S9 E3: Know the non-negotiables in a program aligned to the Science of Reading, with Kari Kurto

On this episode, Kari Kurto, National Science of Reading Project Director at The Reading League, discusses The Reading League’s curriculum evaluation tool, which assesses a curriculum’s research-based practices. Kurto's conversation with Susan Lambert touches on her background teaching students with dyslexia, the non-negotiables in curriculum aligned to the Science of Reading, and how educators can use information about an evaluated curriculum to inform instruction. While Kurto stresses that no program is perfect, she and her colleagues have worked to equip educators with a tool to more easily and objectively access information when making curriculum choices..
 
Show notes:

• Submit your Science of Reading questions for a chance to win!
• Submit your literacy questions for a chance to win!
• eBook: Science of Reading: Defining Guide from The Reading League
• The Reading League’s Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines
• Reading League Compass
• Subscribe to The Reading League’s newsletter

Quotes:
“Just because we have this report and we say, ‘All right, this curriculum has all the stuff,’ if you don't teach it, then you're a red flag of your own.” —Kari Kurto

“It's a movement of improvement, right? We're constantly striving to improve. And don't give up. Share your stories; share your success stories.” —Kari Kurto

“Thank you to those folks who have been listening. Thank you to the folks who are curious about learning more, those who have spent years implementing and tweaking and improving literacy outcomes for our country's next generation. I mean, that's huge.” —Kari Kurto

Episode timestamps*
02:00 Introduction: Who is Kari Kurto?
08:00 Teaching kids with dyslexia, what they need to learn to read
10:00 Reading league defining guide
11:00 Curriculum review tool
16:00 Determining which programs to review
20:00 Using the curriculum review tool as professional development
21:00 Non-negotiables in a science of reading curriculum
24:00 How to use the information from a program evaluation
30:00 Long-term plans of the navigation report tool
32:00 The reporting team
34:00 The Reading League compass
37:00 The Reading League journal
40:00 Final Advice
*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute

Episode Transcript

Kari Kurto (00:00):
Go on social media and everybody's saying, "Does

(00:02):
my curriculum align to theScience of Reading?" "Does my
curriculum align to the Scienceof Reading?" "Does my
curriculum align to the Scienceof Reading?" And there's no
real tool to point them to. Sowe developed it.

Susan Lambert (00:16):
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science

of Reading (00:18):
The Podcast, from Amplify, where the Science of
Reading lives. This is Episode3 in our season-long Reading
Reboot, and today's episode isgoing to be all about
curriculum and the importanceof high-quality curriculum in
the Science of Readingmovement. For this discussion,
I'm joined today by Kari Kurto.

(00:40):
Kari is the National Science ofReading project director with
the Reading League. She directsall work related to the
curriculum evaluationguidelines, the curriculum
navigation reports, and theReading League Compass. We'll
discuss what that is in a bit.
In other words, she's someonewho knows and thinks a lot

(01:00):
about curriculum. On thisepisode, we'll explore why
high-quality curriculum is soimportant, the key elements of
high-quality curriculum, whatgoes into the Reading League's
curriculum evaluation process,and much more. Also, it's now
October, which means it'sDyslexia Awareness Month. As

(01:21):
you'll soon hear, early in hercareer, Kari got a job at a
school serving students withdyslexia, which played a big
part in her story. And don'tforget, this season, we're
taking on some of your Scienceof Reading questions. Stick
around until the end of theepisode for more information on
that. And now, here's Kari.

(01:45):
Well, Kari, welcome to thepodcast. We're so excited to
have you on.

Kari Kurto (01:49):
I am so thrilled to be here, Susan. Thank you so
much for having me.

Susan Lambert (01:54):
Of course. And we're gonna talk a little bit
about some of the work thatyou've done with the Reading
League and some of the supportthat you're providing for
educators. But as we always do,before we get started, we would
love for you to tell ourlisteners: How in the world did
you end up at the ReadingLeague, and what's your story?

Kari Kurto (02:12):
Thank you so much. Yeah, I would love to
share because it's notnecessarily the most
traditional path. I actuallystarted my first career in Los
Angeles. I spent some time inthe television industry. So it
didn't directly translate to mywork at the Reading League. But
I do think that I formed areally good understanding of

(02:33):
what can be accomplished when agroup works together for the
same outcome. So that was agood skill that I developed in
that work.

Susan Lambert (02:41):
That's a first.
Kari, we have never had anybodythat said, "My background
started in television." Socongratulations!

