Dear Stellar Teacher: How Do I Fit Everything Into My Literacy Block?

Sara

You’re listening to episode number 221 of the Stellar Teacher Podcast.

Sara

Hey there, teachers, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am so excited for today’s episode because we are doing something new. So we are going to be starting a new monthly segment, which we are going to call Dear Stellar Teacher and this is the first episode of our Dear Stellar Teacher segment. And each month, we’re going to release these episodes on the first of every month, and I’m going to be joined by my teammate Emily, who I’m going to introduce to you guys in a minute. And during these types of episodes, we’re going to answer listener questions, we’re going to share teacher stories, and we’re really just going to have a more casual conversation about teaching. And part of the reason why we want to do this style of episode is, first of all, you guys know that I am such a firm believer in the idea that there is always more than one way to be an effective teacher. And while I think I have great ideas, I know that I’m not the only one that has ideas to share, and so I’m really excited for you to have another voice from the Stellar Teacher Team, just to give you guys a different perspective, ideas, thoughts, things to consider. So during our Dear Stellar Teacher episodes, the structure and style of the episode is that we’re going to answer one, maybe two questions that we get from listeners in our audience, whether they are questions from teachers inside our membership community, questions we get through email, questions we get through Instagram, and then we’re going to share some sort of teacher story from somebody in our community. So again, we want these to be a much more casual approach to talking about topics that are important in education. And like I said, we’re going to be answering questions from a variety of places, and we do get a ton of questions from listeners and teachers. But if there is a question or a story that you’d really love us to discuss on our Dear Stellar Teacher episodes, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. But let me go ahead and introduce to you my co-host for the Dear Stellar Teacher podcast episodes, Emily Caudill.

Sara

Emily, Hello, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited that you’re joining me.

Emily

Hi. I’m so excited to be here too. I was just saying to Sara that this is such a surreal moment for me, because I’ve been a listener to the podcast for so long, and now here I am.

Sara

I know you’re hosting. I love it. This is great. So if you guys have been a part of the Stellar Teacher world for a while, then you are probably familiar with Emily. She is part of our stellar teacher team. She is one of our curriculum creators, and she’s created some incredible resources. If you are a part of the Stellar Literacy Collective, then Emily has played a huge role in creating our whole group lessons. But this summer, she also helped me co-host a couple of our book study sessions and some of our trainings that we offer during our pop-up group. And it was during those sessions that I was like, You know what Emily would be really great on the podcast. I feel like she always has so many great ideas, so much knowledge. So you guys are gonna love being able to hear from her once a month as well. So Emily, why don’t you go ahead and just share a little bit about, yourself, your teaching experience, anything you think our audience would benefit from knowing before we jump into today’s questions.

Emily

Sure. Yeah, so I spent seven years in the classroom. I taught second grade, third grade, and a small, small touch of fourth grade during those pandemic years. I taught up until I had my daughter, and after my maternity leave was coming to an end, I just had to make such a tough decision, and I decided to stay home with my daughter. And it was so tough at the time, but so worth it now, and I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. So when I was in the classroom, my favorite thing, of course, was interacting with the kids. The kids are so funny, and it’s just such a joyful job. Every day is different. So that’s probably the number one thing that I miss.

Sara

I was gonna say I still miss that too. And every now and then, I tell my husband, I mean, I’ve been out of the classroom for a long time because I ended my teaching career in a school as an assistant principal. So it’s been probably over a decade since I’ve been with students, but I’m still like, oh, there’s part of me that would love to go back in the classroom, just for a little bit, because there is something so magical about those relationships that you get to build with students. So I totally understand that that’s something that you still miss.

Emily

Yes, definitely. And my second favorite part of teaching was the curriculum. So it’s just so amazing for me that I have ended up in this role that is so focused on curriculum.j Actually, ironically, when I was in the classroom, I felt natural teaching math, so I spent a majority of my professional development time in reading, and that’s where I really started to get excited about the science of reading and the science behind all those topics. So here I am.

Sara

I love it. I’m glad that you felt confident with math, so it prompted you to do more research in reading.

Emily

So thinking back to my classroom days, one of the things that felt so so challenging for me was how much I brought work home, and I would spend my afternoons on my couch, on my computer. And pre-kids, that was fine, but now that I’m a mother, I just think about how much time that I spent, and I could have been spending with my children. So I just wish that I could step back into the classroom, knowing what I know now and having access to the resources that I have now. The Stellar Literacy Collective is a goldmine of resources. And had I been told, okay, you have to go back to teaching tomorrow? I think I would do it with a little bit more confidence just knowing that the materials for my students are ready to go. Even though I’m not in the classroom, I know that I can play a big role in helping teachers. I’m currently in the position where I can pay it forward and help these teachers help their students. So that just feels so so good.

