Motherhood is all consuming.

Having babies, nursing, feeling the fear of loving someone that much, and there's this baby on your chest, and boom, your entire life has changed.

It's a privilege of being your child's safest space and watching your heart walk around outside of your body.

The truth is.

I can be having the best time being a mom one minute, and then the next, I'm questioning all my life choices.

I'm Lo Mansfield, your host of the Lo and Behold podcast, mama of four Littles, former labor and postpartum RN, CLC, and your new best friend in the messy middle space of all the choices you are making in pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.

If there is one thing I know after years of delivering babies at the bedside and then having, and now raising those four of my own, it is that there is no such thing as a best way to do any of this.

And we're leaning into that truth here with the mix of real life and what the textbook says, expert Insights and practical applications.

Each week we're making our way towards stories that we participate in, stories that we are honest about, and stories that are ours.

This is the lo and behold podcast.

Hello.

Hello.

I am very excited to put today's guest in front of you.

We are gonna move like a couple years forward on the baby breastfeeding pregnancy timeline that I know so many of you're on, we're gonna talk about your toddlers and your pre-Ks and that season or transition that you might be in now, or you will be coming up where your kids are going to or getting ready to go.

To pre-K and Kinder Beth Gaskell's with me today.

She is trained as a multisensory literacy instructor and an early childhood educator and an elementary school teacher.

You probably know her from big city readers, which is definitely where I found her on Instagram.

She's online as well as Miss Beth, where she is teaching parents and teachers, just giving them all the tools and the strategies that they need to grow their children.

As lifelong readers.

And you know, my sister used to always say, or she would use a hashtag when she would share on old Instagram posts of raising readers.

She loved to talk about just her child and her love for reading.

And it's something that's always stuck with me of what does it look like to raise readers and, and is there something I can be doing should be doing?

How does our educational system step in and support us in that?

And with that, because I gotta be honest, like my.

Sometimes like I'll have a goal or vision as a mom sometimes, and it is this idea of kiddos like safe in their rooms, reading and getting lost in stories and stuff.

And so it is something I've definitely wanted for my kids.

I love, love, love the gift of reading and waste way too many hours every night reading, and so loved having this conversation with Beth about what it looks like to kind of step into this with our kiddos and ideally, hopefully raise lifelong readers as well.

Beth, I am so excited to have you here with me, and right before we were just starting, I was telling you that I have kids.

Through kinder, coming into kinder and more to come.

So you are like the perfect person for me personally to talk to.

I know that will be true for a bunch of other people with us right now too.

Why don't you introduce yourselves.

Just tell us like whatever you wanna tell, not necessarily the official bio, and then we'll just get into it.

Sure.

Yeah.

My name is Beth Gaskill.

I am a originally learning and behavior specialist.

I worked in the classroom, I did teacher coaching, then moved into a reading specialist role, in elementary schools.

And then, built a company and really I care a lot about helping parents feel empowered.

So I built a tutoring company that then kind of evolved into, parent.

Coaching classes before kids even started kindergarten.

So, our big focus is on, you know, behavior learning behaviors and learning to read.

But a lot of it is on, helping parents know what your kids should know at certain stages and are they behind and what's coming home from the school.

And I know you said not the official bio that, that felt like closer to an official bio of,

of my, I just wanted you to tell everyone that you're one of 12 kids and you know, like, oh yeah, I'm one of

12 kids.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

That's, I, I, as I was sitting saying that, I was like, she wants me to say the more personal stuff.

I am from a really big family.

My parents adopted a whole bunch of kids.

I'm the youngest of four biological, and then they did foster care and adoption of, all different types, open and closed adoptions, and mostly high risk, special needs.

So, I, feel like I got to see a lot of, like all of those different roles.

You know, there were OTs, PTs, speech therapists, so many different people in our home.

And so my, my, my dream and my goal always growing up was to be able to support parents, whether or not they had a child with severe needs or not.

'cause every child has a lot of needs, and so that means the parents do too.

Yeah, that's really what I, I love knowing that part of your history.

'cause I feel like so many of us are doing what we're doing because of.

Something, the way we grew up, the siblings, we had maybe an exposure to a sibling who walked through something hard or ourselves obviously.

Yeah, like so many in birth, like in the birth world, like I am there.

It's the story of I had this horrible birth and so I like wanna change it or I loved it so much that I wanna be a part of it for the rest of my life.

So I just feel like that's got to, there's got to be some relevance there for you of seeing so many siblings walk through.

School challenges, what it looks like for your parents to navigate really 12 different kids with 12 different needs at 12 different time, like as a parent of four, thinking specifically to school and reading and readiness and all that.

Like I've told my husband this last year.

I have felt so much like our kids are in such different stages and my spread is only eight years old to 1-year-old.

Right.

But the, the idea of me going from changing a diaper, maybe getting up at night, still with my 1-year-old to my nine year, nearly 9-year-old, navigating like.