Kari Kurto (02:47):
I know. I have my whole IMDB and everything. You
can look it up. Proudto be a first. So then I
decided to transition intoteaching. My parents were both
teachers and I got a master'sin teaching. And I moved to
Austin, Texas. Andunfortunately, because I am

(03:07):
monolingual, there were not alot of job opportunities there
for me as a beginning teacher.
It was just after therecession. So through the magic
of Craigslist, actually, I gotmy one and only interview.
I know. It was likethe big rage back then, too —
like, circa, I don't know ,2010. And so I got my first

(03:29):
interview. And I got a job at aschool called Rawson Saunders,
and it's a school for studentswith dyslexia. And I was like,
"What the heck is dyslexia? Idon't know! But I really like
you guys and thank you forgiving me a job!" So
through my work there, the kidsthere changed my life. The way
that they were teaching wascompletely different than the

(03:51):
way that I had learned to teachreading and my m aster's
program. And so then, when Imoved to Rhode Island, I was
looking for a teaching job, butI couldn't get this idea out of
my head. These academiclanguage therapists that were
working with the students atRawson Saunders had this, like,
secret knowledge of how toactually teach kids how to

(04:11):
read, and I wanted to learn it.
So I had the great fortune ofmeeting an Orton-Gillingham
fellow named Linda Atamian, whogave me that gift. She taught
me about how the brain learnsto read, w hat happens when
students struggle. And Ilearned all about the structure
of the English language. I wasreally interested in words

(04:34):
before — kind of a word nerd —but this training definitely
sealed the deal. < L aughs>Full-on w ord nerd now. And so
I was able to use thatknowledge and break it down
explicitly and systematicallyto my students. I was
simultaneously working at ahigh school for students with
learning differences. And itjust felt so empowering to know

(04:57):
exactly what I was doing. Toknow how to help them. To give
them academic success for thefirst time at 13, 15, 17 years
old. Right? These werenon-readers. And so I wanted to
figure out a way of gettingthis knowledge into more
educators' hands. It justseemed like the secret

(05:18):
ingredient that I didn't knowabout previously. So I did some
advocacy work with some amazingindividuals at Decoding
Dyslexia Rhode Island, and wegot the Right t o Read Act
passed here in Rhode Island.
And long story short, I endedup working at the Rhode Island
Department of Education, and myprimary role was actually
implementing the Right t o ReadAct. And one of the first

(05:40):
things that I did there ... itwas interesting because we
passed the Right to Read Actand simultaneously they also
passed a law for schools to usehigh-quality instructional
materials. So one of the firstthings I did was to start to
peek through those high-qualityinstructional materials on the
approved list. And I went,"Uh-oh." I said,

(06:01):
there's some things in herethat run counter to this
research that I've beenlearning about. So,
simultaneously I was talkingwith Maria Murray, who I had
met at the Reading Leagueconference that year, and we
were, you know, on FacebookMessenger, just kind of
exchanging shocked emojis and things like that.
Just talking about, you know,this issue that folks were

(06:22):
misunderstanding the Science ofReading, that they were
misunderstanding what it meantfor instructional materials,
that we're really talking abouta body of knowledge. So I was
fortunate enough to be invitedto join a small group of
individuals where we convenedfrequently and eventually came
up with the definition of theScience of Reading. And the
content that became the ReadingLeague's defining guide. And we

(06:45):
discussed the need for a toolto help folks understand and
unpack that understanding of ifmy curriculum aligns to the
Science of Reading. So how didI get to the Reading League?
Well, I got to know a lot offolks through that. and
eventually t his job of theNational Science of Reading
Project Director was posted andit was doing a lot of the work
I was doing in Rhode Island,but more of a national level.

(07:08):
And I had t he opportunity towork from home, which with
three babies was very enticing.
So I was absolutely thrilledwhen I was hired for the role
in March of 2022.

Susan Lambert (07:20):
That's very cool. Before we start talking
about the defining guide inthat curriculum review tool, I
wanna backtrack just a tinybit. Because this episode will
be released during October,which is Dyslexia Awareness
Month. So I would love you foryou to just take a couple of
minutes to talk about ... whenyou say when you went to the

(07:42):
school with kids that werestruggling with dyslexia,
struggling to learn how toread, they were teaching
reading differently ... and Iwonder if you can talk to our
listeners about, "Do kids withdyslexia need a different kind
of instruction?" Can you talkabout that?

Kari Kurto (07:59):
Yeah, absolutely. I literally googled the word
dyslexia when I saw the ad onCraigslist and that it was a
school for students withdyslexia, because I had the
knowledge that many humans — Iwouldn't even say educators,
but many humans have — of,"Isn't that where they flip
their Bs and Ds?"

Susan Lambert (08:17):
Right,

Kari Kurto (08:18):
That's kind of just baseline. That's what people
think. That's what they know.
And I didn't know. It wasn'tdiscussed in my master's
program. And so what I saw themdoing was going around with
these flashcards and they weretalking about macrons, and
breves, and syllables andsyllable types, and I was like,
"What is all this cool stuff?"And so a wonderful gentleman

(08:41):
named Perry Stokes at theschool helped me understand a
little bit of what that was.
But it was just so cool thatthese little bitty kids, you
know ... they were talkingabout how schools didn't really
serve them well previously. Andthey found their way to Rawson
Saunders, where teachersunderstood dyslexia, they
understood how to teach kidswith dyslexia, and they gave

(09:02):
them these gifts ofunderstanding the language at
such a deep level that theycould put together the
phenology of the language, themorphology of the language, and
its instruction, that we knowthat all students should have.
Because that's the instructionthat is most aligned to the
scientific evidence. But it'sinstruction that they need with
multiple practice opportunitiesand multiple repetitions.

