I, I couldn't find that episode.

Mary Saghafi: Oh. I'll, I know which episode it is.

Shannon Betts: Do you really? Okay.

Then we'll link to it. I'll just say past episode and you'll, you'll know what I'm talking about. Okay. Well, we really, we've only seen each other a little bit this summer, so [00:06:00] I really wanna catch up with you on what you did this summer, and I can't wait to show you some of the things that my tutoring students worked on this summer.

Great. And then some of the coursework that I took over the summer, and then also tell you what I'm, I'm kind of changing some stuff that I'm doing this school year and I wanna hear what you're up to this school year too. So we have a lot to catch up on.

Mary Saghafi: I know thanks for joining us in the Reading Teachers Lounge, everyone.

I think something unique about this season too, especially in our Patreon, is that we really want to include some voices who are really in the classroom and working. Mm-hmm. And so pay attention to our social media feed if you would like to be a part of the Reading Teacher's Lounge. I'm really looking forward to having some.

Some conversations with our listeners.

Shannon Betts: Yeah, we'll also put that Google form linked for any interest of participants, for teacher guests in the show notes for this episode, and pretty much all the episodes probably in this season we'll have it. I know.

Mary Saghafi: So what are some fun things that you did this summer?[00:07:00]

Shannon Betts: Okay, well. One of the best. I mean, do you want personal or professional? I don't, there's not me personal. Honestly. I worked, yeah,

Mary Saghafi: I love hearing all about you.

Shannon Betts: So, okay. Well I worked really hard. I mean, like a lot of my tutoring students needed me over the summer. Just 'cause I think that they were at really critical places when we were at, in the, at the end of the spring.

And so I just didn't want them to have summer slide, you know? And so I stayed mostly in town and, and just tutored. I just worked. And then the rest of the time I was just like watching, watching shows and reading books and just kind of relaxing at home. But one of the cool things I took, I did a professional learning class, you know, all last season we were studying about morphology and structure word inquiry, and there was a really unique class, that happened this summer and it was incorporating visuals with morphology and specifically using Canva [00:08:00] and using these digital resources to do the word sums and things like that, and to take the words apart and, and divide 'em into their morphemes. And one of my fourth graders. Who's now gone into fifth grade.

One of my tutoring students already loved Canva. Like we were already using Canva this summer with a chapter book that we were reading. And so it was just so easy to just immediately go back and incorporate Canva into the morphology work that we had done in the spring where we had like studied a couple bases using Morpheme magic and you know, come up with a big word bank and things like that.

But it was all paper and pencil, and honestly it was a little dull. Especially, I could tell the student just wasn't super excited. The student did it 'cause I wanted to, but it didn't really come alive. And as soon as we put the slides, that information on Canva, it became, it was just so amazing. I, I'm just gonna have to share screen and show you what Yes, please.

What the student did. Okay. So I'm

gonna

Mary Saghafi: maybe we can like screenshot a few. Yeah,

Shannon Betts: yeah. I don't, [00:09:00] I'll ask the student, but I don't think, I don't think she'll care. Okay. I'm gonna just sort of share all my desktops and then we're just gonna have to see if you can see it. Okay? Amen. So I'm going to my messages.

Can you see my messages? I can, yes. Okay. Wow. Yeah, so we had like, like we had studied this, the port base, and we had all of these no words in the notebook already. So I just called them all out and I was like, let's just get these typed into a word bank in Canva.

Mary Saghafi: Okay, so I see deported, deport, unimportant.

Shannon Betts: Let me tell you what's so amazing about this. Yeah. I was just dictating these and the student was typing 'em really, really fast. We the student did do the color coding until later where she color coded the morphemes as like, you know, the affixes were one color and the base was another color. But anyway, at first I was, we were just typing 'em in the slide in like three minutes, and I dictated all these words and she spelled them correctly.

And at some of them we were like. We were like, like proportionately. We [00:10:00] both looked at each other and we were like, that's correct. And she was like, oh my goodness. It's so easy when I know the pieces, how to spell it. Yay morphology. I know. So she wasn't using the sound. She was, you know, like no matter what that PORT base sounded like in those words, she spelled it with the letters.