School dynamics drama with some friends, like whatever's going on almost more emotionally with her.

Like that's a big range of responsibility for parents with kids.

Yeah.

In so many different seasons.

And so when you tuck in so much of what you do, reading and readiness and all that, it's just like sometimes I feel like this other thing of like, am I paying attention to my three-year-old?

Are they, yeah.

Are they gonna be ready?

Just trying to.

Yeah, I just think bigger families like yours, you, that probably was apparent to you at some point that you started to see, oh yeah.

Wow.

There's a lot on parents' plates.

There's a lot to pay attention to.

Yeah.

Well, and my, my parents will say like, you know, the first round raised, the second round of kids, but.

I think what you just said though, the almost 9-year-old and the 1-year-old, that is an actual crazy age difference that people don't talk about enough that, you know, you think like, oh, 202 is crazy or like a really big age gap.

But like my sister has four kids also and her youngest is one, her oldest just turned 10.

And like the science fair project and like having like all of the things, like the hot glue gun and the, and then the 1-year-old wandering and grabbing it is so hard to do both of those.

Stages at the same time.

Absolutely, we are, we are feeling over here.

It's, I think when you have, you know, they were born like every two-ish years, so in general, that doesn't seem outlandish to anyone.

You're like, oh, you've had a kiddo every couple years.

None of them seem super far apart, but when you think about the top and the bottom, that's where as a parent.

You start to say what we're saying here, which is like, ooh, I am being stretched in a lot of ways right now.

For sure.

Yes.

I actually, that's like kind of a, a good segue into basically, I am not a teacher.

I listened to your podcast the other day, a, a podcast you did the other day with a teacher, and you two, like, you clearly like understood each other and it was fun to listen to, but you like, knew the words and knew the things.

So I feel like when I'm chatting with you right now, it's a hundred percent as a parent who's like.

Tell me what I need to be thinking about and not to like shame myself or what maybe did I miss when my first two kiddos were getting ready for school, since I have two in and two not in yet.

So I feel like as we're chatting.

Almost, I'm gonna say like, I'm gonna ask the dumb questions.

Not that you guys are all dumb.

No, you should like me.

But like, I know nothing about this except for just as a mom raising her kids and like hoping they, they learn to read and then they're ready for school and all of that stuff.

So I was wondering if you could initially kind of start talking like a little bit about your training or your growth.

'cause I know it's changed from you and.

Specific to your Orton-Gillingham training and what that means.

'cause as a parent, I've heard those words.

Now listen to some podcasts about them.

But it's still kind of to me, like what is, what was going on in the school system, what's going on now, and, and where are we at as parents and then putting our kids into, into these yeah.

Programs and kinder and all that stuff.

Perfect.

And also I will say there are probably people that have school aged kids that have never even heard the words.

Wharton Gillingham.

So you're, yeah, I'm sure you're not in the asking the dumb questions that's already like, because, okay, let's start with like in America, our education system is not regulated.

Somebody just messaged me this morning and said, Hey, in CPS Chicago Public Schools, I'm in Chicago, just sent out, like assessments.

Maybe you should talk on this, about the curriculum that Chicago public Schools use.

And I was like, babe, I'm so sorry to tell you.

There is not one standard curriculum.

It could be different in this classroom or in this classroom.

You could have twins in the exact same grade and across the hall, they're in two different classrooms.

They're learning different things.

So that's one thing.

So like even if you feel like you get it, don't, don't feel like if it gets confusing again, it's your fault because it's chaotic.

But in general, we've made a shift.

So there's always this, there's this actually term, it's called reading wars.

I think it's a book as well, but, talks about the two different, basically like two different types of learning to read.

There's one that's called Whole Language, and there's a whole bunch of different curriculum.

Under each of these things.

So there's science of Reading base, which comes originally from like the two big researchers are Orton and Gillingham.

And then the other one is Whole Language.

And there's a lot of, people in this area.

Like one is Lucy Calkins, if you've heard that name, but.

Whole language means we, like these people, said it's easier to teach kids to just memorize whole words.

So you might see like a sight word list and they say, memorize these words, or like talk to a lot of preschool parents that say like, people are like, oh, they learned the ABCs.

Great.

Now do sight words and like, don't, don't do that.

But whole language means.

They, they were like, it's easier than telling them to sound out.

Words just memorize words.

And then science of Reading is a body of research that shows us that most people learn to read by decoding and sounding words out.

And it's, I think let's, like 92% of kids should learn in this explicit sounding out way.

And sounding out just means like, look at the word cat.

At say each sound, rather than just show them the word cat and say, this is cat, and then move on to the next word.

So that's basically the big difference of those two.

And then, so there's a big shift about in the nineties, that switched away from the science backed practices to whole language and.

'cause as we know, like nothing really happens unless parents get involved.

And kids were home, they were on Zoom learning and all these parents started being like, wait a minute, why are they saying, just memorize this word?

