Jessica Hamman 00:00
Trying to be as aware as possible about your child's evaluation what it says that your child needs as a result of their cognitive and academic evaluation results.
Jennie Sjursen 00:14
I'm Jennie Sjursen, special educator turned dyslexia interventionist. It wasn't so long ago that I too, was overwhelmed by balanced literacy versus structured literacy, education speak and everything in between. Fast forward after many, many hours of self driven education, and you'll see I've built a thriving dyslexia practice helping students from ages six to eight t. My specialties, working with a quote unquote difficult almost always to the student, and breaking down the complexities of dyslexic to everyday language strategies and action steps.
Jennie Sjursen 00:53
Many of you have heard of the International Dyslexia Association R Ida. For those who don't know, it's an association dedicated to providing knowledge and resources about dyslexia, for parents, teachers, school administrators, and basically anyone who wants to learn more about dyslexia. It was the first association I joined when I started my practice. This year, Ida is celebrating their 75th anniversary. And one of the ways they're celebrating is by dedicating the recent issue of their journal perspectives on language and literacy to structured literacy.
Jennie Sjursen 01:29
And today, my guest is Jessica Hamman of Gleann education, who not only authored two articles, but more importantly, co edited this issue with Barbara Wilson. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to welcome our guest, Jessica Hammam. Jessica, welcome to our podcast today. And I'm thankful for that you're here with me. I know that you have a deep history with dyslexia, and in with the reading instruction and advocacy. Can you kind of go into that and explain a little bit about that for us? Sure, Jenny.
Jessica Hamman 02:04
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's exciting to be able to talk to you today. I do have a history with dyslexia advocacy. And I think it's both personal and professional at this point. So I can kind of talk to you about both. But when I was a child and growing up, my parents were very involved in the dyslexia field. My dad is a special education attorney and child advocate in New Jersey and became very involved with disability rights because of my two brothers, my older who had Down syndrome, and my younger who was dyslexic, and began working with families in advocating for their children.
Jessica Hamman 02:48
And through that work, joined the International Dyslexia Association as a committee member and then rose through the board and ultimately became the president of Ida national in the late 90s, early 2000s. And did a lot of work around building knowledge of dyslexia through his presentations, but also gathering the consensus committee that created the definition of dyslexia that's in I think, nearly 45 states, if not more, now, it's everywhere. Yeah, it's everywhere. And a really pivotal foundational piece in that work in promoting awareness.
Jessica Hamman 03:27
And my mother is a Orton Gillingham, teacher trainer therapist, who is also an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and spent her career building awareness on best practices for instruction. So the two of them together were this really dynamic, one two punch in terms of advocacy because they were dealing with the policy working on the high level, work with surrounding experts and research and then also dealing with the real classroom to practice implications. So I grew up kind of with this understanding of what it means to have dyslexia to struggle with text with reading, writing, and language based disabilities, and became an educator myself, but I didn't really know it until my own son was diagnosed with dyslexia himself.
Jessica Hamman 04:22
And the years prior to his evaluation, eligibility and diagnosis, where I had a hunch that he was probably going to struggle. And that was when I realised that all these decades of my parents advocating and doing the work that they had done, still left gaps in terms of lack of knowledge among teachers. I was a teacher myself in the various school districts that we were advocating for my son. And so these were my colleagues. I was supporting in better understanding what dyslexia was, and I realised it wasn't a teacher issue. It was a lack of have access to training issue.
Jessica Hamman 05:02
So with that, so I developed the organisation that I'm the founder and CEO of glean education, to build awareness continue the tradition that my parents started and work intimately with districts as well as work on the state level with general awareness building around dyslexia, struggling readers, best practices for literacy, instruction and, and systems work related to MTS s and RTI. So yeah, it's exciting work.