Susan Lambert (09:25):
Yeah. Thank you for saying that, that this is
the kind of instruction weshould be delivering to all
students. It's just sometimessome kids need a little more
time and repetition andpractice with that. And I think
that's a really good segue into... well, the Reading League
Defining Guide, which if peopledon't know it, we will link our
listeners in the show notes tothat. I literally downloaded it

(09:45):
as a PDF and use it all thetime. Which seems kind of
silly, that I go back to it,but it's a good grounding
mechanism, isn't it, to remindus what it's all about?

Kari Kurto (09:56):
Absolutely. And it doesn't explain everything. You
couldn't explain everything. Itreally just is a resource to
begin your understanding of"What is the Science of
Reading? What is it not? Whatare just a few things that we
have learned from theresearch?" But it starts your
journey.

Susan Lambert (10:11):
Yeah. Yeah. OK.
Let's make the transition nowto this thing called the
curriculum review tool. Soafter you're looking at all the
things on the list and kind offreaking out a little bit ,
tell us just a little bit aboutwhy you thought it was
important to develop that tooland how it came to be.

Kari Kurto (10:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, this was right around 2019,2020 when the phrase "the
Science of Reading" was reallystarting to come into popular
use. And in full transparency,people were using it as a
marketing tool. Right? They'resticking the sticker on a

(10:51):
product, not quiteunderstanding what it means,
and perhaps in a way that's notfully true. That's problematic,
right? This isn't acatchphrase. We're talking
about a significant body ofresearch. So, a group of folks
that includes Linda Diamond andLouisa Moats, Kelly Butler,

(11:12):
Kymyona Burk, StephanieStollar, an amazing, brilliant
team, we all started working onthe first version, which was
just a Google sheet .
And started about, "OK, what dowe know from research what's
aligned, but also what's notaligned?" Because there are
other review resources outthere, and a lot of them will
uplift the aligned components.

(11:32):
But when you look at thesegiant curricula, you might find
all of these alignedcomponents, but you also have
these pieces that run counterto the research that might be a
waste of that preciousinstructional time, right ? And
it might hold kids behind. Andso that's the reason why we
developed the tool in themanner that we did, of

(11:55):
uplifting those red-flagpractices as well. So, that was
the first iteration, right? Itwas really intended just to
have something. Because onsocial media, you go on social
media, and everybody's saying,"Does my curriculum align to
the Science of Reading? Does mycurriculum align to the Science
of Reading? Does my curriculumalign to the Science of
Reading?" And there's no realtool to point them to. So we
developed it. Right? And thenwhen I joined the Reading

(12:16):
League, we gave it a nicefacelift. And we started to
dive into it what needed to beadded. And we decided that the
most important thing thatneeded to be added was the
research itself, right? We'resaying, "Well, this is from
research." But anybody can saythat. We needed to prove it.
And so we hired Dr. DoreenMazzye, who is brilliant and

(12:37):
wonderful, and such a sticklerfor the research, to make sure
that we're not just citingbooks or publications or things
from the media, but we'reciting actual scientifically
based research to support thecomponents. And because of
that, it's been used by a lotof people, including
publishers. But I have to namethat we did begin to get a

(12:59):
little worried when we heardabout publishers filling it out
on their own. < Laughs > Thatwas not the intent, right?
Because there's always going tobe some level of bias there.

Susan Lambert (13:08):
Sure.

Kari Kurto (13:09):
So because of that, and because we're hearing from
schools and districts that theydo not have the capacity and
they do not have the time toengage in this very lengthy
project on their own, that'swhen we started to think about,
could we actually review thesecurricula as the Reading
League? Could we do that in away that's unbiased? Could we

(13:32):
do it in a way that'stransparent and fair? So we did
a pilot review and we listenedin . It was like a
two-way mirror on Zoom. We werejust listening in to the
conversations to hear if anybias was getting in. We tweaked
the tool a little bit afterthat pilot review. And then we
had Dr. Matt Burns conduct aninter-rater reliability study.

(13:52):
And after all of those steps,we felt like we had something
where we could actually reviewthe curricula on our own. So
that's how the CurriculumNavigation Reports then came to
fruition .

Susan Lambert (14:05):
Got it. So step one was really developing the
tool and letting districts sortof fill it out for themselves.
Right?

Kari Kurto (14:11):
Yeah.

Susan Lambert (14:12):
And then we're gonna dig in a little bit, but
I love what you said, that notonly did you put what you
should see in a program, butwhat you shouldn't see. And
we're gonna talk about thosered flags. That was brilliant.
Because I don't think there'sanother tool that actually does
that. Anyway, so then you guysdecided to do this yourself.
How long did that process take,from when you're pulling the

(14:34):
trigger — "we're gonna do thisourselves, and we're gonna go
through this pilot process, andinter-rater reliability" — to
when you actually were able toget some of these reports up?

