P. David Pearson talks about various literacy issues, including Reading as a Meaning-Making Process and the educational implications of that view, PART TWO.  An Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Because of the length of the interview, it is being posted in two parts- this is the second part of that interview.  

When P.D. Pearson agreed to this interview, it was a career moment for me. Pearson is credited with the creation of the gradual release of teaching model LINK. That model transformed the world of teaching. In addition, his ideas around the concept of “The Radical Middle” LINK shaped my thinking around the whole topic of what it means to be a centrist. In the first part of the interview, Pearson talked about social-cultural models of reading, the gradual release model, Durkin’s research around teaching comprehension, and the importance of reading definitions in establishing reading practices. He pointed out the shortcomings of definitions used by some SOR advocates and the need for a definition of reading that clearly includes the concept of reading as a meaning-making process. In case you missed it, here is a link to the blog about the first half of the interview LINK.   

What now follows is Pearson taking an in-depth, research-based look at the remaining issues surrounding the question of how to best teach literacy in the 21^st century.

BIOGRAPHY

Here are the timed stamped talking points for the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)

Here is a link to the U-Tube Interview:

RESOURCES AND LINKS PROVIDED BY PD Pearson.

• Donna Scanlon’s NCES presentation on the Use of Contextual Supports in Word Identification and Word Learning.

• David Pearson’s NCES presentation on the Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

• David Pearson and Rob Tierney’s presentation on The Science of Reading: What it Means for Classroom Practices

A chapter by David Pearson, Christina Madda, and Taffy Raphael dealing with the question of balance in the days of the Science of Reading.

• P. David Pearson & Rob Tierney Webinar LINK

———————————————————————————————–

OTHER RESOURCES RELATED TO PEARSON’S IDEAS

Link to P.D. Pearson’s website LINK.

Links to the two special issues of Reading Research Quarterly LINK.  

The Science of Reading Comprehension- Reading Teacher, 2021, Duke, Ward & Pearson LINK

Mary Howard once again provided some excellent detailed notes on this interview. THANKS MARY. Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/mary.c.howard.79/posts/pfbid02d6anZsUkCayh3Nb427GubvMBUQdTtMhh9JBvdNebeFvB4HVED9y1zVCDGsGgNAUEl

Final Thoughts about this interview

I want to remind readers of what Pearson said in part one of this interview:

 “So, what have they done? They have defined all this other stuff out of reading that’s part of literacy, that’s part of learning, but it’s not part of reading. And what that does is it makes the reading curriculum a much narrower swab that I think most of us think is involved in reading.”

We must take care when making policy at the district, state, and national level that those policies are based on a definition of reading that makes it crystal clear that reading is first and foremost, a meaning-making process. If you are not reading for meaning, then you are not reading at all. In a 2021 Reading Teacher article entitled The Science of Reading Comprehension, Duke, Ward and Pearson make this statement- “However, research has supported a simultaneous, rather than sequential, model of reading instruction.” p 665, LINK. The same article points out the need for graphophonological semantic cognitive flexibility, and the fact that reading comprehension is not automatic even when fluency is strong.

Right now, a model for reading instruction that is based on a limited definition of reading and questionable practices around comprehension is sweeping the country. Phonics first (phonics only?) has been tried before with disastrous results. Read the review of the Reading First initiative LINK.  Millions of dollars were spent with very little in the way of improved reading/reading comprehension to show for it. I fear that, once again, we are on a path that will result in yet another very expensive pendulum swing.

Let’s take Pearson’s advice and think about taking positions instead of taking sides. How about starting with the thought that teachers and students need to learn to apply the phonics instruction that is best for each child?

• I would propose that we start with synthetic phonics but have other forms of phonics waiting in the wings for those students for whom synthetic phonics fails to work. Pearson explained some of those other forms of phonics during the interview, 22:05.
• Encourage teaching practices that result in a set for variability in both word recognition and comprehension.
• Let’s look at all the research. That includes qualitative research. Let’s stop using strawmen to misrepresent what the other side says, 24:14.

Let’s listen carefully to folks like Pearson and Howett LINK, who actively use common sense to find some common ground. We owe it to the kids to stop the arguments and start the discussions. Dare to dream!

