All right. So we're going to bring our last Smarter Literacy Chat of this season, which is so exciting. And we're actually going to flip the script a little bit, which is exciting. So I know that this summer, Lindsey has been bringing you conversations with so many different educators, administrators, from private practice to public schools, it has been so amazing to hear these stories.
So thank you, Absolutely. And today what we want to do is, like I said, want to flip the script and bring Lindsay's story and we have some exciting news.
And so I just think this is such a great way for us to cap off the summer. And so Lindsay, thank you so much for joining on the other side today.
It does. It feels weird to be on the other side, but I'm so happy to.
So this, of course, is gonna sound a little bit different, right? Because your background is so varied. You have so much incredible experience. And so I would love for you to kick things off just by letting us know a little bit about where you've been and where you are.
Absolutely. And, I mean, I know that in my conversation with our other guests, I've kind of let my past kind of peek through a little bit here and there. So but now everyone can kinda get the the full picture. So I actually started out right in public schools.
And I, so I, after receiving my bachelor's as an English education major and then my master's in literacy, birth through twelve, I entered the workforce as a seventh grade English teacher for three years, and I loved it. However, I always knew that literacy is what I really wanted to do. So, I got my first job, actually technically first, in Rochester, New York. And then shortly after moved to Buffalo, New York, where I worked with my seventh graders.
And I was hired in Orchard Park, where we heard from Sarah, Orchard Park Middle School specifically. And again, I I loved it. And I really worked a lot with my kids, even as a seventh grade English teacher, on literacy. Like, what could I do to help them with their literacy in the classroom? And after my third year, a position became open in our middle school for another reading specialist. And like I said, that, you know, that being my master's degree, that being really where my heart was, as much as I loved working with my kids and my team, I decided to go for it and applied for the reading specialist position.
And I got it. And that happened to be the school year nineteen to twenty twenty.
We love that one. Yeah. So the school year started out great. I mean, it was an interesting position because I was doing tier three intervention mostly.
However, I did have a couple of sixth grade reading groups that were like our whole sixth grade, all the kids got reading, and so was one of their classes, and I just happened to be a teacher. And I was a little bit more of a tier two intervention. So I had more students, and these kids were kind of flagged from the different teams as needing a little bit more reading instruction. However, they weren't quite tier three.
So I had a few classes of that and then some tier three instruction.
So the interesting thing about instruction, though, especially at the secondary level, was we didn't really have any curriculum.
So it felt like a very choppy year to begin with, and I'll go into that a little bit later. But then the pandemic hit and I had to learn very quickly how to be able to adapt reading instruction to online as we moved to online instruction with our kids.
That continued a little bit into the following year where we had some kids that were hybrid, who stayed home, who did come to school, but like on every other day.
And so the first few years of my actual reading instruction felt kind of nuts, I'm not gonna lie.
Absolutely. I mean, one, you're jumping into a new position, right, and trying to figure out what that looks like. And I think it's not unusual not to have curriculum for those literacy, be it tier two intervention, or more of that special education, that tier three intervention, just not to have anything is so normal, but then to add the added, oh, and now education as a whole looks entirely different overnight is wild.
It was I don't think I've ever been so mentally exhausted in my entire life just of figuring out like, again, and it wasn't just me, obviously. It was everyone. I remember that this is the new normal. Right?
That's what we were all saying during COVID. And it really did feel like, okay. Yeah. This is the new normal.
I have to roll with it, and every day was a new adventure, and it left you mentally exhausted at the end of the night. But we got through it. Then I, you know, so that was to twenty twenty one. And then it was twenty twenty four that I had the opportunity to be able to work with Ascend and to take a pause on my teaching here in New York, move to Colorado, and get to work in private practice, which I found out that I really loved.
I loved private practice, and I loved the, like, more flexibility, the the more autonomy it gave me as a teacher. Again, I I loved my public school teaching days, but there's just constraints that you have as public school teacher that are just time constraints, budget constraints. Not only did I have to be a teacher, but I was also a safety coordinator. And, you know, so I was in charge of one third of the building if we had fire drills or lockdown drills or we had to evacuate.
And it's like and then you had to attend all the meetings after school, union meetings, staff meetings. And so it just felt like there was a lot of my time that I wasn't able to devote to teaching. Whereas in private practice, was like, no, I can be fully focused on my student and their needs, and I can even respond more directly to families too and work more closely with them. So that's kind of where my journey has taken me so far.
And of course now I have my own practice, next chapter literacy solutions, which I'm very excited to talk about.
