Adolescent Literacy, Episode 4: A proactive response to the adolescent literacy crisis, with Kymyona Burk, Ed.D.

Hey listeners, it's Susan. My second substack post is up. I wrote about teaching as professional work and why teachers need supportive systems. I hope you'll check it out and subscribe at scienceofreading.substack.com. Going forward, I'll be sharing more insights and takeaways from my podcast recordings as well as my overall adventures in the world of literacy. Again, subscribe today at scienceofreading.substack.com. We've been very proactive with early literacy, but more reactive, I believe, in adolescent literacy when it comes to middle school. This is Susan Lambert and welcome to Science of Reading the Podcast for Amplifying. This is the final edition of our adolescent literacy miniseries. So far, we've explored models, best practices, and school-wide approaches for supporting adolescent readers. And today, we're joined by Dr. Kim Yana Burke to talk more about best practices in middle and high school, as well as the role that policy can play in this work. Dr. Burke is Senior Policy Fellow at Excel and Ed. She has previously joined this podcast to discuss education policy and literacy legislation at the K-3 level. Today, we'll explore how policy and legislation can also support adolescent learners. Just in case any listeners need a quick reminder about Dr. Burke's career, she has a career in teaching, coaching, and state-level administration that spans more than 25 years. Prior to her current role, she was the state-literacy director at the Mississippi Department of Education, leading the state implementation of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, which aims to ensure that all students are proficient readers by third grade. Dr. Burke is also a former high school literacy coach and she'll share some learnings from that experience. Remember to check out our free summer learning kit for middle school literacy instruction. This kit brings together strategies, checklists, and activities designed specifically for middle school educators, and you can download it right now at amplify.com/adolescentliteracybundle. There's also a link in the show notes. One last note, we recorded this conversation with Dr. Burke in the spring, just before the end of the 2025-26 school year. Now let's hear from Dr. Burke. Well, today we have Dr. Kimyana Burke joining us again. Welcome, Kimyana. So great to have you again. Thank you so much for having me. This is actually the second time that you've been on the podcast. The first time you joined us, I can't even remember what season that was, but we'll link the listeners and the show notes to it. But you joined us to talk a little bit about policy and early literacy and some of the moves that were happening there. So we're going to extend on that a little bit, but before we go any further, I would love if you could remind our listeners who you are and how you came to the policy work at Excelin N. Well, as you mentioned, I'm Kim Yana Burke. I am currently the singer policy fellow for literacy at Excelin NID. Now I'm noticed this time, Susan, I said for literacy and not early literacy. You did. I did. Because we are entering a space in which we're expanding on our early literacy efforts across the country and including adolescent literacy. But I work with states across the country that are looking to champion early literacy laws. So working with policymakers and our advocacy team on one hand and then on the other, work with state education agency literacy leaders who are responsible for then implementing those laws. Like that's where the rubber meets the road. I'm the former state literacy director at the Mississippi Department of Education. And you know, with my team, I've led something that people are calling a miracle these days. But we know that it definitely wasn't a miracle. Just a lot of hard work with a lot of dedicated people to the efforts. And so I'm excited to be here today to talk about this other frontier, right? This being advanced now in several states across the country. I'm excited to talk about it too. It's been, you know, I think with middle and high school teachers, it's kind of been a hot topic for a while. You know, they have been wondering where do we fit into this early literacy space? What should we be learning? What should we be doing? So I'm really excited to chat with you about this. So let's just get into it. You have this new or renewed focus on adolescent literacy. Can you talk to us a little bit about why you believe it's so critical now? Right. Well, you know, I am a former secondary English teacher. So I have taught middle and high school English. And I was a teacher who knew how to teach English, but did not know how to teach reading. And so I'm sure so many of our educators can really relate to this, you know, with having older students in your classroom who are struggling to read and you're wondering like, what do I do? So I really didn't at that time know what to do about it. So I think that right now is a critical time because, you know, again, over 40 states now have passed early literacy laws around improving cake three. But the reality is that there are still students sitting in upper elementary and middle school and high school classrooms that need support. We've been very proactive with early literacy, but more reactive, I believe in adolescent literacy when it comes to middle school, right? We're identifying students who have deficits in reading instead of being proactive and ensuring that teachers can address any gaps that students may have during tier one instruction. So now with our focus on expanding our cake, reliteracy efforts, it's just important to take this proactive approach, which is going to be similar. I know we'll get into kind of the specifics of it, but similar to K three, but you know, as we talk about developmentally appropriate practice, right? In the early grades, then there are also some things that are going to be kind of unique to that fourth to eighth grade space. Yeah, you know, we talk a lot about the NAEP scores. We talk a lot about them in fourth grade and eighth grade and then in high school. So, but we've never really sort of addressed what happens after third grade. So I'm assuming that sort of where this work fits in the space. Yes, you're exactly right. I mean, there's a literacy crisis in middle school too. Right. Yeah. In high school too. And so we have to take this both and approach, right? So we have, again, started with K three, we know that there are things that work. We know that focusing on evidence-based practices, supporting teachers, students and families, we know how to take this comprehensive approach. And I think that we had to do that, right? We had to see something working to be able to say, okay, now it's time to extend this beyond third grade. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the strong foundation is so important, right? Yes. We can start there and work up from that. That's awesome. So you mentioned a little bit about it, but I really like you to get into the weeds about what is different and what is, I mean, there's some similarities, right? But how does this compare between adolescent literacy and we're talking policy, right? Right. To the early literacy policy. Right. So I'll start off with some of the similarities. And some of the similarities you're going to see, we still need to support our teachers with the knowledge, right? And the best practices. So professional development is evident, identifying students with universal screeners, right? So identifying those students who may be at risk for reading failure. I think that this particular component is not as prevalent in middle schools. We talk a lot about the early identification in the early grades, but the screening of students and actually doing something about that, right? With the interventions and the additional supports is really not as widespread in middle schools. I'll talk a little bit about how we can address that. The materials matter. So in both ensuring that we have the right materials and also opportunities for students to have individual reading plans, right? So how do we know that the interventions that we're providing for students are working? And being able to expand that to our middle school students is really critical in following their progress or knowing if they're regressing, right? Before the end of the school year. A lot of times in states, as we look at our state assessments, third through, right? Eighth grade and then of course, our high school end of course, those really kind of become the only measures that matter, right? What happens at the end of the year? But by then, it's too late. By then, by the time we get the scores back, I think it's like the summertime. And those students have now progressed to the next grade. And so how do we ensure that we're collecting data along the way? So screening in middle school, again, not as widespread, but now it's one thing that we know can help us identify students much earlier and provide them with the supports that they need. And then there's the parental notification. There's a lot of support from parents, from tutors, from grandmothers, reading to students, from cupcakes with moms and all of those things in elementary school. We just don't see those types of efforts in a lot of our middle schools. Yes, they're happening in some places, but this is not kind of a consistent practice. So ensuring that parents are also notified and also stay engaged in middle school students progress is also going to be critical. Now what's different? I think it's going to be the how, how we do these things, but also the different types of content that our secondary educators are going to need to learn more about how to address students reading difficulties and also what to do about it. So in our adolescent literacy policy, we have really kind of an ask for interventionists, right? Although some may exist in elementary schools, many times the teacher is the one who's also providing kind of that small group instruction and intervention and pulling the data together to get the small groups. So asking for interventionists in middle school, and the reason why we're asking for interventionists in middle school is because of scheduling. It's very difficult to, we don't want students to miss their tier one core instruction in their grades. And so how do we allow for opportunities for students to receive interventions or, and, for those students who need enrichment, right? For that to take place within the school day. So flexibility and scheduling is gonna be extremely important in middle schools in order to be able to provide those interventions. But then also, what is it that our secondary teachers need to know about the science of reading? Or need to know about incorporating literacy strategies into their content areas? And so we talk a bit about in the policy, those advanced reading skills that teachers need to learn in professional development around advanced coding or morphology, especially around building background knowledge with so many texts that are now right more informational. So what they need to know, and then how to enhance or strengthen their instruction in their content area. You are the science expert. You are the math expert. But you also talk about vocabulary, right? That's associated with your content area, right? You also want students to comprehend what's associated with your content area. So making sure that those types of skills and content related skills are taught to teachers so that they can better read that into their instruction throughout the day. - Yeah, that's great. Great, and a lot of information there. So I'm gonna take just a tiny bit step back. You've been talking about your model policy language. Is that right? You have on your website something that is, here's what good policy could look like. Can you talk a little bit about that? - Yes, and so at Excel and Ed, we create what we call a model policy. Sometimes there are states that will take our model policy and just put the state's name in the blank, give it a title and they go from there. Other times, states take our model policy and use it as a starting point and say