Interview with Jake Daggett

Jul 1

Podcast #40 - Interview with Jake Daggett

Show Notes

Began teaching in 2015 and mostly has taught in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms.
Recently took a new role as Foundational Literacy Director at a school in Milwaukee.
Loves sharing ideas about the science of reading, especially about how we can make it fun and engaging for students.
Focuses on the rhythm and movement in literacy classrooms.

We’ve done a fantastic job at getting the word out. You see so many shares on a reel and hundreds of likes, which really means that people are finding this advice useful. The word is out now that there’s a problem with how we’ve been teaching reading. When you curate your social media feed so that it’s an uplifting experience, you’re sharing with the world that it works for all students.
We’ve also been doing a good job of bringing so much honesty and evidence in the science of reading field. These are people who are trying to look at what’s working and what’s not. People are interested and want to change.
What we need to do better at is asking ourselves, What does good instruction look like, exactly? How do we teach what’s being preached? How do we move from compliance to understanding of how to teach the materials?
We also need coaches that are being directed by higher-up coordinators that can advocate for the science of reading.

When we read a word on a card, it is blank white. This is the same with text. When we’re decoding emails, we aren’t going to have the picture clue. The blank slide is what we need to use in visual drills because that’s how they will appear on the actual page and in the word.
The reason why I began doing the gestures with these slides is because someone mentioned to me that I should do the gestures that matched with the articulation as well. When I started doing it this way, I increased the amount of students that could respond.
I began to realize that if we don’t have everyone moving and grooving with me, I can’t quite hear what students think that sound is and I can’t hear for mistakes. If you’re not having everyone do everything, you simply don’t know. It’s instant feedback this way!
I began teaching phonics this way because if I don’t hear you, what am I hearing exactly? I realized I needed to hear students’ mouth stretch, drop, etc. for sounds.
For three minutes, everyone in the classroom is doing this visual drill with me.
Another belief is that scope and sequences are crucial, but there’s nothing wrong with students learning a skill before they’re ready. For example, one of my students was not ready for the vowel team ee on his scope and sequence, but through Tier 1 whole group, he learned it. There’s nothing wrong with that when something like that happens “out of order.”

There’s plenty of people that may not agree with this, but many people say that some lessons are too slow. But then I ask you to think about the difference between mastery and automaticity.
I’ll have students that come back from a break who mastered a certain sound before the break, but are now all of a sudden hesitating.
We often forget that students aren’t being harmed by review, especially in kindergarten and first. In these grades, there’s really no such thing as too slow, because you can meet them where they are in small groups. We have to remember that this whole group time is 20 minutes - it’s not the whole school day.

Do a mindset shift for yourself and understand that children are sound experts.
If you’re starting from scratch teaching with the science of reading, start talking about the sounds. Tell students to listen for the sounds, segment the sounds and write them on their white board so they can become familiar with the graphemes that represent them.
Focus on sounds - everything is rooted in the sound because it’s the permanent memory.
If you’re doing flashcards, zoom in on how these letters feel, the articulation, where they feel it in their jaws, teeth, lips, etc. Simply tell the students to listen for these specific sounds during the day.

For example, if you’re announcing it’s lunchtime, say “Oh! It’s lunch. I hear a ch!”

Simply pass out your whiteboard and give them a sound and explore it. Bridge the phonological to the phonics.
Another shift I would encourage people to do is to stop compartmentalizing your blocks so much that you keep other subjects out. A phonics drill can become a vocabulary session, or maybe a word you’re studying in phonics has three meanings. Suddenly a blending drill can be syllable work or the like. Anything can be at any time!
Think to yourself: I’m not doing these drills to get good at blending. I’m doing these drills to become a fluent READER. The point is not to get good at just one thing. Remember that being good at blending or segmenting or cracking the code isn’t as good as using the code.