Not Just Behind—Stuck: Helping Students Cross the Bridge to Skilled Reading

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Dr. Mitchell Brookins:

We’ve got to build a better support system for teachers. This is hard work. Teachers are yearning for support and let's be even clearer here, because … let's be precise. It's not just support. They're looking for instructional guidance. They don't know what to do in these situations. They don't have all the answers, and what they really need is a leader that will step into his or her place and set the vision so that they can run. So they can be efficient. So they can be empowered. So they can actually do the very thing they entered in the classroom to do, and that is to teach.

Narrator:

You just heard from literacy expert Dr. Mitchell Brookins. Dr. Brookins is our guest this month on the EDVIEW360 podcast.

Pam Austin:

Hello, this is Pam Austin. Welcome back to the EDVIEW360 podcast series. We are so excited to have you with us today for our May literacy conversation. I'm conducting today's podcast from my native New Orleans, LA. Today, we are so excited to welcome a popular and respected literacy advocate and leader. I'm thrilled to be able to talk with Dr. Mitchell Brookins today, who is also from New Orleans.

Dr. Brookins is truly making an impact on literacy learning everywhere he goes and has earned the respect of educators and literacy researchers across the country. Helping kids to learn to read has been his career goal, and I want to give our audience a brief overview of his accomplishments. Dr. Mitchell Brookins is an educational consultant with 20 years of professional experience, including teacher, instructional coach, school administrator, district leader, consultant, and educational thought leader in the K–12 environment. Dr. Brookins’ instructional leadership has yielded impressive results in all those positions. So, he has served also on The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, New Schools for New Orleans, The Reading League’s board of directors and as managing director of The Science of Reading Network With Leading Educators. So, let's get started. Welcome, Dr. Brookins.

MB:

Thank you so much for having me.

PA:

Oh, so happy to have you here with us. You know we're going to dive right into some questions because we want to pick your brain today. You know, most recently we've got some data that has shown us that 70% of eighth-graders are reading below proficiency. That's something that worries us a good little bit here. How do we get there, and why is it more urgent than ever to address this particular crisis?

MB:

So, yeah, when I really think about this issue and why it's so important, it reminds me of how we have an instructional gap.

When we look at the data, especially with our middle school and high school students, and we look at that NAEP data, right? And the NAEP data gives us these scale scores. When we align those scale scores to Lexile® levels, we're finding that many of our students who are below that proficiency level are actually reading between that second and fifth grade reading level. And so, when I say this is a crisis, when I say there's a gap, the gap is well, what's actually happening between when students learn how to read in K–2. Then, when they’re in middle school and above, they’re supposed to be reading to learn, but the issue is they’re stuck, and they’re stuck in this space in which they're not able to actually access and understand those complex texts that they’re supposed to be reading in the upper grade and middle school, because they're not really reading sixth-, seventh-, and eighth grade, and ninth grade proficiency levels. They are really within that second through fifth grade band. Does that make sense?

PA:

That makes sense. We're thinking about students being able to gain knowledge, right? Learning to read, then that transfer to reading to learn, so interacting with text, diving into text, getting meaningful text and actually enjoying reading text. Is that what you're alluding to?

MB:

That's the aim, but the issue is because we are instructionally stuck. Meaning, when you look at the curricular resources that we're using in grades three, five, how often are you seeing advanced decoding? When are students learning how to break apart multisyllabic words? When are students learning about morphology? When are students learning about etymology? When are they learning how to break apart complex sentences? When is that actually happening? It's almost as if we always think of phonics as a K–2 endeavor and not realizing that, if you're going to tackle complex text, you not only have to know what words mean, but you have to know how words work, and our instructional programs are missing this piece. And so, when I say children are stuck, they're not stuck because of their desire, they're not stuck because they don't want to learn how to read. They're stuck because there's a gap in our instructional programming.

PA:

Do you think that it's because it's a gap of assuming that kids don't need this?

MB:

I would actually. I think we do have … I think we do still have a remnant of people who would say that, well, reading is still something natural, and then if you actually just get read … we hear this a lot or read more texts, read at home, go places, do all these different things, and that's great for building your knowledge. That is great for building your oral vocabulary, but when it comes to instruction we still need to provide children that explicit instruction. So, yeah, what you kind of shared was that is the aim. Yes, we want children to understand. Yes, we want students to comprehend. Yes, we want them to love it and gain knowledge, but we have to give them the explicit scaffolds and learning experiences first, before we just throw them into it.

PA:

All right. So building the skill for the students, that advanced decoding that you mentioned. Can you give us a list of what those entail again? Just so our listeners can hear again, what do we mean by advanced decoding?