that these are some of the things that we are ready for, which is why it's so important to have the conversation about what states are ready for, what their readiness level is. Some states will say we don't have the funding to put a literacy coach in every school. So instead of this part of the language, we're gonna say a literacy coach in our lowest performing schools, right? So that's what our model policy is for, for states to be able to customize those components into what best fits the kind of the landscape of their state and the supports they're able to give. - Yeah, and I find your model policies, both the early literacy and the adolescent literacy model policy, super instructive two for classroom teachers. So educators that are on the ground doing the work, don't be afraid to click into Excel and Ed and look at this policy because it does outline best practices, it gives you sort of a big picture in thinking about even if your state isn't focused on adolescent literacy right now. Here's some ways maybe we could start, would you agree with that? - Yes, I agree with that. And I do want to, you know, because I always say that I'm a teacher first. So I do want to say that when it comes to policies sometimes, since then teachers feel like the policy is happening to them, right? They weren't considered, you know, all of a sudden they get an email, you know, or there's a staff meeting and someone comes in to say, hey, our state just adopted this policy and now we have to change these things. And so you're right about this kind of proactive approach really on behalf of teachers to just kind of see what's out there. I know that there are teachers who like me, again, are maybe wondering, you know, wow, this child has made it to sixth grade or seventh grade. Where are the supports? And so this is an opportunity to really kind of learn about those best practices that should be taking place. In middle school, and if you don't know where the supports are, ask for them, right? If you think that your child is struggling and you don't know what to do, ask someone, find your people. Is what I say, I'm sure you're not the only one. But yes, you're exactly right for teachers, for best practices, for school districts, right? Although it's considered a state model policy for school districts and those who want to really kind of be proactive in this effort, it's also for you. Yeah, yeah, that's a great reminder. A couple of things too, the before we move on is, you talked about universal screening. Yes. And how that's not common in middle and high schools and coupled with that, the time to actually provide intervention for those students that have been identified at risk for universal screening. Right. Why are those so important for middle and high school? Well, because, you know, we always say one data point does not tell the entire story right for a student. And again, these are preventative measures. There are always a lot of conversations about testing and over testing. Well, to know where students are, you have to be able to write, have a screener. And a universal screener really does one of two things. And identifies those students who are at risk for reading failure versus those who are not. And so now you can provide that type of target support that those students need before they get the report card or the parent comes to say, right, what's happening, right? You can already begin your interventions. Then I think that again, we rely a lot on state assessments or just on teacher mate tests. And the teacher mate tests are considered those kind of check points, those formative assessments along the way. But the screeners tell us what that deficit is that may be keeping the child from comprehending, right? And then we know exactly what to target. Because sometimes you hear, you know, well, they're having trouble with comprehension. Well, it's going to go a bit deeper than that in most cases, right? Is it fluency? Is it the vocabulary, right? Is it the decoding, like what specifically is it to remedy that deficit so that then it can increase students achievement and increase their comprehension overall? Yeah. And once those universal screeners have actually been given to those students, you've identified those areas, then you have to have time in your schedule to be able to close that gap. And that's hard too. Yeah, I mean, it's hard for elementary schools, right? In some cases. And it's especially hard for middle schools with scheduling. And so we are at Excel and Ed developing S/EA, state education agency guidance. So we are going to release a guidance document this year before our national summit to go along with our policy. So this will be our first time doing that. And we're very excited because again, we don't want states or schools or districts to say, well, this is too hard. I don't have anything to reference as to how this should be done. So we really want to be able to give them that type of support where they, again, a plug-in play, where they can give it to their schools and districts as to how, but also be able to modify it a bit to meet the needs of those specific districts. Yeah, that's great. You've seen some states that have started to take on some adolescent literacy policy. I'd love if you could share an example of one that's done a good job on the path to that. Well, Virginia in 2022 adopted the Virginia Literacy Act, which is a K-3 effort, right, similar to what other states have been adopting. But just one year later in 2023, Delicate Corner decided that she wanted to expand that, almost immediately to fourth through eighth grade. That law actually went live this academic school year. So in 2025, 2026. So we are waiting on data, right? To see how well that law has really kind of been able to make an impact. And we also know that things don't happen overnight, because the structures are being put in place. So with the Virginia Literacy Act, which now includes kindergarten through eighth grade, they require evidence-based interventions for their students in middle school. Again, talking about the scheduling or when you should provide those interventions, they