Bringing Color to Literacy: How Engagement, Language, and Morphology Transform Reading Instruction

During this energizing EDVIEW360 episode, we welcome Michelle Sullivan—literacy coach, reading interventionist, and creator of The Colorful Classroom—for a conversation about what it truly takes to make evidence‑based literacy instruction engaging, meaningful, and human.

Drawing on more than a decade of experience supporting teachers and her signature COLORFUL philosophy, Sullivan shares how educators can bring both joy and rigor to the science of reading. She discusses why engagement is not an “extra,” how intentional use of language and design can deepen learning, and why morphology deserves a bigger place in everyday instruction. Sullivan also offers practical examples teachers can immediately use to help students connect with words, build knowledge, and feel successful as readers.

Listeners will hear Sullivan’s belief that literacy instruction should be vibrant, accessible, and rooted in research—and when educators blend the art and science of teaching, they create classrooms where every learner can thrive.

This conversation is perfect for teachers, literacy coaches, and leaders seeking to elevate instruction, strengthen student engagement, and bring more color—literally and figuratively—into their reading block.

What You Will Learn:

• How to bring joy and engagement back into literacy instruction using Sullivan’s COLORFUL approach to instruction along with her blend of creativity and evidence‑based practice
• Why language-rich classrooms accelerate reading growth, and how teachers can intentionally build vocabulary, background knowledge, and discourse into daily routines
• The power of morphology—and why teaching word parts helps all students, especially those who struggle, unlock meaning and confidence
• Practical ways to design lessons that are both structured and vibrant, ensuring students experience success while staying deeply engaged
• How to connect research to real classroom moments, making the science of reading feel doable, human, and energizing for teachers
• Strategies for supporting diverse learners through routines that honor students’ voices, build independence, and create a sense of belonging
• Why engagement is not an “extra” but a critical component of effective literacy instruction that strengthens attention, memory, and motivation

Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360. 

Michelle Sullivan: 

As educators, we have this responsibility to be that bridge. And we can‘t assume that every child has access to academic support in the home, whereas, you know, that can be taken for granted in some of our other communities. And that‘s why I think that explicit instruction, systematic instruction, Structured Literacy instruction, rich language experiences in the classroom, highly engaged environments, that is so critical for every single learner. That should be a non-negotiable. And even more importantly, that‘s why I really care about helping teachers understand how to teach every single reader sitting right in front of you because every single reader deserves it.

Narrator: 

You just heard from Michelle Sullivan of The Colorful Classroom. Michelle is our guest today on the EDVIEW360 Podcast.

Pam Austin: 

Hello, this is Pam Austin. Welcome back to the EDVIEW360 Podcast series. We are thrilled to have you with us today for another engaging literacy conversation. I‘m conducting today‘s podcast from my native New Orleans, LA. Today on EDVIEW360, we‘re thrilled to welcome Michelle Sullivan, literacy coach, reading interventionist, children‘s book author, co-founder of Logos Literacy Academy, host of the Literacy in Color Podcast, and the creative force behind The Colorful Classroom. For 17 years, Michelle has dedicated her career to helping teachers bring evidence-based literacy instruction to life through joyful, language-rich, and beautifully intentional practices. Michelle is Orton-Gillingham and LETRS trained, a proud word nerd, and a passionate advocate for making the science of reading not only accessible, but also energizing for teachers. Her COLORFUL philosophy, Captivating Our Learners On Reading Fluency And Understanding Language, has inspired thousands of educators to plan with creativity, structure with vibrancy, and research with heart. Today, she joins us for a conversation about bringing color to literacy, how engagement, language, and morphology can transform reading instruction and help every learner thrive. Welcome, Michelle.

MS:

Thank you so much. That was so lovely.

PA:

Your work is rooted in joy and color. What originally sparked this passion for literacy? And how did you find your way into this mission?

