Hi, and welcome to the Smarter Literacy Podcast from Ascend Smarter Intervention, where our mission is to simplify effective literacy instruction to make teaching literacy easier and more accessible for everyone. I'm your host, Lindsey, and in today's episode, we're sitting down for a literacy chat with our friend Heather, who is a literacy specialist and the founder of Next Level Literacy. Heather's journey is one that so many educators will be able to relate to from facing challenges in the classroom to ultimately creating a path that better serves both her students and herself.
In this episode, we're talking about where she started, what her instruction looks like now, and the strategy she swears by to truly move the needle for struggling readers.
You're gonna walk away with inspiration, practical ideas, and a reminder that there's more than one way to make a powerful impact in literacy. So without further ado, let's dive in.
Well, today we are bringing you a literacy chat with our friend Heather. Hi, Heather.
And welcome to the Thank you so much.
It's so great to be here.
Yay. And we are so excited to have you. And today we're going be diving into your journey in the literacy instruction and intervention space, starting with the challenges that you faced in the beginning, what instruction looks like for you now, and some helpful strategies that our listeners can take with them into their own literacy instruction. So to kick things off, why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your work, your setting?
Yes, of course. So my name is Heather Diebold and I'm a literacy specialist. I'm also the owner of Next Level Literacy, which is a reading intervention business. It's my practice.
And my model basically is to bridge gaps and build readers. And that's exactly what I strive to do every day. I just recently got my very first office. I'm so excited for that.
And so now I get to have students come to me. It's just beautiful. It's so fun for them to come to me and they absolutely love it. And it's been fun to see their personalities change being in a different environment.
I love that so much. And I love that right now I get to see you in your office, right? Like I'm seeing you right now and it's beautiful. I know our listeners cannot see your office or you, but I am telling you all that it is a gorgeous space and your kids are so lucky to be able to come see you there. So we're so excited for you.
Thank you so much. It has definitely been a dream come true. My journey as an educator started in the classroom, just like most teachers. I taught third grade at a school that didn't have a reading curriculum and it was just a lot of frustration.
And so my journey has come from doing that and then being a mom and then owning a preschool and then working in schools again, and then being the reading group leader teacher for certain grade levels to deciding, you know what? I want to know more about this reading stuff. So I went back and got my master's, graduated with that in twenty two and was like, okay, let's go back in the classroom. And I stepped one foot in and was like, no, this is just not for me right now.
And so I decided, let's find a different way. Let's do this on my own and just keep doing what I'd been already doing is helping kids one on one.
I love that. And an ongoing conversation we've been having on this podcast is how we can meet those education needs for our students, but also like for ourselves. The journey doesn't have to look just one way. And I love that you said your journey has kind of been all over the place.
You started in one place and moved to another and have all these experiences. Now you have your own practice. And I absolutely love that. And actually, that's something I'd love to dive into a little bit more today of talking about those initial challenges and how they got you kind of started on this path of like, you know what?
I know what I want to do. I want to be a literacy instructor. I want to help kids with their literacy skills. But you know what?
Maybe that classroom pathway just isn't for me. And that's okay, right? Education can look different for many different people and how we help kids, as long as we're helping them in the best way possible, that's what really it comes down to and that's when it matters. So yeah, Heather, can you talk about, let's dive back to the very beginning.
What were those initial challenges that really got you started in literacy instruction or intervention?
That's a really great question. And I think that a lot of teachers are going to be able to resonate with what I'm seeing, where I worked in a school where they didn't have a curriculum for reading. And when I graduated college in two thousand and four, they didn't require for you to learn how to teach reading. We did all kinds of deep dives and studies on how to teach novels and book studies and story mapping and all these beautiful displays of how to show your knowledge.
But they never really sat down and said, This is how you teach reading. This is how you teach a kid to read. And so as I got into teaching, luckily I was in third grade where most of my kids received that before they got to me. But there were still kids who couldn't read and I didn't have those skills, you know.
And I'm so grateful that they've changed that now in the education system where now our educators that are graduating must have these foundational classes in phonics, phonemic awareness, all these building blocks and foundational pieces that our students absolutely have to have to read. And so, I'm so grateful that that has changed and that we're seeing so many reading gaps now because the educators weren't actually taught on how to do that. Just focusing back to what you were asking that I knew when I was like six years old that I was going to be a teacher and I didn't know what that would look like.
Traditionally, I thought I would always be in a classroom, but I also know that it just wasn't a fit for me and my family with our schedule. I needed a little bit more flexibility. And so I went from being in a school with no curriculum for reading and having to constantly piece and push and pull things together and research. And this was before we had online programs where you could go on and purchase things.