MB:

So, when you hear the words advanced decoding, this is what you should really be thinking about. You should be thinking to yourself: Complex vowel teams. You should really be thinking about trigraphs, right? We should be thinking about morphology, morphemes. You all probably remember growing up when you had to learn those Greek and Latin roots. That should be there, and we all should understand etymology, because when you hear the word, for example, you see a word that starts with a PH, you have to know that that actually represents the sound and students are not being taught that consistently. You know we think about it as a knowledge gap. There is a knowledge gap and there's a knowledge gap of complex word structures, and that is the piece that we need to work with students when it comes to advanced decoding. So, yes, multisyllabic word routines, syllables, complex graphing patterns, morphemes, etymology.

PA:

You know I'm thinking … I'm hearing you say that decoding should extend way beyond that K–2 environment and go all the way through high school, 12th grade, would you say that?

MB:

I would say word work. Yes, word work doesn't stop in second grade, right? Because as we encounter more complex words and more complex structures, we actually shouldn't learn those. And so, yes, that doesn't stop in second grade. I think that's actually the problem, Pam. We stopped, and so now we're looking at students and we're frustrated that they can't tackle these complex texts. And when we look at the instructional sequence that students have grown against, how do we ever expect them to do these things when we're not teaching it?

PA:

Right, definitely, and actually just hearing you talk, I'm envisioning content-area classes. I'm thinking about science and social studies and math and algebra areas where kids are going to encounter some multisyllabic words that they have never seen before in their lives, and the thought of every content teacher applying this. What are your thoughts on that?

MB:

I totally agree with it. When you are the science teacher, when you are the social studies teacher, you actually teach the most complex text that children will be encountering. You are teaching the text that have all of the morphemes, science. Let's think about that. And so, when we're doing vocabulary instruction in science and in history, then we should see an attention to the morphemes. We should have seen attention to semantics and definitions, correct? We should also see an attention to the sounds in those words.

I often will say when I go into a science associate's classroom and I see vocabulary instruction happening, I see a lot of teachers breaking the word apart. So, let's say the word is psychology. We're going to say, ‘OK, psychology.’ We break it apart into syllables. The kids repeat after us. But you know what's missing. We never go back and say, ‘Well, what groups of letters represent that sound?’ Because when we think about what we've learned, about how the brain stores words, an efficient way that the brain does is by analyzing the letter sequences in words. So, just because you go over the morphemes, just because you go over the syllables, just because you give kids the definition, that's not enough. You still have to attend to the phonological aspects of that word and have the students map those sounds to print.

PA:

All right, wonderful that mapping. So, analyze in order to store for easy retrieval. So, there's a reason for this order, right, Dr. Brookins?

MB:

Yes, yes, but overall we should definitely see content-area teachers doing this, because vocabulary accounts for almost a 40 percent to 60 percent variance on comprehending text. So, if I am the history teacher, I'm the science teacher. The more time I spend in vocabulary, that's going to then make me spend time in morphology. The more those texts spend in vocabulary that's going to then make me spend time in morphology, the more those texts will be unlocked for my students.

PA:

I love it. So, it's like building that background, building success, before you dive into reading the text. So that you're able to read the text.

MB:

Yes.

PA:

That perfectly leads into my next question, which is all about text-level fluency. We want our students to be fluent with reading text, right? So, you mentioned, particularly in secondary, middle and high school, even upper elementary, I think we can say students are really encountering very sophisticated text that they need to read. Now, tell me that connection, I think our audience will know where we're going. But from that advanced word studying to the impact on text fluency, go ahead and elaborate on that for me.

MB:

Well, then we get to text fluency. We have to still leverage some of the routines that we use in our primary grades choral reading, echo reading, partner reading. Those are still powerful strategies to use with complex text. So, when I think about text-level fluency, this is now the time where I'll say, ‘OK, teacher, yes. You can read the whole text aloud to students. That's going to support them with their listening comprehension. But if you want text-level fluency, choose I call it the VIPs of the text. Choose the very important part of the text to meet … maybe it's the hardest part that you know that students are going to struggle with sounding out the words, reading those complex sentences.’

Elevate that excerpt of the text and take students through multiple reads of a repeated reading so that first time you read that paragraph aloud to them so they can hear fluent reading, but then the next time you then engage in echo reading. That's one of my favorite parts. I love echo reading. You read a sentence, the students repeat after you. You read the next sentence, the students repeat after you.