MS:

Yeah, so I‘d like to begin by just sharing that I‘ve always been fascinated with language. I grew up bilingual in a first-generation American household speaking both Polish and English simultaneously. And, later on, I studied Spanish and Latin and Portuguese. And just fun fact, once you crack one romance language, it‘s like your secret code to seeing connections everywhere. But looking back, I think that‘s where my love for morphology really fell into place. And we‘ll dive into that a little bit later. But if I‘m being completely honest, I feel like my passion didn‘t always stem with language or literacy. Really, I‘m in love with helping people. And even a testimony to my high school yearbook, what if Michelle wasn‘t always smiling? It‘s just part of who I am. I‘m an empath by nature. I care deeply about people. If I didn‘t go into education, I likely would have been in healthcare or something because the people, the business of helping people has always been wired into me. And I think that‘s true for so many educators. We‘re the helpers of society, right? We‘re people-oriented and nurturing and warm-hearted and really deeply invested in seeing the success for others. And ironically, I didn‘t set out to be a literacy specialist initially. I wanted to be a high school math teacher and the tables have turned. And while I was in the elementary setting, I was only a classroom teacher for a couple of years until a school leader really saw my potential and enthusiasm and maybe even charisma and offered me the opportunity to become a lead reading interventionist. And with very little experience and then a very fresh teacher, looking back, that was the one of the greatest blessings of my career because I was thrown into the deep end very early on, surrounded by incredible mentors, resources, and professional learning. I was introduced to Structured Literacy very early on in my career before a lot of us were having these conversations about the science of reading and what this looks like in action. And as a classroom teacher, you‘re responsible for so many subjects that it‘s really difficult to go deep in one area. So, as an interventionist, I really had the opportunity to look at literacy at a much deeper level. And that experience just sparked a constant desire to always go deeper. I was previously in an environment that was utilizing a balanced literacy framework in the Tier I setting. So, I was also tasked to take on those kids who couldn‘t do it, right? So, my heart of hearts was always with those striving readers and intervention. Eventually, I became a literacy coach. Now, you shared my many titles, many hats that I wear, but most of my career was spent with students who really struggled the most. And those experiences, they really taught me that explicit systematic instruction really matters, but also joy matters, engagement matters, human connection matters. And the students who need the most support often need more than just great instruction. They need the hope, right? They need that teacher who believes in them and the confidence that they can do it, that they can be successful and they will be successful. And this is fostered in classrooms or environments where language is alive. And this is where this whole idea of teaching colorfully really came to be.

PA:

All right. It sounds like that you‘ve just got a heart for this, right? As a teacher who‘s taught it in math, it‘s just amazing to me. The heart of a teacher, the heart of a coach, the heart of an interventionist. And you‘ve been doing this for quite some time, 17 years in education. And something you said probably answers my question. What keeps you grounded? And you talked about human connection. Could you expound on that?

MS:

Yeah. And what also keeps me grounded is the teachers. So, it‘s at the heart of the work. The teacher is doing this work. And it‘s even in, I‘m not a classroom teacher at the moment. I was a classroom teacher for a very small segment of my career. I taught in the small-group setting for a lot of the time and now coach and consult. But what keeps me grounded is never forgetting what it‘s like to be a teacher. So, I‘ve spent 17 years in schools and I know firsthand the weight that educators carry every single day. So, teaching isn‘t a profession where you clock in at nine and clock out at five, but they‘re carrying their students with them all of the time. They‘re worrying about that kid who didn‘t make progress and celebrating the kid who finally made some kind of breakthrough. They‘re thinking about their lesson plans at dinner time or on the drive home and thinking about, “How can I make small tweaks the next day to make an even bigger impact?” And while I love research, I love digging into the research and all of this interesting information about implementation science, instructional frameworks, evidence-based practices. It‘s important to never forget that hustle and grind that educators walk through every single day. And I like to think of it like behind that research study in a lab that‘s very controlled, is always a teacher trying to figure out what this looks like with my kids in my classroom with my 25 students. And they‘re the scientists, right? They‘re the scientists reflecting on, “How can I tweak something to make one little variable make a bigger impact?” in their little microcosm of their classroom. So, while we can all appreciate an evidence-based routine, we can‘t forget about that teacher who‘s doing the very best in the shadows.

PA:

Well, it‘s definitely evident that your focus is on instruction, on teaching and learning, on those social interactions. So, with that in mind, is there a student or a moment that shaped your belief in the power of engagement in a language-rich instruction?