Right. This was us trying to buy work books from these expensive education stores and then trying to piece it together. And then, oh my gosh, heaven forbid, you lose a copy of that because you don't have digital. So, it was just a very, very trying time of trying to figure out how teach kids how to read.
And on top of just other struggles too, where our school district, we received refugees from other countries as well. And so, our school received some students from Ethiopia and they lived in a tiny village up in some mountain range. They had no written language. And I went through and labeled my classroom in Swahili words to help them.
And they had no idea what I was doing. They didn't know what it was because their language was only passed down verbally. So, there's just so many different challenges that educators face. I know that I'm not the only one that can speak on this.
Know other teachers have had similar things, but no matter if your students are English second language learners or they are English speaking at home, there are still challenges with those reading skills if they don't receive those foundational skills.
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I can say definitely going back to that piecing together of everything when you are a teacher in the classroom. And even though I remember when I was in the classroom, I did have materials, but it still it was so much piecing together.
It wasn't all it was systematic in that it was all science of reading based, but it didn't feel structured because I was pulling from so many different pieces. So to think of having to do that again without being able to go online, find those pieces, right? You have those workbooks you're ordering. Then you have the students in front of you who are struggling because one, they have either those gaps or two, like your students who are coming from another country and didn't even weren't even exposed to a written language.
I think you're absolutely right that there's a lot of teachers out there who can say, yep, I know what that's like. I've experienced that. And it's really sad to think that there's so many educators who who feel that frustration and who feel like I am not doing enough or I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing for these kids, but I know I need to get them to read. I just don't know if I have the materials or the programming or whatever to be able to do that. So, oh my gosh, I really feel you there, Heather.
Yeah, no, exactly. Like it's just it was a frustrating situation. And I know that teachers even today are still feeling that frustration. And like I said, when I was first in my teaching career, it was during what we called the great reading war, where it was like they weren't doing a lot of phonics.
It was we're doing that three queuing system and we'll read the sentence, we'll read beyond, we'll read before, look for context clues. Oh, what does the picture tell us? Well, not all of our passages came with pictures with them. And how is that?
And so the whole time I'm teaching this with this kind of method, I'm like, this doesn't make sense to me. Why aren't we teaching them sounds? Why aren't we teaching them how to blend? And it did not make sense to me.
And so I was just it was a very frustrating time. So I'm so grateful for all the researchers who persevered in this field to keep going, to discover that there is so much more than what we were already doing, that we need to look beyond guessing words. They've now discovered that we know how the brain learns to read. We know how things connect.
We know all the ways what this whole science of reading and it's all brain based, research based, evidence based. And I just think that this during this great reading war, there was just a lot of stuff going on that did not make any sense. And so I'm so, so glad that we now have evidence behind how to do it better, that we're actually seeing that, yes, we do need to include phonics. Yes, we do need to include spelling.
I worked at a school that one of the principals was actually punishing teachers for doing spelling. If there were spelling words posted on a board, they were reprimanded for it. And it was during my master's that I ended up working at that school with that principal. I took evidence to her and said, Look, this is what we're now seeing.
This is what's going on. And that's when this new program letters had come out and they were training our whole district on it. And all of a sudden she was like, Okay, well, maybe we'll think about it. And she had all this evidence behind it this whole curriculum that the district was paying for.
And she was still not having that buy in. So, it was very frustrating again for those teachers in that building. I stepped in only to help out for a maternity leave. And I was just very grateful to not have to stay in that building, to have an administrator who is seeing evidence and yet still not having that buy in.
And I now know she has changed her course and they are now following the protocol. So I'm very happy for that school and for those kids are going to be super lucky to have that. But I just know that shifting into my own practice, having a curriculum that is based on the science of reading, understanding how our brain learns, being able to have my own schedule. It's it's improved my life and it's also improved the lives of my students who are now becoming better readers.
Are thriving.
Yeah. That is amazing. And I'm so happy for your students too that they have you. That they have someone who they can count on because have done the research.
You're passionate about it. Right? And you are someone who's really been gung ho. No, I want to make sure kids are reading the right way.
And, you know, to go back a little bit like your experience with that, the principal, I think, again, kind of thinking of educators in the classroom, so many times that the roadblocks that maybe educators face is because of what the district is telling them to do. It's not even so much that they really even have a choice. Sometimes they really just don't have choices in the matter. They've been told, we've put all this money into this program and this is what you're going be doing.
And like you said, the teachers you were seeing, they had spelling lists. They're being recommended about that. And I will say I'm very grateful that that was never my experience. But I do remember being in college and being taught things like, yeah, spelling doesn't matter, and the kids will get it eventually.