They started saying some things and of course there's been teachers that have said like, this doesn't make sense.

I was one of the teachers that was taught to just tell kids to memorize.

And I did teach that way.

Until.

I kind of realized it wasn't working and then I went digging and that's when I got training, in Orton-Gillingham.

And now there's like.

So it's, it's, we're on the push out of this whole language, memorizing words, look at the pictures and guess, but it's still happening in a lot of schools.

Okay, that's perfect.

I'm curious, and maybe you said this and I just totally missed it.

So we started more teaching this like science-based approach, moved to a whole language and now there's a shift back.

Why did we switch?

Did I miss that part?

Like, where do you think that came from in the nineties?

Okay, so it came from this woman, Lucy Calkins, and it's actually, there's a, if you, there's a, there's a really good podcast episode covering it.

I think it's the daily, but like breaks it down.

But she.

Had this philosophy that, kids could just, so she, she looked at like monogrammed towels and she noticed that little kids were starting to say, oh, those are my initials.

Oh, that's my name.

If they would see it on monogrammed things.

And so she was like, we're wasting time telling kids to sound words out.

We want them to just love reading.

So just tell them to look at the words and they can memorize it.

But what the research showed us is that.

Her theory on that.

Like if you look at, you know, what kind of look at different classes, right?

That that like certain level of income would be people that would be paying extra to monogram their kids things.

So we were seeing like, okay, some kids were getting what they needed because some people had extra resources, so they were not learning in school, but they were getting an extra tutor, but the other kids were falling behind.

So that, that makes me think of, I remember with one of my first kids starting to get ready for school, and, and I'm assuming this is part of like, yeah, this is why this doesn't work, but just the, almost the recognition like, what is this?

So the word is this type thing.

And I remember one of my girls had a, a friend in class who.

Hadn't seen all the same like fruits and vegetables or whatever.

So there was this classic almost built in of like, this is a super diverse country.

We obviously have different socioeconomic statuses and means and access and what we're seeing.

And so it was this, I, that was the first time I, again, I keep saying like, oh, I feel like a silly parent.

But I was like, oh, that kid probably is never ridden a unicycle.

Why the heck would they know what a unicycle or even a bicycle, you know?

And it was this interesting moment of.

Like this chat, this is, this is children's kindergarten work.

Right?

It seems so simple, but when you think about it like that, like we can't just have this expectation of like recognition being the way that we learn because we're not all coming at this from the same place or Right.

I should say our kids, they're obviously not coming at reading kindergarten and education from the same place at all.

It's, it's wild.

That's exactly it.

So, if you have any like early reader books, you'll probably see, oh, I should have had one in front of me.

But it's essentially, they follow a pattern.

So the way you don't wanna teach them is if they follow this pattern.

So it's like, I like.

My slide and the picture is a slide.

I like my swing, and the next picture is swing.

So they just memorized the pattern and they're just guessing at that word, using the picture.

And I exactly what you just said, the, the next page was, I like my bicycle.

And this little girl I was teaching was like, I don't know what that is.

And I was like, oh yeah, she's never seen a bicycle before.

You know?

And.

Also bicycle.

Like we learned that C is soft when a Y comes after it in the end of first grade.

So like to be giving that as an early reader book in kindergarten is just setting them up for failure.

It's literally teaching them to the test.

So we just push 'em along, push 'em along, and then we see third and fourth grade kids are failing because we're not focusing on these decodable books.

They're actually like supposed to read.

They have like history passages and science passages that they have to read and they're really struggling and, and.

Our nation's report card at last year showed us 66% of fourth graders in the United States are not reading proficiently

so wild.

But I'm sure parents at home can say, yeah, I feel that, or I know that just as they're putting their own kids through the system and maybe finding that their child is struggling or that as a parent, I think sometimes too, there's this bit of wait, like how involved am I supposed to be?

Can I expect, can't I just expect the teachers in the schools to be.

Teaching them, you know, I'm quote air quoting the right way.

And I think that sometimes is a parent where there's this overwhelm of, oh whoa, I have to be involved in this.

Like I send my kid to school for a reason.

Like that kind of vibe.

So what do you, what do you feel like, I mean, obviously a baseline answer's like, no, you're a parent, you need to be involved in your child's education.

But how do you think as a parent and getting these little ones ready, we kind of navigate that of, well yeah, I am sending 'em to school.

But also I need to be paying attention to maybe how they're being taught or.

Where I can help Step in or, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I would say like, first just having a good relationship with your school.

So obviously there's things you can do, but having a good relationship with your school so you know what's going on.

A lot of parents that are like big, big city readers involved have gone to their administration and said like, can you explain the curriculum to me?

And I always encourage parents to be like.

If you wanna see change, you've gotta be a part of it.

So I'm like, you got, you're gonna have to be like, okay, what is it?

Do we need to get subs for the teachers so they can get training?

Do we need to raise money?

Like what do we need?