MS:

Yeah. As I reflect, you could think about this, the flood of faces that cross your mind. But one story that immediately comes to mind is a student from the very beginning of my teaching career. I taught second grade in Jersey City, NJ, which is a big urban area. And the vast majority of my students lived below the poverty line. And I remember people saying to me, “Oh, you‘re too nice. They‘re gonna eat you alive.” And maybe I was this naive 20-something year old who thought that she was gonna change the world. But I also believed in leading with love and making those connections. So, there was one little girl in my class in particular. I‘ll protect her identity. But before she entered my classroom, so remember, this is second grade only, her reputation preceded her. So, her kindergarten and first grade teachers were like, “You have this student. She‘s known for her frequent behavior issues, hitting, screaming, cursing, eye rolls, outbursts, you name it.” And about a month into the school year, our school secretary, she stopped me in the hallway and she said, “Michelle, you‘re some kind of angel. I don‘t know what you did, but this girl is a completely different child.” And at that time, I wasn‘t exactly sure how to respond to that, but just thinking how lovely. But looking back with a little more wisdom and experience, I think what happened is I didn‘t take on those assumptions. We can hear about that caseload from the year before, but right before me, I just saw a little girl sitting in front of me who just needed someone to believe in her. And I think that‘s the heart of where engagement even begins. So, we‘re gonna talk about engagement today, but it‘s not exactly a strategy or a game or activity. It‘s this human connection, right? It starts with students feeling seen and valued and capable. And when students believe that they belong to a community, they‘re more willing to participate. You know, it‘ll be amazing what you can see when that kind of environment is really fostered. They‘re more willing to take the risks and more willing to engage with the learning. And I think that experience, along with so many others, really shaped me and seeing that as we‘re fostering engagement or trying to build this kind of language-rich environment, it‘s not always about having the most beautiful classroom or standing on the desks or singing all the songs, but really creating the conditions where students want to learn.

PA:

So, the foundation is the environment, would you say?

MS:

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

PA:

OK, well, that leads us to your COLORFUL acronym. It‘s such a powerful anchor. Go ahead and walk us through what it means and how teachers can use it to guide their daily instruction.

MS:

So COLORFUL stands for Captivating Our Learners On Reading Fluently And Understanding Language. And what‘s funny is it didn‘t start as an acronym at all. So, just a fun fact about me, I‘ve always been an artist at heart. Growing up, I always loved anything creative. And through high school and college, I interned at a color and textile design firm. And I became fascinated with how color can completely transform a space, influence your emotions, change the way people experience an environment, along with just the creative nature of what‘s beautiful. And at the same time, I‘ve always, like my love of languages, I‘ve always appreciated the multiple meanings of words. So, colorful itself is exciting because it doesn‘t just have to mean bright colors or multicolored. It can also, if we‘re describing a person as colorful, we can talk about someone who‘s vibrant and dynamic and full of life, just joyful. And one night, literally with my head on the pillow, I had a little download and it just popped in my head, Captivating Our Learners On Reading Fluently And Understanding Language. And I was like, “Oh my goodness, this is perfect” because it perfectly captured everything I believe about literacy instruction. So, to me, COLORFUL isn‘t necessarily a routine. It‘s more so a philosophy. And at its core, it‘s this belief that literacy instruction should be vibrant and meaningful, but it‘s rooted in research and in relationships. And recently, I wrote a blog post for Voyager Sopris and I broke down the philosophy really into three big ideas. So, firstly, we have captivate our learners. And learning really begins with attention. So, before students can become readers, read fluently, understand what they‘re reading with comprehension, understand the words, building vocabulary, they have to be engaged enough to lean into the learning experience. And then, secondly, that we have captivated our learners to read fluently. So, fluency, this begins at the letter-sounds level. But as we climb that ladder for fluency, we‘re eventually helping students to read complex text, right? To process language deeply enough while they‘re connecting the sounds to the symbols, to the meanings, beyond just the surface level code. And, then finally, understanding language. So, at the heart of literacy really is, you know, meaning making, understanding when students become curious about words, their structures, histories, relationships, we can move beyond just teaching students to read words in isolation, but to really develop a love for language itself. So, when I think about a colorful classroom, again, I love the fancy bulletin boards. I love the flare pens and Post-its. And I love also using color with intention in multisensory ways. But underneath the surface, at a deeper level, a colorful classroom is really where language is alive, where students are productively talking with each other, where really leaning into oral language experiences, they‘re discussing, asking questions, noticing patterns, really making connections with what they‘re learning. So, this is both where rigor and joy can coexist. And when we think about research, like the science of reading, research sounds really cold, right? But the science of reading research joined with human connection, they were never meant to compete, right? They‘re not at odds with each other. And Structured Literacy in an engaging way can be rigorous, but also it can be extremely powerful on this human level.

