Reading Teachers Lounge

Shannon and Mary welcome Marty Martinez from Reach Out and Read and Judy Newman from Scholastic to the podcast to talk about Book Equity.    They share ideas for getting quality books in students' hands and nurturing students' reading diversity.    RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE: Reach Out and Read website Evidence Based Research initiatives for Reach Out and Read Their list of 3...

 Shannon and Mary have an informative and inspiring chat with Karen Gross.  They learn details about how the Covid-19 pandemic affected teachers and students.    Karen shares why the role of teachers is more difficult today, and she provides tons of specific ways teachers can fill their cups and take care of themselves and their class.   If you've experienced stress or trauma, you'll dis...

Mary and Shannon catch up with each other after the summer & podcast break.     They chat about their own children, their personal lives, and their plans for this upcoming school year.   They discuss the implementation of Georgia's dyslexia bill this year.   They share about their professional reading and learning.  And they fill listeners in on the activities they've done through th...

Shannon and Mary chat with Jennifer Serravallo, whose literacy work they have long admired.   Jennifer shares how her view about reading instruction have evolved over time.     Jennifer's written a new book showing teachers different structured models for responsive teaching called Teaching Reading Across the Day, and she gives us many ideas from us the book about how teachers can apply the a...

We have a summer bonus episode for you! Shannon and Mary have Anna Geiger, the Measured Mom, join them in the lounge again to discuss the best evidence based practices that teachers can use to reach all readers.   Anna's new book provides teachers and parents with a consolidated understanding of the Science of Reading findings. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ONES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE our S...

Shannon and Mary gather together to review the school year and close out the podcast season.   They give updates on their personal and teaching lives and share their summer plans.    Later they're joined by Kelsey (wifeteachermommy) to talk about Educate and Rejuvenate 2024. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ONES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE  Cox Campus K-3rd Structured Literacy Training program CERI...

Shannon and Mary chat with Nancy Young and Jan Hasbrouck about differentiation and the latest updates to the Ladder of Reading and Writing.   Listeners will get a better understanding of WHY it's so important to make adjustments to curriculum, instruction, activities, and/or assessments in order to meet the various needs of their students. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ONES MENTIONED DURING THE E...

Shannon and Mary chat with critically acclaimed author and experienced actress & advocate Colette Hiller about ways to make word learning innovative and fun.    Colette is releasing a new book titled Colossal Words for Kids, which combines educational poetry with vibrant illustrations to teach new words and related content knowledge.    The book is delightful and so is Colette.    Listen to th...

Shannon and Mary chat about how to best support learners with working memory challenges.  This is a companion episode to a deep dive learning topic we went through with our Patreon community about Working Memory.    Listeners to this episode will walk away with increased awareness about which students may have working memory challenges AND strategies to help those students during reading instructi...

Shannon and Mary talk with Kelly Butler and Carla Stanford about professional learning that is meaningful.   Kelly Butler worked with the Barksdale Reading Institute to bring about systems change in reading instruction in the state of Mississippi over the last twenty years.   Kelly and Carla share about a free resource they're working on now called Reading Universe, which is a one-stop shop f...

Shannon and Mary chat with speech therapist Dr. Karen Dudek Brannan about the overlaps between speech, reading, and language.   Dr. Karen helps us understand the challenges facing students with language impairments.    From this episode, teachers can understand the perspective of a speech therapist to better understand speech and language challenges.    After listening, you should walk away with i...

Shannon and Mary discuss the importance of prioritizing handwriting instruction simultaneously with reading and writing instruction in the early grades. Learn why handwriting is essential for overall literacy development and how to include it in your daily instruction. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ONES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE The Importance of Teaching Handwriting by Louise Spear Swerling Writin...

Shannon shares with Mary the steps she follows for analyzing student data.    This Date Your Data process requires multiple steps of looking at test scores, improvement goals, student strengths and weaknesses, and then connecting the data to standards to facilitate data-driven instruction.  This method of data review makes the test score information meaningful to teachers, students, parents, and o...