So ask your school like what you can do rather, rather than first being like, I'm gonna teach them at home.

See how you can get involved in the transition At the school.

Schools have so much red tape, so like it might be like.

Three, they have agreed that they're changing the curriculum, but it's three years down the road.

But you really, really, really wanna push for training for teachers rather than just a new curriculum, because if you like curriculum sits in a box, you, the teacher or you the parent, are going to be the one teaching your child.

So I, if you do do things at home, like invest in like learning for yourself rather than just like a game that says it's gonna teach your child how to read.

Probably similar, like to having a baby, you know.

Someone might be selling like some product that's gonna be like, this is the best pillow in your delivery.

It's like, no.

You wanna be empowered to know exactly what it means if this number is showing up or if the doctor says this or like, you know, all those things.

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

I, I think I think about that a lot.

Like, birth plans, you know, they have this like, hot topic, should you have one, should you not?

And I am always, someone says, yes, I, I believe in them.

But it's because it's a learning tool, like you're gonna learn something from it, not because you're just gonna say, I got this birth plan and I checked the box.

Like that doesn't, that doesn't do any really, it doesn't really do any good, right?

Because you haven't done anything with it.

You've, you know, to like use the metaphor for you, like you've bought the program, but if you don't understand why you're doing what you're doing.

Not really serving yourself or you know your child Well, if we're talking about supporting them too.

Yeah,

exactly.

Okay.

I have a question and related to uh, Instagram post, I wanna make sure I read this right, but you Okay.

Oh gosh.

Said, oh, it was a myth that you were addressing, and I feel like this speaks to us parents who are like, whoa, how involved should I have to be?

And the myth was in quotes, like, don't worry.

Learning to read develops naturally.

So can you just talk to us more?

About your feelings on that idea?

Yeah, actually I meant to say that earlier.

When we were talking about the two methods, so the, the one, the whole language follows like that philosophy, but our brain when you were born is typically wired to learn how to walk and talk.

Like we actually have that wiring typically in our brain.

You know, of course there are some situations where we need more support.

But your brain is wired, usually to do those things, but it is not wired.

To learn how to read, like we have to actually teach it, how to read.

So a lot of people think like, wait and see.

It'll develop.

And of course anyone in the early childhood world will caution any wait and see, even if it's talking or walking.

But usually those things do develop, not reading.

So explicitly teaching that means like showing your child like, you know.

This is the letter L, the sound is, ooh.

So about 8% of people's brains don't need to be explicitly taught how to read, but that means, you know, 90 some percent do.

And so we have to explicitly go through each of the letters and, and how they blend together.

And some kids pick it up faster, some kids take a little bit longer.

But yeah, that's, that's, that's the thought.

Okay.

It's interesting, I've, my husband has said stuff before and I hope he's probably gonna be like, great, now they're gonna tell me I'm not right.

But just this idea of like, kids can be like really far ahead when they're younger, but that a lot of people.

Like level out around 11 or 12.

When we stop seeing these like significant differences, certainly some kids are ahead or behind still at that age.

Do you feel like there, there is some truth to that or perhaps it's true specific to reading as well?

Like do you see a leveling out and is that why maybe parents are like they're all gonna get there eventually?

Or do you feel like there is a little bit of no, if we're not.

Laying the foundation, you've kind of been talking about this, they're actually going to be struggling when they're in third grade and fourth grade and fifth grade and, and that leveling out for reading maybe doesn't happen.

There's actually a bigger divide there.

Well, a little bit of both.

I do think that that kids, you know, like.

If we're giving them the right tools, some take longer to get there.

If we don't give them the right tools, most kids won't get there.

So, so, you know, you might have a first grader, two first graders learning the same things, and one it just clicks really quickly and one it doesn't click until second grade, and then they, like, they level out there.

It's just kind of like, also like your body, like you might.

Be like, I'm gonna cut out sugar, and your husband's gonna be like, I'm gonna cut out sugar too.

And he loses 10 pounds in a day and you gain four pounds, you know?

But then in like a month of not having sugar, you're like, oh, I have more clarity, or I feel better.

So that if we're doing the right thing, then yeah, we see the leveling out around a certain point, but we're not gonna see it in most kids if they're not getting the right resources.

The beginning.

Yeah.

All right.

So I'm gonna ask you to talk about some vocabulary words a little bit.

So maybe go back to this, like, at the beginning, how we're starting with them again.

I like still, well you have a ton of podcast episodes about this, so I'll link some in our show notes as well.

But I wanna talk about the, like phonics versus phonological awareness.

Did I say those right?

Yeah.

And just kind of what that difference is and, and just like really speak to us as parents of, of What maybe we're looking for or could see in curriculum that shows like what's being utilized or how things are being taught.

Yes.

Okay.

A funny story about this.

I was teaching, I teach this toddler parent and toddler class and, I had this one mom in it for like two years.

You know, she was in the baby class then she was in the toddler class, and her daughter's like two and a half.