PORT. And then, because we had done so much with prefixes es, she, you know, knew how to spell all those as well. So later for her homework, she had to like color code these pieces where, you know, they were all typed in. And then I'm like, okay, now I want you to do the base as one color and affix this as another color.

Great. And then what she did, you can even see all the different slides down here of what she had done. Mm-hmm. I see some beautiful pictures. I know. I don't have this deformed eggplant in here, but it was so cute. Like she came up with this. Anyway, she put Dfor ed, D-E-F-O-R-M-E-D. Mm-hmm. Okay. So anyway, so then she had to take she did some, you can't see [00:11:00] this 'cause this was just the homework she had sent me. But she had done a slide about port as well, just to show what the base meant, the port equals to carry or harbor. And then she had to choose a couple words from the word bank and use them in a sentence. And then you know, break, break 'em into the morphemes with a visual.

Awesome. So she used, she did carport and she broke it up as car and port, and then she did portion and she broke it up as PORT and ION. This is great. And then here's another word, bank for the base form. Which means shape.

Mary Saghafi: I can see how helpful this is. And I would never have thought to teach morphology this way as using it.

Shannon Betts: I mean, I told the student too, 'cause this is on the Canva for school, and I was like, you should just show these slides to your classmates. I mean, I don't think she wants to, 'cause you know, it might be like nerd alert or [00:12:00] whatever and who knows if you wanna do that as a fifth grader. But I was like, even if you show your teacher, you could show your teacher all the slides for what the bases mean.

Then show the word bank, and I think your teacher would just be amazed because you could teach these morphemes to your classmates then your teacher.

Mary Saghafi: Okay, so fun fact. I know for sure her teacher would love this because guess what?

Shannon Betts: Are they in the same class?

Mary Saghafi: Well, he is a listener of the podcast. He has been a long time follower of reading teacher's lounge and did not know us and had no idea that my kids were in the school.

Oh, shout out. That is so cool. Okay, so my daughter said. You know, was giving this Spotify kind of chat and she said, oh, my mom does a podcast. And he said, wait a minute, I follow Reading Teacher's Lounge. And he opened it up and he goes, see, I'm a follower.

Shannon Betts: That's really cool. Okay, well then you go behind the scenes.

I'm not, [00:13:00] I'm. Protect the privacy of my student. Know, I know, but you go ahead and talk to the school and see if the teacher will at least ask my tutoring student to, to show the slides.

Mary Saghafi: I definitely will.

Shannon Betts: It keeps getting bigger and bigger this slideshow. I mean, it's just gotten really cool with all the word banks and everything we've done.

And then what we did last week is we did the doubling rule in a visual.

Mary Saghafi: Super.

Shannon Betts: So we did boxes for like yes or no uhhuh and a check or an X mark and then like a questionnaire of double the consonant. Is it a one syllable word? Is it a one? Does it have one short vowel? Does it have one final consonant?

And are we adding a vowel suffix? And all four have to be true to double the. Consonant of the base at the end, and I really could not have told you the doubling rule that quickly on my own without doing this visual.

Mary Saghafi: So I have used a visual like this, but I think the fact that this student has [00:14:00] made the visual is a whole different ball game like this.

Has better meaning than any little checklist that I could give to a student because I feel like, what I would say is I am repeating that information over and over, and I feel like it's heavy on the oral presentation, the verbal presentation. But what I love is that this visual, it's color coded, it's got, like, I can see this as so helpful.

I can't wait for you to teach me more about this. Maybe I should also enroll in this.

Shannon Betts: Yeah, I'm gonna link to it in the show notes. 'cause shout out to the teacher Marie Foley. Like, I, I pretty much copied her slide for double the consonant. I mean, the student, I, last week we were like, can we come up with a better visual than this?

Like, we were trying to design a better one and like, we couldn't, I was just like, okay, we're gonna have to use the one that my teacher did because that's great. She just made it. And the teacher, she will say like out loud, like, she has dyslexia. And she especially struggles with [00:15:00] busy things that are visual.

