How to Talk So Teachers Will Listen

You log into Facebook, and you see the following.

How would you respond? 

Every day, thousands of educators turn to social media, seeking guidance about reading instruction. They seek advice about specific programs and curricula. They want resources to learn more about the Science of Reading. They ask for help with or clarification about a particular practice. In other words, these many thousands of educators turn to social media because they want to improve their practice, do right by their students, and learn from other educators and researchers. 

So to go back to the original post. How would you respond? Who’s right? UFLI or professional development? UFLI or colleagues? What should this teacher do? 

Fortunately for us, there’s a straightforward answer here. UFLI is “right;” the PD and her colleagues are wrong. The teacher is half-wrong too. Her PD’s claim that  word awareness work improves reading and spelling is wrong. In other words, the teacher should proceed with UFLI and ditch the phonological awareness work in small groups. Trust UFLI and move on. 

But here’s the thing: this isn’t what you should say to the teacher..if you want them to change their practice. In fact, if you take one piece of advice from this piece, please don’t ever talk to a teacher like I did above. 

So how should you actually respond? 

We do want to encourage this teacher to proceed with UFLI and stop doing phonological awareness work in small groups. But we need to say more than that. We need to remember that the teacher asking these questions is an actual human being with beliefs and feelings, not a robot who will incorporate your instructions into their teaching algorithm. 

Let’s take a look at some of the actual responses to the poster, and see what we can learn from them. 

“Your post hits close to home bc when I was trained in OG, I was taught to follow the sequence your colleagues described and I actually led PD on it at my school! Then, I observed a colleague focusing on rhyming words w a struggling 2nd grader in her after school remediation group, bc apparently that kiddo struggled w rhyming - but as Brady points out, if you follow this trajectory in order, kids who are behind will never catch up! And in KG, _all_ kids will be needlessly delayed in getting to play with phonemes and learn how to read and write! #KnowBetterDoBetter
”

— Facebook response 1

I love this response. It reassures the teacher that she is not alone. This is a common misconception. In fact, there’s another teacher out there who had the same experience as she did! This connection immediately builds trust and creates a permission structure and model for the teacher to adjust her instruction. In addition, this response gently introduces the research underlying the recommendation, without being pushy and pedantic. 

“Trust UFLI. People need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel and trust the program. It is based on evidence. Getting rid of lessons is a definite no-go. Everything in UFLI is very explicit and cumulative for a reason! It builds off of previous lessons. Trust it!!
”

— Facebook response 2

On the other hand, I hate this response. It judges the teacher and her colleagues and casts them as the bad guys for “trying to reinvent the wheel” and avoiding an evidence-based approach. Ironically, I’m sure the first and second posters would agree on the desired outcome: keep UFLI; ditch phonological awareness instruction. But this response is likely counterproductive. 

“I would share Susan Brady’s 2020 update on the alphabetics section of NRP (from the reading league journal), where she describes new research showing that PA work with larger units is *not* a prerequisite for phoneme level work. Pages 6-11: https://tinyurl.com/55neve44
”

— Facebook response 3

Generally, I’m skeptical that sharing research articles is going to change teachers’ minds about instructional practices. But if you’re going to share research articles, use response three as a model: summarize the research and direct the teacher to the relevant pages. 

So what are the takeaways? What should you say the next time someone touts Heggerty or waxes rhapsodic about advanced phonemic awareness instruction? 

I begin by remembering that the poster is open to learning and growth. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have asked the question this way. We should honor her intelligence and curiosity by talking to her like we would talk to a colleague, not by attacking her as though she were the enemy. Here are my rules for doing this: 

Dos:

1. Ground your advice in YOUR personal experience. Be vulnerable.

2. Connect that experience to practice and research. 

3. Be conversational. Write like you speak. 

4. Ask clarifying questions to understand the context and establish your sincere interest in the teacher’s question. 

5. Dignify a careful question with a careful response. Take your time responding. 

6. Be specific. “Listen to Sold A Story!!!!!!” doesn’t count. 

7. Be nice and assume good faith. 

Don’ts:

1. Don’t condescend to the teacher. 

2. Don’t make it “us vs. them.” 

3. Don’t recommend anything (curricula, books, professional development, podcasts, webinars, articles) without explanation. 

4. Don’t dash off the first thing that comes to mind. “Use UFLI” is not helpful. 

Ideally, these conversations would be happening in every school and district. But we don’t live in that world. Social media is where these questions are being asked and answered all the time. We need to meet teachers where they are–on social media. This is at the core of what we do at the Goyen Foundation, and it is why getting into the fray on social media is part of our fellowship.