PA:

All right. So, you gave us an idea of what that colorful classroom would look like, what it would feel like. I love your idea of research and relationships, that human connection is just very powerful. Often you say that engagement, it‘s not that extra. And I get the feeling just from how you‘re describing a colorful classroom, it‘s not an extra, it‘s necessary. Why is engagement foundational? And I want you to specifically speak to a K-5 classroom.

MS:

Sure. So, engagement really is our gateway into learning. Students cannot learn from instruction that they‘re not attending to. So, before we can build any literacy skills, we have all these hopes and dreams of teaching the alphabetic principle. And you think about the five pillars of literacy, all of these strands on Scarborough‘s rope. But we first have to direct their attention to that learning experience, right? And one of the ideas that has really shaped my thinking comes from Dr. Maryanne Wolf and her work on deep reading. So, she has a book, Reader, Come Home, and she talks about attentional spotlights. And this is this idea that our attention has to be intentionally directed towards something and also sustained in order for deep reading and deep learning to occur. So, when I think about just this day and age, right? That‘s becoming really important in today‘s world to think about because our students are in this age of technology, constant notifications, scrolling, everything is competing for their attention. And it‘s so easy to just swipe away to the next thing without keeping that focus. And our kids‘ brains are growing up in a really different environment than even just five or 10 years ago. So, if we really want our students to engage deeply into language, we can‘t assume that their attention is automatically going to be there. Like they don‘t, they‘re not just showing up for school and you got them. You got to do something about it, right? We have to intentionally cultivate that. So, again, I don‘t think that engagement can be separate from rigorous instruction. It‘s really what rigorous instruction is, it‘s really what allows rigorous instruction to take root. So, I loved, Pam, the conversation that you had with Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. Odegard. And this was a few episodes back, but they were sharing some sentiments, even directed towards parents, like a laptop is not a replacement for a parent‘s lap in a book. And that sentiment really resonated with me too, because again, literacy is this human endeavor. We are learning language through people, through conversation, not through a device. We need to be storytelling, we need to be talking with each other. And technology certainly has a place, but language develops through human connection. And that‘s where real engagement comes in. So, when we‘re setting an environment where students can actively discuss ideas and respond to each other and also work with words, right? Making meaning together. It‘s not just fun. These things can be fun, but they‘re attending. They‘re attending and involved. And it goes back to how the brain is actually operating. So, often we can hear about engagement and people think entertainment. And it‘s not our jobs as teachers to be the horse and pony show on a stage to try to compete for attention that way. But it‘s really about setting yourself up as an educator. How can I captivate these learners to pay attention to what‘s happening and also be engaged in the experience? And Dr. Anita Archer, who I know you‘re so familiar with, she has her Archerisms and a couple of them. She says learning is not a spectator sport and everyone does everything. So, keeping that in mind, once we do have their attention, then the real learning can begin. Because it‘s intentional. Exactly.

PA:

Intentional, intentional. And you are such an advocate for language classrooms and the opportunity for expressing, just hearing everything that you‘re sharing with us. Teachers are saying, “Yeah, I like this idea, but what can I do?” What are some simple routines that teachers can use, maybe just to build some vocabulary, build background knowledge on an everyday basis? You got some ideas? 

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MS:

Yeah, sure. So, I am a big believer that vocabulary and background knowledge aren‘t just built through definitions alone. I don‘t know about you, Pam, but I can look it up in the dictionary. Write down the definition, put it in a sentence. But deep word learning really comes from making those connections. And so, we talked about human connections. Now, we‘re just going to be talking about word connections. And one thing in particular I like to reflect on is how many associations does a student have with a particular word? So, there‘s this piece of research in vocabulary involving the words lime and lion. This is an older research study, I believe it‘s from the ‘80s, about students who have a rich network of associations for a word. So, for lion, for example, they might think of words like zoo, roar, jungle, predator, maybe Simba, Narnia, you know, all of these things, all of these ideas connected to the word. Whereas a word like lime, it‘s like, “OK, it‘s a citrus fruit that‘s kind of sour. I might put it in my water,” and that‘s where the network ends. So, in this research study, they actually found that despite lime being the simpler word, we have one syllable, so it‘s just a silent E pattern, lion was more recognizable because it had more associations, which I think is so interesting. We have two syllables, we have two adjacent vowels making separate sounds over here. But really, the more associations we can create around a word, the stickier that word becomes in memory. And Isabel Beck talks a lot about this, creating rich representations of words. Marilyn Adams also is quoted with talking about mental velcro. And so, some of the routines that I think about when it comes to building deep vocabulary are really simple, but they‘re making intentional moves to build out these semantic networks. So, more formally, and these are kinds of things that you can either do formally from your read-alouds when you‘re explicitly teaching some high-leverage vocabulary words, but these are also things that you can weave in organically in some of your conversations. So, on the formal side, we can do semantic association activities like semantic mapping. So, we would be generating different facets of words, including examples, nonexamples, synonyms or antonyms. Another thing that we could do are category sorts. So, this can also be fun. So, for example, if you were to teach a vocabulary word like expand, you might have real objects. Or perhaps if that‘s too cumbersome, you can bring in pictures. But say you have an umbrella, a seashell, a balloon, a shoe, a sponge, and a cup. And students can think and talk to each other, which objects expand, which ones do not expand. And they start to think about how the word would be used conceptually across different contexts. Because oftentimes, too, when we give a definition or we give an example, then students are so concrete. They live in that box and they think about it only in one context. So, how can we expand their understanding of the words? On the casual side, too, when an interesting word comes up, we can also just pose simple reflection questions like, “What does this make you think about?” This is just an organic way of building out the semantic associations. And of course, we can connect unknown words to already known words in casual conversation. And as a mother, I do this all of the time with my little ones. Like, “How was your lunch today?" My lunch was scrumptious. It was really yummy,” right? So, you‘re pairing the sophisticated word with a word that they already have in context. And you might pose a question, “What kind of food do you think is scrumptious?” And you could do that with all sorts of things. So, you can see that none of this is requiring memorization of definitions. And morphology is another way of really building those connections because we can share about, obviously, instructional routines where we‘re exploring relationships. But what‘s really powerful morphology-wise is exploring a common base. So, perhaps as a spin off of your phonics instruction, say students have learned closed syllables with ending consonant clusters at the end, and they can decode and spell a word like help. As a spin-off of phonics, and this is not something that you necessarily have to do every day, but we can explore some language connections and explore the derivatives of help, like helpful, helpless, helplessness, use them in context, like, “You were really helpful when you put the book away for me” or, “I was feeling helpless in such-and-such scenario,” right? So, they‘re not learning through four, five, six different words. They‘re really building a network and they‘re building a network around shared meaning. And we can also pose to students what else belongs in this family? Does unhelpful belong? And they‘re like, “Oh yeah, it does, because it has an H E L P in it, and it has to do with help.” “Well, what about a word like whelp? Would that belong?” Like a W-H-E-L-P? And it makes them think like, “Oh, it has help in it, but no, it doesn‘t belong. It maybe is related by sound, by phonology,” right? They rhyme, but they‘re not related in meaning. And the thing is, we can‘t teach all of the words of the world, but we can encourage students to look at words in a way where they‘re starting to build connections, and they‘ll naturally start to do that themselves with a little boost from the teacher, right?

PA:

So, that question that I asked you seems so simple. How do we make it happen? I have to tell you, Michelle, what you‘ve done for us is create an imagery of what it will look like in the classroom. How do we make words sticky? So many different examples of how we can make that happen in a practical, engaging way. Not necessarily sit down, let‘s do this, let‘s get this, let‘s apply this, let‘s talk about this, let‘s learn more. And here you begin to introduce morphology. And I know that you have said that morphology is a superpower for students, and you gave many examples here. And you even alluded to you can‘t start too early. Is that true?

MS:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

PA:

All right. So, beginning with teaching morphology and expanding here, what are some other routines that you could add on? So, you gave us an idea of introducing maybe with younger kids and expanding and making connections. What about our older students when it comes to morphology instruction? What are some routines that a teacher could implement tomorrow?

MS:

Yeah, so morphology really is this superpower because you think about the different linguistic units that we teach as teachers, right? We have phonemes and graphemes and syllables, but morphemes, so just because I haven‘t defined it yet, morphology is the study of these structural units in our language that just so happen to also hold meaning. And our morphemes are the only linguistic units that have spellings, pronunciations, and meanings. But you think about a phoneme, hey, it has a sound. A grapheme, oh, it‘s something written. It‘s a spelling that often represents a sound. But a morpheme, hey, it‘s got all three. So, when students are learning morphology, they‘re connecting the three systems. And we know based on the reading brain, those are the three systems that we need to make those words sticky, right? So, that‘s why I think morphology is such a cool superpower. And one thing that we can do that teachers can implement right away is not only just analyzing these bases, seeing words that share a common base, but also building out these families of words with some of our bound bases. So, with some of our older students, like I said, for the younger ones, I might expand based on the bases that they‘re learning in phonics instruction, like help. For some of our older students, we can dive into those Greek and Latin bases that cannot stand alone as a word. And it becomes this generative word learning. So, you might have an explicit vocabulary routine where you‘re introducing a base a week and you do some deep learning about it. But I think the structure would fall in the same kind of way. So, I might pose a set of words and say, erupt, disrupt, interruption. What do all of those words have in common? I‘m tapping into oral language. These are likely words that students have heard before. And students can be like, “Oh, I hear a rupt in them,” right? Now we can analyze that base. We can see they all have that R-U-P-T in them. But the fun thing is, it‘s not always erupt. Sometimes, we have sound changes depending on what kind of affixes are attached. Sometimes, in a word like disruption, the T is representing that sh sound. In rupture, suddenly we have a sh sound. So, we can see that flexibility in these multimorphemic words where the spelling is going to be consistent, but the pronunciation can shift and to teach students to be flexible from the start. And just to piggyback to kindergarten again, we learned this early on with suffix S. It can say s and z and E D can say t d and it, right? And what I think is really fun is when we teach students to see words in this way and just give them the language to do it, it really is a powerful tool to have this understanding that English isn‘t crazy. Sometimes, we learn these single-syllable words and phonics and everything seems really regular. And all of a sudden, we‘re thrown multisyllabic words, multimorphemic words with a schwa sound and reduced syllables and vowel flexing and pronunciation shifts. And gosh, English feels like it went on a roller coaster ride. But when we can see the structure and how those words are related and connected in spelling and meaning, it really is a powerful tool to leverage for our students.

PA:

So, when you see the structure, when you see the patterns within our language, it‘s not just, “Hey, English is crazy.” It‘s like, “Oh no, look, look, watch, see, let‘s become word conscious.” That‘s what I‘m feeling from you. Is that correct?

MS:

Word consciousness.

PA:

I love that term. So thinking about all that you shared, I‘ve got an inkling that this would be supportive for multilingual learners, right? Who struggle with decoding and comprehension. Is there something more we need to know for these types of learners?

MS:

Yeah, I think morphology really is one of the most equitable tools for our English language learners because morphology is across languages. Every language has a morphological system. And it really is fun to make those kinds of connections, especially when considering the United States has a huge Spanish-speaking population. And when you think about the English language, I would say maybe 60 percent-ish is derived from Latin. Hey, Spanish is a Latin language. We can leverage their home language to dive into cognates and to see connections across words. Information becomes información. Oh, they have the same suffix, Io N, right? Or like I was talking about the power of the base in Spanish, you have a word like pez means fish. Well, suddenly pescar means to fish, pescador is a fisherman, pescarilla is a fish shop or a fishery somewhere you would buy fish. They have morphological units, just like English does. And so, when we can leverage that, our big words, these are really just puzzles that we put together, especially, you know, ELL students, students with dyslexia, suddenly we don‘t have a word that‘s 11 letters long, 12 letters long that it‘s tricky to understand, but we can leverage that. “Oh, it‘s just two parts I have to put together. It‘s just three parts I have to put together.” And one of the most powerful tools to do that work is something called a word sum. So, this is a really simple but high-leverage tool that any teacher can use from kindergarten to high school. But you‘re really analyzing words in a way. Well, there‘s two types of word sums. You can start with the big word and go to the small parts, or you can start with the small parts and go to the big word. And it reads like a math problem. But rather than using an equal sign, we use a rewrite arrow to signal a process. Because of course, sometimes we have suffixing conventions that can change up the spelling a bit. But really, it‘s showing the structure of a word. And then as you have this generative word learning, we can see that these parts that are consistently spelled all over the system are used everywhere. Every word has these same parts spelled all the same way, despite pronunciation shifts. So, it really is a great way to reinforce decoding, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, all the things.

PA:

And it‘s using materials that you‘re already working on. It‘s diving into the text that you‘re already reading and making those connections directly. So, you use the term cognates. What do we mean by that? Just to make sure that we‘re clear for everyone who‘s listening.