And so all the graphics that she made for the class and even she would look at our homework assignments and then record feedback for us and which the feedback was so, so invaluable and. She constantly was encouraging us to simplify, simplify, simplify of the visuals so that it's not so busy for the student's cognitive load.

And I learned so much and I've just had so much fun with the student doing the Canva. And then actually I went to that student's house last week and the student was studying social studies, but she was using Canva. To like study the social studies and geography facts and was like adding the visuals and things like that.

So like the parents said amazing. You know, they're just using Canva to, to as a tool for like, everything just 'cause this student just loves visuals so much and is very thoughtful about the choices that she chooses for. Like all of the visuals that she chose to show the morphemes [00:16:00] of the certain words that she chose in the word bank were very, very thoughtful.

Marker

Shannon Betts: Hey everyone, it's Shannon.

Mary Saghafi: And Mary, we're so grateful that you've joined us in the Reading Teachers Lounge. Whether you're a parent or an educator, you're part of our professional learning community and we love having you eavesdrop on our conversations.

Shannon Betts: Over the seasons, we've strived to bring you practical evidence-based strategies to support all learners.

We've chatted with amazing literacy experts like Dr. Timothy Shanahan and Dr. Katie Pace Miles about everything from impactful interventions to the science of reading.

Mary Saghafi: We've explored topics that matter to you, like supporting multi-language learners, understanding executive functioning demands in the classroom, and even making reading more fun and engaging.

Our goal is to break down the complexities of literacy and find those missing pieces to help every child unlock the magic of reading.

Shannon Betts: We're passionate about this work and we plan to keep these conversations [00:17:00] going. A few of you have asked how you could support the podcast. While we do have our Patreon for ongoing memberships, we know that's not the right fit for everyone.

Mary Saghafi: Exactly. So we've set up a super simple way for you to show your appreciation If you feel like an episode has helped you or given you a new idea for your students or your own kids. It's a site called Buy Me a Coffee.

Shannon Betts: It allows you to make a small one-time donation as easy as buying us a cup of coffee to fuel our next late night recording session.

There's no subscription and no commitment.

Mary Saghafi: It's just a simple way to say thanks and help us continue creating the content you find valuable from deep dives into phonics, to chats about book equity and nonfiction texts.

Shannon Betts: If you've ever had that aha moment listening to the podcast and you wanna show your appreciation, you can do so by visiting www.buymeacoffee.com/reading Teachers lounge.

Mary Saghafi: Your support helps us keep the mics on and continue our search for the best strategies [00:18:00] to help all kids join the Reading Club. Thank you so much for listening and for being a part of our amazing community.

Marker

Mary Saghafi: We'll put the link in the show notes. I'm so impressed. Hopefully we'll get permission from the student to share a few of these because and if not, I'm sure

Shannon Betts: I'm seeing her today, so I'll ask.

Mary Saghafi: Great. And we'll we'll definitely link to the Marie Foley class mm-hmm. On morphology that you have done for visual supports. That sounds great, Shannon. I'm so happy you did that. Mm-hmm.

Shannon Betts: And so that was really cool. And then also I got a book over the summer called High Frequency Word Project. Okay. And it is teaching the sight words, the high frequency words but through the lens of morphology.

So through the lens of etymology, through the lens of, well, why was the spelling choice this way? And instead of just, you know, like how UFLI does it where they like put, you know, the heart over the letters and sounds that [00:19:00] don't necessarily match, you know, the graphemes and phonemes that don't necessarily match the traditional rules.

And I have incorporated the high frequency word project way of teaching the, the sight words in with the UFLI curriculum. Okay. And in with the other morphology work I'm doing. And it's been like a nice addition. So, you know, I like to kind of weave together lots of different curriculum choices. And so this has been a really, really cool one.

Like for example, this is gonna sound kind of complicated, but it really ended up being pretty simple. I have an older student. Who's in the upper grades, but is basically at a beginning reading level. And so I can expose her to kind of some sophisticated concepts and 'cause her oral language is pretty good even though her basic decoding skills are are low.