Sara

That’s awesome! And I love that you have that mentality, because I feel like that’s going to serve our teachers so well, not only obviously, through the resources that you create, but through this episode as well. Like I said, I love that even though we both have literacy classroom experience, our experiences were both very different, and you have, like I said, ideas, perspectives, to bring to the table that I know our audience is going to benefit from. So let’s go ahead and let’s do our first Dear Stellar Teacher episode. What’s the first question that we have that we’re going to talk about today?

Emily

Okay, so our first question is a great one, because this is a topic that we get questions about all the time. So this comes from one of our members, and they ask: I’m really struggling to fit everything in. I’ve got kids being pulled out left and right during my literacy block. (That’s so relatable, by the way.) My schedule feels all over the place, and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to get through all of the parts of the reading block in one day. I’m being told I need to do all these things, and it’s starting to feel impossible.

Sara

I feel like every teacher can say, been there, done that, currently there. I love that even though I feel like we’ve answered this question so many times, I love when it comes up, because I always have more than I want to say about it. And I think, when you were talking about that, where it’s like, I’m struggling to fit everything in, I’ve got kids being pulled out, left and right. It just it makes me think back to when I was in the classroom. And I remember there was one year that I taught fourth grade that our literacy block was split. They gave us 90 minutes, but it was split up by our intervention block, and it was the most disruptive thing ever, because it’s like, we’re in a groove, we’re engaged in a conversation about a text, and then it’s like, okay, let’s pause this go to gym and then come back and try to, regain it. So yeah, if you’re a teacher that you feel like everything is choppy. You’ve got kids coming in and out, it definitely can feel challenging to fit everything in.

Sara

But of course, there are always things that we can do. And I think with this question (and Emily, you can tell me how you initially approach this) I think the first thing that I always encourage teachers to really think about is that we have to recognize what is in our control and what is out of our control.

Sara

Anything I share on this podcast is stuff that I struggled with. So this is just stuff that when I was in the classroom, I struggled with this too. But we don’t have control over how long our literacy block is, right? So I know there are some schools where teachers are just like, you only have 65 minutes. You cannot control that. You cannot control your school and your district’s expectations. So if you haev a curriculum that you’re required to cover all parts of it, and it seems like it’s too long, you don’t have control over that. You don’t have control over the skills and abilities that your students come to with. And so if you have students that are really low and struggling readers, and you have to back up and fill in the gaps, you ultimately can’t control it. And I really think that it’s important that if you can’t control something, we have to let it go. We have to release it. We have to not waste our mental energy on it, because it just becomes exhausting if we’re stressing out about things that we can’t control.

Emily

So it’s easier said than done, but in the long run, when you put thought and intention into letting things you can’t control go, it will help you so much. It’s hard. It’s hard.

Sara

Yeah, for sure. We’re not saying this is easy, but I think, first of all, really recognize what is out of your control and then intentionally work on releasing it. And one of the things is, I regularly go to therapy, and I’m a highly anxious person, and my therapist is constantly trying to help me figure out, how can I deal with my anxiety. And one of the things is, when I notice these anxious thoughts pop up, she’s like, you literally have to tell yourself, I’m not going to spiral, I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole. And I think it’s the same thing, right? Like, as a teacher, if we’re noticing, okay, I’m spending a lot of time and energy wishing I had longer literacy block. It’s just like, tell yourself, no, I’m not going to allow those thoughts to creep into my mind and take up my mental energy. So instead, what we really want to do is recognize what are the things that we can control? And then focus our energy on that. So teachers can control things, like their transitions, they can control their routines, they can control what they’re doing with their students in the time that they have. And this might be an unpopular opinion, and again, probably coming from personal experience, but I think a lot of times, if teachers are struggling to fit everything into their literacy block, it might be a sign that there is more of a classroom management issue or a time management issue. And it’s not that there’s too much on our literacy plates, it’s that we’re not managing our times well.

Emily

Yeah, the transitions is such a big piece, and I know that it seems small, but when you think about it, if your students are spending five minutes to transition, whether it be from whole group to small group, or whatever it is. If they’re spending five minutes a day making that transition, that’s 25 minutes a week. And what would you do to have 25 extra minutes in your reading block? So it seems small, but those small, those minutes, each minute adds up.