Jennie Sjursen 05:34
It is exciting work. So, and I'll share a little that and most of my listeners know this, but I come from this in that my dad and my sister both have dyslexia. And my dad did not find out until my sister was diagnosed, because he's at in his 80s Now, and we talked about that, and my whole life growing up. And then when I became a teacher, and in special education, I knew that my parents had gone to see Susan Santoro, who was a fellow of Ota, I packed down by Yale.
Jennie Sjursen 06:04
And that was their instructor. And I knew that there was a better way to do this. But I didn't have those skills. And that's how I became involved. And so we have a similar background where it's family related. And once you start opening your eyes to it, you can see that is everywhere in front of us, but nobody kinds tends to acknowledge it, or it's an after fact, like, Oh, yes, that's right. That's what that was. But I also agree that teachers were never given the knowledge that they needed. And I was searching and searching. And I kept getting told these other ways, when I knew I knew there was a better way. So I appreciate what you do, and bringing that into the teachers. So thank you.
Jessica Hamman 06:47
And that story really resonates. Because often, I think parents don't see their own struggles until they see it through their children's eyes. And in fact, that is how my father realised that he himself was dyslexic, and not just himself, but his mother and his brother. So that's a heightened awareness and kind of putting names to things that we may not have had the words for as we were going through school, but then realise as we see our star children struggling, and as we advocate for them, and I think it actually speaks to the energy often that comes with advocating for your own child.
Jessica Hamman 07:25
And I think it makes so much sense because oftentimes, we are touching a part of our own school trauma that we are trying to change for our children. So I think that's why there's so much beautiful energy, strong energy, emotional energy behind advocating for your own child. And
Jennie Sjursen 07:47
it also gives you a purpose where before, if you don't know you don't have, you just know that there is an issue, and you're struggling. But once you know, and you have an idea, and you have this child in front of you, it gives you a purpose forward with that, and with your advocacy as well. And I think that's really strong, having that knowledge.
Jennie Sjursen 08:07
So one of the things that as I get deeper and deeper into this, when I first started, I was like I am teaching reading, I am teaching kids how to read. And as I get deeper and deeper, I'm like, oh, no, I'm teaching students in people language. It's not just reading, it's oral, it's written, it's all of these pieces combined. And I know that you have a piece in their perspectives, the 75th anniversary. Could you speak to that a little bit? Yes,
Jessica Hamman 08:36
it was so exciting to work on that issue. So Barbara Wilson, from Wilson language approached me as a member of the multimedia workgroup, on the International Dyslexia Association's committee to co edit the 75th anniversary of ideas magazine called perspectives. And for those of you who may not know it, the magazine brings together researchers in the fields and takes an issue and then highlights that issue from several different perspectives using experts.
Jessica Hamman 09:14
And so I was really honoured to be asked to edit that issue with her, especially since it is on structured literacy. And it is the 75th anniversary of the International Dyslexia Association. So it's a special one. In that issue, we were getting so many wonderful articles that talk about the how and the what although there's follow up Ida perspectives that will be coming out exclusively on the house. So we had a main focus on the what, but there were some pieces of the house in there too. And what became apparent is that we needed to talk about the very thing you were discussing, which is what is so impactful about structured literacy and why it works with students who do struggle and all students in general is because of the integrated nature of the components.
Jessica Hamman 10:06
So teaching structure literacy is not just about teaching one aspect of it, but you really have to even within one lesson, consider all the different aspects that are going to lend itself to building automaticity. And that has to be integrated, everything has to be integrated with each other. Do
Jennie Sjursen 10:25
you have advice for any parents who, when they are getting the dyslexia, diagnosis, or they're starting getting services in school, but the school is just focusing on just reading alone? Do you have any advice for them how to attack that problem?
Jessica Hamman 10:39
Well, yes, there's so much that can be done. But first and foremost, I think the most important thing is to build relationships with your children's teachers. I know that personally, the most impactful thing that I was able to do was have a really solid and authentic relationship with my son's teacher that was doing most of the special ed support where he was getting the intensive instruction.