This was pre my master's in literacy. This was my undergrad in in English education.
And I was remember being so shocked then and being like, what do you mean they'll just get it? And then but, you know, to then kind of see that theory or that thought process in the school systems too, once I started substituting, once I started student teaching. And I was like, you know, I just don't think this is gonna work. I think they they need that instruction. But of course, felt like I was young and inexperienced. So, like, what did I really know then?
So to hear that you had kind of that same experience and you were able to go to your principal and say, here's the research that's showing why we should be teaching spelling, why we should be doing this and so on, I think is so great because we need educators who are going to be advocates for what our kids need out there. And obviously you went your own path with private practice, but still the fact that you were able to share that and now share it with the families you're working with and the students you're working with, You're that voice out there. You're an advocate for education and for reading and literacy for our students. So that's amazing. And we are grateful for educators like you every day.
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you said that because I really do feel like I am an advocate more than anything. Like, obviously, I'm an educator and obviously, you know, I have special training in literacy and I'm so grateful for it. But I do feel like one of the biggest parts, like one of the biggest hats you could say that I wear is being an advocate, helping parents understand because sometimes they're new parents.
This is their first rodeo. They don't know. And so I love being able to educate them on even just what their IEP should have, what the five zero four should have, how that should be followed, how the progress monitoring should be looking, and then what I'm doing so that they can hand this over to their teachers as well. I really do feel like one of the biggest roles, I guess you could say, that I play is as an advocate.
One also for the students. I'm teaching them how to advocate for themselves as well. When I find out, oh my gosh, this strategy really, really works for you. I'm trying to teach them, let your teacher know in class, let them know, Hey, this one really works for me.
I'm working with a reading teacher and this is what she's teaching me and this is really working. Just teaching them at a young age, it's okay to tell someone what works for you. It's okay to speak up for yourself. You're not being disrespectful.
You're letting them know, Hey, this is just how I learn. And I said, You're going to actually help your teacher out too. They're going to be like, Oh my gosh, first of all, how do you know that? And second of all, thanks.
That really helps me solve a puzzle. Right? And so, I really do feel like I'm getting to advocate for the parents and the kids and then helping them learn to advocate for themselves.
Absolutely. And I will say since I've moved to private practice, I've done that. I've switched into that role as well. And exactly what you're saying, it is actually one of the most fulfilling parts of my job now to be able to help our kids help themselves, but also help these parents who are struggling with the IEP five zero four process.
I even know parents who are educators who are still struggling through that. So the parents that we work with who aren't in the education field at all, they probably think of your help as such a blessing and being able to have someone to talk to and to rely on to be able when they have those kind of questions, you are someone who can actually be there for them. So that is amazing. And once again, not to be taken lightly, right?
Like this role that you have is very, very important.
And that actually brings me to my kind of my next question for you. Can you tell us about maybe a typical day or what does your work life kind of consist of? So obviously, you wear many hats. So what do those hats look like in a typical day?
So that's a really great question. Thank you for asking about this. Because sometimes when people are starting their own practice, they're like, what does this even look like? And you know, how do I look like I have a business?
Like, what do I do? So I try and start my day is kind of broken up into how my kiddos are receiving their learning. And so for my morning time, that's usually my homeschool kiddos and it is usually my preschool kids. And for my little little ones, I will actually go in home for them and I travel to their homes and then I work with them.
So from like about nine in the morning until about one is my scheduled time with those families. And so those who are homeschooling, some of them come to me in my office now, some that have multiple children and littles, you know, like babies and stuff like I will go to them. It's just easier for the family. And then we just have a designated area in their home that we work at.
Then they know that I'm coming in so many days a week and we kind of get our stuff done in the mornings. And then I do have students that I work with over Zoom as well. I have students that are out of state and so that gives me like another time frame to work competing with my traditional kiddos here in town. And so it gives me a different time frame.
I have some students in Texas that I work with and they are obviously in a different time zone than I am. I'm on the Pacific time zone. So it gives me another time zone to get to work with. So that's really fun.
So I can either do that from my office or from my home. And just depending on my day and what my family's needs are for the day. And then my afternoon is all my traditional students. And so usually from about like three thirty to about thirty at night, I am working with those students.
So they are coming to me in my office so that I can see students back to back to back in order to maximize my time with students.
Wow. That is amazing. You have a full day packed and I love how diversified it is.
It is definitely all over the board. Every day I have to check my calendar. Okay, what does it look like today? Most of my students typically schedule the same day, same time.