do allow for the flexibility, you know, the local flexibility for determining how. Whether it's before or after school or also during the school day. They require the student reading plan, screening, professional development for teachers, and they have an approved list for six to eighth grade intervention programs. Now, if you go to Virginia Literacy Act's website, when I tell you Susan, they document it all. They have all of their memos from their meetings, their PowerPoints. So if you really want to see kind of even the steps that they're taking in order to ensure that their implementation is strong, then they have all of those documents, their lists, and all of those things that are live on their website. - Wow, nothing like transparency there, right? - Yes, exactly. Which is what we need. I mean, we're all learning from each other. But there are also some other states that are working on it. - Oh, let's tell me more. - Well, you know, I'm gonna start with Mrs. Cipi. Mrs. Cipi just closed its legislative session last week. And out of that session, Mrs. Cipi just adopted an adolescent literacy policy. - Congratulations. - Yes, thank you for the eighth grade. And honestly, it is almost identical to our model policy, right? Except for it includes eighth grade remediation. Opportunities for eighth grade students who are still having some difficulty to be enrolled into what I'm doing. remediation course. But Mississippi just passed its law. We have Maryland who has introduced an adolescent literacy policy through state border education. Maryland also used this approach with their early literacy policy a couple of years ago. So instead of through the legislature, they're introducing it through the state border education. You also have Louisiana. Now, you know, the southern states sometimes Susan are the ones that are leading the way. So Louisiana introduced policy a few weeks ago as well. But also there's Indiana. So Indiana passed a fourth through eighth grade policy a couple of years ago. Their policy focuses on intervention, but also requires the state Department of Education to provide guidance for schools and districts as to how to provide those interventions and what those evidence-based interventions should look like. And then I'll end with my other neighbor with Alabama, they've put millions of dollars into an initiative called struggling readers beyond grade three. Now, it has initially been expanded to include four through sixth grade, but it is grounded in their multi-tier system of support framework, but it also includes professional development for teachers, interventions, parent notifications, right, in the student reading improvement plans. And I'm sure you're probably seeing a lot of discussion and other states too as they start to think about moving beyond just this early literacy policy. So I'm guessing you're on the road a lot talking with lots of folks and trying to help support that movement. Yes, I am on the road a lot. And you know, sometimes it takes that type of conversation. I call it stakeholder awareness. There are some unique opportunities that I've seen recently with some education committees in the legislature asking for a briefing, right? So even before the legislative session starts, they want to be able to ask questions to learn all they can so that they can make more informed decisions when these types of policies come up, right, for a vote. In other cases, I was recently in Pennsylvania, right, for their day of action, for the Pennsylvania literacy summit. Pennsylvania just recently passed early literacy policy, but there were over 150 educators with maybe 70 partners to teach plus PA who are all advocating to now receive the funding to ensure that the implementation of the law that was recently passed is actually put into place and done effectively. So there are a lot of opportunities to really get to the communities to the stakeholders because a lot of it is a misunderstanding. Like when I talked earlier about like testing when there are, you know, kind of these blanket statements like we don't want more testing. I understand. But we want the right kind of testing, right? We don't want testing for testing sake. Like we want tests that help us to inform instruction or to help us identify students. And sometimes that just takes a good old fashion, you know, hey, let's come together and talk about it. So I enjoyed the time on the road with all of the stakeholders, especially school board members, right, state board of education members who also are a really critical piece to these conversations. School boards are the ones who make the decisions, right, to purchase the materials. So they also have to be informed. So we have a lot of people who have a lot of stake in this game in being able to even be here, right, with you on the science reading podcast with all of your listeners and being able to educate those who just want to know more about it, I think is is very important. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think just a shout out to those middle and high school teachers who are trying to make sense of this all and and wondering, where are we in this conversation? I just want to say to them, you are in this conversation. And there's folks that are working to try to help support you and support your students. Right. Let's make a little tiny transition to professional development because you mentioned it just a little bit. Oh, so important. What about professional development needs to look different for middle and high school teachers than what it would look like for elementary teachers? Right. So in some cases, for your middle and high school teachers, and I'll say this too, in some elementary schools, their departmentalized beginning in fourth grade and fifth grade. And so this teacher is, you know, specifically all about the content. But with that type of professional development, yes, do they need to know the foundational skills or why those foundational skills matter? Like, why do students need to understand what a phone name is? Why do they need to know the sounds and why do they need to understand how to decode