And I'm just realizing this is where I really have wanted to be for a long time. And I still have the greatest respect for all public school teachers and, you know, my coworkers who are still back at Orchard Park quite mysteriously, but I'm definitely excited by the path that I am currently on.
So exciting. It's just an evolution. And I think that's one of the things too to recognize is that there's always an evolution. And so for you, even the evolution from being in English language arts with your seventh graders, and then evolving into that reading specialist role and then evolving from there.
And so I think you hit on something really important. And I think it's important to recognize that there are different constraints when you are in the classroom or in a public school setting, or really any school setting, and what that looks like when you are in private practice or intervention, because I think sometimes there can be this idea that, I don't want to say that there's like a warring necessarily, but, that's what they're doing privately, and that's what they're doing in the school, and I think it's just the reality that there are just different constraints that you, again, are facing in the public schools that you aren't necessarily facing when you get to work with students more one on one, or even if that's tutoring over the summer.
And that's something that you do in addition to your public school, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about, you know, you mentioned the safety coordinator and the fire I'd love to hear a little bit more about what did your day look like, especially when you were in public schools and you had some tier two and some tier three, what did that look like? And then, I'd love to hear more about what that ended up transitioning into.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So at our school, we honestly had a pretty good system kind of set up. So we had reading specialists who were tier three.
We had reading specialists who were tier two, and there's been some years where there's kind of been like an in between person. So when I first started off and I had my my tier two reading instruction, at the time, school had really bought into Readers Workshop as many schools had. And so that was kind of being used within a tier one, tier two. I even taught Reader's Workshop, you know, when I was a seventh grade English teacher.
I remember arriving at the school and being told, like, this is the curriculum we're using, being sent to all the the reader workshop trainings and everything. So we had that.
And when we're talking about reading comprehension and we're talking about kind of doing those deeper level reading, readers workshop could work really well. But when we're looking at kids who, you know, were struggling to read, I was like, okay. This isn't going to be the answer they need. So, again, that first year before COVID before COVID was even a thing, it was, okay. How to adapt this for kids who are in a tier two. So those those classes that did have a tier two system. And that's really where I went to the other tier two specialists.
And, again, not a strict curriculum. It wasn't that we were using one curriculum. It was we were kind of using multiple curriculums to be able to find passages, find books, find materials that were really good reading material for our kids, but also accessible for our students, and then being able to teach this targeted strategies.
So they were my and honestly, the other tier three reading specialist too. She had been there for, she actually, she and I started the same time. We were hired the same year. However, she was hired directly into reading specialist position.
So working with my coworkers to find those materials, to work with the kids, to best meet those needs, It was a lot of trial and error that first year. And then again, like I said, COVID came and it was do the best you can. So then the following year, when I was strictly tier three, the school had decided, okay, we have enough kids that we need two full time reading specialists that are just tier three, and we need to have these three as tier two specialists. So it was a lot of us sitting down and being like, okay.
How are we going to determine when a student needs tier three versus when a student needs tier two? And how are we gonna determine when we have the students in tier three who are feeling like, you know what? They're ready. They're ready to move on to tier two. And I have to give a lot of credit to my tier two colleagues because they even set up their own classes where one teacher kind of took the highest of tier two, the other teacher took the middle, and then another one took the lowest. So it could kind of be, like, a gradually moving up.
So that way, the the teacher who had the tier two kids who were so close to just needing to be in in just tier one could work with them a little bit more quickly and make the room. So that way when the quarters ended, we could kind of check-in and be like, okay. Do we have any kids we can bump up? Anyone can move?
Is there a spot open? Do we feel like this would be a good spot? And so it was a lot of open communication. We were a small department, but we were a very high functioning department.
And it was going to each other and being like, know, this isn't working. Do you have any suggestions?
And so that second year was a lot smoother, but still lots of bumps along the way.
I believe it was the third year that we had a new reading specialist hired into the district who was actually going to be our high school tier three reading specialist.
And she came in with a lot of experience from her old district.
And she had even said to us, hey, have you heard of this thing called smarter intervention?
I love that.
She's like, I discovered this during the pandemic. She's like, when I was sitting home trying to figure out how do I help my kids, I was seeing a lot of their videos. I was reading a lot of their blogs. She was jumping in on the coaching calls, and she's like, I really like their stuff, and I feel like it works really well for the kids our age, you know, six and up.
So the other tier three specialists and I, we were able to talk to our building principal and the high school principal at the time. And we got a professional development day where the three of us were able to sit down. We looked through Ascend together, and for me, it was like, this is it. This is what I have been looking for.