But there are those things that come up like doctor appointments and things like that, or holidays obviously throw us off a little bit. So, it just depends. But my mornings and my day, they usually map out to look like that, where I try and have one day that's a little less full for lesson planning and catching up and all that. Because at the end of every day when I'm done, then I'm documenting everything in my billing system for the notes for the parents, the clinical notes.
What did we do? What are we working on? What are we looking at next time? What was their homework for the time?
And then the parents get emailed that every evening.
That's perfect. I love that. It's very organized. It's very systematic. And you do, you kind of have when you are balancing a schedule like that, you have to keep on top of everything, right?
Absolutely. Like I know that I can't, I cannot get behind in my clinical notes or it's just kind of it gets to be a little bit of a nightmare. I do take notes outside of the computer notes as well. So I always have my observational notes and then my progress monitoring going on so I can kind of see those things.
But if I get behind, it's like, Oh my goodness. You know, it's just, it makes me feel a little bit flustered. So it's like, Okay, let's make sure we get it done every single night. No matter what time it is, I try to make sure I get it all in for the day and that the billing is done every day because I'm kind of a one woman show here.
It's just me. So I'm doing all the lesson planning, the coordinating, the scheduling, the billing and all that. So it's just all on me.
Eventually we'll figure in a new system, but right now it's working pretty well.
Yeah, absolutely. And for any listeners who are interested in starting their own practice, think that's great to hear because maybe the education piece isn't what's maybe stopping someone to start their own practice, not for the they know how to be a teacher, but it's how do I juggle everything? How do I handle the billing? How do I do this and that? So yeah, that is that's the part of the private practice that comes with a lot of learning.
It does. And what I can tell you, I think my biggest piece of advice that I can offer is just do it anyway. Do it messy, do it unorganized. Just do it.
Just start in, find a starting point, let people know what you do. I don't advertise and people find me just by word-of-mouth. And that has worked perfect for me. Families share what I do with other families.
And that's how I've built my clientele and just do it. Just get started. That's my biggest piece of advice is if I would have waited to be ready, I would have never started. I would have never been doing this.
And I've been doing this since twenty eighteen. So, I had just said, Oh, I'm just going to wait till I figure this out. There's a quote that everything is figureoutable. Everything is figureoutable.
And when I would hit a speed bump or a mountain in front of me, I'd be like, okay, we're going to figure out how to climb this. And you just got to keep going because it is so worth it. The families are going to thank you for it.
And it's just I've received so many paychecks just of the heart, just of families just saying how much they're so glad that I just jumped in anyway. Because I've told them, I don't have it all figured out, but I'm just going to go anyway. And I've figured those things out along the way and there's still things I'm figuring out, but it's still been such a fun, fun road and I would never take it back. I'm so glad I just jumped in.
I love that so much. And we talk about that at our clinic too. Sometimes you just have to start messy and you will figure it out.
And it might be a little stressful at first, but if you take it one step at a time, eventually you're gonna get to the other side of that road and you're like, I did it. Exactly.
And can I say that my house is completely organized right now? No.
I have piles of things all over right now. Obviously, I mean, I just moved into an office, so we're getting things moved over here. But yeah, so there's constantly things going on in my home where I'm like, Oh, I'm working on this. Oh, I got to get this laminated. Oh, now we're working on this. It's constantly shifting gears, but it's definitely messy. It is messy and it's an organized chaos, I like to call it, because I know exactly what I need, where I need it, and I can jump in and make my lessons.
Yeah, it's just one day it will be a lot more organized. But in the meantime, it's where everything needs to be for me to be successful with the kiddos I have right now.
And all the families that I work with are just so happy, so I cannot complain.
Exactly.
So Heather, can I ask, just thinking of listeners who might be interested in starting their own literacy practice, you've talked about what your day looks like now? Can we jump back to like when you first started? Did it look similar? Did it look different? Like how has your practice maybe evolved throughout the years?
So it actually looks very different right now. So when I first started in twenty eighteen, I only was working with a handful of small handful of kids and I was working at a school part time. They had hired me on to be the reading kind of like small group teacher for a grade level. And so I was pulling reading groups all day long.
And so a lot of those students, the parents were like, Hey, can you help us after school? And so I ended up working with those kids on the school campus after school with the permission of the administration because obviously it benefits them. And they were like, Oh, absolutely. We're totally fine with you working in the room you're in.
And so that was a beautiful blessing to get to do that. But at the same time, I didn't have a curriculum. I didn't have I was just, again, pulling from things that they were using already in the school. They were using a program called Read Naturally and I was kind of using some of that with the students.