Jessica Hamman 11:08
And that way, we had a relationship where we could talk about what his goals were, what his progress was, and see what needed to change. And I was able to maintain my presence in that conversation because of that relationship. So I would say thinking positively and kind of shifting the idea that that it's a problem to begin with. And just kind of thinking collaboratively is just the first most important thing. And the second thing is just trying to be as aware as possible about your child's evaluation, what it says that your child needs as a result of their cognitive and academic evaluation results.
Jessica Hamman 11:50
Because typically, we should be creating the IEP in a way that is tailored to the student's unique needs. And if the IEP shows that there is perhaps a deficit in orthographic processing, so that would indicate that a student needs more work more repetition, not less, in an area where they're going to be practising those correct letter chunks in both reading and writing. That gives you a real avenue to suggest that perhaps that's an area that could be added. And I think tone is really important too, because again, we're part of the IEP team, as parents, and we all need to work together for the interests of the child.
Jessica Hamman 12:42
And it's really hard for teachers, because they are building what they feel is best, I believe, mostly with very good intentions. And if you're part of a team, and you're talking about the students, then you're all on the same page. But if you're part of a team, and you're talking about the teacher's practice, that can get really tricky.
Jessica Hamman 13:03
So another aspect of this is to always bring it back to the student, and suggest that there's areas that you're seeing in their work, there's areas of frustration you're seeing at home that they may not see at school, and is there any way that we may be able to add some instructional pieces, or perhaps around the annual IEP time or in between calling an IEP meeting to adjust the goals. So it addresses things that you're seeing in the students behaviour or performance that seems to be not impacted by the current work that's being done.
Jennie Sjursen 13:41
So some of the things that I consistently say is the assessments, the overall assessment, evaluation, drives everything, it drives exactly what the student needs in services and instruction. And so you want to get a really good quality, comprehensive, the full picture so that you can have these conversations, and then you need the progress monitoring. So you can again, still have these ongoing conversations and see what's going on. You
Jessica Hamman 14:10
know, it takes a lot of work for parents who often don't have an education background to be informed. And this is an equity issue too, because it's hard to have the time to understand all you need to understand to be an equal member of the IEP team. So it's, it's a lot of work and kudos to parents for doing that work. And I think we're invested because we care about how our students are going to do but it's very hard to get all the information you need to get.
Jessica Hamman 14:41
But it's true that part of the IEP evaluation process, and what is required by law is really to look at all the areas of concern and ensure that there are some assessments that relate to any area of concern. So making sure that you're asking the IEP team, what assessments they're doing? And are those assessments, usual assessments, just the typical battery that they would do? Or are they also adjusted for the areas of concern that had been brought up about your particular child. So that's something that I think parents don't realise they have the right to ask for, but they do. And it will have an impact on the way the IEP is drafted and written.
Jennie Sjursen 15:29
Exactly. And again, this also ties into that oral reading and writing language pieces, because if we're finding a weakness in the oral language, we're often going to find them in the reading and writing as well. And so we're looking to how they stack and interweave together. And that's really important. And I agree with you 100%, that a lot of times parents aren't aware of everything that they need to know or how to read this information in front of them a lot of time they have information. And it's a lot of work. And I give them major kudos for going out and digging in deep to getting what they need to be that team member as well as going on.
Jennie Sjursen 16:12
But I'm seeing a shift in even just the language that's being used between teachers and educators in the last few years. And they are recognising more and more that they need to incorporate the writing with the reading, and the smelling and all interweave together. I think somehow what still misses sometimes is the oral language piece. I don't think that connects all the way through. And but if you step back, that's where everything starts. And, and those are usually your key indicators in the very beginning. So I love that we're starting to see more, and people are talking more about the writing. But I would wish they talked about how the oral language is where we start and kind of blended all the way through. Yeah,
Jessica Hamman 16:58
and if you look at the simple view of reading, and that foundational research that talks about how we get to that ultimate goal of reading comprehension, we're talking about word recognition. And we're talking about language comprehension. And language comprehension is such an important component of reading comprehension, it cannot be ignored. What's interesting is that for our students with language based disabilities or difficulties, they often have this dichotomy where you have really strong language comprehension, but really weak word recognition.