And so we were looking at subject verb agreement. We were looking at first person, second person, third person and things like that. And we were also [00:20:00] conjugating some verbs. And so we started we were conjugating like BE you know, and I am, you are, he is, you know, and then the past tense, like he was and things like that.

So then we were also looking at like simple subjects and verbs. 'cause the, UFLI decodable stories already have very simple things like he runs or the dog runs. Okay. So we were noticing that the dog and he were all third person, subject and third person singular subjects need an S on the verb.

Mary Saghafi: Okay. I have definitely never gone into that detail, but I love this

Shannon Betts: and I made a visual chart and things like that and we had to repeat it multiple times, but anyway, we basically saw like if it was a plural third person didn't need the S, but if it was a singular third person subject, we needed an S on the verb.

Well, then we also noticed that is [00:21:00] and was and has have S at the end. Great. And that's not even in hi frequency word project, but I think that's why there's an S on those words. Wow. 'Cause they followed that same exact pattern.

Mary Saghafi: I'm so impressed, and that's definitely not anything that I have ever observed before.

But also I like that you are weaving it into this UFLI curriculum too. Mm-hmm. So that you can see it in real life and then make those observations, because I think that's where it becomes So, apparent to students to make these connections that are out, you know, that they're, yeah.

Shannon Betts: So what I did is we wrote down, use an SES ending Uhhuh, and we wrote for so far two reasons.

So, reason one would be a plural noun at the end of a plural noun. Yep. Or. At the end of the verb that has a [00:22:00] singular third person subject. It does getting a little complicated. Okay. I know that's a little wordy. So we just called it rule one and rule two basically, or sit, you know, scenario one, scenario two, and then we would go through sentences from UFLI that of the decodables that had.

With words that had an S at the end, and she would have to analyze it and say, okay, is this scenario one? Is it the plural one or is it scenario two? Is it an S for the subject verb agreement? And then we made a word bank and I had her write her own sentences and she had to write sentences for scenario one and scenario two.

Wow. I now it's still not mastered, you know, like, could she say singular third person to No. Okay. But. If I said, could you explain scenario one and two to me, she, she could come up with some words that would show the understanding.

Mary Saghafi: I think that's the more important piece of it is to be able to put it into their own thinking and their own words and be able to identify it.

That's such a good example of the [00:23:00] students doing the work. Mm-hmm. You know, giving them the rule and then having them apply it. And I think especially for tutoring. You don't wanna overtalk them. The students should be doing 80% of the thinking work in a session because that's where you're trying to build up all of this you know, stamina for them to continue to apply these kind of thinking strategies.

To their own work. Mm-hmm. At school. Mm-hmm. So that's where you get your biggest bang for your buck when you're tutoring.

Shannon Betts: It's like Wiley Blevins said, right? Like, they need to have books in their hands or pencils in their hands. Like that's Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's when the learning happens. Yeah.

Mary Saghafi: Love. Ooh, so good.

Shannon Betts: So that's been really good. And then lastly, and it's related to that student is I have now gotten permission for that student and also another one. They go. To the private school where I used to teach. Mm-hmm. So now I can tutor them during the day at the private school. [00:24:00] So it's been wonderful to be able to see them during the day.

It's also been wonderful to go back to my old resource room and the new resource teacher that is there, like the second she met me, she was. You are the one that ordered all these resources. Aw, they're beautiful. Nice. I got to show her like the geodes collection and the flyleaf books and all the comprehension resources I had ordered and all the decodables I had ordered and the high low books that I had ordered and.

I mean, just all the morphology things we had shown. Mm-hmm. And we just kind of went through shelf by shelf, and it was so nice to be around somebody that was excited as me about these resources. Sure. And then I'm just, so, like I, I ended up pulling a bag from the shelf. I was like. I need to check out so many books right now that I'm gonna have to bring a bag home with me because I hadn't seen all those resources in a year, and some of them I purchased from myself.

But they're expensive, you know? So I'm excited to kind of [00:25:00] have access to those and check them out again. And the last thing I wanna share, and you're gonna love this, is the other student, not that older one, but I have a younger one who's repeating second grade. And every one of my other tutoring students in second grade hates handwriting.