MS:

Yeah, those are words that are used in two different languages or multiple languages that are very similar in their pronunciation and spelling. So, just another example in English and Spanish, you have a word like chocolate or chocolate, and they‘re spelled the same way. They mean the same thing. There‘s also false cognate. So, we have to be careful of those. Sometimes it looks like they‘re spelled the same way. But especially considering the Latin-based words, especially you think about the layers of our English language. We have an Anglo-Saxon layer. We can use a word like teacher, right? But if we go to the Latin layer, we have another word, professor. Well, in Spanish, we have professor, profesora. So, often our Tier II vocabulary words will have a cognate in a Latin-based language. But we‘ll find cognates across languages, even on different branches of our language tree. You know, we have Slavic, Arabic, all different types of languages all over the world.

PA:

Well, I tell you, you blend creativity with evidence-based practices just so wonderfully. And you‘ve given us so many good examples. The next question would be: How should teachers begin to design lessons or begin to incorporate these strategies, a routine that is both structured and vibrant?

MS:

Yeah, I think the key is, and I‘m guilty of this for myself. You can scroll Instagram and you can scroll Pinterest, and you feel like, “Oh, the next shiny object syndrome, I need to be doing XYZ that looks cute or that looks entertaining.” But the truth is, you don‘t have to add one more thing. You don‘t have to add more stuff and buy more things. You don‘t have to spend all the hours creating the materials that you think you need. You also, I want you to think about what‘s sustainable as a classroom teacher. Like, can you do this every single day? Probably not. That‘s like the one-hit wonder lesson if you‘re gonna plan all of this time to invest there. And don‘t get me wrong, I love a seasonal tchotchke or the witch fingers and the fun little trinkets that you can bring into the literacy classroom. But that‘s not necessarily where the magic lives. The vibrant instruction comes from that teacher. And that is the internal work, right? It‘s the energy that you bring. It‘s those wide eyes. I always call them my teacher eyes when I‘m reading a book. My daughters, they‘re currently 3 and 6 years old, they laugh at me because they‘re like, “Mommy, are you gonna read like a teacher to us today?” And it‘s leaning in when you‘re asking a question, it‘s changing your voice and using intonation, it‘s building anticipation to get excited and really eliciting responses from students to have partner talk and to have discussion. So, when you think about what you can shift really in your delivery, it‘s thinking about how you can include students to be part of that learning experience rather than just having this sit and get lesson, right? Not being spectators and watching instruction happen. And oftentimes, when we think about explicit instruction, we imagine a lecture or we reimagine something that might be dry. But explicit instruction when it‘s really combined with special routines and opportunities for students to respond in meaningful ways that‘s beyond just parroting information at us, is really how we‘re creating these structured and vibrant classrooms. And when you reflect back even on your own educational career, those are the classrooms that you remember, right? In retrospect, thinking back to that one special teacher.

PA:

So, it‘s what you do and what your students do in response to what you do.

MS:

Yeah, definitely. I love that synthesis.

PA:

That is sustaining. It definitely would make a difference. So, as we head into this new school year, we‘re gonna blink and it‘s gonna be here, Michelle. What encouragement would you offer educators who want to bring more joy, more color and confidence in their literacy block?

MS:

Yeah, I would picture yourself as that 7-year-old kid who lined up your stuffed animals and played school and you wanted to change the world, right? And like I mentioned just a moment ago, but chances are you had that one teacher who inspired you and the teacher who made you feel seen, the one who believed in you, that you can do hard things. And that impact stays with you long after they leave the classroom. So, my word of encouragement is just be that teacher because you don‘t know if you‘re gonna be that teacher. Our story ends in one school year, but in retrospect, I talk about the people who influenced me 35 years ago. So, I think that‘s a really special thing to keep into consideration that we‘re planting seeds, and that‘s really powerful to think about.

PA:

That‘s wonderful. Planting seeds. Well, Michelle, thank you for bringing your energy, your expertise, oh, and your heart to today‘s conversation. Your COLORFUL approach, just love it, reminds us that literacy instruction can be both rigorous and joyful. We can have them both. We can honor language, we can honor engagement and the science of reading. We can create a classroom where every child feels seen, capable, and excited to learn. To our listeners, I want to thank you for joining us for this episode of EDVIEW360. We hope Michelle‘s insights inspire you to bring a little more color, literally and figuratively, into your reading instruction this coming year. For more episodes, resources, and upcoming conversation, visit voyagersopris.com/EDVIEW360. Until next time, this has been Pam Austin for EDVIEW360.

Narrator: 

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