It is so cohesive. It is everything I needed to be able to to target the instruction for my students, but to hit every single skill. Because at that point, we had been using words their way, and it was great for word recognition. However, there was no comprehension piece.
There was no vocabulary piece.
And even it taught the the patterns fine, but I didn't feel like there was a lot of practice involved. So it was kinda like, teach us pattern, move on. So that's where I was like, I need to do something different with my kids. And so the Smarter Intervention, we were able to again, we got approved when we were like, okay, this is it.
We got approved from our building principal to each get a license. And that rest that year, so it was I think that was like, I wanna say January, it was like right after the holidays that we got approved. And I spent the rest of that year trial and error with the DSI program with my kids. You know, I did training when I could, but it was already the middle of the school year and I'm like, can't lose any time.
I'm going to do the training over summer but I just got to dive in with these kids. I have enough understanding so far that I'm not completely new to this so and I even said to my kids bear with me guys I'm just figuring things out alongside you and honestly that made the learning more fun for them too because I was like well what do you think if we did it like this way or this way and they had suggestions and honestly that was one that was the year I remember feeling like oh my gosh. I can do this without it being, like, so hectic, so messy. It's just it had been so messy before that.
And then so then I did do the training that summer. I took the the full training, and the next year came back even stronger and I had the same kids. So at that point, our tier three kids, if they hadn't moved out of the tier three class the year four, they were back with us and the school was really good about keeping our kids with us. So there was two tier c specialists and whatever students I had the year before stay with me and whatever students my coworker had the year before stay with her.
So that way it wasn't like we had to reintroduce ourselves to new kids. It was like, hey. How was your summer? Great.
Are you ready to get back into things? Awesome.
And that was the year that I saw so many of my kids make so much improvement. I was able to send several up to our tier two. The following year, we had a kind of like a tier two point five. So we still had, like, extra COVID money and at that point. And we were realizing because of COVID, there was a lot of kids who were falling not quite in a tier three, but not quite ready for a tier two. And so we created this unique position that was a tier two point five. And so when they weren't we felt like they were doing way too well to be in our classes in tier three, which could only be three kids max anyway.
We decided to maybe not quite ready for a larger tier two class. They went up to a slightly larger tier two point five, and that was working really well. I've now come to understand that currently at Orchard Park, there are there's not a tier two point five position, but also I'm not sure if it's needed quite as much anymore because, again, a lot of these kids were kids who had experience learning during COVID and they were online learning. It was an every other day situation.
So they were just a little bit behind. And so the need might not be there as much anymore, but they do have three full time tier three specialists, as well as the three full time tier two specialists and still work in very much the same way where they are like, okay, let's try to organize our kids around. So that way their learning is as fast as possible with all the constraints that, like I mentioned before, that do come into public school. Because like you said, public school, they're just you want to work miracles and they're just you can't all the time just because sometimes you don't have the money for it and sometimes you don't have the you don't have the time for it honestly is a lot of the thing because god bless all the the counselors and everything who have to do scheduling for the entire school because, oh my God, that is a mess I never ever wanna touch in my life.
But it sounds like, you know, I think some of the things that are coming up for me are that you did have some really clear systems in place. And I think one of the biggest things is being able to look at your students, like you said, to identify who needs what and where do these students need to go. So what is the level of support that's needed? So it sounds like, you know, one of the things that you had in place, which I would say, hopefully everybody has or can get this in place, but how are we identifying the students and what the need is?
Is this a need that can be addressed relatively quickly? Or is this something that is more impactful that they're gonna need a significant amount of time? And I think the idea that you're looking at students be at every quarter or a few times a year to see where are we at? Are we starting to close the gap?
Can we potentially move to less support and continuing to have that I think is so helpful. So it definitely sounds like you guys had that in place where you knew, all right, who are my students and how do I know who needs what? And I think that's a beautiful thing of that the two versus two point five versus three, it's being continuously thoughtful about what do my students need right now and maybe that was different at a certain point because for example, COVID or who knows, you know, what else might pop up, but just being really responsive to that. And so I think that's so beautiful, but then also being responsive to, okay, what is the programming now that we need?
Because sometimes it feels like you said, like, I'm putting this piece and that piece and I know all the pieces, but I'm just trying to stick it all together. And so it sounds like you guys just continued to have open communication about what does this need to look like and what does it look like to then transition you from one year to the next. So I just love that. Think it's a lot of work and effort that you and your team and everybody put in.