But I just kept feeling like, oh, it's missing this component and I wish I had a little bit more of this here and there. And so it was a lot of piecing things together still. It was still ordering things online, going through those education sites, purchasing things, and then my whole computer had so many files of programs that I'd purchased and it was like, Okay, do I already have this? Does this have this in it?
So it still didn't feel very fluid for me. It felt like it was very choppy for the students and I thought this is can't be right. And that's when, like I said, that's when I went back and got my Master's in Reading and I learned a little bit more about what I wanted it to look like based on what I now know evidence would show for how our brain is learning and the science of reading behind everything of the methods we should be doing and all the different components we should be using, multi sensory, all those things. So as my knowledge grew then it was like, okay, now what I have isn't working.
And so even though I had done a lot of research in my master's program, looking at different reading curriculums and writing papers upon papers about these different companies available, I just wasn't happy. Like I was so picky. I was just not happy with what was out there. And so in early twenty twenty three, was like, I need to find something better.
There has got to be something. By this point in time, we have to have something that is more comprehensive with every piece that I want. I was just so picky that I spent two or three months just really going back to my original research, going back to the companies, calling and talking to them. And it still didn't have the components I wanted until I found Ascend smarter intervention.
Oh my gosh. So, I was just literally jumping for joy when I was able to find Ascend Smarter Intervention. And I was like, they know what they're doing. They have every component.
It flows. Everything builds. There's a scope and sequence. This is systematic. It's explicit instruction on every single phonics skill.
I was, oh my gosh, and they have spelling and there's writing. It just kept going and, and, and, and, and I was like, this is it. This is what I want. So, I was able to jump on a quick call with them.
They did it just like we're doing right now. They had a call and I jumped on about what does this look like. And they were teaching us a little bit about having our own literacy practice and what would that look like. And I was like, I don't even want to worry about that right now.
I want to know your curriculum. I want to know this. Tell me about this. Can I have this?
Can I use this? And so, was so, so beautiful that it all kind of matched up that I just I persevered. I was not going to give in and pick one of those other companies because they did not have all the components. And on top of the and and and and like it's digital as well.
I can do this on Zoom. I felt like this huge gift to just drop from the sky for me.
So again, it's so different now because my pieces and parts were not fluid. It didn't flow for the students, didn't connect. And now I have the Ascend Smarter Intervention Program and it is absolutely a huge blessing in my life, a huge blessing for my students. And it is absolutely it matches my education philosophy. It matches what I know that the kids need based on science and the evidence and the data and all of that. It just all combined to be this beautiful package that has helped my private practice just flourish.
Oh my gosh. How you articulated that is exactly how I remember feeling when I was a teacher in the classroom discovering Ascend for the first time.
And I have to say, throughout your whole retelling there of your journey of how you started, all I could think about was how great of a teacher you are because of your passion, because you were saying you were picky. But to me, that's what a great literacy teacher is. It's someone who's picky. It's not someone who's like, you know what?
I have these materials, I guess they'll do. Clocks out at three pm and is like, well, I did my work for today. It's teachers who are doing the research, are calling the companies, who are being like, I need something that is better than this. I need something that's going work for my students that has all these components.
I remember feeling the same way too. And again, I was in the classroom at this point. And when I was introduced to ASCEND and saw that, like you said, the and and the and and the ands, and they had all these components because I was also doing tutoring on the side as well. So I was a tier three literacy teacher in the classroom, but a lot of my students I tutored outside the classroom either after school.
And I definitely during summer, like basically had my own intervention side hustle, we'll say. And to be able to meet my students during that time and be able to give them the instruction they needed and to have everything I needed, I could see why you were gung ho for this private practice because you had the things you needed and you were so passionate and you knew exactly what you wanted and you had looked at the research and it's just so amazing to hear how your journey has started, how it has evolved, how it's going today. I love talking to you. And I think so many listeners are going to resonate with what you're saying, whether they've had those same experiences or they're like, she's really speaking my language right now, right?
Maybe this is something I want to pursue or I want to look closer into because I'm not feeling satisfied with what I have right now.
And they're doing the research out there, right? And they're looking at, How can I feel more satisfied in teaching kids? And especially if they are looking at private practice, because we do actually have a lot of literacy teachers out there, whether they want to do it as a side job, kind of like I was doing when I was in the classroom, or make it their main job to be private practice. I just think that this is a conversation so many people are having.
I think your experiences are wonderful for people to hear about.
Well, thank you. You are so gonna make me cry. I do. I I am very passionate, and I get it's so hard to put into words because I get very passionate, and I want my students to succeed.
You know, our children, the kids that we are working with, they deserve a teacher who is dedicated. They deserve somebody who is passionate. They deserve somebody who's caring because we know studies show if our kids are not getting these reading skills, it affects every other subject.
