S6 E18 - The Secret to Truly Universal Phonics Instruction (Part 1)

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Welcome back to the Structured Literacy Podcast recorded here in Tasmania on the lands of the Palawa people. I'm Jocelyn and I am so pleased that you have joined me. Whether you're a returning listener or you've just found us, you are in the right place for evidence-informed instruction, practical conversations about bringing literacy instruction to life in real schools, and a discussion of all of the things that we find when we're working with real students.

I'm recording this episode at the start of Term 4, 2025. It's the time of year when leaders are making concrete plans for next year and considering what the next steps are in the school strategic improvement agenda. Part of this process is looking back at the year that has been and evaluating impact. The impact we have on students is the most important factor we consider when evaluating our efforts. And while we would all agree that this is in fact the case, it's an area that's really easy to be distracted from.

Schools are Impacted by Politics

The truth of our profession is that what we do is impacted by the election cycle and the need for politicians to be able to report back on what they have done in a given time period. I'm not criticising politicians for this, it's just part of what happens. But it does keep our focus on the visible, surface-level short-term activities. Departments and systems in turn use surface-level metrics to evaluate and celebrate achievements because they're under pressure from the minister. So we end up with newspaper articles that talk about how many teachers have accessed a particular website, completed training modules, or how many schools are now using "phonics". And let's be real, just about every school has always taught phonics, so that measure is a little bit of nonsense.

The only metric that we should have our eye on, the most important one, is student outcomes. That's the whole box and dice right there. The other things, the training, the accessing materials, the doing phonics are steps that need to be taken on the road to the real goal. And it's perfectly fine to report on them as markers of the journey. However, we can't stop with those markers. We can't lose sight of the main goal, which is universal student achievement.

The Critical, Non-negotiable Factors

So this week's episode, and next week's, is all about the critical, non-negotiable factors of instruction that I have seen in my work in schools and in those schools whose results have been standouts in achieving high levels of success in phonics instruction. The reason that this is so important, and the reason that I keep coming back to it, is because if we don't have an unwavering commitment to outcomes, we will end up in five years with the same sorts of results that we saw before structured literacy was widely adopted. We'll have most students doing ok, but an ever-increasing number of students not being served.

Before we dive in, I want to say this. If you are listening and you're exhausted, if you're in a school where the barriers feel insurmountable, I want you to know that I get it. And I have had my fair share of times wondering whether I was completely delusional thinking that we could achieve the goals that we'd set for ourselves. This episode might feel challenging. Some of it may even feel a little harsh. I'm sharing it because I believe in the work that we do in schools. I believe in the capability of our teachers and our students to achieve the outcomes that we're looking for. And sometimes the kindest thing we can do is be clear about what it's going to take, even when that's uncomfortable. So thanks, Brene Brown, clear is indeed kind.

Being Clear on the Factors

If we're not clear on what the critical factors are for success, we can be working so hard and trying to walk uphill when it actually doesn't have to be that hard. When we're using practices because we think that they're the best, we're using programs because other people have told us that that's the evidence-based one, and there are elements of instruction that are not meeting the needs of our students, we're really just setting ourselves and our kids up to fail. So, in sharing these thoughts with you, my intention is not to be critical. It's to show you what the pathway forward can look like. But you can't do everything all at once. So, over this episode and the next one, I'm sharing 10 points, but you're going to choose one of them at a time and work on just one. Make things manageable. This is a long game we're playing. We don't have to get everything done by Christmas. So, today's episode is part one of a two-parter. In this episode, I'm going to share the first five of ten critical factors that must be in place if we're going to engineer success for our students. And we'll cover six to ten in the next episode.

Critical Factor 1

Critical factor number one is to accept and embrace our roles as the engineers of student success. We must accept and embrace these roles. If learning isn't happening and a child has a bottom on a seat in our classroom and they are cognitively and physically able to learn what they need to learn, it's our responsibility to craft the instruction to make sure that happens. Now, when things don't quite go right or we face challenges, there are five natural stages that we can go through or five points we can find ourselves at. I've spoken about them before on the podcast. They are number 1. ignore, 2. deny, 3. blame others, 4. assume responsibility, and 5. find solutions.

The uncomfortable truth is that in education, when learning doesn't happen as we think it should, we look outside ourselves for someone or something else to blame. This is nothing more than an inherently human response to challenge, and it's a natural part of the learning process. We all do it. It's not a character flaw, it's part of being human. However, we can't fall victim to our own biases, no matter how natural they are. We can't just run with them. The most successful schools I work with, and the most successful teachers I have led in my own leadership work, are those who acknowledge the barriers but refuse to let those barriers define the outcomes. The question isn't Can we do this? The question is What is it going to take to make this happen? If the student has a bottom on a seat, we really should have data that shows appropriate growth for their learning profile. Acknowledging that students have disabilities and significant difficulties, that mean that the pace at which they learn new content may be slower than others and means that they may need higher intensity instruction is not an excuse. That's the foundation of inclusion. But when we say that we can't have great data because our students come from disadvantaged backgrounds or have English as an additional language or are dysregulated, we need to pause and really examine that thinking.