I mean, just hates it. It is just a fight. And this student does not have much English at all. So it's a lot of miming and things like that with the lessons in itself. And we're doing a lot of vocabulary in both languages and building sentences and sight words. And I've started from UFLI lesson one with this student, but in doing the UFLI, they have some handwriting in there.

And so I was like, okay, let's practice. Let me see how you write. The first few letters are M and S and T and P and mm-hmm a. And so I noticed that the student was. Starting all the letters from the bottom, you know,

Mary Saghafi: where do we start? Our letters. Letters at the top.

Shannon Betts: I know. I think of you every time. And so it [00:26:00] showed the student.

And I'm kind of like in Broken Spanglish, you know? Mm-hmm. Trying to speak and showing them the a and I was like, okay, you have to make a C and then you wanna make the circle, and then you wanna, you know, trace it back and then go down. This was basically the opposite of how he, I mean, he was like going, like looping like three times and then trying to do a line down.

It was, it was taking so long.

Mary Saghafi: He was drawing letters instead of writing letters. Yes.

Shannon Betts: Okay. Mm-hmm. So he, from the first moment I showed him. He showed so much interest, even in this broken English Spanish miming conversation. He was like, you know, he kind of was like leaning into the paper and kind of looking at me with question.

I was like, show me again. Show me again. Show me again. And then he was like, looking up and, do you like this one? Do you like this one? So we did it last week. I see him yesterday and he draws the most perfect a I've ever seen. And I said, look, what? What is this? I was like, he goes, I practice. I practice and he just smiles really big, and so I was like.

Vente, you [00:27:00] know, I'm like calling out random numbers, just Spanish. I'm like, how many times did you practice? Is what I'm wanting to ask him. And then he goes, one, five. And I was like, 15. He goes, I practice 15 at 15. And then he did the M next and he did the perfect m And he goes, I practice M yes, I practice MI practice A.

And I just started dancing and I was cheering. It is the first time I've ever had a student. Want to practice handwriting, like, yes. Went home on the weekend, got out some paper and practiced handwriting. Keep it up up, buddy. I said, Bri, I said like, I, I do not know if this translated, but I was like, bring casa practice esquela.

Like bring practice to school I'll, I wanna doing at school. I want to see what you did for practice. I told the classroom teacher and she's like, I'll remind him as best I can. And so I'm gonna show up tomorrow. I don't know if that practice work is gonna be here or not, but I just wanna see this evidence that, [00:28:00] you know, like it stuck and he cared about it so much that he practiced on the weekend.

That's just huge to me.

Mary Saghafi: That determination is so special. I think that's what that's what the teacher said. She said it's all about attitude. Yeah, it's just, it's so impressive. And I have to say like I'm relating to that right now because for whatever reason and for many reasons, handwriting was not explicitly taught in kindergarten.

And so now I have a second grader who is not writing letters accurately and still drawing many, and we're doing the Handwriting Without Tears program together at night, and we've gone through about. 10 pages, I think so far.

Shannon Betts: This is your own child?

Mary Saghafi: My own child, yeah. Yeah. My second grader. And you know, the program is called Handwriting Without Tears and there were definitely some tears last night over letter A and I said, okay, hold on.

But, but I think that handwriting practice teaches so [00:29:00] much. Problem solving skills, executive functioning, planning, organizing, even like I,

Shannon Betts: I guess too, like he was willing to make mistakes in front of me. That's what I was just about to say. And ask for feedback. And it already, very quickly, within our first two appointments, establish this trust and this encouragement and excitement, and showed me that he's got some resilience and grit and really wants it.

It, you know, it was a. It was a big, teachable moment in a small thing.

Mary Saghafi: Well, it's really a large thing, and I think that that's the one reason that I'm so passionate about teaching handwriting is because you really see, are they capable of making mistakes, recognizing their mistakes? Mm-hmm. And okay with fixing it.