Kari Kurto (14:44):
It was close to a year, I would say. We really
wanted to make sure internallythat we did it right, as well.
And bringing up the studyreminds me that I should
mention that there's now apaper that will be published —
or might already be published —in the Assessment for Effective
Intervention that goes throughthat inter-rater reliability
study that Matt did.

Susan Lambert (15:05):
Amazing.

Kari Kurto (15:06):
Yeah. It took the better part of a year. We
started with the legaldepartment, just saying, "Can
we do this in a way that we aregoing to be OK?" And then the
pilot review took a good fewmonths. The inter-rater
reliability took severalmonths. So, you know, just
paying really carefulattention, the whole way of
thinking, "Is this helpful? Isthis transparent? Is this

(15:27):
unbiased? And does this staytrue to the research?" Because
obviously at the ReadingLeague, that's what we care the

most about (15:34):
You know, making sure that everything is truly
in alignment with the research.

Susan Lambert (15:39):
And how did you decide which programs to
review?

Kari Kurto (15:44):
Well, we reached out to several publishers. We
did begin with the curriculathat we knew to be the most
widely used. And coming from astate education agency — and I
actually run a community ofpractice for state education
agencies, and we meet monthly —I knew that a lot of folks did

(16:05):
look to EdReports for theirlist. And so we started out by
reaching out to several ofthose publishers , which can be
very daunting — for apublisher, I should say! — to
say, "Hi, we're here, we're theReading League, dunno if you
heard about us, dunno if you'veheard about these curriculum
evaluation guidelines; we wannalook at your red flags!"

(16:27):
It's daunting. So wewere fortunate in that the
first year, many of the largercurricula said yes. And so if
you are in a school or districtthat has one of those
curricula , say thank you toyour publisher! Because I know
it was daunting. And it's stillone of the harder aspects of

(16:48):
it. You know, the publishersdeciding whether they want to
be reviewed or not. And, youknow, trying to encourage them
to understand that this is atool for educators to build
their knowledge and have anunderstanding of what they have
in their classrooms. And that,sorry, it's not a marketing
tool for you. That's kind of ahard path to navigate. So, we

(17:11):
have had some folks say no. Butwe're hopeful that they'll say
yes in the future.

Susan Lambert (17:15):
That makes sense. And I think there's a
disclaimer ... or maybe it'snot a disclaimer, but maybe
there's an explanation topeople that are looking at
these programs that have beenreviewed and you actually say,
"No program is perfect."

Kari Kurto (17:32):
"No program is perfect."

Susan Lambert (17:34):
And really helping people understand how
to use these tools, too. Whatwould you say to folks that are
in a classroom and they'relike, "Well, yeah, but the
program I'm using hasn't beenreviewed by you." What advice
would you give them?

Kari Kurto (17:50):
They're gonna have to do a little bit more
research, unfortunately. Theycould certainly reach out to
the publisher and say, "Wereally find these resources to
be useful and we're hopefulthat you engage in a review ."
I think I can disclose that themajority of the publishers did

(18:11):
not outright say "no" to areview at all. They said, "We
wanna wait for a futureversion." OK. Or,
"We're hopeful that, you know,we can be reviewed in the
future." Which I think isreally exciting, in some ways,
because it means that they'repaying attention. It means that
folks are really homing intothe research. They're really

(18:33):
homing into the curriculumevaluation guidelines. They
know that it's important andthey wanna put their own best
foot forward. I do get a littlefrustrated because those
materials that are upcoming arenot the ones that are in the
classroom. And we want this tobe a tool to help them
navigate. There's a reason whythese are the navigation

(18:55):
reports, so we wish that we hadmore options for you, but
hopefully, if you do have alarger publisher that has not
yet been reviewed, we'rehopeful that w e'll have a
report for you in future years.

Susan Lambert (19:07):
And at minimum, folks can take the tool
themselves and look at itagainst the program that
they're using.

Kari Kurto (19:15):
Absolutely.

Susan Lambert (19:16):
Which is time-consuming. But one other
thing that I wonder, too,before we jump into more about
the tool ... this is a greatprofessional development
opportunity. Even if you're notputting it against a program.
It seems to me that a PLC or agroup of teachers that wanted
to get together and learn moreabout what do we mean by the
Science of Reading could usethis tool.

Kari Kurto (19:38):
Absolutely. And start with the reference
section. You know, that all ofus nerds love to read through.
Al that research. You know,start there and look at the
research and talk about it. Andthen you can see what's
uplifted. And in fact, I alwaysask folks how they use the
guidelines. Some people use itin PLCs, some folks use it as
more of a walkthrough tool. Andone really exciting way that
I've heard it used, and MattBurns actually did this while

(20:01):
he was also doing theinter-rater reliability, is
they take the curriculumevaluation guidelines in their
educator preparation programand they'll use it as an
outline for their syllabus. Andso they'll use the research and
they'll provide their studentswith the research to read and
unpack and discuss. And then atthe end of that class, they'll
take a high-quality curriculum,perhaps one that's online, and

(20:24):
they'll actually ask thestudents to review it using
what they've learned. And Ithink that's a really exciting
potential opportunity for Edprep.