And I would always, this was like 10 years ago, I would always say, okay, you know, I give these tips.

Like we read this book because it builds rhyming skills and rhyming skills are super important as early readers.

And it builds on phonological awareness.

And afterwards she was like, Beth, I can't believe I'm just saying this.

I actually don't know what phonological awareness means, and I was like, I know.

I was like, I'm so, so she, she said it like she was embarrassed.

I was like, it is embarrassing for me that I just assumed that, and that was since then, I'm like, oh my gosh, people need.

Simplicity.

Like these are parents that have probably more than one kid are working, are looking at something so briefly.

And so it's such like a, an art to try and like explain it simply and then also like be like, explain it in bigger terms for people who have been like maybe listened to every podcast if it's like, we know we get it.

So, you know.

Okay, so phonics, everyone's probably heard of phonics, hooked on phonics worked for me, right?

If we're all millennials.

But.

Phonics is when we connect the letter to the sound.

So, a letter is visually, is called a graphene.

Or sorry, or the sound.

So, okay, so the sound is a phon.

That's where phonological or phonological awareness comes from.

So that would be like, if you count the phonemes in the word shoe, can you count the phonemes in the word shoe?

It's shh.

Two.

Two.

So phoning is the smallest unit of sound, and the graphene is the written representation.

So sh.

Would be what we write for.

Shh.

Okay.

So we can do all of this without the letters.

We play these games with kids to lay the foundation of lifelong literacy.

So if we look at the research, it shows us for hundreds of years that the biggest predictor in reading success is strong phonological awareness.

And this comes before we.

Really put the letters in front of them.

It, we also build phonological awareness when we put the letters in front, so that would look like, like singing to your toddler, like Willoughby, Wallaby.

Sam an elephant sat on Sam, like just building those rhyming skills.

We're just noticing.

My sister thinks, I'm always gassing her up, but she was, she like says to her kids like, wa dios, barios.

And I'm like, that is such a good thing to do.

They're just being silly, but you're just helping them notice, like that's not the first sound in that word.

So we're just drawing attention to the sounds in words.

So that's what phonological awareness is.

Phonics is when we match the like visual letter to the sound.

So it's not that there's not a place for phonics, it's that we really maybe are starting, we should be starting more from a place of phonological awareness.

Like sounds before letters, like we want you to, it sounds like cheesy.

It's, I almost think about like, we want you to think about like the art or, or the, the, the gray space behind the word before we teach you to, in theory, like spell the word and see the word of.

Exactly.

That's like fluffy, but does that make sense?

No.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Even I, I see kids, so parents will be like, they don't know how to read and so I will, you know, hold the book in front of them and ask them to point to the first word.

There are so many things like the, these are phonological awareness skills.

Like you could do this with your three-year-old, like.

Point to the first word, point to the last word.

Can you find the letter?

L Can you point to a space?

So all these things before we're actually asking them to read, really matter.

And I, so if I have a kid who they're like, they're struggling with reading, one of the first things I'll do is I'll just, I will not put a book in front of them.

I'm gonna say.

A sentence and I'm gonna ask 'em to count the words that I say.

So if I say, let's go eat pizza, and they're separating pizza as two words, you know?

I know right then and there, they're struggling with the difference between syllables and words and that shows me exactly why they're not able to read the word cupcake or they're struggling and they shut down when they're writing.

Some simple words that they maybe should know how to write.

It's interesting, I feel like.

And this is like true for me as a parent too.

Like we like seeing results that we can quantify with anything, right?

And so I think that almost phonics or maybe some of these other, like memorizing sight words lists, you go, oh, she has nine out of 10 of the words.

Or, look, they can read this many words.

And so it feels.

Easy to almost gauge how well your child is doing.

And so that can feel like such a nice default of, whereas the, you know, phonological awareness maybe approach is more like they can't read, but they can like, recognize, like, it, it feels harder to say, yeah, I think they're doing well, or they're ready, because maybe you can't quantify it in the same way.

Yeah.

And so I almost wonder if sometimes there can be this hesitation or it just feels easier to go toward the one where you, you can see like.

Input output result.

Right.

And whether or not it works well, that sounds like it's very much not even up for debate.

It's probably not the best way, but if, if it's easier for us as parents, sometimes we just are like, but at least now I can say, my son can read and do his ABCs so he's ready, you know?

Yeah.

And having that can make us feel more comfortable, even though these other ways are shown to actually be much more valuable.

Even though they don't necessarily yield some sparkling nine out of 10 while we're getting our kiddos down the road.

I know, I, I often joke that I would be a much smarter business person if I did tell people to memorize sight words.

Because imagine I could do like two lessons with a kid and be like, they know 20 words now because your brain loves to memorize.

It's so easy that it, that's why.

We do it.

I mean, like it does look like kids are reading, but they're fake reading in first and second grade, kindergarten, first, second grade.