So every single time we. Any student I work with, I always have them look for their best one and circle which, you know, which letters they feel are like their very, very best. [00:30:00] And then they go back and they circle another one and they decide which one they're going to correct. And sometimes it's two that they need to correct or more.

But a correction doesn't mean. You know that you need to be defensive, that you need to be upset or disappointed in yourself. It's just one more thing to take on. And I think that messaging is so important to teach early on.

Shannon Betts: Yeah. The student really likes, he, that's his favorite part of it, I think, is like we, we actually do UNO dose trace and we, we find the best three.

And then yesterday, like he, there was one MI mean, it was just, it was awful. And he was like. No, I was like, no Uno. And he is like, no Uno.

Mary Saghafi: Oh dear.

Shannon Betts: He erased it 'cause, and he made it so perfect that he goes, now Uno, now Uno.

Mary Saghafi: Oh, great.

Shannon Betts: And so he actually, without even me telling him he wanted to change it and make it his best one.

Mary Saghafi: Well, something that I often notice too is that, you know, we all have strengths in lots of other [00:31:00] areas, but if you are not, you know. Easily catching on or grasping concepts right away. Handwriting is a different,

Shannon Betts: this is like a motor skill thing that he could become successful on. Correct. Faster than some language skill.

Mary Saghafi: Right. And there are plenty of students. Any future doctors who have the messiest handwriting mm-hmm. You've ever seen. But it, you know, we all have strengths on, on those other things. And being able to work to correct those motor skills can be really challenging even for some of our brightest students.

And

Shannon Betts: learning. I love, I think I'll add, just suggest that to the teacher that he could become the model for those letters. 'cause they are doing some handwriting during morning work in that class. So that would be a way that he could shine and kind of be a. A teacher guide,

Mary Saghafi: and I think that the teacher would so appreciate hearing a message like that so that that homeschool tutor connection is so [00:32:00] strong.

He knows that what he's doing with you, you know, is also, you know, not a secret between you guys, but other people are also, you know, praising him for, for his strong work. I love that.

Shannon Betts: Mm-hmm. Love. So it's going really, really well. So that's what's been going on with me. What, cool. I wanna hear about your summer.

You traveled a lot more than I did, so I wanna hear about your traveling and what you did with your family and then what you're doing with the school year.

Mary Saghafi: We had a really fun summer actually, I feel like to this year was like really like the. One of those kind of memorable summers that I kind of can reflect back to and think about in my own childhood.

But we spent a lot of time at the pool. Girls went to summer camp, they both went to sleep away camp, so that was really special. We spent a lot of time with family. We don't have family that live in town here with us, so. It's a, it's a pretty significant trek for us to go and visit family. So we were able to visit and spend some good [00:33:00] quality time without having big plans.

And that was just Oh, nice. Just everyday visits. That's a gift.

Shannon Betts: Mm-hmm. Absolutely not. Some wedding or some other kind of big event. Yeah. Right.

Mary Saghafi: Exactly. And so it was. It was just so fun. And my niece is now about 20 months, and so she's talking and, oh, fun singing. And so my girls were just over the moon about it and it was so fun to watch.

I, I don't know, it just being an aunt is. Such a special thing. That's one of my favorite things too. And being able to watch my kids play with their cousins is so lovely. And yeah, it's just, just been so fun. And we do have another older cousin too. But the gap is a little bit wider. And so having baby around is just, it's a different scenario.

Mm-hmm. So, anyway, it's been so fun. I did do some. Tutoring over the summer and not as much tutoring as I typically do. So one of my big goals is to [00:34:00] find a little more work life balance. And so I

Shannon Betts: something you might have mentioned the last eight seasons, but it's, it's, it's always a worthy goal.

And one day we will reach that elusive thing.

Mary Saghafi: It's constantly a battle of trying to figure it all out. And so. I think that I'm feeling more proud of myself than I have in, in previous summers because I really was able to say, these are the only times that I'm able to work. And I sent out a signup sheet and parents signed up and, for those times I was available, but I had two students who were kindergarten students going into first grade, and both of them are now ready to soar. They just really needed, oh, that's so fun to watch. A little extra support over the summer and that was such a fun check-in, it was just, ugh. I don't know.