what does that do with their comprehension or how does it impact comprehension? So yes, they need to know that. But to the degree that they need 40 hours of that, right, is going to be a bit different than what our elementary teachers need is they are introducing these skills for the very first time. So in middle school and high school, then more of their professional development is going to focus on how to incorporate these literacy skills in their daily instruction again, in tier one. How do you pull out those vocabulary words? How do you teach those words with morphology, those types of strategies? How do you ensure that students know roots and suffixes and all the affixes that change the meanings of words, especially in science? Because if you know bio means life, then gosh, there's so many words right that may start with that particular prefix. And so just ensuring that those teachers have an intentional way of incorporating literacy in their content areas, but then also providing that type of content-specific professional development. So I think sometimes when we get our licenses, there's really not a lot of professional development on how to teach your content, right? It's just kind of understood, right? Your licensed in biology, you're going to teach biology. Here's the textbook and then you're just going to kind of teach it. I think we also need to invest in ensuring that teachers are able to strengthen their knowledge in their content area, which will then help them to reach more students and also help them to more easily transition with including those literacy appropriate skills, right? The students should know. And so in the professional development piece, how do we differentiate that professional development for our middle and high school teachers to include, again, those specific skills, some of which those teachers may not be aware of? And how do we determine how much they need to know as far as the gamut of the science of rating? So I think that New Mexico has done a great job with the modules that they have on structured literacy. And again, Virginia has also introduced some modules that are specific to content area teachers. So I think that that particular approach in those schools or in school districts that are looking to advance this effort, have to focus on kind of the readiness level, like what's the knowledge base for those teachers and the type of professional development that's adopted is going to matter. If it's really kind of left up to teachers to say, well, you can find something online, then you're not going to get as big of an impact as you would if you were to give guidance on the evidence-based professional development that's available. Yeah, that's really good advice. And just a reminder to middle and high school teachers are either even upper elementary teachers that do teach in that content area. Literacy is sort of a, can sometimes be a scary word, but every content area has their own vocabulary. Yes. It has their own syntax or sentence structure. The way information is communicated is different. And so I just love the idea that pulling all those concepts of language into the content that you're teaching will help you teach it better and help kids have more access to that content. Yes, exactly. What about any other advice that you might have for middle and high school educators or even upper elementary? Sure. I think, you know, with any new initiative, right? It can seem like it's just another initiative like suburban or even like it's a disruption, you know, to the way that you have taught. And I think that these policies are meant to give you the support that you need, that you didn't even know was available. I also think that not just for the teachers before I administrators, right? This has to be introduced in a way that really kind of highlights and lifts out the support that teachers will begin to receive as a result of this type of initiative. And for my teachers, lastly, be open, right? Be open to learning more, be open to getting feedback from your students, right? On things that they feel like they need more help with or that they aren't fully understanding. Look at your data. Look at your data, not just as numbers, but also as students and really try to identify what some of those difficulties may be. With screening and data analysis, sometimes that's also going to be new because we're used to looking at our teacher-made tests. And if 70%, or 80% of our students right have passed the test, then we're like, well, yay, we did our thing. But what about the 20% right? What has really stopped them from achieving, right? What they should do on your assessments, and sometimes it is going to go back to maybe there's a foundational skill or some type of skill that they haven't mastered yet that keeps them from doing that. So, be open to looking at data differently as well. I'm sure you can tell when I'm talking about teachers, right? I get this smile. You do? This may be good. - Yes, so all right, teachers, I'm with you. - It's always clear that you're with them. I love that about you. I'm gonna put you a tiny bit on the spot here, but I wonder, do you recall or have an example of a teacher that you have seen in middle or high school suddenly get an aha or teach something a little bit differently that they saw an impact on their students? - Yes, well, you're right. This is one of those questions you didn't prepare before. However, I have an answer. I was a literacy coach. It was that I don't know if you know that. I was a literacy coach at a high school. - Yes. - And my biology teacher, Ms. Susan Bender. - Oh, great name. - Yes, great name. - Ms. Bender was, she was actually my high school biology teacher. And then when I went back to teaching, she was still at the same high school. And she was then a teacher that I coached. - Oh, wow. - We'll start with a moment. - But she was always so great anyway, right? - Yeah, with all the experiments and all of those things. So when I introduced to her, like the vocabulary aspect, incorporating vocabulary, one day she was like, "Kamiana, come to my classroom." She had a word wall with