We see it looks like they're reading, they're devouring these assessments we're giving them because they're just full of sight words and it is so easy for a kid to memorize a hundred words.

I mean, they know if you have a dinosaur obsessed kid, like they can tell you every single name of, you know, they love to store and memorize.

So that is.

Memorizing is the easy part.

It's, it's tricky to learn to read, so I'm like, believe me, I'm not trying to sell you something extra.

I would be so smart if I just said, memorize sight words.

Make Yeah, well you would because we like, like human beings like results, right?

Yeah.

And, and I, I almost feel like what you're teaching is almost more of like, no, let's trust this process.

Which sounds like such a cheesy thing to say, but it is.

It's like this is about trusting the process.

'cause it will lead us to the point.

I don't know where kids should be, where they wanna be.

I almost said like lead us to whatever reading level, but I actually know that you don't like reading levels.

I do.

I

hate reading.

Or you, so maybe you could talk about that a little bit too.

Yeah.

Since that's where I just stick us.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

So you might hear in, from your child's teacher, especially in kindergarten, first and second grade.

Okay.

They got assessed, their reading level is a B and like what?

Does that mean, you know, like, especially to parents, like, okay, great.

Oh, also I just remembered you asked me what to, what would be a good thing to see in your child's curriculum?

I'll come back to that.

But I don't love this.

I think if your child's teacher doesn't tell you a letter like this, that's a good sign.

Because reading levels are actually just data points for.

Teachers and administration it's one data point, but it's not a lot.

You know, it tells us.

So an assessment that would give you this le level B is exactly what we talked about, like the pointing to the words and saying, I like the swing, I like the bicycle.

So that doesn't tell us.

Really anything.

It can be a data point if your school is using it as like 5% of what they're using to track what your child can do.

And they say, you know, we use, it's called Fountas and Pinnell is the A to Z. We use Fountas and Pinnell.

They're at Level D. We want them at level G, but here's what it actually means.

Like this is what you wanna hear.

They, their developmental spelling level shows me that they're really struggling with long vowel patterns.

But I can see in their writing analysis that they have got short vowels down.

I also gave them an assessment with a decodable reader.

They were able to read every single word with CVC words and beginning blends.

And these three digraphs, T-H-C-H-N-S-H, and.

So like, you know, giving more specifics about what their writing patterns look like.

That is what is like really, really important in, in helping see the whole picture.

But like saying they're like a level D means absolutely nothing to me.

Mm-hmm.

It's funny you, my, I just went to some back to school nights.

It's fall present day when we're recording this and so all the kids are going back to school and, I learned that my girls are at a new school this year and I learned that they don't do spelling tests and that it was like, oh, interesting.

And then immediately though this, they said, we don't test like just how to spell individual words.

'cause it's all memorization.

I know.

I was like, Beth's gonna love this, I think.

But, and they're like, it fleshes out in their writing and that's where we see like, comprehension.

Comprehension, excuse me.

And their ability to read and spell like, you don't like.

Spelling tests are just memorizing.

And so I was thinking that's something of you last night, knowing we were gonna chat.

'cause I was like, I think if I tell her this, she's gonna say, that's great.

It's, oh my gosh, that's so great.

And their old

school did the classic like spelling test every Friday.

And to be honest, they never thought much of it.

And I would say both my girls, you know, who are, who are past kind of kindergarten and I have a first grader and a third grader right now.

So, I mean, my first graders still very much learning how to read as well, but they both seem to be, you know, good readers and they're doing well in this area.

And so I haven't thought much about it now that we're.

Past some of those initial stages of like, how are we doing?

Is the foundation strong?

But then to know that this new school, that they don't do the spelling test versus the old one that did.

I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

I think we're doing good here.

And, and, and I, it wasn't like I did a ton of learning about how they were gonna teach my girls, specific to this, this, season and reading that we're talking about, because.

Kind of, it felt like they've gotten through some of this foundational stuff, but now I'm thinking about my son and my other daughter who will come through and start from this kind of point that we're talking about too, and I'm like, oh, okay.

I think that that that shows that they are maybe more on this side that you're talking about, and it's not about memorizing and.

All of that.

So I just needed you to tell me that.

That's great for my kids' school, so thanks.

It's, it's, I hate spelling tests.

They do nothing.

It, you might though, see not, not you, but someone might see a spelling pattern assessment and so like you might hear like, we're learning ar words this week.

Here are some that we might test them on.

But they might give you like 30 words and then like give a random 10 for them to see, just for the teacher to see are they understanding the spelling pattern, ar versus er.

Mm-hmm.

And I have seen at the, the old school as well, like tons of that digraph work, like where it's all about how, what the sounds that the two letters make.

And I will say a ton of their spelling tests were actually.

Each week it was like, we're working on IA or ea. Oh, amazing.

You know, and, and so I, I, it's, I'm It sounds like they were doing a good job at the old school too.

Yes.