It affects their future. It affects whether they're going to have a good job. It is going to affect also their self esteem and their confidence. So many kids that have come to me in the past because they couldn't read, they thought they were less than.
Because they couldn't read, they thought they didn't deserve a good life. Because they couldn't read, they became a behavior problem in the class because it was better to look like the misbehaving child than to be somebody who was not smart.
And being able to unlock all these doors for kids is my absolute heart and passion that I want to make sure every kid is getting those skills, that they deserve to have an amazing life and that they are amazing just the way they are, and that we are here to just support them, to help them grow, and to bridge these gaps so they can be readers and they can be leaders and they can move on and have a beautiful, amazing life. And so, are the things that I look at. And so, I knew I needed a curriculum that would save me time from having to do all that back planning and pre planning when those hours could be with a child.
And so, ASCEND SPARTER intervention has been that saving grace for me to be able to have a curriculum that they prove there's workbooks, you know, the kids are working right in them. Obviously, I'm still using other games and fun things and incorporating movement and all the things we know our brain needs to learn, but the curriculum itself has everything I already need, Whether it's a slideshow to go with it, whether it's the PowerPoints that are interactive, whether it is even the games that we can print and the kids can play. There are so many components to it that save me time that my time is now spent with children, not on planning. Because to me, obviously, that's important, and we want to make sure we have all the things that they need.
But I was spending so much time on that component of the planning that it wasn't allowing me as much time to work with students. And so I'm very, very, very I just feel so blessed to be able to have this curriculum in this company where they are so open to hearing feedback and we have such a great community of being able to say, well, how did you teach this? And being able to give feedback, well, how do you organize all this? And being able to share ideas because I have a million ideas on how to organize things now because it's definitely come over time.
But again, my passion is with being able to work with the kids. It is building their confidence, building them up as the whole child. We're not just looking at one piece of it. And so again, I'm just so grateful for a company that aligns with my beliefs, my philosophies as an educator, as a mom.
Anyway, it's just it's been such a fun journey and it's so fun to share with others that if you're scared, do it anyway. If it's not organized, do it anyway. If it feels messy, do it anyway.
Because you just need to remember that there is a kiddo out there that is they need us. They're looking for us. The families are looking for us. And we don't have to know all the answers.
There's an example in that for children to say, you know what? I don't know, we can research that. Right? Just doing that.
Like, we don't have to have all the answers. So, if you're out there listening and you're thinking, hey, like this actually sounds like something I can do, you can. You can do it. And you can replace your teaching income.
I've done it. You can do this.
And it's just it gives you the freedom to have the life that you want and to be able to have the time with your family and also to feel like the most effective educator you can be. I don't know if this is just me, but as a classroom teacher, I constantly didn't feel like I was doing enough. I constantly felt like I couldn't be enough for the students, didn't know enough. You you're working with so many different levels of knowledge in a room that it is the most difficult job I think on the planet.
And I just want to say thank you to every teacher out there that is in the classroom, that is showing up every day for the kids. You are the heroes. You are the ones that my heart just absolutely just looks at in awe that you are doing this day in, out to be there for your students in the most difficult settings, sometimes without a curriculum, sometimes without guidance, sometimes having to be sneaky about what you're doing because maybe your administration doesn't agree, or maybe it's because they've thrown out a fifth curriculum in three years and you didn't even get to learn the last curriculum.
Keep going. Your kids need you. And if you're feeling like this is something that maybe I wanna try this, you can do exactly what I did where you can branch out and start building something on the side to where you feel like maybe I could just branch off and do my own thing because it has been an absolute blessing for me, for my students, for their families, and even for my family for the flexibility that I've had. And I feel now like the most effective educator that I've been in my whole twenty years as an educator.
I just feel like I'm finally in a place where, you know, the knowledge is there, my experience is there, and now I have the freedom with my own practice. And I just I wouldn't change a bit of my journey. It's been so it's just been it's been different. It's been a different road.
I've paved my own path every step of the way. But I knew, like I said, since I was six years old, that I was going to be an educator and I didn't know what that would look like and it didn't matter as long as I was teaching.
Oh my gosh. You're talking about tearing up yourself. I'm like tearing up. Because you're you're absolutely right. And teachers do face a really hard time. They've got so much stacked against them. I will say too, at ASCEND, we've been talking about our twenty twenty six goals and what is the new year going look like for us and what do we want to really focus on this year?
And we know that we always know, right, that teaching is a hard job. It's always, like you said, it's one of the hardest jobs out there.