Susan Lambert (20:32):
That's brilliant. Brilliant,
brilliant. All right, let's getinto the meat of this thing. So
what are some of the mostimportant things that you look
for? I think you have somethingcalled the non-negotiables. Is
that right?

Kari Kurto (20:43):
Yeah. We do, we do.
We have the non-negotiables. Sosome of the non-negotiables are
really like, "What are thoseaspects that we know are most
critical to developing skilledliteracy? What do we have the
most amount of research tosupport?" So it includes
ensuring that in languagecomprehension, reading

(21:03):
comprehension, and writing,that students are exposed to
rich vocabulary and complexsyntax in reading and writing
materials. Because when we'rereading, we are reading
language. And so if you onlyexpose your kiddos to, you
know, some leveled texts andbaby talk or, or what have you,

(21:24):
then that's what they're gonnabe able to comprehend. But if
you expose them to thathigh-level vocabulary and have
high expectations and greatdiscussions with them, then
they're going to be able tocomprehend that once they're
able to crack the code. We alsohave a non-negotiable around
questioning, because you wantyour students to be able to
process information beyond thatsurface level. You wanna get

(21:47):
them thinking. Because thatwill help them in their future
reading comprehension. It'salso an important
non-negotiable when an LEAlooks at their entire suite of
assessments that you're notjust assessing for
comprehension. It's not just,"What do the kids know? What
can they answer?" You're reallyensuring that you have
assessments that help youunderstand those sub-components

(22:09):
of literacy and how your kiddosare doing with each one.
Without that data, it's hard toknow what your students' needs
are. And then I leave wordrecognition for the end because
I'm always trying to addressthat misconception that the
Science of Reading is all aboutphonics and word rec . Right?
But the truth of the matter isthat, of course, without solid

(22:31):
evidence-aligned instruction inword recognition, then the
students cannot unlock thatdoor to literacy. Right ?
That's a non-starter. So youhave to be an accurate and
automatic decoder to be able tocomprehend. So of course we
have the non-negotiable redflags that there has to be a
scope and sequence to learnthose skills. We have a
non-negotiable that it cannotbe based in whole language. And

(22:55):
then of course, finally we havea non-negotiable red flag that
we don't wanna see any evidenceof the three-cueing systems
being used as a primarydecoding strategy.

Susan Lambert (23:05):
And again, I'm trying to visualize this tool
again. I should have pulled itup on my computer. So I had it
right here in front of me , but I think those
non-negotiable red flags areliterally in red. Is that
right?

Kari Kurto (23:17):
Yes. All the red flags are red. But the
non-negotiables are lifted out.
They're in a separate section.
So there's the front matter,which of course we want you to
read because it says thatinstructional materials are
important, but it takes a lotmore to develop an
evidence-line system. And wecan talk about that later. But
, we have the red flags first,and then we have some aligned
practices underneath. So thoseare important to read through,

(23:40):
but the tool is really set upfor you to look at those red
flags specifically.

Susan Lambert (23:45):
So let's say that a district or a school is
using a program that you havereviewed, and you have it on
that navigation tool. How doyou suggest that they use that
tool, particularly if there'sareas of weakness for that
particular program?

Kari Kurto (24:01):
Yeah. I say, "Use this as a baseline." You know,
have this be one of the firstthings that you read through if
you are considering acurriculum, help you understand
what might be the strongestprogram that meets the specific
context of your school. and ifyou have a curriculum already —
which many folks do, right?
Many folks have used theirESSER funds and they have a
curriculum and they won't havean adoption cycle for some time

(24:24):
— so use it to determine, youknow, we tell you what those
areas where it's stronglyaligned to the research are.
And make sure that you teachthem! < Laughs.> I have to say,
just because we havethis report and we say, "All
right , this curriculum has allthis stuff," if you don't teach
it , then you'reinadvertently creating a red
flag of your own. Right?

Susan Lambert (24:43):
Oh, that's such a good point.

Kari Kurto (24:45):
Don't just, you know, cheat and say, "All right
, we got a bunch of ones here;we're good to go." Really read
and unpack what those ones are,to make sure that you're
actually addressing thatcontent. Because when we get
down to things like like textstructure and corresponding
signal words, you might justglaze over that thinking it's
not that important. But we havea lot of research to support
the fact that that is, in fact,important. But if there are

(25:08):
areas of weakness, then that'sgoing to be up to a
school-based team to workcollaboratively and determine
how to address those issues.
And so, how do you feel aboutmetaphors? < Laughs > Are you a
fan of metaphors?

Susan Lambert (25:23):
Oh, I'm a fan.
No, totally a fan of metaphors.
You go for it.

Kari Kurto (25:26):
So I came up with a metaphor today. And I
think that the curriculumnavigation reports can kind of
be seen like the nutritionfacts right on the side of our
food.

Susan Lambert (25:38):
Right.