It just, it really warmed my heart. Most of the students I work with during the school year. Are mostly long-term students that I plan on working with because they have some [00:35:00] significant issues. Another piece of my work though that I'm working on this year is really helping to support parents and helping them to.

Encourage their kids to develop better executive functioning skills and specifically on the parent coaching side. So I've been doing this a lot with my students, but I really need to have a better connection with home and how home structures what schoolwork looks like at home so that it's not. Such a battle.

And so, so that's really, I've been really digging deep into a lot of strategies that parents can use testing out these strategies. 'cause I'm right in that.

Shannon Betts: I think that would be really cool. You know, like as we're, you know, we've been updating our website and things like that. Yeah. Like, if you could eventually make that into a blog post or something, I would love to read that.

Mary Saghafi: I've been actually really thinking about that. So yeah, I think that that's a, that's a reasonable you know, goal to set. Because I think that we're all trying to figure that [00:36:00] out.

Shannon Betts: Yes. I mean, if anybody, we haven't released it yet, but our August bonus episode, right. We talked about some more tips. Well, the other part, and I was saying I'm having a hard time as a parent of a student with executive functioning,

it is issues

that the transition and middle school homework has been really difficult.

Mary Saghafi: I'm sure it has been, and I'm sure that, you know, that's the thing is that we're really trying to lay the groundwork to find success in middle school and high school. And I think the other piece is that there's a big. Difference between the digital you know, calendars that parents are having and those are very individualized and students are not really seeing all the planning that it takes to plan out and see what the year looks like or how long an assignment may take.

So anyway, that's what I've kind of been diving deeper into to really make it more visible for [00:37:00] students to, so that they'll have an opportunity to practice. Because I think that just like the canvas slides the way that we are, you know, allowing technology to help our students and use technology to teach our students what to do they need to be guided in this a little ways.

And just because we didn't do it that way and. Don't get me wrong, I still love my paper planner, but I have a, I have both. Mm-hmm. Because I really want to be able to help model that. But anyway, so that's kind of what's, what's happening on the front of.

Shannon Betts: Good. I look forward to like hearing as you keep laying out that advice and like kind of yeah.

Making it more cohesive as like sort of a system or like, you know, a just sort of set of guidelines that mm-hmm. Are universal and then, you know, as you, as you hone them,

Mary Saghafi: I'm also working with a student who is a homeschool student this year.

Shannon Betts: Okay.

Mary Saghafi: So that's kind of an interesting a little different. I'm working with a friend of mine who [00:38:00] is a math tutor and she will be working with this student on the opposite days that I do reading and writing support and mom is doing majority of it.

So all of us have been doing some curriculum mapping together, which is Oh, interesting.

Shannon Betts: What curriculums are you all using?

Mary Saghafi: So. I'm pushing for bookworms. Mm-hmm. But mom is feeling a little bit overwhelmed with the, it's, so, it's open up resources, bookworms curriculum is the one that I'm recommending, and then she is looking at bloom and blue.

I'm forgetting my word right now. I'll check in, make sure that I have it right. And it's a beautiful curriculum too. But knowing this student, she's gonna need some scaffolding and support. So that is where my friend who's the math tutor comes in and she supports, and then I'm going to also help mom with, you know, creating the other, other scaffolded supports.

That's good.

Shannon Betts: So [00:39:00] yeah, I was speaking well, a, a family friend. Is in another state and is about to transition to homeschooling. And so I recommended it all about spelling as the curriculum 'cause you like that one a lot. And then I recommended bookworms or C-C-K-L-A.

Mary Saghafi: I like the CKLA too now.

Shannon Betts: So the other which been by, I think it's been bought by Amplify, or been redesigned by Amplify

Mary Saghafi: It. It has been, I have recently been researching that one. Is it still free or? Curriculum is called Blossom and Root.

Shannon Betts: Okay.

Mary Saghafi: And it's a nature base. Ooh, creative based curriculum and it looks really interesting too.