Sara

And I think it’s so easy to, I don’t know, I don’t want to say ignore, but it’s like, oh yeah, we’re just transitioning. Like, I’m asking my students to come from the carpet to back to their desks, or from their desks to centers. And while they’re doing that, we’re prepping materials and getting things ready for a small group, but all of those transitions, more than likely, your transitions are taking longer than you think they are. I know they did for me when I was in the classroom. And I think one of the things that we talked about before this episode is just giving teachers some really practical things that they can do to help with this. And so, if you are thinking, okay, maybe my transitions are loose and maybe I need to work on them, then start with that and get them really tight. Something that you can do is practice your transitions, especially when we’re at the start of the year, so let’s make them really structured. And I used to do this type of transition in my classroom as well. Basically, you’re going to transition as a group, and you’re going to prompt your students to do the actions with you. So you would say something like, Okay, one, you’re going to stand up. You wait for everybody to stand up. Two, grab your reading notebook and a pencil. You’re going to wait for everybody to do that. Three, push your chair in. Four, slowly walk to the carpet and find your assigned seat. If you did that, your transition would probably take a minute or less, and you would be saving a lot of time. And also you’d probably be saving a lot of redirection energy.

Emily

Yeah, I love that, because it doesn’t leave room for chit chat or let me go over here and talk to my friend, whatever it is. Those kinds of things are really what makes our class lose their focus. So I love the intentionality of let’s do it together.

Sara

I was going to say, you had that one student, right? It’s like, I always felt like I always felt like we were waiting on one student, where it’s like everybody’s on the carpet, and then there’s the one student back at their desk. But if you’re doing everything together, you’re not gonna have that one straggler who’s still at the pencil sharpener or digging in their backpack.

Emily

I also will say you can tie transitions to whatever incentive you have, and you can set goals. If you notice that your transitions are, three or four minutes, then set a goal, like, we’re gonna transition in two minutes. And then slowly peel that back and incentivize your students to do it super quickly. Put a timer up on your board, or your smart board, whatever it is. And one thing that I did when I was in the classroom, and you will not believe how excited my students got, okay, if we get our transition to one minute, we will have one extra minute of recess. We will not believe what students will do for one extra minute of recess, or one extra minute of “talking” during whatever time that I found appropriate during the day. I will let you chit chat with whoever you want in the room for one minute. So just silly little things, but they work.

Sara

It’s like they don’t have a full concept of what a minute is. And so you say that to them, and they’re like, oh my gosh, a minute, that’s amazing, but it’s like, a minute goes by pretty fast, but it works. You’re right, it does. So I think if you again, are feeling crunched for time, transitions are an area that I would look at. I would also encourage teachers, and we talk about this a lot in the workshops that we do, and inside the membership. But think about the routines that you have in place. And if you don’t have routines, put routines in place. We talk a lot about how routines save time during the instructional day because, for example, we have a sentence writing routine, and every Monday, students do the same activity, every Tuesday, students do the same activity, so on and so on. And that saves time because, one, you’re not having to explain directions for how to complete the activity. Students can just jump in and get started with it. You’re saving time with not having to distribute materials, because students usually have what they need. But it’s also saving you time from planning and spending mental energy on thinking about what you’re going to be doing. And so routines really can save time both during your literacy block and outside of your literacy block for planning. And so if you don’t have routines going in your classroom, we always say, turn your entire literacy block into a routine. And really, anything that is repeatable is a routine. You could have a routine for how you ask and answer questions during your read aloud. You could have a routine for how you structure your whole group lessons. You could have a routine for what happens during workstations. There’s a routine for how you do small groups. Anything can become a routine, but if you don’t have routines in place, put routines in place. And a good way to reflect on, do I have enough routines, or do I even have routines, is think about if you were gone, you had to leave a student in charge, and a student was the one that was responsible for telling the sub how the classroom went. Would your students be able to accurately communicate what happens minute by minute, hour by hour during your literacy block? And if you have routines, they can say, Yeah, we start every Monday with this sentence writing routine and the word of the week. And when we do our whole group lessons, we start with this. And so if you feel like your students can articulate to a sub what is going on in your classroom, that’s a good sign that you have enough routines in place. If you feel like your students would have no idea what goes on during your literacy block, then that’s a sign that you need to put some routines in place. So routines can definitely help save time and maximize the time that you do have.