Jessica Hamman 17:40
And the interesting thing there is that it can be an indicator of dyslexia and dysgraphia. And I think also, sometimes teachers feel that they don't need to necessarily need to work on it, because they'll say, Oh, well, this student is really good at language comprehension. So we don't have to pair that with our reading and writing instruction. And that might be something that's even not conscious, but something that, you know, teachers kind of just tick the box of like, this is not something we need to nurture, because it's solid. But what's interesting is, it's the connection between the two. And it's not just that it's there. But it's that it has to be integrated.
Jessica Hamman 18:19
So, and it's one of the things that is really fun about teaching teachers about morphology, because I think that is one of the key areas where we have oral language, meeting the written word and the way in which we can discuss it in a way that bridges the gap for teachers and students. So that's a really exciting thing to remind teachers about some had experience with morphology, instruction and awareness in their pre service programmes. Some have great curricula that talk about morphology, instruction, or even have it embedded in the mid to later elementary grades.
Jessica Hamman 19:03
But for those teachers that don't have it in their curricula and didn't have it in pre service, morphology instruction, explicit morphology instruction as part of a structured literacy approach is a great way to blend oral language with the written word and the word reading and recognition.
Jennie Sjursen 19:22
Oh, I 100% agree it's a door opener for a lot of our students where you see this in their not only their reading comprehension, but in their writing skills as well. Because when you get into them and they have an understanding that the top thing I tell them spelling is for meaning and then our pronunciation so you can sound it out, but it doesn't necessarily match how you're spelling it in the pronunciations change, even within the same word family.
Jennie Sjursen 19:54
So like please unpleasantly, and you put those together and the students start going, Oh, and you add in those, you know those affixes. And they can look at that. And they get a deeper understanding of what they're reading because it brings everything together in a way that just deepens everything. And the comprehension. Yes,
Jessica Hamman 20:15
that's really important. So in the IDA perspectives 75th anniversary issue on structured literacy, it's free on Ida website, all you have to do is go to the IDA website, and then you'll see it on the homepage, or search for the 75th anniversary perspectives. And there are articles on all of these topics. In addition to talking about the way morphology plays a role, and some really nice concrete examples of how it can be taught in the classroom too, which is was important for us as editors to make sure that each of the articles not only talked about the research base behind it, but had a bridge to practice as well that talked about how it can be implemented. And
Jennie Sjursen 21:03
that's always what I've loved about that and loved about Ida as well as perspectives is because you get a tonne of theory as an educator. But how are we going to put this theory into place? How do we take the Y and put it into the house? That's always been a strong suit for Ida and perspectives. And I like that, and I appreciate that. Because when I was first starting in the teaching of this, I was always like, okay, I get it, but I don't know how to do it. Yeah, you look for these resources. And this has always been a wonderful resource. Yeah,
Jessica Hamman 21:36
and I would just say to add on that the work that we do at clean education is very directly as a result of that particular problem. And I think another aspect of it is having coaching to help you implement it is a really important piece. So in our work, we deliver training to build that background knowledge, we provide examples of what it should look like, but then the real work and there's research like the Joyce showers, research from 1982 was foundational in in showing us that really, the implementation doesn't happen unless there's coaching to help teachers to do it.
Jessica Hamman 22:15
So I just just a word to teachers who are listening. And the parents that are listening as well to understand that just sharing information about something doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to shift practice, because it's hard to put things in place without really, really having someone sitting beside you and helping you understand how it looks in the classroom. So being able to have support staff and a lot of districts have coaches these days more and more in different states.
Jessica Hamman 22:48
And you know, looking out using your district or school coaches to help you implement new tools, even if they're just sitting beside you and learning with you while you do it is a huge part of bringing this into the classroom. So utilise the coaches on site or look to an outside third party to support you with that.