But it was fun to kind of hear that spelling explanation and my, my, like, I'm gonna say like, typical parent, like thought process was like, oh, no spelling test.

Interesting.

And then I thought, oh, actually that's actually excellent.

Yeah, if they're just memorizing, it's not doing anything.

So I was just thinking about it more before talking to you.

I love to hear that.

Okay, last question.

And I, I will just tell you guys again, she has lots of podcasts on this and I'll link some of them again, but, but.

Just wanted to flesh out a little bit with you of not the whole kindergarten readiness redshirted in conversation, but just some little things to kind of look for in your child as you're getting into like the pre-K years, kinder years.

And almost more specifically share with me some of the, like, you do not have to worry if your child cannot reach, like that type of thing.

'cause I think we have these really big expectations of our kindergartners and we forget that.

They're going to learn in kindergarten.

Yeah.

Like that's the point.

So what are some things maybe we do wanna see as parents that says, Hey, they're ready for kinder and maybe some other things that do indicate like not quite yet.

Both I'm assuming behavioral and like learning.

Yeah.

Specific.

So I'll say it is developmentally appropriate to start kindergarten not knowing all of your ABCs.

So whatever happens then, you know, the, the school might flag it or, or whatever in the first couple of months and you might panic, but it is still developmentally appropriate.

We've changed a lot of standards, but kids haven't changed.

You know, like,

can I ask you a question When you say Yeah.

Not knowing ABCs, do you mean know the ABC song?

Do you mean recognizing letters?

What do you actually mean when you say know ABCs you?

That is so,

so I literally just wrote down as we were talking that I need to make a post about what to what it actually means to know the ABCs.

So knowing the ABCs is gonna mean like recognizing the letters, but visually.

If you point to the letter, do they know the sound?

So we want them to be able to recognize uppercase and lowercase and know the sound when they see it, and know if you say B, they can write a b. Uppercase and lowercase.

So if they know about 60% in all of those areas, that's, that's great.

Going into kindergarten, a lot of times people just focus on uppercase letters.

And, and, but most books are written in lowercase because we don't write an uppercase.

We just, the first letter is so.

I would say if you're gonna work on ABCs or something with your preschooler, like work on lowercase recognition.

So the first thing you want them to be able to do is be able to recognize the letters, and you want them to be able to say the sound.

I would say if you're gonna focus on one, teach the sound first.

Like you show them the letter L and say, Ooh.

They have to name the letters too, but that's pretty easy to be able to name the letters.

It's harder to remember the sounds.

We need to know the sounds to blend.

Of course, in a, in an ideal world, you're gonna teach them the letter and the sound together and uppercase and lowercase together.

So that's what knowing the ABCs is being able to recognize and hear the sound and write it.

So if they can do that with about 60% of letters, that's great, but they don't need to be able to do that with a whole alphabet.

So that's something.

I'll say academically speaking, that is, I'm gonna say expectation, but obviously there's a spectrum here that going into kinder, they can do about half of the alphabet.

Recognize, see sounds ish in that way.

Yeah.

But I'm assuming that.

Even if a child isn't quite there, that that doesn't necessarily indicate like they're not ready for kindergarten.

They don't know all their letters.

Right, right.

There's,

I would say more so.

Okay.

Like I look at, can they, take turns?

Do they know how to talk to adult?

Can they, self-care, like, are they able to go to the bathroom independently?

Like your child's teacher in kindergarten is probably not going to be able to help them go to the bathroom.

Unless, you know, they, they have an aide.

There's are they able to zip their own coat?

You know, most of the time it doesn't have to be that they can do these.

All perfectly.

But most of the time, can they do these?

Can they count to 10?

Can they write their name?

These are the things that I would say like to focus on.

Can they open their lunch independently?

Of course, none of these.

On their own and be like, oh no, they're not ready for kindergarten.

But these kind of simple things like the counting, the being able to stack and count.

So if you like, have them stack 10 blocks together, like can they do that?

Yeah, those are the things that I would say kind of to look for.

It's interesting, I, so we got to live abroad when our, with our three, our three oldest kids.

And so my first two girls actually did what would be comparable to kinder in the Netherlands they start school, at the age of four.

And so coming back to the US where there's so much conversation about redshirting in kindergarten readiness was really, had been, has been really interesting because you are required to start school at the age of four and the government actually will like.

Fine you if your child doesn't go to school.

But I say that I, we loved the education system there.

The four year olds were actually allowed to leave early, go home if they needed a nap.

But at the age of five, then moving forward, you, you have to be at school every day, or you need like a doctor's.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Notice like, it, they're, they are very, I'm gonna say strict, like you need to be in school.

But it was interesting to have the kids there.

They went to an international school, taught some Dutch, but.

Followed, maybe more, I'm gonna say like international or American.

Principals, the Dutch use, like different systems.

I was looking at this the other night before we were gonna talk.

But my 4-year-old, sorry, taking a long time to land the plane.

