Written Public Comment Submission Detail

Public Comment Details

Meeting
Commission Meeting - February 2022

Agenda Item
3C: Assessing Literacy Instruction: Implementation of SB 488

Name
Lauren Walsh

Organization
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Comments
To Whom it May Concern,
I am writing as a native Californian who attended public schools, became credentialed as a teacher at Pepperdine University, taught second and third grades, and my last year in the classroom I taught kindergarten - all in SMMUSD. In my undergraduate program I had one Language Arts Methods class which did not adequately prepare me to teach students how to read. The interesting part of this story is I didn't even have this rude awakening until 8 years into my career when I taught kindergarten and came across phonemic awareness lessons. I didn't know how to effectively teach my students to read. I write more about this experience here: https://heggerty.org/blog/heggerty-love-story/.
After leaving the classroom, I became trained by CORE as a literacy coach. That pivotal experience made me realize how much I had to learn. I had tears in my eyes when I realized I had let my students down because I had never learned how to explicitly teach phonemic awareness. I also learned routines for sound by sound blending, and continuous blending and multisyllabic word reading routines including open and closed syllables (something else I had never learned before this time). A year into my time as a coach, I ame across Heggerty Phonemic Awareness which changed my life as an educator, coach, and parent. As a site-based coach, I was able to model these routines and share this knowledge and curriculum with others. I later took a position as a reading specialist in LVUSD and put these routines to practice to intervene with students. I saw first-hand how students made the connection between PA, decoding, and encoding, and was able to exit many students from my intervention caseload, preventing them from being referred to special education.
During this time, I became certified as a reading specialist at USC's Reading and Literacy Added Authorization program, and was later asked to teach the foundations of reading course. I agreed to teach the course if I could update the content to reflect evidence-based practices and knowledge around the science of reading and structured literacy. Many of my students said they had never learned about this in their undergraduate programs and felt it was the missing piece they needed to help their students learn how to read. This is the shift that so many teacher prep programs need to be taking so that we can better prepare new educators to teach their students how to read.
In March of 2020, I began my work as part of CDE's State Literacy Team and was assigned to the early educator group. In the last two years, I've gathered resources for educators and created professional development videos which were recently released this week: https://www.caeducatorstogether.org/collections/early-literacy-education-in-the-pk-and-tk-classrooms-and-at-home. I appreciate CDE's efforts in making this kind of PD free and accessible to educators across the state, and noticed that the work of the State Literacy Plan Team was referenced in this new Literacy Performance Assessment agenda item.
In early 2021, after becoming credentialed as an administrator through LVUSD's Center for EdX, I decided I wanted to narrow my focus and widen my reach. I began consulting as an independent contractor and am currently working for Heggerty Phonemic Awareness as a Literacy Specialist and for AIM Institute's Pathways to Proficient Reading as an Integrated Literacy Facilitator. During this onboarding period, I was required to take AIM's Pathways to Proficient Reading course as well as take the KPEERI through CERI: https://effectivereading.org/kpeeri-exam-disabled/. I am now a certified structured literacy teacher, and feel this was the most comprehensive preparation I've received as an educator thus far.
The amount of time, money, and dedication it has taken to get to this point in my career is something that deters many educators from receiving additional training and certification in reading instruction. If CA can properly align teacher prep programs and assessments, I envision a much better equipped teaching force in the years to come. This gives me hope for our children and their future.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss my background and how I might be able to provide assistance in these revisions.
Thank you for your time and consideration...and for taking the next steps to do what is right for our students,
Lauren Walsh

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