So I think just recognizing and being proud of that work is so important.
It was so amazing to be on a team with everyone who really cared, like really cared about the kids. It wasn't just a job that we were clocking into and clocking out of. It was like, how can we make this better year after year and never settling? Because, again, every year looks different, the needs of your incoming students are gonna be different from your students who you had a year or two years ago.
And then also, will add too, being able to communicate confidently and freely with the other teachers that these students are having, so they're content teachers. I worked a lot with several of the ELA teachers to be able to talk a little bit more about what else can be done within the English classroom. But then also just being like, hey. You know, to all their teachers, like, these are accommodations that so and so really needs in order to be successful in your class.
I'm working on helping support and build their skills, but right now when you're asking them to read a text or to answer these questions, please really try to have these accommodations in place regardless if they had IEP or not, which again, many of our students did have IEPs, but just being able to have that communication with with other teachers to be like, this is why we have this accommodation, and this is why it's important. And they were very open to it too. So just getting our kids to feel like, hey, we are trying our best for you everywhere, meant a lot.
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like one of the things that you keep kind of bringing up too, and that I've been thinking about a lot recently is just that confidence in instructional decision making, right? So the confidence that, okay, I feel good about what I'm hitting. I know you mentioned like, oh, there became a certain point where I finally felt like, okay, I feel good at this.
I feel like I know what I'm doing. And then that allows you to feel more confident than to go in and have those conversations with the content area teachers, and to be able to talk to families and to be able to just have conversations, because you feel confident in what's happening. You're no longer trying to recreate lessons or trying to build something or trying, like you said, the messiness goes away and you just feel like, I know what I'm doing. So because I know what I'm doing, I can just trust the process and I'm more available for these other types of conversations or this other type of support.
I can go to that for my students in other ways now, because I'm not spending all this energy, right? Trying to put together, I don't know, something cohesive, something that feels good. So I just love that. I feel like that was something maybe that your team just continued to look for is where can we build that confidence in our instructional decisions?
And I have to say, so when I was serving other duties, like being the security personnel and, like, just all the other things, like, if we had a fire drill and I had to put on the vest and I had to grab my walkie talkie and I had to send my kids with someone else because I had to go check all the rooms and get out to the my side of the school and go to all the teachers and make sure all the kids were there when we got back in and we got back to the classroom I could take that vest off put my walkie talkie down, and jump right back in. So that's where it also helps with my other roles as the teacher because in public school, you're never doing one thing. So yes, I could be focused on making sure that everyone was secure when I was working in the safety zone, but I could just come right back to my classroom. My kids and I could get started right back, and that in itself was, like, a big thing because you do not wanna waste time in a school day.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh my goodness, the work that you do and so I guess that can kind of take us into, so how have things changed? What do things look like now? Which obviously you're in just such a different space now, like we said, there's the evolution of your teaching journey and your teaching career. I'd love to hear more about what does a day look like now that you're not doing the fire drills, you're not doing all of that? Where are you at? What's going on?
Right. Yes. Well, very first thing, you know, all my time that I do have, especially when I'm sitting down with a student, is dedicated just to the student. I don't have to worry about all those other things popping up, which is really nice.
There is that sense of kind of relief of like, it's just me teaching. Right? And so this is the one part where like literacy practice is very different from the school year and even just the summertime because I can have kids sporadically throughout the day. But once you're in private practice, generally, your kids are after school.
I do have a couple kids who are in homeschool, and I do meet during the day.
However, it's really making sure that I have the time saved for after school. So honestly, I've kind of been able to ask myself, okay, what else can I do? I can definitely certainly continue to look for more clients and more families to help out during the daytime if there are any homeschools, the kids that I can reach out to.
But then there are other interests that I have as well.
Curriculum work being something that I've been passionate about since I was in grad school and that I've loved doing in the past with Ascend. And so now I'm able to contract out to different places to help out with different projects. I was recently working at like an English honors project that was a lot of fun.
But I'm also able to take on other jobs. I'm also working in a job right now where I'm buying books for public libraries in New York State.
That's feeling of passion and So it is so great. I mean, again, my heart and soul really is in my literacy clinic, which is mostly online. I definitely can meet students in person, but I have to say I've been really enjoying teaching virtually with kids and it seems to be going well. I've got quite a few students now and my students actually enjoy the online, you know, and I think their parents do too because it's just like, it's one less place that the parents have to run to.