Kari Kurto (25:39):
We as the Reading League, we're not going to tell
you what to buy. We're notgonna tell you how specifically
to use it. But here are thefacts of where the product
aligns with the research. Thisis what's inside. This is
what's good for you, accordingto science. Right? This is
what's needed in your percentdaily value of literacy.

(26:00):
Now schools have thatinformation. They should use
that information. And they candecide how to take it and make
sure that their students have ahealthy diet that suits their
needs. There's my metaphor.

Susan Lambert (26:12):
I love it.
That's brilliant. And you justthought of it today just for
this podcast. I'm sure .

Kari Kurto (26:18):
I did, actually.

Susan Lambert (26:20):
I think that's another first, Kari. So,
another first . I lovehow you described that, because
of course I always jump to makesure you understand what's
missing in your program. Andthis navigation tool highlights
what's missing. But your pointabout "if it's there in your
program and we're showing it'sthere, you better think about

(26:41):
are you actually teaching it."Because to your point, I know a
lot of times the implementationjust doesn't happen.

Kari Kurto (26:50):
Yeah. And it's hard because, you know, a lot of
these programs are very large.
There is a lot to teach. Andsometimes, you may need to cut
down from time to time, if youare finding that you need
multiple opportunities forrepetition. So use this as a
guideline to determine whatthat fluff is that Anita Archer

(27:10):
says to cut, right? And whatthat stuff is to keep.

Susan Lambert (27:14):
Yeah. That's a a great point. So what's been the
response to these reports?

Kari Kurto (27:22):
I think it's been pretty favorable , so far. I
think last week Maria actuallytexted me that she was in an
airport in Texas and somebodysaw her wearing her Reading
League T-shirt, and he said,"Oh, the Reading League, thank
you so much. I love yourNavigation Reports." And so
that was really neat, right?
That that is something that theReading League is now being

(27:43):
come to, known by. I thinkstate departments of education
are starting to distribute themamong their LEAs, schools are
using them, we're excited abouthearing about them in the
media, educators linking themto them on social media. That
question, "Does my curriculumalign to the Science of
Reading?" I think it was theday after or two days after our
launch on May 1st, and I saw onFacebook somebody asking about

(28:05):
a particular program, and thefirst response was, "Read the
Navigation Report." And it wasjust kind of like, "Done!" I
was like, "Yes, we haveaddressed the question that we
intended to!" So that's beenreally exciting to see. And we
hope that other folks willshare with us how they are

(28:25):
using them, if they're usingthem. We love hearing about
that. And again, you know,thank the publishers that have
been brave enough to allow usto review them. And if you are
looking for one in a curriculumthat's in that "decline to
provide materials" list, thentell them. You know, let them
know that this is somethingthat you want, and this is
something that you need. I do,I think, hopefully, work very

(28:49):
collaboratively and fairly withpublishers. And at the same
time, I still want thatmessaging to get out that it's
not about marketing; it's abouteducators getting the knowledge
that they need.

Susan Lambert (28:58):
Yeah. Very good point. I love that. So do you
have any sort of longterm planon how this navigation report
is gonna be used? Are thereplans to expand it, you know,
extend it, revise it?

Kari Kurto (29:12):
Yeah, so right now we have eight reports up. We
just added an eighth onerecently. It's Bookworms. So
that is now up as well. And Ihave nearly 10 teams. My 10th
team hopefully should begetting to work pretty soon.
But the goal is for 10 newreports to be introduced in

(29:34):
this upcoming year.

Susan Lambert (29:35):
Wow.

Kari Kurto (29:36):
We'll do it on a sort of ongoing basis . We
won't have another big launchparty with ribbon cutting,
although that was really fun.
I love the ReadingLeague, in that sometimes I
have crazy ideas and they justsay, "Yeah, let's do it."
So that was reallyfun. If you didn't see the
launch party, we all hadribbons and scissors and we cut

(29:57):
the ribbon and then the pagewas revealed. But we will
launch them on an ongoingbasis. So please sign up to the
Reading League's newsletter.
You can either google theReading League newsletter or go
to the Reading League websiteand sign up for the newsletter,
and you will learn about whenthose new reports are posted.
And yeah, we hope to continueand expand the project. I know

(30:20):
that publishers are constantlyevolving and coming up with new
materials, and so we hope toreview those new materials as
they come out. The guidelines... people ask if we are going
to look at intervention. Theanswer is, "Not now." Because
the guidelines really werenormed and developed to look at
those Tier 1 materials. So itwould take a new resource. And

(30:42):
we are starting to look at someprograms that are more specific
to foundational skills or tolanguage, and so we will have
some of those reports availableas well.

Susan Lambert (30:51):
Wow.

Kari Kurto (30:51):
People also ask if we are going to have anything
for older grades, and theanswer for that is also, "Not
yet." But again, sign up to ournewsletter and pay attention
because we will have someresources being announced this
fall that will be helpful forunderstanding the needs of
adolescent learners.

Susan Lambert (31:08):
That's amazing.
And as you were talking, yousaid you have 10 teams working
on 10 more reports. How manypeople do you have on each
team?