So, until next week:

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

COMING EVENT

Join us on November 9 at 4 pm EST for a free webinar! Register today for Transformative Teaching Strategies, moderated by Dr. Sam Bommarito with panelists Tim Rasinski, Kathy Roe, and Penny Slater.  

In this special session, Dr. Sam Bommarito will bring together an exciting panel of literacy experts to discuss strategies for improving student reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and reading stamina. Bestselling author and fluency scholar Tim Rasinski will share some important research on fluency. Penny Slater and Kathy Roe will show how they have used Tim’s research to develop a Reading Fluency Project in the UK that has led to struggling readers achieving more than 1.5 years of growth in comprehension/fluency in just eight weeks of small-group instruction. 

Register: pioneervalleybooks.com/webinars\

In the upcoming year, I will present at LitCon in Ohio, the Wisconsin ILA Conference, the Hudson River ILA Conference and the Write to Learn Conference in Missouri. Should you be interested in having me as a speaker or presenter at a conference, please e-mail me at bommaritosam@yahoo.com. Include the word “speaker” in your subject line.

Nora Chahbazi, the founder of EBLI: An evidenced-based reading program, talks about her program and upcoming webinar. Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

In the past few years, I have tried to talk to folks from various perspectives on reading, especially beginning reading. I’ve interviewed many literacy leaders, including Tim Rasinski, LINK Narelle Lynch LINK, Rachael Gabriel LINK, George Hruby LINK, Marnie Ginsberg  LINK and Yvonna Graham LINK, just to name a few. I recently talked to Bruce Howett LINK and Jan Wasowicz LINK about their ideas around ending the reading wars. Also, in what was a career moment for me last week, I was able to interview P.D. Pearson LINK, whose idea of the Radical Middle LINK has served as the core foundation for my centrist position LINK. That was a two-part interview. I’ve delayed publishing the second part of that interview until next week because an old friend and colleague asked me to give her a chance to talk about a webinar she is holding next week. I thought that her request fit right into the Pearson segment because, in that segment, Pearson pointed out that there is more than one way to teach phonics. I think that Nora has found one of those ways. So, before closing out the Pearson thread next week, I thought I would share Nora’s project with you and tell you about her upcoming webinar.

I first met Nora 5 years ago. She invited Tim Rasinski and me to visit her site. Nora is the parent of a dyslexic child. The process of helping her daughter learn to read caused her to do a deep dive into the research. That, in turn, led to the creation of EBLI (Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction). EBLI teaches a form of decoding based on the work of Diane McGuinness. McGuinness advocates a speech-to-print rather than a print-to-speech way of teaching decoding. In this interview, Nora tells the whole story about the creation of EBLI. EBLI has grown a great deal since I first talked to Nora five years ago. It now serves thousands of teachers and students. It has many resources for parents and teachers. Links to that are provided later in the blog. EBLI is sponsoring a webinar next week.  

Here is Nora’s biography taken from an earlier version of the EBLI website:

Nora is a believer in the Science of Reading. She and I don’t agree on everything. But since I first visited her, she has always been willing to talk and share ideas. I often allude to the fact that of all the SOR sites I’ve looked at, hers is one of the very few that can demonstrate that their methods improve BOTH decoding and comprehension. She measures her results with tests of the full reading process rather than tests that measure mainly decoding. In this interview, Nora discusses ongoing efforts to document research around EBLI’s impact.

Nora gets decoding taught very quickly and very efficiently. To do that, she takes a road less traveled. She uses linguistic phonics instead of focusing on more traditional approaches, e.g., OG. There is a link about linguistic phonics later in this blog. Nora also talks about EBLI’s upcoming webinar. It will use a panel discussion format. The panel will consist of 3 teachers who share their evolution from other methods to EBLI. They will talk about their transition, successes, and challenges along the way. I’ll be attending for sure; I hope you will too. LINK:

Here is Nora’s interview:

NOTE: In the interview, Nora said the webinar is on the 25th. It is on the 26th, and a link is provided below.