Jennie Sjursen 23:09
And I 100% agree with that. One of the strongest things that and I'm going to shift a little bit is to the Orton Gillingham Association. Was there practicums. And yeah, as your training and having that hand holding system, because my understanding of what I was doing, and learning is so much stronger through the practicum. So I I will always always advocate for somebody, do I just do the training as like, No, you gotta do the practicum
Jessica Hamman 23:41
is everything. So we do classroom coaching in districts that it's kind of generalised structured literacy coaching. And then we also have a practicum, we run that specific to our structured literacy practicum, that's specific to a more intensive approach where we do something similar to what Oda does. And we are undergoing Ida accreditation for that as well. And I agree, I think, you know, there's all different layers of where people want to come in, and what type of intensity they're ready for. But whatever you are ready for, there's resources out there for you.
Jennie Sjursen 24:17
Yep. And there's actually more resources than I think people realise, too. You have to Deb still a little more them. But they're there if you start kind of getting into the lingo in the language. They're there. And yeah, yeah. And that's huge. So I have two questions before we go. Is there something that people misconstrue or get wrong about structured literacy? What's the most common thing that they misunderstand? I think
Jessica Hamman 24:42
as people are starting to dip their toes into it. One common thing that I see really comes from where they were coming from before. So we work here in California, among other states, but I would say in California, I See, most commonly, teachers who were entrenched in a different mindset, which was mostly home language, or balanced literacy. And the shift to structured literacy is bigger when you have a ideology that is so diametrically different than the one you're shifting to.
Jessica Hamman 25:21
So I'd say that that's an interesting thing. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that almost has to be unlearned, in order to move to structured literacy as an approach for teachers that are just entering the field and don't have previous notions or previous ideologies that were the framework for their instruction, it's a little easier to step into a structured literacy approach, because you're not shifting from a mindset that's so different.
Jessica Hamman 25:52
But for both types of teachers dipping into this ideology for the first time, I'd say something they may not realise in both cases is that it can be really powerful, how powerful it can be. So we often see these aha moments when they win. They're working with students, even for just a couple of weeks in a row within a structured literacy approach, with fidelity and kind of tracking the data and seeing students grow so precipitously. They're always surprised at how fast it goes, and that they are surprised at how much how it can be implemented. Well, if you know the components of it,
Jennie Sjursen 26:36
yes, that's very key, knowing the components and really understanding the components. Yeah, I agree. So one of the things that I was, as you were talking about this, and then how the economy is between where you've coming from, and where you've been, I was an exchange student to New Zealand, and I lived in New Zealand went to school there, which is where Reading Recovery comes from.
Jennie Sjursen 26:57
And if you want to watch this dichotomy in live action, that's exactly what New Zealand is going through right now. They're getting rid of Reading Recovery, they're making a mandate through the Ministry of Education, and they're bringing in structured literacy. And that literally has been enacted right now. And if you go and I follow this closely, because I love New Zealand, because if you follow this closely, that's what you're seeing right now. And yes, in live action, you're seeing those academies, especially even because it's a ministry of education. It is throughout all the schools around the country.
Jennie Sjursen 27:35
And you have these people who are really deeply rooted in things like the whole language and the Reading Recovery. And they're bringing in these, quote, new way of teaching and instruction. And you go on the boards, and it's having like the reading wars, live action all over again. And it's intriguing to me, and it's very interesting to watch it and to watch it in live motion, because I think we get stuck here too, into how the different states are doing it. And it kind of gets watered down about the states or this and that. But to see a whole country go through it is, is really interesting to me, and how they're handling these pieces. And what
Jessica Hamman 28:16
they're doing is really very exciting and good for New Zealand for taking that broad sweeping step. I think that's huge. And that's I think how systemic change will happen by saying, we're going to shift and we know better, so we're going to do better. That's very exciting. And I'd say, in my work at glean education, moving teachers from one ideology to the other in our small experience with a subset of teachers across states, I find that the biggest shift is their understanding of what explicit instruction is.