I know that systematic barriers are real. Poverty is real, trauma is real, high mobility is real, limited resourcing, that's real too. I'm not dismissing any of that. What I'm saying is that we can't let those realities become reasons to lower our expectations or stop problem solving. Our job is to work within and against those barriers, not to accept them as immovable.

And I'm not one of these people who's never worked in a challenging context and is just making wishful statements. I taught in and led remote schools in the Northern Territory for 10 years and I got results. My teams got results. I'm not an expert in your school, but I do know that it can happen.

Our students are not defined by their circumstances, and we are not powerless in the face of those circumstances. We are the ones who have it in our control to do what needs to be done to see real and appropriate growth for every student.

Critical Factor 2

The second factor of success is having a whatever it takes attitude. Now, this is a big one because without it, you simply won't see the results you're looking for. Schools where students thrive are willing to do what needs to be done for the students. Need to sit in the discomfort of realising that our results aren't matching our effort? We'll do it. Need to change the timetable? We're on it. Need to have the principal or head of school take a phonics group three times a week so that we can cover all the bases? Consider it done. Need the PE teacher to read with kids for 15 minutes every morning, who we know don't have an adult reading to them at home? Where do we sign up? Need to change programs because we can now see from our growing knowledge that our existing program simply isn't fit for the purpose of what we need it for? We're in. We need to be prepared to get worse at something before we get better. And we have to be up for that challenge.

Now I know some of you are hearing this and thinking, Jocelyn, we are already stretched beyond breaking point. And I hear you. When I say whatever it takes, I'm not talking about individual teachers working themselves into the ground. I'm talking about whole school systemic problem solving where leadership protects time, redistributes resources, and makes tough decisions about what gets dropped so the essential work can happen.

We have to walk a careful line here. Change might be necessary, but it has to be well managed. Demanding that everything change all at once or in quick succession without proper time, coaching, and support, breaks people, and will in the end be worse for student outcomes than if we did nothing. So while the spirit of whatever it takes must be in evidence, exhausting our team or pushing them to the limits is not on the table.

Critical Factor 3

The third critical factor that we need to see if we are to have universal outcomes is that Tier 1 instruction must be designed to meet the needs of our students with the leakiest memories, the most difficulty paying attention, and the highest need for careful management of the introduction of new content. We'll come back to that in a moment.

Designing instruction to meet the needs of the most students will only get us outcomes for some of them. If we teach in a one size fits most way, if we choose content based on the needs of the majority, we're guaranteeing we're going to be leaving some students out. We're also guaranteeing that what we will be trying to do to create cohesive, fluent, highly impactful lessons won't happen, because it's really hard to have a smooth lesson that feels terrific, that goes at an appropriate pace, where we've got the kids in the palm of our hand and we're really nailing it when we're moving too slowly for some and too quickly for others.

Pacing, and getting the pacing right, really is about having students in front of us who are within a particular ballpark in their learning. In a text-based unit, we can teach whole class and adjust. In a phonics lesson, where content needs to be learned to mastery before moving on, it's a different proposition. I'm going to speak more to this shortly, but for now I want to say that yes, we can plan for Tier 2 support with additional repetitions and we should be. However, consider this, if the initial instruction makes a mess in the memory of the students because it's not what they need, we will find ourselves always spending more time and money on additional support than we should, because it takes so much longer to fix a mess in student memory than it does just for them to learn it well in the first place.

You might have heard me talk about the light switch scenario. When you move into a new house, you need to turn the lights on. If there are three or four, or even two, switches on the panel, you press them one at a time until you've turned the lights on. That's fine, it's the first day, the goal was to have light, well, success criteria are achieved. We have light. But tell me whether this resonates with you. It's five years later, and you still aren't quite sure which switch turns on which light. Think about how long it would take and how much intensity would be needed to get you to be truly automatic in choosing the right switch where there is no conscious thought needed. And now think about the students who you know are wobbly on phoneme-grapheme correspondences, even up until Year 5, 6, 7, and 8. Wouldn't it have been so much better to not make a light switch situation for those students in the first place?

Critical Factor 4

Critical factor number four is that core instruction must focus on each student's specific needs. A little while ago, I interviewed the fabulous Stephanie Stollar and we spoke about this, among other things. There's a misconception that Tier 1 instruction is the same for everyone. And the reality is that it might not be. The other person's work that makes so much sense in this space is Nancy Young, a Canadian researcher who created The Ladder of Reading. If you're a school leader and you don't have that book in your school resource, perhaps have a look at it, it was co-written with Jan Hasbrouck. In including this point, I'm not going off on a tangent of opinion. There are many researchers and academics who support this view.