Here is a link to EBLI’s overall website. The website is worth exploring. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the wide range of resources she provides for educators, parents, and students. EBLI website 

This is the link to the upcoming webinar:

Here are other links that go along with the topics covered in the interview:

• EBLI Free Lessons
• Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It by Diane McGuinness
• Orton Gillingham: Which Aspects are Supported by Research and Which Require Additional Research? The Reading League Journal 
• Reading Reflex for parents to teach their children, what Nora used to teach her daughter in 1997 

Dr. Sam’s thoughts about this interview & a peek at future topics. As I mentioned, I have been talking to or writing about ideas from all across the reading spectrum for the past five years. I am a centrist. I am making the case that we should listen to ideas and findings from all sides of the reading issue. The way Nora carries out and promotes her program at EBLI represents one way of proceeding with Science of Reading that holds hope for eventually finding common sense and common ground. She demonstrates that there are ways to teach phonics effectively that don’t fit the mold some are trying to force on us all. Nora is not trying to force her views on anyone. Everyone would benefit from learning more about the “flagship of her fleet,” linguistic phonics.

Next week, I will post the other half of the Pearson interview. I’ll reflect on the best ways to end the reading wars. People like Nora give me hope that someday, all of us will follow P.D. Pearson’s advice to stop taking sides and start taking positions. Nora has taken the position that linguistic phonics is one path students can follow to help them quickly overcome difficulties with decoding. Please consider that. People like Nora give me hope that the day will come when we stop taking sides and start using the best research-based practices from all positions to guide us. Dare to dream!

Until next time- this is Dr. Sam signing off.

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

ANOTHER UPCOMING EVENT

Join us on November 9 at 4 pm EST for a free webinar! Register today for Transformative Teaching Strategies, moderated by Dr. Sam Bommarito with panelists Tim Rasinski, Kathy Roe, and Penny Slater.  

In this special session, Dr. Sam Bommarito will bring together an exciting panel of literacy experts to discuss strategies for improving student reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and reading stamina. Bestselling author and fluency scholar Tim Rasinski will share some important research on fluency. Penny Slater and Kathy Roe will show how they have used Tim’s research to develop a Reading Fluency Project in the UK that has led to struggling readers achieving more than 1.5 years of growth in comprehension/fluency in just eight weeks of small-group instruction. 

Register: pioneervalleybooks.com/webinars\

P. David Pearson talks about various literacy issues, including Reading as a Meaning-Making Process and the educational implications of that view- An Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Because of the length of the interview, it is being posted in two parts- the first part today and the second part a week from today.  

When P.D. Pearson agreed to this interview, it was a career moment for me. Pearson is credited with the creation of the gradual release of teaching model LINK. That model transformed the world of teaching. In addition, his ideas around the concept of “The Radical Middle” LINK, shaped my thinking around the whole topic of what it means to be a centrist. What follows is Pearson taking an in-depth, research-based look at the issues surrounding the question of how to best teach literacy in the 21^st century.

BIOGRAPHY

Here are the timed stamped talking points for the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)

Here is a link to the U-Tube Interview:

RESOURCES AND LINKS PROVIDED BY PD Pearson.

• Donna Scanlon’s NCES presentation on the Use of Contextual Supports in Word Identification and Word Learning.

• David Pearson’s NCES presentation on the Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

• David Pearson and Rob Tierney’s presentation on The Science of Reading: What it Means for Classroom Practices

A chapter by David Pearson, Christina Madda, and Taffy Raphael dealing with the question of balance in the days of the Science of Reading.

• P. David Pearson & Rob Tierney Webinar LINK

———————————————————————————————–

OTHER RESOURCES RELATED TO PEARSON’S IDEAS

My three-blog series about the presentation at the 2019 ILA convention entitled What Research Really Says About Teaching Reading- and Why That Still Matters  

P.D. Pearson, Nell K. Duke, Sonia Cabell, and Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon made that presentation.