Sometimes I'll say, ‘Hey, if you have on blue, you're going to start the first. If you have on this color, you do the echoing back.’ You change it up for variety. But the point here is that the multiple reads of that text, of that VIP, then support students with building their accuracy and fluency with it. And then, what's also nice about it, it then clears that cognitive desk space to then focus in on meaning. And so, yes, text fluency is important. But I know when you're reading a novel and it's 300 pages, you're not going to be able to do repeated reading with everything. So, being strategic about the excerpts of text that you're going to engage students in repeated reading supports the accuracy, supports fluency, and lays the groundwork for comprehension.

PA:

All right, so it's not one and done, even though that's what our students would prefer. We read that we got it over with right, and I love the way you spoke to the variety of different types of reading. Can you list those for us again, Dr. Brookins, just so we can have a repeat? I love to hear all of those methods once more, please.

MB:

So, starting from choral reading, right? You then move to echo reading, then you can move to partner reading, then independent reading. So, within that one excerpt you've engaged those children in three or four rounds of reading that particular paragraph.

PA:

I absolutely love it. How would you respond to a maybe a secondary teacher that says, ‘Oh, they're too old for that, that's baby.’ How would you respond to a teacher who maybe feels uncomfortable with these different types of reading?

MB:

I don't think it's babyish. To be totally honest with you, when I am reading empirical studies of random control trials and I go across that academic language and I get confused, Dr. Brookins stops and he rereads it and if I don't get it, guess what I start doing? I start reading aloud to myself so I can hear it, and so it's not babyish. It's actually a powerful strategy to do because you're not using baby text. Yes, right? You're not using baby text. So, you need it more than they need it. You need it more than the K–2 group needs it because the text you're reading, the task demands and the text demands that you're putting in front of fourth through 12th grade students. It demands that you have some oral reading practice if you truly want them to process complex language like Langston Hughes or Toni Morrison.

PA:

Right? I love the example that you just gave, how you need to reread something sometimes. Would you suggest modeling that for students so that they can see what that looks like, because you're talking about building a skill, that's building a skill set there, Dr. Brookins.

MB: 

Yes, it always starts there, right? So, when I shared that first example, you choose a new text. The teacher is always going to do that first read of that explicit modeling so that children can hear that fluent reading, and that's what's important. So, yes, I definitely have to model before I then release it to students, Because, remember, I'm not choosing the part of the text, that's easy. I'm choosing the most challenging part. So, I'm not afraid of challenge. So, because I'm leaning into complexity, I then have to scaffold more before I release it to them.

PA:

Right, all right. It's kind of like building that muscle memory in the brain. I'm picturing myself in the gym. I can't just lift the two-pound weights all the time.

MB:

Right, right. And if you use that analogy, those of us who work out, we know that when it's time to do our bench press and we're pushing ourselves at our edge of competency, I may ask someone to say, ‘Hey, come, give me a spot,’ right? And so, I would love the great teachers to realize, like, because I'm doing fluency and you think the oral reading practice is babyish, no, it's actually, you're giving the kids a spot. They're putting up some heavy weight and now you are coming to spot them so they can actually lift it.

PA:

I love that weightlifting analogy. It's one kids would get too, wouldn't you think?

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PA:

We've been talking about advanced decoding, but we know we have students who may not even be there. We've got some older kids who are at the pre-primer level. What do we do about those students? How do we approach building those foundational skills for our older students?

MB:

I don't see it as any different. But what I will say is this: Those students who need that intense intervention they are actually going to need especially … we talk about middle and high school. This is a tense topic of that reading clinic, that intervention time. I know you're in English 1 but you can't read and so there does have to be another set time. There's a high school here that has already started that work.

You've heard of Carver. They actually have an intervention program for students who need basic decoding and those students have teachers who are being trained. They go to that class, they are learning, they're using evidence-based curricular materials, and so students do have that. And I think, as I shared, I know this is a very tense decision and it's controversial, but I'm a really big advocate, for if you need basic decoding and you're in 6 through 12, the instructional program has to provide it. Like it is a crime to not provide it. You're sitting kids in English 1. You're spending all this time preparing for the ACT. You're spending all this time preparing for the LEAP, but your children can't read and you actually think the test prep is going to do something when, in actuality, it's the intervention and basic decoding that's going to move that child.

PA:

So, the intervention is the key to get students from here to there, because we know where they need to be, correct? We have to be strategic there as well. Thank you so much for sharing that. We've been talking about decoding, correct? Writing, what makes this holistic approach effective for your adolescent students?

MB:

Yeah, well, because when we look at research, it's really clear. When it comes to adolescent literacy, focusing on decoding alone is insufficient. We talk about the generalized reading gains. Decoding is not going to get you there. Why? Because the text and task demands of a high schooler demands that you have to do more, and so, that is why you are going to see, in upper grades, we have to have comprehension work. We have to have writing work. We actually have to focus on fluency and vocabulary. All of those critical components to support the demands that students are facing.