Emily

Yeah, it’s that well oiled machine that we’re always striving for. Sounds amazing.

Sara

I know I always think about it – I did put routines in place in my classroom. And anytime that I did that I was like, why did I wait five years to get started with some of these things? Why did I feel the need to constantly be doing something new? And I think it sometimes there’s the temptation to think that a routine is boring, but the reality of it is, a routine I think creates structure that helps students feel confident and safe and comfortable. So yeah, if you don’t have routines, that’s a good place to start.

Emily

One of my favorite routines that I had, well, I taught in North Carolina, and we taught third grade, so we taught cursive, which was exciting.

Sara

I was a teacher during that time frame when we kind of forgot cursive existed. I never taught it. I kind of wish I did, because I think it’s helpful.

Emily

Yeah, it’s a very divisive subject, but cursive was our routine. We came back from lunch. (We had lunch, then recess.) Our students came in, sat right down at their table, got their cursive books out. And it was bliss! Because they knew what to do, and I could come in, hang up my coat, whatever it was from coming outside, get set up for our next step. And that was just awesome for us well.

Sara

And I think to your point that you just made like, oh my gosh, we’re coming back, and I have to explain this right away, or I have to get into the classroom before my students so I can immediately turn on whatever. It’s like, no. If your students know what to do, they can do it, and it gives you a minute to breathe and think.

Emily

I even had a student who would turn on the timer for me come in, put on the smart board, five minute timer for them to do their carts and practice.

Sara

I love that. So Okay, another thing that I love encouraging teachers to do is if you are a teacher that and you’re like, I don’t have enough time, then the first thing we need to really do is figure out where is your time going. And I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s been a minute since it’s come up on the podcast. I think it can be really valuable to do a time audit in your classroom. And honestly, even if you’re not feeling crunched for time, I think it’s just a really insightful thing. You can do this in the classroom. You can do this for your planning period. You can do it for anything. A time audit simply is you are spending a day, two days, a week, and you are collecting information and data on how you spend your time. And this just means that at the start of your literacy block, you’re going to start a timer and you’re going to see how long does it take you to do your word study Lesson, and then when that lesson is up, you’re going to stop your timer and you’re going to write down, okay, that took us seven minutes and 30 seconds. Then if your students are transitioning, you’re going to start your timer, and then when they’ve transitioned, you stop, and you’re like, Okay, our transition took three minutes. And then when you start your read aloud, you start your timer, and then when you finish, you’re like, Oh, wow, our read aloud took 35 minutes. You’re simply just figuring out, how long does each part of your literacy block take. And even though this seems like arduous and something that’s going to take a lot of time, it gives you so much information. Because I think a lot of times in our heads, things take less time than they actually do. And if we have concrete data that we know, okay, our transitions are taking seven minutes. That is way too much time. That’s where you start cutting it off. Or if you realize your read aloud is taking you 40 minutes. As valuable as that is, you probably don’t have 40 minutes every day to do a read aloud, so let’s work on cutting that down. So a time audit can be really helpful. And I think too, to like your point Emily, you can train students to turn off a timer, or start a timer. I know that every teacher has that student in their class that is so responsible, so detail oriented Teach a student how to do this, and have your student do the time audit for you one day, just so you have the information. But it can be very helpful for you to identify, how are you spending your time, and am I okay with the amount of time on each aspect of the literacy block?

Emily

Yeah, another point, once we do our time edit and have that data, think about how much time we really should be spending on each aspect of our literacy block. And this is top of mind for me, because last week, I went to a phonemic awareness professional development session, and I had asked the question, how much time should upper grades be spending on phonemic awareness? And I was shocked, absolutely shocked, to find out that upper grades should be spending one to five minutes on phonemic awareness.

Sara

I would have thought seven to eight, maybe 10 minutes. So the fact that it’s one to five is eye opening. I mean, sometimes we think that we can’t do a lot in a minute, but you can.

Emily

You hit the research base for phonemic awareness in one minute. So yes, pay attention to what the research actually says too about each part of the literacy block well.

Sara

I love that you mentioned that, because if a teacher is looking and they’re like, Okay, I can shorten my read aloud, and I can shorten whatever. But even if we shorten all of those things, maybe you only get like, five extra minutes out of your literacy block. And so it’s like, well, what am I going to do with five minutes? Well, hello, phonemic awareness. Or there’s other things that we don’t have to have a lot of time in order to have them be valuable. So I was gonna say, okay, Emily, do you have any ideas as far as some practical things teachers can do? I know I sort of talked about routines transitions. What are some other things that sort of come to mind when you think about helping teachers save time?