• The first blog was entirely about what P.D. Pearson has to say about the topic and included screen captures of slides from his presentation.LINK.
• The second blog includes a link to the summary of the presentation done by ILA LINK. It includes my reflections on what was said about early literacy. A discussion of a project being carried out in St. Louis (where I live) and Molly Ness’s ILA position paper on Read Alouds included. Here is the link to the blog: LINK.
• The third blog talks about what was said during the session about comprehension. LINK This quote about what the ILA summary reported Nell Duke said during the session is of special interest:

“It’s as though because we think content knowledge building is so important, we’re just going to ignore three decades of research on comprehensive strategy instruction,” said Duke. “This isn’t a zero-sum game saying, ‘if you can’t attend to content, then you can’t teach comprehension strategies’ or ‘if you teach comprehension strategies, you must not be paying enough attention to vocabulary or morphology.”

I believe what was reported in this session supports a position that calls for the direct, explicit, systematic teaching of comprehension strategies, using a gradual release model.

———————————————————————————————–

Link to P.D. Pearson’s website LINK.

Links to the two special issues of Reading Research Quarterly LINK.  

Final Thoughts & a preview of next week’s blog

Here’s what Pearson said in the interview about SOR and their definition of reading:

 “So, what have they done? They have defined all this other stuff out of reading that’s part of literacy, that’s part of learning, but it’s not part of reading. And what that does is it makes the reading curriculum a much narrower swab that I think most of us think is involved in reading. It means, if you look at the teaching of reading today, it includes a lot of this other stuff, and it certainly includes a focus on comprehension, motivation, purpose for reading and the like. “

“So, I just think that what the folks in the science of reading are doing is they’re just picking off one little piece of reading, and they’re saying that THAT’S what matters most, and THAT’S what we should pay attention to. We’ll get to the other stuff, but we don’t have to get to it in the reading curriculum. You can do that in social studies or science or this sort of broad nothing of literacy for everyday life – but it’s not part of reading. So, I think the definition matters a whole lot.”

39:39 to 40:44 on the interview video

Bolding is mine

As my colleague Mary Howard pointed out to me when discussing her notes from previewing the video of this interview, By the way, Mary has created a very complete set of notes about the first half of this interview and made them available online LINK.  Thanks, Mary!

Pearson’s explanation of the impact of how one defines reading helps to explain the origins of many of the current battles around SOR and Balanced Literacy. The definition chosen by the SOR folks oversimplifies things in a way that divorces the decoding aspects of reading from the meaning-making aspects. I think it is a major source of criticisms made about some SOR advocates’ views. Those advocates are often seen as taking a decode first, comprehend later view of reading. This narrow definition of the reading process also helps to explain why many SOR advocates prefer using tests like the Dibels to measure reading progress. When I talk to administrators about the issue of Dibels vs. the content of reading tests used in most states, I give a buyer beware warning. I asked administrators to compare the items on the two tests. The items are not the same.

Duke describes the typical content of state reading tests in this chart from page 7 of her article entitled Reading by Third Grade: How Policymakers Can Foster Early Literacy. LINK.

One quickly finds that the Dibels test does not directly measure many of the things measured by state reading tests. Many critics have written extensively about the “miracle gains” reported by some SOR folks and said those gains are illusionary or overstated LINK, LINK, LINK. 

Another concern about what some SOR folks say about comprehension instruction is that many call for much less direct instruction in comprehension strategies. They base this on the work of Daniel Willingham. They count on background knowledge to provide most of what students need in order to comprehend, minimizing the need for instruction in comprehension strategies. In addition to Pearson, two other prominent researchers differ from them on that point. The first is Dr. Tim Shanahan. He wrote a blog entitled The Spirit is Willingham, but the Flesh is Weak. Shanahan concludes that blog by saying, “There definitely can be too much strategy teaching, but in most places, any dosage, not overdosage, is the problem.” Clearly, he thinks Willingham has underestimated the need for strategy instruction. I already mentioned Nell Duke’s take on this issue earlier in the blog. She expressed the fear that some folks were ignoring three decades of research on comprehensive strategy instruction and are overemphasizing the importance of background knowledge. I would add that research has indicated that teaching comprehension strategies using the gradual release model has been shown to raise test scores significantly.