But here's the other piece about it: It's not just about the demands. When you look at the empirical studies and you see the studies with adolescent students, in which you do embed multiple strategies, multiple components, you actually see greater gains, right? So, it's not just because, oh, in eighth grade or 10th grade you have a harder text. No, the evidence is showing that the combo effect, that's what I like to call it. The combo effect is actually producing and yielding greater gains. And so, that's why I'm a big proponent of it. I'm also a big proponent of it because even in my work here in New Orleans, in the middle school, we actually did this for a year. For about 20 weeks. We had 120 middle school students, sixth to eighth grade, in the intervention block, every day outside of their core instruction, these students were in intervention for 45 minutes a day. We took a multicomponent approach. Now, if you want me, I can tell you a little bit about it, because I'm really excited about what it did and how it worked.

PA:

Please share.

MB:

What we did is we said, ‘OK, we're going to have a passage a week,’ and we aligned it to the grade-level expectations of sixth to eighth grade. So, what does that mean? That meant that the majority of the texts over that 20-week period were between that 800 to 1,000 Lexile level. And what we did is we took that passage of the week and throughout the year, of course, we scaffold those passages up. So, what happened at the beginning of that time? You're in that 800 level. As you move into the end we're in the 1,000 level. So, you can see that we wanted to ensure that the Scope and Sequence built students. They grew against that staircase of complexity. But No. 2 is that with each passage we actually had a structured experience that students experienced week after week. And so, what was that structured experience? Well, with that text … on Monday we really focused in on vocabulary and the whole text introduction. On that day one, we pre-taught the vocabulary. The teacher read the text to the students as they followed along. But on Tuesday we came back and said, ‘OK, pull out those VIPs of that passage,’ and let's engage students in fluency. Repeat it, reread it. We call it fluency drills. They read those particular excerpts three or four times. And then, after they read an excerpt, we then said, OK, what's the gist of that excerpt?’

On Wednesday, day three, we said, ‘Let's come back to this text and let's now deconstruct the most complex sentences in that passage.’ Right? Help kids deconstruct it so they can have the meaning of those particular complex sentences. On the fourth day, Pam, what do we do? We said, ‘Ok, now we're done with reading the text, now let's write about it.’ We gave kids a prompt. They did the do. What method? They then did the I planner you all know about, think SRSD. They did that.

And then, on Friday, what did we do? Well, you organize all that stuff and unpack the prompt on Thursday. Well, on Friday, we had kids write a draft, right? This is what we did for 20 weeks, and what we found at the end, which is really positive, we saw our sixth grade students jump up 100 Lexile level points, right? So, I'm sharing that because that multicomponent approach scaffolding students specifically in these ways of vocabulary, fluency, summarization, language deconstruction, and writing that combo … we were able to move student achievement. And so, that is why I say I live the multicomponent approach, because I've found that it honors students. It keeps them engaged with complex exercises. They can grow. We scaffold them through the entire process so they can feel success and I truly believe that as we build competence, it yields confidence.

PA:

That's wonderful. That's the C word that was coming into my mind, Dr. Brookins. That was the C word I was thinking. You're building confident students. Confident in comprehending complex texts. I absolutely love it. I love that structure. And the other thing I want to know is the impact of having that consistency, that the students know what to expect with each day of the week. How did that affect behavior? Because you talked about positive behavior. You talked about confidence. So, thinking about that structure for students, what did it do for them overall?

MB:

Interesting enough. What it did is you actually saw the uptake of these processes. What you saw is, by the end of the year, they're deconstructing sentences by themselves. What you saw in that 20th week, ‘Oh, we don't have to tell you about the TIE acronym. You know how to build that graphic. Organize it yourself.’ You saw more independence, right? And I think that is where you're not seeing the behavior issues you know so often when we talk about PBIS. I know we all love it. I know we all believe in social-emotional learning. I do as well.

But what I have found is that sometimes, if you just teach children how to read and write and give them the academic skills, behavior issues decrease. Because they can do the work. And it's funny to me, Pam, because sometimes I wonder, as practitioners, do we ever step back and wonder, ‘What does it feel like to spend six hours of your day where you don't know how to read the text?’ You can't even talk about the text and you can't write about the text. That's what you're doing six hours a day, and then you're not even allowed to talk in class because you're supposed to be quiet all the time. So, how are we so shocked that we have all these behavior issues going on in the room when children can't even do the fundamentals of what we want them to engage in. How are we shocked by that?

