Blogpost by: Mary Grace – PLL Executive Director
PLL and Evidence Based Instruction
Because of the breadth of services that PLL offers, there can be a misconception that PLL does not promote the science of reading (SOR). The organization’s history, since its inception as the Vermont Reads Institute at UVM and subsequent reorganization as PLL, has always been grounded in scientific research and evidence-based literacy instruction. Perhaps one of the reasons for this misconception is that we operate on the principles and seek to support all components of VTmtss, which by its very nature advocates for a comprehensive and systemic approach to high-quality literacy instruction and intervention. No single component alone will achieve the ambitious outcomes we all want for Vermont students. Using the foundation of VTmtss and a systematic and comprehensive approach, we know that learning outcomes improve when every student has the foundational skills as well as explicit and implicit, systematic, high-quality instruction that is responsive to each of their needs. Outcomes improve when all students have access to instructional contexts that promote skill acquisition and complex thinking.
Partnerships for Literacy and Learning (and its precursor organization, Vermont Reads Institute) are proud to have contributed to decades of excellent literacy outcomes for our students, schools, and the state. We provided the expertise for teacher development essential to the Reading Excellence Act of 1998, helped to develop modules and universal level professional development for NCLB’s Reading First, and have leveraged our embedded coaching work with large-scale, multiple-year grants from the Spencer Foundation, NE Regional Laboratory, and others for two decades.
During that time, Vermont out-performed almost every state in the country and produced student achievement that was the envy of others. We have a long-standing record of providing professional learning on foundational skills, specifically what they are and how they are taught and supported in instructional settings. Vermont Reads Institute and Partnerships for Literacy and Learning have offered coursework, modules, institute presentations, and strands, as well as embedded PD for 20 years in topics related to phonemic awareness, phonics, syllabication (structural analysis), and morphemic analysis.
We developed the “Reading Academy,” a PK-3 series of modules drawn from the National Reading Panel’s findings. We focused on foundational skills and expanded it to include how that knowledge and research translate into instructional practice. In 2012-2017, with funding from the VT SPDG4 contract, we updated the Reading Academy modules and even expanded them into the upper-grade levels (4-12).
The nature of both skilled reading and learning to read in English has not changed. However, our understanding of these things has benefitted from an extraordinary body of research over the past 25 years (Duke & Cartwright, 2021; Seidenberg et al., 2020). We know more about how learning to read differs from skilled reading (Snow et al., 2002; Suggate, 2016). We also know that even very young children employ various strategies to solve difficult cognitive challenges (Cartwright et al., 2020; Share, 2008).
For some time, we have been aware that the Science Of Reading (SOR) has strongly emphasized early foundational skills. PLL consultants and staff have continued their tradition of developing and enhancing their deep knowledge of contemporary research and writing related to all aspects of our work and have a comprehensive understanding of the changing field. We are well-informed about the many (sometimes divergent) understandings about early literacy and can support educators as they consider the research, their settings, and the student’s needs.
In 2022, several factors led us to develop and offer an 8-part series entitled “Phonemic Awareness, Phonics and Word Analysis, Early Reading and English Language: The Information Teachers Need to Make Good Decisions.” Central among those factors was the realization that too many novice teachers did not have the solid understanding of phonemic awareness and phonics required to help young and/or struggling readers. In addition, it was clear that many teachers, not just novice ones, were unclear about how the various components of reading development and instruction interacted and evolved over the developmental spectrum.
Last year, we had a successful year-long SOR series entitled “Science of Reading: Building Upon the Newest Research and Evidence in Literacy Instruction” that addressed not only phonology, phonemic awareness, decoding, and decodable texts but also other topics, including executive functioning and current brain research (teaching conceptual organization, cognitive flexibility, working memory), syntax, semantics, morphology, and orthography. Ambitious outcomes require a clear understanding of the developmental nature of reading – and the ways that instruction must change to challenge and address students’ changing knowledge and skills.
Over the past three years, we have partnered with two districts to develop and pilot a Reader Profile project that allows us to work with interventionists and special educators on applying the concepts from Duke and Cartwright’s Active View of Reading Model (2021). In this work, we provide professional learning in all areas of language comprehension, bridging processes, and word recognition. We directly connect the skills in these areas to specific ways that students can struggle and provide strategies and intervention frameworks that target the skills students need to acquire. The data we are collecting from this project is showing that this approach is indeed making a difference.
As an organization, PLL has committed resources to ensure that our consultants are up-to-date and knowledgeable in the current research and evidence base. We have attended conferences, taken courses and training, participated in webinars, read books, articles, and blogs, invited nationally renowned literacy speakers to present in Vermont, and consulted with a wide array of literacy researchers on a breadth of current critical literacy topics, including current brain research, executive function skills, syntax, semantics, morphology, and orthography.
We have used all of this knowledge and expertise in the work with our partner schools to support not just teachers but the systems in which they instruct. In our work, we have developed many resources grounded in current scientific evidence-based research including:
- Aligned K-3 standards-based curriculum
- Foundational skills scopes and sequences
- Word study maps K-6
- Reader Profiles and Intervention Frameworks Based on the Active View of Reading
- Comprehensive, aligned assessment plans
- Numerous other tools support literacy learning
As all that was happening, we were in classrooms coaching teachers, interventionists, and special educators as they applied their knowledge and implemented these systems to support more substantial outcomes for all students.
The need for deep professional learning in foundational skills is vital, especially as it targets those students with significant literacy needs. Several state and regional organizations provide valuable resources and training to our Vermont educators. PLL goes further. We work at all levels of a system, from universal instruction to targeted supports to intensive services…as all of those settings need to work in alignment and coordination with each other to improve outcomes for all students. In partnership with schools, PLL provides the expertise, time, commitment, and level of intensity needed for a dual focus on systems and classroom improvement efforts that have a long-term, sustainable impact.
As noted, the perception that we are not aligned with the current SOR is a misconception. PLL’s work embodies scientific, systematic, evidence-based instruction. Importantly, we provide a range of systems supports to bring this to life in the classroom for all students because when classrooms and systems work in tandem, there is true impact, and that is where PLL excels.