So, does that mean we must fall to the use of dichotomies (BL vs. SOR) once again? I’ve often said that dichotomies have consistently led to pendulum swings, not progress. We need something else. Next week, I will talk about that “something else.” It is my belief that taking a centrist approach, an approach that draws the best research from both sides (all sides), is a possible way to cut through the Gordian knot of the reading wars. P.D. Pearson’s ideas are at the heart of that centrist approach LINK. I’ll pick up on this idea next week as we examine the interview’s second half. Stay tuned!

So, until next week:

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

COMING EVENT

Join us on November 9 at 4 pm EST for a free webinar! Register today for Transformative Teaching Strategies, moderated by Dr. Sam Bommarito with panelists Tim Rasinski, Kathy Roe, and Penny Slater.  

In this special session, Dr. Sam Bommarito will bring together an exciting panel of literacy experts to discuss strategies for improving student reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and reading stamina. Bestselling author and fluency scholar Tim Rasinski will share some important research on fluency. Penny Slater and Kathy Roe will show how they have used Tim’s research to develop a Reading Fluency Project in the UK that has led to struggling readers achieving more than 1.5 years of growth in comprehension/fluency in just eight weeks of small-group instruction. 

Register: pioneervalleybooks.com/webinars\

Dr. Jan Wasowicz talks about the SPELLtalk discussion group, the Language Literacy Network &issues around the teaching of beginning reading: An Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito

“Informed, empowered teachers are the best solution to our current literacy problems.”  Dr. Jan Wasowicz (quote from her Oct. 2^nd e-mail)

My regular readers know that I have been on a quest trying to find common ground in the often-contentious world of literacy. My doctorate was completed in the last iteration of the so-called reading wars. In my dissertation, I found that the two sides of that era had more practices in common than those on which they differed. At that time, I joined P.D. Pearson in what he called The Radical Middle LINK. His ideas became the core of my centrist approach – i.e., using the research-based ideas of all sides and steadfastly working toward the day when we finally recognize there really are no sides.

Recently, some developments have given me some hope for finding that common ground. Amanda Goodwin, the Reading Research Quarterly Co-Editor, had much to say about this topic in a recent interview in the KAPPAN– LINK. She described how, in the process of peer review, researchers who at first viewed themselves in different camps found themselves shifting more to the center:

“Some researchers probably started out thinking they were in different camps, but during the editing process, that changed. You know, in an academic journal like RRQ, we ask experts to review each article and give the authors anonymous feedback. A lot of them pushed the authors to say more about the gap between research and practice and to consider differing perspectives. And when they revised their articles, those researchers who started out in separate camps seemed to move more to the center and acknowledge and welcome other views. So, overall, I’d say that the experts agreed that it’s valuable to conduct various kinds of scientific research that aims to better understand and meet children’s complex and varied needs — not to insist that there’s a single, “one best” way to teach reading.”

I wrote an entire blog around Amanda’s article LINK.

A few months after reading Amanda’s article, I met Bruce Howlett on social media. He told me about his plan for ending the reading wars. I had a chance to interview him about his model to achieve that end, I wrote a blog about that LINK. If you haven’t seen Bill’s model yet, please do take a look. He has some very interesting insights into things like LTRS and Reading Recovery. Bruce told me Dr. Jan Wasowicz had invited him to post his work on SPELLtalk. That has happened. He thought it would be a good idea for me to talk to Jan and perhaps interview her.

That brings us up to the present. I did talk to Jan. As part of that conversation, I posited to her the idea of the importance of informed, empowered teachers. One of the results of the conversation around that is the quote from the beginning of this blog. The solution to the reading wars (a term many folks think should be abandoned) and our reading problems lies in fostering the creation of informed, empowered teachers. We’ve known since the First Grade Studies were published more than 50 years ago that in terms of improving reading scores, teachers make more difference than programs LINK, LINK,,

In the current interview, Jan talks about her background, the Language Literacy Network and her extensive work in the reading field, work which spans several decades. Although I may not agree with every single thing she says, I do see an enormous amount of common ground in our literacy views. What now follows is her biography, the details of the interview and a list of resources Jan has shared. Let’s take a look at all that now.