PA:

Right. So, the whole idea is to have a structure to build that successful independent learner. That's where we are. OK, now I do have another question for you. I love everything that you've been sharing and I know our listeners are just taking it all in. I want to think about the educators who are listening right now, and many of them are feeling overwhelmed. There's a lot going on. They're overwhelmed by the skills or the challenges. They're overwhelmed by the demands of just a job as an educator. What's one piece of advice or encouragement that you'd like to share with them?

MB:

It's interesting that you say that, because my gut said initially stop blaming yourself. Stop beating up on yourself. Stop acting like you have to bear this all alone. I think that's the first thing because I think we're not really … we're not taking into account the emotional weight and the emotional stress that teachers are in. And so, I want to always tell them, acknowledge that part, because many times they take on this cross like it is their job. They have to make everybody 100 percent in three months and they don't remind themselves. This is accumulated trauma. This is accumulation of deficits. This is accumulation of years of not knowing what students can and cannot do. So, it's not just you. But beyond that, I also share with them and take off the piece that you really, truly can handle. And so maybe you're not ready to do a multicomponent approach. You may just need to say, ‘You know what, I'm going to start doing the fluency drills. I'm going to make sure I have repeated reading with the very important parts of the text. I'm going to do that. I'm going to make that a staple.’

Some of us may say, ‘You know what, in my core classroom I am going to make it a point to at least show kids a multisyllabic coding routine, and we're going to do that. That's going to be a part of our do now, and I'll have like two words a day that really aligns to what we're reading that day, and we're going to break those words apart.’ And I'm sharing that, Pam, because I really believe what's simple gets done. And sometimes you have to start at the basics. The decoding strategy. The fluency piece. And then, maybe a vocabulary part. That's where we can start the work. And then, I think if I were to move outside of educators I think you're talking about teachers if I was going to move to the principal, yes. I think the principal is the one that I would say let's start with your assessment system first, before you start talking about,

‘I'm buying programs and technology and I got to get a curriculum and all that.’ Can you at least make sure that you have a screener? Can you at least make sure you have a diagnostic? Can you make sure that you actually have a progress monitor? Can you at least just get that laid out first? Because if we don't have a way to assess children and understand where they are, there's no point in buying curriculum materials, yes? Because you don't know what you're buying them for. So, to me it's like, teacher. Take a middle school teacher, high school teacher, take on a multisyllabic coding. Take on a vocabulary routine. Take on a fluency routine to get started. Principals, let's get this assessment system so that we can begin to understand what our students need. If I had to really push here because sometimes we say assessment system when I really want to say diagnostics. Middle school students and high school students are struggling with the word recognition realm of things. You need to have a diagnostic that's going to allow you to know what are the phonemes and graphemes your students don't have mastered, right? If you don't know that, you can't make another move. 

PA:

All right. I'm going to kind of recap everything you just shared with us, Dr. Brookins, here. So, No. 1, take that first step. We can't do all the heavy lifting that one time. We can't do that big old bench press by ourselves, right? Teachers sometimes need a spot and what's simple gets done. I'm going to quote you, I'm going to say it again because I love that: What's simple gets done. And then, when we're looking at our leaders, assess first so we know what we're getting into, right? So, we know what we know the needs are for our students. That is wonderful. Now I'm just going to have to thank you right now. I want to ask, before we end our time together is there anything else that you would like to share?

MB:

The last thing I would share and I was saying it, I would say it to leadership: We’ve got to build a better support system for teachers. This is hard work. Teachers are yearning for support and let's be even clearer here, because … let's be precise. It's not just support. They're looking for instructional guidance. They don't know what to do in these situations. They don't have all the answers, and what they really need is a leader that will step into his or her place and set the vision so that they can run. So they can be efficient. So they can be empowered. So they can actually do the very thing they entered in the classroom to do, and that is to teach. And so we need leaders.

We talk a lot about the science of reading, but what we're not talking about is implementation science. And so, yes, teach me science of reading, but, leader, I need you to get into the realm of knowing how to organize the people and organize the work, and that's what teachers are looking for. So, if I had to add that piece, I'm really just talking about a strong coaching system because we know that if you want evidence-based practices to take root in your classroom, it only happens with a strong professional learning system. That's it.

PA:

I agree 100 percent with that. Oh, what an informative conversation with you, Dr. Brookins. It's clear that your work is making a difference in how our nation's children learn to read and how you've changed the path of teaching reading success for many educators. You know you've worked with many of them over the years. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Brookins, and thank you to our listeners. Please join us on EDVIEW360 next month for more insightful thought leadership. We'll see you next time.

Narrator:

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