Jessica Hamman 28:51
And it's more about guided reading, then reading recovery, because there's a good amount of explicit instruction in reading recovery. But it's the types of things that they're teaching that's different in guided reading, which is more of the tier one supports and tier two supports and levelled literacy and guided reading. It's not there isn't explicit instruction in the way structured literacy has us teaching students so that I find is the biggest shift and explaining to teachers that we're not just putting students in books and letting them guide their learning, but we are teaching them first and using books as review practice and automaticity building.
Jessica Hamman 29:36
So that I find is when we boil it down, working on that shift and showing them what explicit systematic cumulative instruction looks like. It's when they start to understand why it's different. And it starts to make it less about a war between ideologies, and kind of uncovering something that will I help them understand this model.
Jennie Sjursen 30:02
And I see that mind shift happening a lot across the US. And I'm excited for that. And I'm seeing more teachers wanting to know, and wanting to have that knowledge. So that's exciting. Ultimately,
Jessica Hamman 30:15
all teachers want their students to succeed. And when there's hesitation, because I believe that teachers, we're all here to support our students, whenever there's hesitation, it's because they're worried it'll be less effective than what they were doing before. And I think if we can lead, that change over to structured literacy with compassion, and empathy, and thinking that teachers who are really rooted in an approach that they believe in, it would be hard for anyone to shift philosophies and go to something new that they feel may be less effective.
Jessica Hamman 30:52
So I think it's really important to be compassionate about asking someone to make those shifts. And I often just say, Well, how about I just show you how I show you the data, because you're going to be excited that there are students that you've never quite been able to reach. And this will allow you to reach them. And I have yet to find a teacher that isn't motivated by that.
Jennie Sjursen 31:14
Yes, 100% Agree, because I, when I was still trying to get my own training, and at that time, the school I was with would not pay for it. Because I was in high school. And that's for younger students. And I know better now. But I still feel for those students that I had when I was in high school, that I wish I had the knowledge and the understanding that I have now. So it is opening doors. And it could be baby steps and getting there. But it's just about keeping the open mind and looking at the information in the data to what could be happening and what could is possible. So is there anything I didn't ask or that you want to share? Before we end up today? I think I would
Jessica Hamman 31:58
just mention, I know we started the conversation about the International Dyslexia Association perspectives, I think what's cool that I would like to point people's attention to is that the International Dyslexia Association was such a leader in this field for so long, and continues to be this just gold mined of information of human capital, that are kind of these amazing experts that have this depth of knowledge that are such a resource to the field.
Jessica Hamman 32:32
And it continues to thrive and grow and produce incredible content. There's another perspective that's coming out in a few months. And that's going to be on that explicit instruction piece that how piece that I discussed as being so pivotal to this shift. So do keep your eye out for that that's co edited by Dale Webster from core learning. And it's just another great resource to add to this the structure literacy issue that we Barbara Wilson and I edited. So keep an eye out for that. And then keep an eye out for more great things from Ida to come. I think it's exciting to support a organisation that has done such pivotal work early on, to make this a conversation to ensure that we're still talking about this decades after the conversation was started.
Jessica Hamman 33:30
And making sure that parents have what they need to advocate for their students with dyslexia. And teachers have what they need to teach their students with dyslexia and school leaders have what they need to build systems for their students with dyslexia. So I just think, keep an eye on Ida and what it's doing and good luck in your advocacy journeys.
Jennie Sjursen 33:49
Perfect. I love that. And I will share that. Even before I decided to open my own practice. Every single person told me you need to join Ida so yeah, so I agree with everything that you just said. Yes, the wealth of knowledge is a little overwhelming at first, but impressive. Yes. Thank you for being here today and sharing your knowledge and your wisdom with us. I appreciate it so much.
Jessica Hamman 34:15
Thank you
Jennie Sjursen 34:20
I hope you enjoyed this episode of Literacy Untangled. If you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to continue the conversation or share your takeaways, head on over to our Instagram at literacy untangled and comment on your favourite part. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. Bye