BIOGRAPHY

Here are the timed stamped talking points for the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)

Here is a link to the U-Tube Interview:

RESOURCES FROM JAN– Listed in the order they are mentioned in the interview:

• Connect with researchers and practitioners via SPELLTalk™, the FREE online multi-disciplinary professional discussion group dedicated to improving literacy through discussion of research and evidence-based best practices. Be Informed. Be Empowered. Make a Difference. (Dr. Sam note- please consider commenting to this group about Bruce’s model to end the reading wars)

Join SPELLTalk—FREE!.

• The Language Literacy Network: The many language components that unify during skilled reading and writing. PDF can be downloaded from this sharefolder https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Orfr0-0pJd_sKzYf3FuTPSjAbKiKLOKU?usp=sharing

• A speech-to-print approach to teaching reading. Wasowicz (2021) in the LDA Bulletin.

OPEN ACCESS. Download publication.

(the publisher requires that readers download directly from their website.)

• Download 17 FREE activities for speech-to-print reading and writing instruction at www.spell-links.com

(Teachers must download this directly from the home page of our website.) 

Final Thoughts & a peek at upcoming blogs:

At the start of this blog entry, I said that discussing how to teach reading can be contentious. This is especially true today. Today, there are some advocates of SOR who fail to tell the whole story and who push what I view as a narrow and limited view of the reading process. They claim it’s all settled science and attack anything that doesn’t fit their narrow views exactly. I have pushed back many times on such views LINK LINK, LINK. These particular advocates of the SOR, whom I have dubbed the social media version of SOR, often use public relations tactics like misinformation and misdirection to push their agenda. The result has been some questionable legislation around reading, legislation that in some states has resulted in some publishers getting a state-enforced monopoly on the sale of reading materials LINK. Just this week, I dealt with one such advocate who was condescending, used brutal sarcasm and ignored several calls to end the conversation with an agreed to disagree statement. He took what I characterize as a my way or the highway stance. By the way, there are also advocates from the opposite end of the spectrum who are prone to use strawman versions of SOR in order to counter such arguments. I wrote an article around this phenomenon of folks with extreme views arguing about reading instruction, with each side using strawman versions of the other. In the article I talk about how to handle that kind of situation. It appeared in Literacy Today, in 2020 LINK. The name of the article was Talk More Argue Less. In it, I called for all sides to stop using strawman versions of each other, start recognizing that every side has limits and limitations and, most importantly, that we talk more about common ground.

I’ll be explicitly clear in saying that both Jan and Bruce have sincere views about SOR and are willing to consider all the information and research. Jan’s story is one of seeking better understanding through research, and her story isn’t finished. Her reaction to new ideas about how to teach reading was the reaction of a scientist (see the video 29:27). In his own teaching, Bruce reported he does use ideas from all sides. Asking folks to use research-based ideas from all sides has become my mantra. We are at a crossroads in discussing the best ways to teach reading. We can choose to let the folks at the extremes remain in control of the discussion. Historically, when that has happened, the result has been another swing of the pendulum. Or we can choose to refrain from using strawmen, to admit all sides have limits and limitations, and most importantly, to admit there is common ground in what we all believe. I sincerely hope we choose that path.

I’m meeting tomorrow with P.D. Pearson. Dr. Pearson is a well-published reading researcher best known for creating the gradual release model. I’m sure there will be a lot to unpack from that interview. I’ll also be doing a blog about my upcoming webinar. Pioneer Valley Books sponsors it. The name of it is Transformative Reading Strategies. Details can be found at the end of this blog. So, as we get started in this new school year, there’s lots going on. Until next week, this is Dr. Sam signing off.  

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

COMING EVENT

Join us on November 9 at 4 pm EST for a free webinar! Register today for Transformative Teaching Strategies, moderated by Dr. Sam Bommarito with panelists Tim Rasinski, Kathy Roe, and Penny Slater.  

In this special session, Dr. Sam Bommarito will bring together an exciting panel of literacy experts to discuss strategies for improving student reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and reading stamina. Bestselling author and fluency scholar Tim Rasinski will share some important research on fluency. Penny Slater and Kathy Roe will show how they have used Tim’s research to develop a Reading Fluency Project in the UK that has led to struggling readers achieving more than 1.5 years of growth in comprehension/fluency in just eight weeks of small-group instruction. 

Register: pioneervalleybooks.com/webinars