Shannon and Mary are joined in by Linda Rhyne in the Reading Teachers Lounge. They share a deep dive of information from the book, The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler. This episode is full of information and strategies to increase your student's knowledge helping them dive deep into comprehension and knowledge building.  Linda Rhyne is a returning guest to the show and shares her expertise in...

Shannon chats with her favorite literacy guru, Wiley Blevins, about the decisions and methods that go into differentiation.    Shannon picks his brain about some of her reading students.  Also, Wiley shares insights from his coming book about adjustments that teachers can make before or during their lessons to better suit the learning levels of their students.   We always get some much wisdom from...

Shannon and Mary chat with Dr. Karen Gazith about her new book The Power of Effective Reading Instruction.   The conversation flowed through many topics but ultimately what you can gain from our discussion is the gifts we give our readers when we teach with intention.  Listen to this episode to gain fresh ideas for enhancing your own reading instruction. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ONES MENTIONED DU...

Mary and Shannon chat with Dr. Molly Ness about her new book Read Alouds for All Learners.   Molly shares how teachers should intentionally plan their read alouds, with thought put into the vocabulary instruction, the purpose for reading, the think aloud process, and engagement and extension activities for students after reading. Listen to this episode for TONS of ideas from our guest about how to...

Shannon and Mary wrestle with understanding the nature of the comprehension process.  They discuss ideas from the Blueprint for Reading Comprehension and Executive Skills and Comprehension to understand the different cognitive processes and executive functioning required for students to extract and construct meaning from texts. RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE the Reading Comprehension Bluep...

Shannon chats with Lindsay Kemeny about her new book titled 7 Mighty Moves: Research-Backed, Classroom-Tested Strategies to Ensure K-3 Reading Success.     Both Shannon and Lindsay have classroom experience teaching Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students, so their discussion was filled with details and stories about the best instructional strategies and techniques teachers should use...

Shannon and Mary talk about why they love student mistakes.   They share how to make mistakes meaningful in the ways they show insight into students' learning.     They chat about establishing a trusting relationship with students so they feel comfortable showing us mistakes.  Lastly, they discuss ways to provide student feedback without inducing shame.   Learning happens between the lessons,...

Shannon and Mary meet with Kionna Squires (@DaLiteracyLady) to talk about the challenges facing older struggling readers.    During the discussion, they explain how meeting students where they are IS rigorous and the right thing to do for our readers.  They also share ideas for boosting student engagement and their favorite activities for upper grade reading intervention. RESOURCES MENTIONED DURIN...

Shannon and Mary host a returning guest to the Reading Teachers Lounge @MindfulTeacherRachel, who you heard in Season 5 on the Schwa episode.   In this episode, Shannon, Mary, and Rachel talk about English word histories and how they may inform how a word is spelled.   Check out this discussion to get ideas for how to share word origin stories with your reading students and help students see how i...

Shannon and Mary meet again to begin the 6th season of the podcast.    They recap their summer activities in both professional and personal lives, update the audience on the plans they're making for their reading students this school year, and preview what's coming next in Season 6 of the podcast. RESOURCES MENTIONED DURING THE EPISODE Georgia Department of Education:  Dyslexia Informati...

Shannon and Mary bring you a surprise bonus episode for Season 5.   They chat with Dr. Amanda Alexander from Scholastic about statistics about summer reading.   In the episode, they all share tips about how to make the most of the summer reading experience.  Note:  The research statistics cited were compiled by Scholastic in conjunction with Fluent Research.   The findings are based on a nationall...

Shannon and Mary meet up to review how season 5 of the podcast has gone.    They share some of the things they learned during the season and list some of their favorite episodes and guests.   They also chat about the school year as it winds down, their upcoming summer plans, and what is in store for the podcast in Season 6.    At the end of the episode, they're joined by Kelsey Sorenson from...