Emily

So my biggest tip would be to double dip. Double dip parts of your literacy block. For example, fluency practice can be happening at the same time as small group. And what that could look like is your students are working with a partner, the students who are not sitting at your small group table, they can be working with a partner on fluency activities. And those come in a variety of forms, and we have such great fluency activities inside the membership that I can totally see partners working together, timing each other, scoring each other, giving feedback. So that can happen while you’re giving your small group instruction.

Emily

Also, phonemic awareness, since we’re talking about it, is another thing that can happen really naturally inside our vocabulary of our whole group lesson. For example, I say a vocabulary word, let’s just use the word crucial. And then my students would tell me, how many syllables do you hear in crucial? Two. And that is hitting that phonemic awareness piece. And then I would move on to the rest of my vocabulary. So just kind of double dipping where you can.

Sara

That’s cute. I like it.

Emily

Going back to my fluency in small group, example, fluency assessments from the teacher can also be happening in small groups. For example, if I want to assess a student’s fluency, I can just take one minute while they’re reading at my small group table, just lean in. When I did this in the classroom, I would call it, zoom in.

Emily

Today’s your day. I’m gonna zoom in on you, and then I would just lean forward and listen to them, and then we would have a super efficient one minute conference on fluency. So really, just taking opportunities when you can to hit on those pillars.

Sara

Yeah, and I love that. And I know we remind teachers of this. And I think again, this is a hard thing to do because it requires really thinking about, how can I connect multiple subjects together? Not everything has to happen in isolation. And if we can connect phonemic awareness and vocabulary fluency during your small group, that helps you save time, because you don’t need to find an individual time for all of the literacy activities you want to include.

Sara

Okay. So I know we talked about some practical things, but I feel like a huge part of being able to fit everything in involves some mindset stuff, which is actually maybe one of my favorite things to talk about. It’s hard though, right? Ultimately, it requires us to think about things differently. And I think anytime teachers ask this question, saying I don’t have enough time to fit everything in. I have all these components, and there’s not enough time. Ultimately, the first thing that I think about is, why do we feel the need to have all of the components happen in our literacy block every single day? And I think that if we can remove that pressure from ourselves, that frees up a lot of our time and energy to give our students what they need in that day, and not feeling this obligation to I have to do spelling today and vocabulary today and grammar today and a read aloud today and writing today. And I don’t have maybe the answer to it, like, Why do we feel that need to? But I think recognizing that sometimes we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves by trying to fit everything in every single day, whereas, every day, we don’t have to have all aspects of the literacy block or all components if we’re covering them throughout the week. So I don’t know. That’s one thing that I always think about.

Sara

And then I also think about, why do we create unrealistic lesson plans or to do lists for ourselves? And this is something that I still struggle with. This is something like week to week, when I plan on my week, I consistently put more on my schedule than I actually have time for. I think I can get 12 tasks done when, in reality, I only have time for five. You know, I’m like, Oh, I’m going to record seven podcasts this week. And then it’s like, Oh, I really only have time to do two. And so I think doing things like the time audit can definitely help with that. But I know a lot of teachers say and so I’m going to kind of go on a little rabbit trail here, but a lot of teachers will say that these expectations come from their admin, right? That their admin is the one saying you have to do all of these things every day, that you have to fit everything in, that you have to put all elements of the curriculum. And if you are at a school where you feel like your admin is giving you unrealistic expectations, then this is what I really want you to consider. So first of all, your admin is there to support you, or at least they should be there to support you, and if you are doing all of the things that we suggested in this episode. So if you’ve nailed down your transitions, if you’ve put routines in place, if you are double dipping, then go to your principal and say, I am struggling to fit everything in. Here’s everything that I am doing. I’ve done a time audit so I know exactly how long everything is taking me. Show them the data. My transitions, they only take X number of minutes. I’m already implementing routines. I’m double dipping and doing phonemic awareness while I’m doing vocabulary. We’ve cut down on side conversations. All of these things. So if you can tell them all the stuff that you’re doing and say, I still don’t know what else to do in order to hit these district expectations, can you help me? That is a very different conversation that you’d be having with your admin than just sort of going to them from the beginning and saying, there’s too much on my plate, I don’t know what to do, right? So put all of these things in place, and then if you’re still struggling, go ask your admin for support, and hopefully through that conversation they will see maybe there is too much on your plate, or maybe they do need to take some things off or ease up on some expectations. The things that we are sharing in this episode can definitely help you be prepared to have that conversation with your admin.

