A Proud Professional Moment

I had a really proud professional moment recently! I learned that a white paper that I wrote was cited in LETRS for administrators.

A friend of mine is a principal in Idaho, and in his LETRS coursework he came across a page that had what he thought was my name. He sent me a note and said, "I think this is you in our LETRS book." (images below)

Sure enough, it was!

What is exciting to me about this is that, while I have a doctorate and do a lot of writing, my work focuses on consulting and helping others translate theory to practice. I don't really focus on trying to get published.

However, this citation is a white paper I wrote in 2018 because I realized there was a significant gap in the literature related to the recommendation for the 90-minute uninterrupted reading block in K-3 literacy.

The 90-minute block is a major thing that everyone "knows" you're supposed to do. However, a client once asked me why, and I realized I didn't know what the evidence was behind this practice.

It turned out, there was no clear documentation of the rationale for the 90-minute block that I could find in the literature at the time. To my knowledge, my white paper -- "What Is the Evidence for an Uninterrupted, 90-Minute Literacy Instruction Block?" -- is the only thorough review of the rationale and evidence for this practice. There are a plethora of sources that discuss its importance, but I couldn't find any that provided an evidence-based justification for why the research base would prescribe an uninterrupted, 90-minute block to begin with.

While I've seen my paper get cited by state agencies, school districts, and various research and doctoral papers over the past few years, this LETRS citation is particularly rewarding for me.

As most people know, LETRS is a highly respected Science of Reading training program. It's taken off like wildfire in the US in recent years. The original author behind it all is Dr. Louisa Moats, someone I truly respect (and a fellow Idaho resident).

Being cited in such a great resource truly makes my day! It makes me smile very proudly, especially when looking at the bibliography where I see that I'm cited alongside people like Joe Torgesen. 😁 What amazing company to be in.

There are a lot of amazing authors out there who have contributed in such amazing and abundant ways to the Science of Reading. My contribution to the professional literature is small, but I'm so happy to see that it has a meaningful place.

If you'd like to have a copy of my white paper on the rationale for the 90-minute reading block, please send me a message via my contact page. I'd be happy to share it with you!