I'm going to read to you now from a book called Writing and Reading Connection, Bridging Research and Practice. I'm specifically reading from an article by Young-Suk Kim, an educational psychologist known for her research on the science of reading. She's Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Education at the University of California. In the chapter, she writes,

The first principle is that children differ in the rate at which they acquire word reading and spelling skills, therefore, for maximally effective instruction, teachers need to identify their students' strengths and needs and provide instruction that is tailored to those needs, that is, differentiated or individualised instruction.

She goes on to say,

This type of instruction involves assessment of students' skills and using assessment data to make instructional decisions, such as grouping students by their strengths and needs. This practice is called data-based instructional decision making.

Now, in the old days, we referred to streaming in Australia, and in other countries they talked about tracking. And here's what Kim has to say about that.

It is important to recognise that differentiated instruction is not tracking. In tracking, students are not allowed to flexibly move into and out of groups. In differentiated instruction, students are grouped and regrouped flexibly throughout the year depending on their progress.

This practice of flexibly grouping to meet the needs of a range of students is a core characteristic of schools I've worked with and worked in who have achieved really terrific results for all of their students. They don't make a mess of student memory and learning in the first place, so that when they provide Tier 2 additional doses of instruction, it's a true additional dose. It's not an attempt to untangle the mess that's been created by instruction that wasn't what the student needed.

Critical Factor 5

The fifth factor from an operational standpoint is that schools who achieve universal outcomes have one core phonics routine that can pretty much fit onto a single piece of paper. There is no take this structure and make it your own. There's no menu of options for teachers to choose from. There's no just use the scope and sequence and use whatever instructional practices you like, or each year level chooses the program they like the best. When it comes to building foundational skills, it's one in, all in.

We all know about the positive impacts of low variance instruction and having predictable routines. So I don't think I have to go into a lot of detail about that here. Basically, keep it simple, keep it consistent, and keep it highly focused on just one thing, not six. I'm not talking about not being responsive to student needs. And work will be needed to be done so that everyone knows what the boundaries are in that. But just as students can only focus on one thing at a time, well, teachers can only get good at one thing at a time as well. We grown ups need repetition and practice just as the students do.

A Quick Recap

So there you have it, the first five critical non-negotiable factors of achieving universal success in phonics instruction. Let's do a quick recap of what we've covered today. Factor one, accept and embrace our roles as the engineers of student success. We can't fall into the trap of blaming circumstances when we have the power to problem solve and create change. Factor two, adopt a whatever it takes attitude. But remember, this is about whole school systemic problem solving, not burning out individuals. Factor three, design Tier 1 instruction for our students with the highest needs, not for what most of the students might be okay with. When we design for the most vulnerable, we avoid creating messes in memory that take years to untangle. Factor four, focus core instruction on each student's specific needs through flexible database grouping. This is not streaming or tracking. It's responsive, differentiated instruction where students change groups based on where they're up to at a particular time. Factor five, maintain one core phonics routine across the cohort. So instruction might look a little different, of course, between the early years and 3-6, but the way a phonics lesson is taught for initial instruction in early years should be consistent across all early years classrooms. Low variance instruction with predictable routines means both teachers and students can focus on learning, not navigating different systems.

These first five factors are really about mindset, our systems, and our commitment to doing what it takes to serve every student. They're the foundation that everything else is built on. And without these in place, the instructional factors we'll discuss in next week's episode won't have the impact we need them to.

In Conclusion

I know that some of this could feel challenging. And some people listening might be feeling energised and ready to tackle the challenges that come. Others might be feeling overwhelmed or perhaps a bit confronted. And that's ok. It's all part of the learning process. Take what resonates with you and what connects with the conversations you're already having with your team and start thinking about which of these first five factors you're already doing well and which ones need attention.

Next week, in part two of this series, we'll dive into factors six through ten, which focus more on the instructional decisions and practices that we have to put in place. We'll talk about things like managing cognitive load and the role of leadership. Until then, I want you to sit with these first five. Maybe grab a coffee with a colleague and discuss where your school sits on each one. Remember, awareness is the first step. We can't improve what we don't acknowledge needs improvement. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Structured Literacy Podcast. If something's resonated with you in this episode, pop into our Facebook group On the Structured Literacy Bus and share your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, happy teaching. Bye.

Show Notes:

S5 E17 - MTSS for Reading with Stephanie Stollar

Climbing THE LADDER OF READING & WRITING

Writing and Reading Connections: Bridging Research and Practice

On the Structured Literacy Bus Facebook page

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