Kari Kurto (31:19):
We have three individuals on each team in the
beginning phases.

Susan Lambert (31:24):
I'm just thinking about the amount of
staffing that takes to actuallyaccomplish this project. So
it's not just Kari goingthrough these by herself. You
have a whole team of people, Iwould imagine, across the
country, who are working onthis.

Kari Kurto (31:37):
Yes. And they are anonymous, but they know who
they are. And I love andrespect and appreciate every
single one of you, because itis so much work. However, we
are so fortunate to have someof the most knowledgeable
expert folks that are ourreviewers, who also have

(32:01):
experience in a classroom andunderstand how curricula are
put together. And so , it is alot of work to get everything
organized. And yet becausethese teams are such
professionals, it's also easyto allow them to do their work
and then to come back to me. Sothey all review them
independently within theirteam, and then they come

(32:22):
together to norm on the scores.
It's all just fact-to-fact,it's the research to the
information on the pages of theinstructional materials, and
then they give me theirworkbooks with all of this
information. And our brilliantwriter then takes all of that
and develops it into our firstversion of the narrative. Then
we have an incredible copyeditor that's on staff now.

(32:44):
Shout out to Kristin Spaulding,who will go through it. And
then we share it with thepublisher, and then the fun
begins. So we do go alittle bit back and forth with
the publisher, to make surethat everybody's comfortable
with the content that's putout. And, you know , again, we
stick to our most importantthing, which is that it is in
alignment with the research.
And then we'll hand it to ourdesigner and then it's

(33:05):
uploaded. And that wholeprocess, we try to be very
transparent. Most of it isexplained on the curriculum
decision-makers web page.

Susan Lambert (33:14):
And we should talk about ... listeners who
are unfamiliar with the tool,can we talk now about where
they can find this? And maybetalk a little bit about the
compass?

Kari Kurto (33:24):
Absolutely. I lovingly refer to the Reading
League Compass as my fourthchild. So that's like asking
any parent to talk about theirchild. "Yes. Yay ." T
he Reading League Compass is aportion of the Reading League
website, and it was designed toprovide direction for a variety
of specific stakeholders. So wehave a page for educators and

(33:46):
specialists t hat have allthose goodies that we all love
to learn from. We have a pagethat is for administrators, so
that they know, yes,instructional materials is a
huge focus, but just becauseyou've bought a curriculum, it
doesn't mean you're doing theScience of Reading. You need to
build knowledge. You need todevelop a system. You have to
think about that essential roleof coaching to bridge knowledge
to practice. These are all thethings that you have to think

(34:08):
about i n implementation. So,that's for administrators. We
have a page for those who areworking to support English
learners and emergent bilingualstudents. That's where our
joint statement lives. That'sgotten quite a bit of
attention, so check that out.
If you haven't already. We alsohave a page for educator
preparation programs, that'sgot lots of resources for

(34:28):
syllabi, refinement, and lotsof great resources for faculty
from ed prep. And then we havea page for policymakers and
state education agencies. So wehave an interactive map there
that's really cool to kind ofpoke through and understand
what's going on around thecountry insofar as the Science
of Reading is concerned. Andnow we have this new page for
curriculum decisionmakers. So Ihope that listeners will go and

(34:52):
explore the page, read all ofthe content, and that is where
the reports themselves, alleight of them now, are located
— at the bottom of that page.
And we strategically put it atthe bottom so that you read
everything that you need toknow before you access those
reports. < L aughs.>

Susan Lambert (35:09):
That's awesome.

Kari Kurto (35:10):
And we'll have a couple of new pages this fall.
So again, stay tuned.

Susan Lambert (35:15):
Wow. Amazing.
And again, listeners, we'lllink you in the show notes to
that, so you can just click andget right to it. But again,
constantly evolving. And ifyou're a member of the Reading
League, you also have access tothis amazing journal. Can you
talk about that just reallyquickly?

Kari Kurto (35:33):
Yeah. So, the journal is a separate component
and so ... it's not necessarilymembership, but you can
subscribe to the journal. Andthe journal is full of really
wonderful articles. They areall peer-reviewed and just
chock full of great and usefulinformation written in a way
that's manageable anddigestible. Great summer beach

(35:55):
reads. Or, this will come outin the fall, so sit sipping
your hot cider and read a copyof the journal. We do, however,
have chapters throughout the U.
S. As well, and you can becomea member of a chapter in your
state, or you can reach out toour national chapter
coordinator, who is one of myfavorite humans, Andrea

(36:15):
Setmeyer. And she could put youin touch with some folks who
are likely talking aboutstarting a chapter in your
state, if they haven't already.
So you can go to the ReadingLeague website to find out more
about our chapters as well.

Susan Lambert (36:27):
Very awesome.
And just a shout out to theReading League for, well, first
of all, the journal that youpublish. And it's four times a
year, and the articles are soaccessible, right? They're
easier to read than if you weregoing to pull up a full
research article in anotherjournal. So, love that. And
just love how all the chapterstoo are just really working

(36:49):
hard to not only support thepeople in their state, but a
lot of them you can like joinsome of their events if you're
not even within their samestate. So, it's just really
cool how people are comingtogether as a community here.