I think we've finally gotten out of the fear post COVID, right, of virtual learning and that feeling like, oh my gosh, this is the worst thing ever. We're never going back to this to being like, oh, wait, actually, there are opportunities in which when you have everything in place and feel ready, not like we did when COVID all hit and we weren't ready, that it's so successful, right? That you can do this and just have a system and it makes things so much easier in terms of accessibility, right?
It really does. And I mean, also our technology really allows for it too now. You just jump on Zoom, you hit the share button, you share remote control. You can pull up lots of things.
So they're typing. They're writing. You're they're doing they're working the manipulatives. It is so great.
And for anyone out there who's like, yeah, but you can't really have the same kind of connection virtually. I have found that that is not true at all. I have one student. I've been working with her now two and a half years.
I she and I have never been in the same room together, and yet I love her to death. And she and I have private jokes. We laugh. I know she's a huge cheer like, she loves cheerleading.
She's, like, in two different cheerleading groups. I'm helping her with her her summer project right now. It's been so wonderful to work with her. And, we have never been in the same room.
So anyone who's, like, thinking, but okay, but like what about the bond? Like what about the communication? It can still all be there. Like sometimes I forget that I'm talking to them on a screen.
Yeah. I really It's almost like you're just across. Right? Absolutely. No. I'm with you. I I agree.
Yeah. So I really think that that's where I'm gonna be going for the fall is just virtual sessions.
Which honestly is one of the beauties of having private practice, right, is that you get to design. You design, you choose what works for you. And I think that's one of those things too, there's just shifts and of course there's pull right of, all right, it's nice to have a set schedule that is just like, here it is, go. But on the other hand, to be able to really think about what works for you and what are the times that you're able to work or willing to work and what does that look like to open you up for other things? And so I think, again, if you decide virtual is it, then beautiful, then that's what you And I agree. I think it works so well.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's it's been fun. I so since moving back, I've reconnected with old friends and coworkers who've been asking me how how my practice has been going and, like, how I do it.
And when I tell them, they're like, that sounds so great. You know, again, there's lots of teachers who maybe are looking at retirement. I've got a few friends who are looking at retirement, but they're like, but I wanna be able to do something. I'm like, you know, think about what if you open your own clinic and or I've got, you know, some who have little kids and or are thinking about starting a family and really wanting to be home with them.
And so they're asking me more questions and I'm like, honestly, it's a great way. Like, if you you can do this from home and you can bring some extra income in or, you know, have this income and be able to still teach and do what you love, but also be there for your family. It is great. And, like you said, Corey, you are able to kinda set your what your practice looks like, your flexibility.
And it's honestly a very wonderful thing that I know as a teacher, personally, I I felt like I was missing because I was just here's my schedule. Every teacher will tell you all your doctor's appointments are in the summer because that's the only time you have to meet with your doctors.
You know, you can't take, like, a vacation other than the school holidays or summer break, which, of course, is when every airline is so expensive and everything with teachers are like, we this stinks. Like, I'd like to be able to just go randomly in March or February when it's, like, cheap and stuff, and I could get out of here.
But, you know, so there are there's, you know, there's so many pros and cons to everything, but when I have mentioned it to some of my teacher friends, they were like, that would be so nice to be able to do.
Yeah. And you're like, absolutely. It just takes it just takes a big a big jump, a big leap of faith. So we're so excited for you and just what that next chapter looks like. I love I love the name. I think that's so well done.
So thinking of next chapter, what is your next chapter look like? What's what's next for you?
Yeah. So this is kind of like it's it's gonna be funny that, like, I'm gonna say it's really exciting because I don't know. I don't know exactly. So I just moved home in end of May, beginning of June, started my practice up. So it's it's been going for a couple months now. I've just started this new role with the libraries.
But the thing that I have learned is that right now in my life, I love being open to new opportunities, seeing what comes my way. Do I want to build this practice out to being something that's more full time where maybe I do have more clients during the day? Do I want to keep it as is and continue to pursue other passions?
I don't know the answer right now, and I'm actually kind of excited by that because for the longest time it's been, okay, Get done with college. Get a job. Okay. Continue.
Continue. Continue. You know, build up your up the retirement ladder and this and that. And and once I kinda took the jump of because it is.
It is scary to leave the public school system because you are, you know, you are in New York. You are in a union, a very strong union that fights for your rights. You have retirement built in, and it's you just keep going up each year.
And then you have a lot of benefits that come with being a teacher. And I'm not knocking that because I I do know how hard that is to leave, and I'm just lucky that I I don't have anyone who's reliant on that insurance other than myself. So I do understand that I have a bit of privilege there, but it was it was still really hard to leave. I just knew that this this opportunity that came up for me was something that I was never gonna see again. And then if I didn't take it, I was gonna really regret it because it's something I had been dreaming about.