And we know that teachers are facing lots of different struggles. They're doing their best to overcome. And we know there's so many roadblocks out there.
And one thing we've talked about is we just wanna make, when we're talking about our content, we're talking about how we can make teachers' lives easier, how we can make it so, like you said, you can spend more time with your kids. So you can feel good at the end of the day of what you were able to accomplish with your kids. And you're able to go on too and also have the time to live your own life too, because one thing that so many people outside of education don't really know is how much educators spend of their own personal time doing that lesson planning, doing the preparation, thinking about what do I need to do next. So, so much of that time. So I'm so glad, Heather, to hear that we've been able to help you with that and you are doing amazing things with your kids and we could even just be a small part of that. So this is why we love talking with you, Heather. And this is why we're so happy you agreed to be a guest on our podcast.
Well, you so much. It's definitely a privilege to get to chat with you guys every time. And I'm just so grateful for just the company that you are, the heart you have in this and that the time and dedication that you're constantly creating new goals and you're constantly trying to look at how can we do something better. And you're looking for feedback from those of us who were, you know, using the curriculum right along with you. And so coming from my side of it, we just I wanna say thank you for the dedication that you put in because it really means a lot and it really is touching so many lives.
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Because at the end of day, we do know what is important.
And like you said, it's our kids, it's our students, and it's also our educators who are working so hard every single day to the point of exhaustion, honestly.
And the company was started for that reason, to help kids.
And then it grew into, let's also help educators. Because honestly, we're all in this together. Let's create a community where we can all be successful together and see it happening in real life with you. And then to be able to, like you said, get your feedback, hear what's going well, maybe we can make some updates here and changes here. That's our mission as a company is to really be there for our users and for our students and for the families who come and see us or who are affected by what we do.
And I think just one other thing I would say too, for anyone that's looking to do a private practice or even to use this in their classroom, that what's beautiful is like whether you're going to use a whole group or if you're going to use it just for your small groups, if you're doing tier three, whatever it is you're choosing to do, the beautiful piece either side is that the curriculum follows a scope and sequence, right? So, kiddos, if they're missing a gap, can backtrack a second and build those back up. At the same time, if you're doing private practice, you're able to kind of keep on that skill as long as you need to. Obviously, I continue going, but I can think of a story of a student that it took them like four or five months to finally understand the digraphs for CH and SH and to understand the difference between and to hear it. It really took the student a long, long time.
And this student wasn't even didn't have a diagnosis of anything. They weren't even on a specific five zero four, an IEP. In fact, the student was actually in kindergarten at the time and they were getting so frustrated and wanting things to be perfect. And, you know, took X amount of months to get them to break out of that habit of, we don't have to be perfect.
We can make mistakes. We learn from those mistakes. And at the same time with the curriculum, being able to keep going back over that skill in multiple different ways of practicing, whether it was through the mini books, whether it was through looking at the slides again or going back to the workbook pages, we were able to kind of stay on that skill as we needed until that finally was like, okay, that kind of clicked. Even for a second, had to just move on and then come right back to it.
And then just developmentally, that just finally clicked. So I think that's just one thing I wanted to add for anyone who's looking for a curriculum, whether they want to use it in the classroom, whole group, or they're trying to do it for small groups, whether it's tier three, tier two, whatever you're looking at. And then even for private practice, just the freedom we have to be able to, if we needed to, stay on a skill a little bit longer. Just for them to be able to feel like they mastered it instead of where it's so rapid pace in the classroom to where they feel like they're just kind of drowning.
So it's just another component that I love about the curriculum of just being able to kind of go at your own pace if you needed to.
Absolutely, yes. And that's definitely what we always encourage too is do what you need to do for that student and definitely, like you said, keep going, but you can keep going back and practice until they get it. And there will be those light bulb moments, right? Like, they'll all of sudden be like, oh, and it might take a while, but if you give them that space and that structure to be able to learn and, and like if it hasn't come across clearly to listeners yet, I I just have to say it. Giving them that safe space, which you definitely do to be able to learn. And like you said, make mistakes.
Absolutely. And like learn together and to teach kids like, know what? Sometimes I don't even know the answer. Sometimes we're going to have to learn this together.
My kids sometimes ask me questions. I'm like, That's a good question. I don't actually know the answer to that right now. Let's figure it out together.
So that, again, Heather, you are just, you're a real blessing to your students, and we just love hearing all the things you get to do with them.
Well, thank you so much. It definitely is something I take a lot of pride in, is having it be a safe, effective, loving learning environment. It just I really take a lot of pride in that too. That I want my students to know, like, that I really care about them.
Like, every session starts with them. How was their day? How was their week? I try and check-in with what specials did you have at school today?