Oh, I love it.

My 4-year-old when she started, and she actually started the day after she turned four.

'cause when we moved her birthday was a couple weeks later.

School started the day after her fourth birthday, and so she was there.

Oh my gosh, that's so little.

Just had turned four and I know it was, looking back, I'm like, oh, you're so sweet and little and yeah, but our, we were very much like, how is this gonna go?

Because over here in the US, like some of our kids are five when they start, some are even creeping closer to six.

And so it was like, is this gonna be appropriate?

Gosh.

And all of the learning or any feedback that we did receive that first year.

Was all the stuff you just talked about, very behavioral, like, hey, with her, why don't you guys focus on like two step tasks?

Or if she had a problem sitting still, they had this puppy dog that had weight, like a weighted luby and they would get to hold it in their lap.

So she was learning and they were laying the foundation for sure of like, I'm gonna call it real learning.

I mean like the more academic stuff.

And she's actually.

An incredible reader, which we are like, wow.

They were really doing something in the Netherlands, even though they felt more focused on this like whole child social behavioral part in these little years.

So it was just really cool to see.

I'm not saying kids should go to full-time school at the age of four, but the readiness was not tied to numbers and reading and being able to write her name.

It felt like it was more tied to this idea of.

Can you take care of yourself?

Can you exist in another space with other people?

All of these things then being conducive to then also being able to learn in a group.

So it was just really cool to see as a parent, because it does feel like the two countries approached those early years a little differently.

And I'm not gonna say they're doing it better or worse.

Like there was pros and cons to both.

But it was like, almost like we got to have this little experiment by getting to be there and do it.

And in thinking about talking to it, my brain said, I feel like if Beth were there, she would really appreciate the way they, like, initiate kiddos into school.

Yeah.

Well,

and get this started.

I, it's so, I'm so a fan of that and I love Playbase.

I wish kindergarten was still play-based because we know that it's really regulating their nervous systems.

And we know that when you have a regulated nervous system, kids will try anything.

If they feel safe, insecure, they're gonna take risks.

And learning to read is a risk, like it's scary.

It's.

Like, it's basically like, you know, like going zip lining.

They've never done this before and you're asking 'em to do this out loud and it's scary.

And so if they are dysregulated, then it's like so much harder to do.

But if we're like, if they feel confident going into school and they can take care of themselves, they're so not in fight or flight mode and they're like, yeah, gimme that book.

I'm ready for it.

Well, that's like 10 other questions I would ask you, but we're gonna stop.

But I'm like, what about when they're anxious?

What about this?

Can you tell me all this?

But I know you have a lot of free stuff on your Instagram, your blog, all of that.

Will you share your Instagram, your website, where they can find your resources and yeah, like find you.

Yeah.

So, on Instagram, I am big city readers, and website is big city readers.com.

We have a blog with tons of tips and activities that you can print out and do with your child.

And the podcast is play on words.

And I always say I am open in my dms.

Like if you're like, I don't know what's going on with my child's school, like, send me a picture of what gets sent home for reading, and I will like tell you if I can.

Yeah, I love that.

I, I don't know that I even asked you enough about that, but that idea of being parents and trying almost to like mine the information coming in and trying to figure out, I think can be really overwhelming.

So guys, her blog too is awesome.

I was again looking at it last night just to see how much is on there and there's a ton.

And I will, like I've mentioned Link, some, I don't know, just podcast episodes too that I have found really helpful in some of these, like kind of early reading, kinder years that we are in.

Yeah, that we're in too.

Okay, last question.

Ask everyone just for fun.

What's something big, small, like it can be so silly or, or grand in your life right now that is just bringing you a ton of joy.

Oh my gosh.

Ugh, summer camp.

My partner owns a summer camp and we get to spend like half the year there, and we just went jet skiing yesterday.

Okay.

Is it still some, I mean, I know that, I know what the date is, but are the kids back at school or Not yet?

Where?

We're back.

So

since it's ours, we get to go and like you're enjoy, enjoy the tear down and all that stuff.

Yeah.

So we go up there like through November.

It's like the, we used to, gosh, in Washington, where I'm from, September was like my favorite.

It's technically not summer right?

Anymore.

Yeah.

But it was like the most gorgeous summer month truly was September, and then right into that early push of October is the best.

So it is, it's my favorite like summer month when I, when I lived.

It's 80 degrees today.

Yeah.

So, so beautiful.

Yeah.

Okay, well I love that.

Hopefully you can keep enjoying it for a couple more weeks or, or longer.

Yes.

And thank you so much for just honestly just answering all my random, random parent questions.

I know that I have so many parents who are right where I am too, so I know this will be super valuable for them as well.

Well,

thank you.

Thank you for all you do.

I love your stuff.

It's so funny too.

You like make such a hard topic, seem so enjoyable.

That's, that's the goal.

Birth could be fun.

It could be art, it could be both.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So good to talk.

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