Interview with Anna Geiger
Interview with Anna Geiger
All About Anna Geiger:
Author of Reach All Readers: Using the Science of Reading to Transform Your Literacy Instruction.
Former teacher in 1st-4th grades.
Currently serves educators through her website, www.themeasuredmom.com.
Shares tons of hands-on lessons, thoughtful articles, and printable resources and has been doing so since 2013.
Hosts a weekly podcast called Triple R Teaching and presents at various summits and conferences.
How does it feel to have Reaching All Readers out in the world and for you to share it with others?
Relieved! The drafting process takes a bit. I’m so happy with how it turned out.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I was a classroom teacher and when I had my oldest, decided to stay at home. We quickly added three more to our family in a short amount of time.
It was obviously an overwhelming time for me, and therefore I found myself needing a separate place to have an outlet. I was struggling with being patient and measured in my motherhood, and that’s what inspired The Measured Mom. It was a way where I could inspire myself and others to be more patient along their parenting journey. So originally, it was a place where I could share parenting resources with people.
However, a few months in, I realized I should stick with more of what I knew best, which was teaching. So, I started sharing printable resources that people ended up really enjoying. Currently it’s a website for Pre-K-3rd grade educators and parents.
You’ve been so open and honest about your history of teaching balanced literacy. Can you tell us about your journey from balanced literacy to the science of reading?
After I graduated college and got into the classroom, whole language was phasing out and balanced literacy was the new thing. So, naturally, I ate it up and I loved it because I had always wanted to be a teacher and I loved reading to kids. But I was leaving kids behind without any systematic and explicit phonics instruction. A beautiful image of reading was being painted, but it wasn’t actually working.
My blog was very focused on balanced literacy at first. Then in 2019, someone commented on my blog post explaining three-cueing and why we need to use it. In the comment, she inquired if I had read an article from Emily Hanford that basically criticized three-cueing and I didn’t even know what to say. In fact, I didn’t take her article seriously at first.
Then, another comment popped up about the same thing and then I read it again so I could do a rebuttal. Turns out, I didn’t know what to say. So I posted online to a group of balanced literacy educators asking them how I should respond and I expected them to have lots to say about it. But instead, I was met with people who were reading about the science of reading and told me the balanced literacy approach had actually been debunked. And thus began my research!
I owed it to my people to figure this out, so I started reading books and watching webinars to learn more. Over time, it eventually made sense to me. I started taking down some resources, my course, and emailed my subscribers letting them know I was changing a few things.
Can you give us three main key differences between balanced literacy and structured literacy?
Balanced literacy’s foundation is three-cueing.
The idea is that kids learn to read by looking at pictures, syntax, and partial phonics to learn to read. This is dangerous because it bypasses orthographic mapping and it doesn’t allow students to practice phonics.
Balanced literacy doesn’t tend to follow a scope and sequence.
The teacher doesn’t have much of an idea of how phonics skills should progress.
Balanced literacy teaches comprehension strategies and then chooses books.
With the science of reading, we choose the text first and then the strategies. We ask ourselves: What do I want my students to learn about? And from there, we then choose comprehension strategies (comparing and contrasting, summarizing, etc.) that will help them retain that knowledge.
My favorite chapter in your book is the one about how reading and writing are closely linked. What are some practical ways teachers can connect the two?
There’s loads of research that says reading and writing go together and that writing about what you’re reading helps immensely with comprehension. The act of writing letters also improves reading them.
Handwriting should be side-by-side with learning letters.
When you're teaching new letters and letter sounds, always be sure to integrate the handwriting of the letter at the same time.
I also think that we don’t need to have them holding pencils right away either so they can fully concentrate on the letter - then add in the pencil grip later. Some activities with this could include:
Writing the letters in the sky.
Putting painter’s tape on their desk and having them trace it.
As far as spelling:
Sound mapping- take a simple word and break it into sounds while moving chips out of the way. You can do this with white boards, too.
Dictation practice can start at the beginning of kindergarten - even with CVC words.
As far as composition, have students:
Summarize what they’ve just read aloud.
Ask them what the most important thing about the “who” or “what” of the story.
SO much of writing is putting it out there orally at first. We can’t expect kids to just sit there and write. There should be a “loudness” to writing.
Speaking of writing, what do you think about shared writing, where kids are actively participating in writing and the teacher isn’t the only one who’s sharing?
I think shared writing makes a lot of sense, especially when we figure out what our purpose is. I think that when it’s paired with systematic phonics instruction, shared writing is a good idea.
It allows students to form complete sentences, even if the teacher has formed it in advance.
Shared reading shows students how you can apply what you’re teaching them, like punctuation.
Having them write it on dry erase boards makes a lot of sense, rather than coming up to the big board to write, which can take a lot of class time.
The title of your book is more than just your title. I believe teachers want to reach all readers - no matter where they are. If teachers want to meet all of the needs of their students, what are three tips that you’d give them?
Teachers need the knowledge of how language works in order to help students be successful.
We don't know what we don’t know. We need to understand the value of dialing into where misunderstandings are in our students. These come from workshops, podcasts, articles, YouTube videos, etc. so we can have a comprehensive understanding.
Teachers need the right tools.
If you have the knowledge, you can make less-than-ideal tools work for you.
Take your knowledge and figure out what tools you’ll need to move the needle.
Teachers need a good system of assessments and intervention.
Stephanie’s Stollar’s MTSS course is a great program that helps you understand the purpose of assessments, when to give them, and what to do with them.
Assessments help you decide what to target in Tier 1, but also tell you which kids need extra support so they can reach grade-level benchmarks.
What was your favorite chapter in your book to write?
I’d say the phonics chapter is my favorite - and it’s my longest chapter! I love learning about how words work and it’s been fun for me to learn why English is not as irregular as we may think.
For me, writing the book was working through things myself and then putting it in a way others can understand and apply.
I loved talking about the influence of phonics knowledge on comprehension and how it leads to good decoding and then fluency and then comprehension.
We are grateful for you, Anna!
Check Out Anna:
Website: www.themeasuredmom.com/ (course coming soon!)
New book: Reaching All Readers: Using the Science of Reading to Transform Your Literacy Instruction
Instagram: themeasuredmom
Email: hello@themeasuredmom.com
X: @measuredmom
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Other Resources:
Check out these awesome resources at Literacy Edventures that correlate to this interview!