So I told mom, I said, I am not opposed to learning new curriculum. I am all for it. I'm ready to, you know, help, support, and, you know, so I think it's gonna be really interesting.

Shannon Betts: Oh yeah. So,

Do you know if the Amplify CKLA is free? Because the old CKLA was free, or at least, like a lot of the stuff [00:40:00] online used to be free.

Mary Saghafi: So actually I was, I was researching it because school districts and a charter school were looking into it. Okay. So, I don't know actually.

Shannon Betts: Yeah, we'll have to see. We'll link it to a dinner show notes at least.

Mary Saghafi: But because we've talked so much about knowledge based curriculum, yeah. I really wanna keep, you know.

Build it. Yeah.

Shannon Betts: That one's a knowledge based curriculum. Bookworms is a knowledge based curriculum. Mm-hmm. And then wit and Wisdom, if I had unlimited funds, I would do that one.

Mary Saghafi: Yeah. And then I'm also gonna be using the writing revolution to really support the writing as well, so. I can't wait to dive into that.

And yeah, I have some new students coming up, so I'm eager to work with them. That's gonna be starting next week, so it's just, it's all rolling out

Shannon Betts: Good. And we've already lined up some guests for the next season, so. Mm-hmm. It's gonna be a really good season. We're very excited and I know we're gonna keep exploring the topic of spelling.

Yes. And then some other episode topics [00:41:00] that we've, you know, had at the top of mind. And, you know, we always have a running list of episodes we'd like to do, and we're finally gonna be tackling some of those. So it's gonna be a good season and I can't wait to have teacher guests on our bonus episodes.

Mary Saghafi: That's what I was just gonna say too. I'm really excited about these bonus episodes. I think it's gonna be great. One of the reasons that we're posting it on Patreon is I think that teachers will feel a little bit more comfortable chatting behind a paywall. So we do have a small paywall for our Patreon, but we would really encourage everyone you know, to join because we wanna make sure that our, our group is safe and protected and.

You know, we can, right?

Shannon Betts: I, as we're having a conversation about, you know, a third grade classroom or something, details of students are gonna come out, but maybe a name of a curriculum or something might come out and, you know, I know that I used to be really scared of what my administrators or any school district people might hear.

And so the Patreon [00:42:00] community and then the other subscribers that we have, through the podcast are very supportive. Other teachers that are, you know, are part of the Reading Teachers Lounge community. And so it's a safe space where you just don't have to watch your words so closely. It won't be a free episode that's available for everybody to listen to and record and then put you on, you know, on the spot on this, or, oh, this teacher said this on TikTok or whatever.

So it'll be a safe space for us to talk.

Mary Saghafi: And we would love to have all of our listeners join.

Shannon Betts: Yes. And if you are uncomfortable coming on just by yourself, you could bring a, a, a, a guest as well. Yeah. Like another teacher, colleague, and we could have a conversation among the four of us.

Mary Saghafi: That would be great too.

All right. Well, cheers to our season eight.

Shannon Betts: Yes. I don't even know what episode. We'll have to like count up all the title total of episodes. It is, its 100 something. Yeah. We're past a hundred. Oh yeah, we were past a hundred at like season five or six,

Mary Saghafi: so [00:43:00] maybe we need to start numbering them a little bit

Shannon Betts: because I'm like a TV person, you know, like, I like thinking of like, okay, season five was this season of that show, you know?

And so I just, I know that's why we set it up that way. And I still think of it that way, especially 'cause each season seems to have sort of a theme. But maybe like somewhere at the bottom we can have like total number of episodes, you know, thus far or whatever. Just so we can keep that number as well.

Mary Saghafi: Well, I think that this season is gonna be really good. I, I'm already so excited about the guests that we have lined up, so I guess we will have to encourage everybody to tune in soon.

Shannon Betts: Yeah. We'll see you next time.

Mary Saghafi: Bye-Bye.

morphology, visuals, back to school, former students, curriculum, high frequency words, UFLI, handwriting, tutoringmorphologyvisualsback to schoolformer studentscurriculumhigh frequency wordsUFLIhandwritingtutoring

Shannon Betts