Emily

Yeah, I think that that just goes back to the focus on the things that you can control aspect. And once you do all those things and bring it to your administration, you’re showing them that you are putting the time and energy into the things that you can control, and they can hopefully help you with the things that you can’t.

Emily

I also think another mindset shift we can make is making progress over perfection. And if you’re anything like me, you’re a recovering perfectionist and recovering people pleaser, and that’s hard. My best advice is just to try, just to give it a go, whether you’re going to try and tighten up your transitions, or whether you’re trying to do a time audit, or whatever it might be, just give it a go. Because every time we make progress on something, even though we don’t hit it 100% even though you don’t hit everything you need to do every single day, just giving it a go can make big impact. So we don’t have to be perfect, but when we make our best efforts, little wins will add up to those big wins.

Sara

I think that’s so important. And, that’s something we always talk about with our team, who are former teachers, and we’re all perfectionists, we’re all people pleasers, with a fear of failure. And I think those things can definitely get in the way of us taking action, but it’s through the action that we actually make improvements in growth. So I’m glad that you brought that up as well.

Emily

So Sarah, do you have any interesting, stellar teacher stories that have come up recently?

Sara

Yes, I do, and I’m so glad that we’re adding this little segment in, because we hear from teachers, both in our membership and just teachers who listen to the podcast a lot of times, things that are happening in their classroom, which are always so exciting. And so I’m glad that we have an opportunity to share some of them with our listeners. So I think it was maybe a couple weeks ago I got the opportunity to meet with Jennifer, who’s a member inside the Stellar Literacy Collective, and we were just chatting and connecting and collaborating on some things going on in her classroom. But one of the things that she shared with me is that she is a third grade teacher, and she started using our sentence writing routine, and she said it was going so well. This is a routine that really focuses on helping students develop their sentence writing skills. And so after about six weeks into the school year, she’s like, Okay, I think my students are ready to move on to paragraph writing. So she started to use our paragraph writing routine with our students. And as she was going through that routine, she realized that her students were not ready to jump into Paragraph Writing. And so rather than continuing to go through the paragraph routine or feeling like, oh my gosh, I failed my students, whatever, she’s like, Nope, we just went back to the sentence writing routine, and we’re going to keep working on building their competence and their skills with sentence writing before we move on to paragraph writing. And when she shared that with me, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is such a huge win, because she is slowing down and giving her students exactly what they need. And we talk about this all the time, how we have to slow down in order to speed up, and just the fact that she started something and it didn’t go how she expected, and she just said, Okay, we’re just said, Okay, we’re just gonna back up and keep doing what we were doing, because they’re not ready yet. And I think she felt really proud of that decision, because she knew that she was serving her students in that time. And I was like, this is such a good reminder for all teachers, that if you start something with your students and it doesn’t go well, that doesn’t mean that you’re a failure or that your students aren’t good students or good writers or whatever it is. It just means that they might need a little more practice with something else. And so I love that she shared that with me, and hopefully that gives some teachers in our audience some encouragement that it’s okay, if you start something and it’s not going how you want, just back up and spend a little more time preparing your students for that and then try again in a couple weeks.

Emily

Yeah. I just love this story from Jennifer so much. It just shows how much she paid attention to what her students need, and at the end of the day, you are the expert on your classroom. You are the expert on your students. You ultimately have the say in what they need. And Jennifer recognized that sentence writing is the foundation for paragraph writing, so her students needed more time on that foundation. So I just love how Jennifer responded with what her students truly needed in that moment, and I hope that others can do the same sort of thing.

Sara

Absolutely. So okay, well, we’re wrapping up our first episode here of the Dear Stellar Teacher Podcast. Emily, I’m super excited to have you on as a co-host. I’m really excited for the future questions and conversations that we get to have around literacy. So thank you for being willing to embark on this podcast adventure with me.

Emily

Of course, it’s been so fun so far.

Sara

So let us know how you like this Dear Stellar Teacher style episode. Like I said, our plan is to do this the first episode of every month. And of course, if you have questions or teacher stories that you would love for us to share or talk about on the podcast, send us an email to [email protected] or you can always message us on Instagram @thestellarteachercompany. Or if you’re a part of the Stellar Literacy Collective, you can also share inside our Facebook group, and hopefully we’ll get to share your question or story on an upcoming episode. So have a stellar week, everybody. I will see you back here next Monday.