Really, that they realize I'm not just here to make them do more work. You know, that they come to me, I know them, I know what's going on. We celebrate their birthdays. We celebrate successes.
We celebrate those little moments. In fact, my little student this morning that was just in here at nine a. M. She wrote out a word and it was absolutely beautifully written.
She's in first grade and just such a joy to work with. And she was like, Miss Heather, do you see this word? And I said, I do. I didn't want to interrupt you because I didn't want you to mess it up.
It was going so well. And she's like, Oh my gosh, I'm circling this and I'm going show my whole family. And she was so excited. It just made me almost want to cry because I was so excited for her that the handwriting was absolutely beautiful, perfectly spaced.
And she was like, it was a new word she learned in the day. And it was just anyway, those are the moments that we all live for as educators. And I just am so blessed that my students feel so comfortable with me that they can share that with me. They don't have to hold it in.
They can have that outburst for a second and be like, Oh my gosh, did you see that? You know, and just getting to share it even in their day. Sharing with me what's going on and just getting to have that moment of excitement with them with their successes and sharing silly stories when we make mistakes. Because I I share silly stories all the time of, you know what?
I forgot this one time and then my feet really hurt because I forgot my shoes, the right ones I needed. And so guess what? When I went camping this year, I remembered those shoes because I remembered last year that my feet hurt. So I brought them this year.
I said, Do you see that's how our brain remembers when we make a mistake? It says, Oh, we don't want to do that again. So, they just like, they have fun hearing my silly stories of why our brain remembers more when we make a mistake. That we're not here to be perfect.
We are here to make mistakes and that our brain will absolutely go, Oh, okay, rewire. That's, that's what I need to know. And it works with even with spelling, To where our kids, they're not just going to get it. We have to explicitly teach it to them.
So I'm so thankful for all the modern research and the, all the research that Ascend Spider Intervention puts into what they do so that our kids are getting exactly what they need for how their brain is going to learn.
I love it.
Heather, thank you so much for joining us today.
And for our listeners, we wanna take a minute and reflect. Does any of Heather's experiences resonate with you, where you are right now? And if so, what's one thing you can do or one message you can hold onto based on this conversation?
If you are in our professional learning community, drop a comment in the group and let us know. And if not, send us a message on Instagram and let us know. Heather, again, thank you so much for being here and sharing your experience, your knowledge.
We are so grateful for you.
And is there any place that you would like to share where our listeners can learn more about you or even just maybe get in contact with you, ask you some questions if need be?
Absolutely. Thank you for asking. And I just wanna say it has been an absolute honor and a privilege to get to be on here with you. It is always so much fun getting to chat with you and the community.
That is another goal that is on my horizon is to have a website up and it's not solidified yet, I don't want to announce any of that yet. But if you have any questions, I am so happy to chat with you over the phone, email. And so the easiest way right now is through my email. It is nextlevelreaders, all spelled correctly, nextlevelreadersgmail dot com.
And I'd be happy to connect with you, to share with you my journey, answer any questions of what I'm using, how I'm organizing the curriculum from ASCEND Smarter Intervention, and any of the platforms I'm using for my video, online kiddos, or even down to like what I'm using for my billing and tracking system. I'd be happy to share any of that information with you. Or if you just need to chat, I'm here to help be a cheerleader for you and just to cheer you on in this profession. I think that a lot of times our teachers just do not receive the recognition that they deserve.
And I'm here for you.
I have been where you've been. I've been in the classroom. I've worn so many hats, and I'm just here to answer any questions, to provide you with support.
It's just in your journey and just to say like, you've got this, you can do it.
Amazing. Not to add another hat to your already many hats, but I mean, you would be such an amazing coach and guide for anyone who's looking to step out into their own literacy practice or even just an educator in general. You are such a calming presence and you are someone that I would have loved to talk to when I had started my educational journey. I love talking to you now, of course.
So, but again, if you are in a professional learning community, Heather as well, so you can always drop a comment in there and ask Heather any questions. We will also include, Heather, your email in our show notes so our listeners can find it a little bit easier. And then if at any point you do have that website up and going and you wanna share it with us, we'd be happy to add that to our show notes as well. But again, thank you so much, Heather, and we just wish you the best of luck in everything that's going to come.
Thank you so much. It has been an absolute pleasure to get to share with you today and just to get to chat. It's just so fun.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Smarter Literacy Podcast. Make sure to subscribe for more strategies and insights to make delivering effective literacy instruction easy or at least easier. And if you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend or leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcast. It really does help others find the show, and we are beyond grateful for your support. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Happy teaching.