Kari Kurto (37:02):
We see ourselves as knowledge brokers, so the more
people have that knowledge, thebetter off everybody is.

Susan Lambert (37:09):
Yeah. And the Reading League has ... I mean,
you are have been instrumentalin establishing the Science of
Reading movement. I think itwas Maria who first talked
about it as a movement. Whatadvice do you have for our
listeners as they're startingto think about learning more
about the Science of Reading,or more about this, what we'll
call movement?

Kari Kurto (37:29):
Yeah. Well first I think that I would say a huge
thank you . Thank you tothose folks who have been
listening. Thank you to thefolks who are curious about
learning more. Those who havespent years implementing and
tweaking and improving literacyoutcomes for our country's next

(37:50):
generation. I mean, that'shuge. So mostly, thank you. And
it's a movement of improvement, right? We're
constantly striving to improve.
And don't give up. Share yourstories; share your success
stories . I would love to knowthem. I post success stories on
the Reading League Compass aswell. So if you have a

(38:12):
data-driven success story toshare, please feel free to
reach out to me. I would loveto hear it and share it. I
think I would also say that,you know, as educators, as
administrators, as decisionmakers, people talk about the
pendulum swinging, but it's notabout the Science of Reading or
not the Science of Reading. Ofcourse we wanna listen to the

(38:32):
research, but in theimplementation, you really do
hold the pendulum in yourhands. And so, again, ensure
that you're shoring up yourword recognition instruction.
Look into that; lean into that.
It is so critical. It is soimportant. And there are so
many kids struggling at middle-and high-school levels because
they did not receive that, andthat's not OK. And make sure

(38:53):
that you're not doing it at theexpense of building language,
building knowledge, developingand practicing writing skills,
and all those critical skillsthat go into skilled literacy.
Understanding that acomprehensive approach to
literacy, it's not some otherthing. That is the Science of
Reading. That's what theresearch says. We need all of

(39:13):
those things . And make surethat you're teaching all of
those components on thecurriculum evaluation
guidelines. And also, you know,I think I would just mention,
don't listen to those who aretrying to influence the media
with strawmen arguments thatthe Science of Reading is only
about one or two things. It'sup to all of us to understand

(39:35):
all of the research points ,teaching all the components of
the curriculum evaluationguidelines. Right? And building
knowledge and coaching andmulti-tiered systems of support
and understanding how best toapply this for your school's
own culturally, linguistically,and neurodiverse population. I

(39:58):
think that's really importantto name too.

Susan Lambert (40:00):
That's great advice. Well, before we let you
go, we wanna give you a momentto say any final thoughts you
have .

Kari Kurto (40:08):
I would love to just reiterate that we'd love
to hear from you if you've usedthe reports, if you found them
helpful. If you are a school,if you're a teacher, if you're
working with English learners,emergent bilingual students, we
would love to hear your successstories. If you are an
established publisher and you'dlike to be considered for a

(40:29):
review, then we'd love to hearfrom you. And I think that
what I'd like to end onis just to say to everybody
that it takes a League. Andthank you for being a part of
ours.

Susan Lambert (40:43):
Well, Kari, thank you so much for joining
us. I appreciate the work youdo so much, and I also
appreciate you. Thank youagain.

Kari Kurto (40:50):
I appreciate you too, Susan. Thank you.

Susan Lambert (40:56):
That was Kari Kurto, National Science of
Reading Project Director withthe Reading League. Remember to
check out the show notes forlinks to many of the incredible
resources we discussed. Nexttime, we're continuing our
reading reboot by revisitingthe Simple View of Reading,
with renowned literacy expertHugh Catts. In this upcoming

(41:17):
episode, Dr. Catts will notonly refresh us on the simple
view of reading, but he'llexplain why he wants us to
rethink our understanding ofcomprehension.

Hugh Catts (41:27):
We have to think a little bit more deeply in
general about comprehension andstart developing some models
that will allow us to do that —to go beyond the skill-based
approach to readingcomprehension and, you know,
focus on purpose. Why are wewanting kids to comprehend this

(41:48):
particular text? And so forth.

Susan Lambert (41:50):
That's coming up next time. And a couple

reminders (41:53):
Throughout this reboot, we're paying special
attention to the critical,reciprocal relationship between
reading and writing. We've evengot a special miniseries
focused entirely on writingthat's coming up soon. Stay
tuned for more on that. Andalso, this season, we want to
hear your Science of Readingquestions. What's a question

(42:14):
you'd like us to explore? We'vealready gotten some wonderful
submissions on topics such asgetting caregivers on board
with Science of Readinginstruction, and teaching
students with significantcognitive disabilities. Find
out more information and submita question at
amplify.com/SORmailbag.

(42:36):
Remember, by submitting aquestion, you could also win a
visit from me to your school.

Science of Reading (42:40):
The Podcast is brought to you by Amplify.
I'm Susan Lambert and thank youso much for listening.