And I'm so glad I did because I gained so many skills beyond the classroom.
I strengthened. I'm like, oh, I can do private practice.
I'm not gonna lie. Like, honestly, during COVID when we were stuck at home and everything and I was wandering through things, I looked into how to start your own literacy practice. And when I started talking about all the business things, I'm like, yeah. I don't know how to do that.
So I'm just like, I guess it's not for me. You know, I shut it down that quickly because I was just like, I have no idea what I'm doing. But being able to work in private practice, you know, a private practice that was already thriving, I gained the skills there. I gained knowledge there.
And so when it was time for me to be able to start my own practice, I felt confident. I'm like, oh, wait. I can do this. And now I'm actually taking the skills that I've learned there, and I'm applying them to this new job.
Like, it's just it's scary, especially in a economy that isn't exactly thriving right now to feel like a little unknown and to not have a straight and narrow plan. But I'm also loving it because this is the space that I have where I feel like I'm actually truly growing the most that I have ever done in my life. It is true. Like, you do the quote unquote hard things and you grow and you learn more about yourself and you're like, woah.
Actually, I can I can do cool things? I can be that person. You read about these people all the time who've done like really cool things and you're like, that's awesome. I could never do that.
It's like, no, you can.
Absolutely. Absolutely you can. And I think sometimes it is it's just having that faith and believing in yourself, or just being willing to it, like you said, at least can you take the next right step? All right, what available to me now?
And I love that. I love what you mentioned too about the unknown, and just loving that space. I'm with you that I've always been like, okay, this comes next and this comes next, but I think that there's just something so beautiful in let's see what opportunities come my way. Let's see what the universe throws at me.
See what opens up and it can be so beautiful, but you do have to be willing to take the hard choices sometimes to do that.
Yeah. No. And I mean, I get it.
We're not really taught on, like, how to persevere in hard times. It's like, no. You get you get to a point, and that's you just stay in the shallow end. You just stay there. And I when I moved back and I started my practice, and I knew I had my practice going, but I didn't know what else was gonna be going on, I said, I'm gonna take this year. This is my year.
I'm gonna see what comes my way.
And when this this position with the library opened up and at first, read the, you know, the job opening, I'm like, I don't know if I'm quite the right person. I'm like, I don't have all the right qualifications, but I still applied anyway. And when I went in for the interview, I I was kind of asked the question of, like, so do how do you feel about the job? And I said, honestly, I told myself I was just gonna this year is kind of a new start for me. I told myself I was gonna give myself the year to, like, figure out what I wanted to do and just leave myself open. I had applied to some other jobs, hadn't gotten those jobs, but I was like, well, maybe kind of meant for this position, you know? It just it kind of felt like it all came together.
And I I said I I just feel like this was kind of meant to be and now I'm For anyone who knows Lindsay, just thinking about how perfect this is.
If you don't know Lindsay, you've got to go follow her on Goodreads because of the number of books, just reading, she loves reading. She's a voracious reader. And so I think hearing about this, I was like, oh my gosh. Could there be something more perfectly aligned to just your interest outside of being able to explore some of those different things can just be so beautiful.
Exactly. Exactly. So I just don't have regrets right now, and that's that's wonderful. And I I can't wait to see what comes next because I don't know.
Well, I'm so excited for you, and thank you so much for taking time to share about where you've been and where you are and also where you're going into that unknown. I think that can be such a light for others to be able to see, like you said, okay, people are doing this, right? People are making shifts every day and just trying to show up the best that they can each and every day. And so you're such an inspiration. So thank you for all that you do.
Oh, well, no. I mean, honestly, this could not have been possible without you and without Ascend. I mean, my heart will always, always one hundred percent be with Ascend because they have helped me help so many students and families.
And so that's part of honestly that confidence guy was able to grow confidently because of the work that Ascend has done.
That's amazing. Well, thank you so much. And we are wishing you the very best, and obviously we are going to be in touch the entire I'm so excited to continue to hear about your practice and everything else that you're doing. It's like I said, it's so inspirational. So thank you and thank you for all the light and brightness that you have brought to Ascend and to the podcast and just to everything, it's just so amazing.
Oh, you're welcome. It has been such a joy. I've loved talking with everyone and I've loved talking with you for all of our episodes.
Until next time.
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 podcasts. It really does help others find the show, and we are beyond grateful for your support. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Happy teaching.