like, I talked about with all of these prefixes, the relevant to biology. She had these writing samples from her students. And she was like, "Okay, just take a seat." I mean, and when she began teaching the lesson, I mean, she was just really engaged. She was checking for comprehension throughout. And she was a seasoned teacher and had been teaching for over 20 something years, but to see how excited she was about incorporating something new or seeing that her students were really kind of getting it and being able to express herself in such a creative way, like with her word walls and things like that. That was just so exciting to me. Also, there was a math teacher who did the same thing. I mean, she had, oh gosh, at that time, there was only 2000, so you had them to do a project with cell phone plans. And then they had to use all these different vocabulary words, but they had to compare cell phone plans, right? To see which plans were the best plans and then to write about it and all of those things. But coaching was also just an eye opening time for me to be able to support teachers in that way. And then like all of the independent learning that I had to do in order to not just kind of know what I was talking about, but to be able to play well with other adults, right? And form those relationships in order for them to even take what you say seriously, or to consider your suggestion. So yeah, thank you for asking me a question. - So knowing what you know now and the work that you've done now, how do you reflect back on your own time as a classroom teacher? And we can often be hard on ourselves to say, oh my gosh, I hear teachers say, and I've said it too, I've ruined children, you haven't ruined children, right? - Right. - But what would you say now to your former classroom teacher, self? - Well, when I first started teaching, to be honest, like I started on page one, I opened the book, yeah, the textbook, and I started on page one. And I had no idea about how to actually teach these concepts. I knew what I knew about them and I just started teaching. I think right now I would say to my teacher, self, to think more about what the students need in response to data, instead of pacing, right? Instead of saying, well, I need to finish this chapter by Friday, but really kind of understanding where students are and what they need and how front loading, right? Being proactive and putting these preventive measures in place, like really kind of figuring out what the challenges are with students. That's the key to their improvement or success on the back end, right? It just seemed like every unit, I was kind of starting over, but I just didn't know that it was something a bit deeper than the content itself, it was how they processed it. So really kind of knowing a bit more about how students comprehend what I'm teaching and then learning more about what to do about it. I think is what I would really encourage my younger teacher, self, to do. That tracks with the Kimyana that I know now. That's right. Yeah, to think about where the students are and how can we close that gap? That's amazing. Well, I wonder, what are you paying attention to next? What are your hopes and dreams related to literacy? Big question. Well, big question, but I have an answer for that. It seems like sometimes these policies and the policies that matter, it comes in waves and it excellen it. We've, I think the great thing about us at Accelinate is like, we're always thinking about what's next. Strengthening what's now and thinking about what's next. And we've had our eyes on educator preparation programs for a while. We even have a model policy that we've had for a few years on Educator Preparation Program Alignment. We recently released the Educator Preparation Program Literacy Policy Playbook. And yes. And so I'll have to make sure that you get that link and that you can share with your listeners. But there are a lot of conversations about the pipeline, right? We're spending so much money on professional development. And once teachers get into classrooms, think about how we can either redirect those ones to coaching or other supports if our candidates' exited programs are ready to teach reading. And so there are states now, I think also over 40 states, Susan that address in some way educator prep in response to K3 reading. So our goal now is to not only just identify that, okay, our ed prep needs support, but to do something about it. And the investment that we've made in teachers' knowledge in K3, we haven't made that same type of investment in reading faculty. And so there have been states now that are auditing programs that are saying, well, these programs have a certain amount of time in order to align with the science of reading. So what's really missing is the supports for that. Because if they knew how to do it, they'd be doing it already. And I think sometimes we forget that even faculty, they may have been trained in whole language, or they may have been trained in balance literacy. And so that's how they're training their candidates. But we have to put supports in place then for them to learn about the science of reading. And that's one thing that we have done in Mississippi. We've taken our faculty through training, science of reading, training. I think two cohorts of faculty at this point for them to learn about it. So I think putting that investment into faculty knowledge is really kind of the next frontier. But also getting the ed prep policy right, the materials that they're using in educator preparation programs are still right, balance literacy, in those types of things, the assessment approaches that they're talking about may still include running records. So yeah, educator preparation program. You're up next. You're up next. That's right. That's right. You must be feeling pretty optimistic about the science of reading movement across the country and the way that it's gaining momentum, but also in a really holistic way, right? Yeah, very optimistic about it. And also optimistic, and I know it's going to sound strange, that it's not just Mississippi. They were thinking like, this is an anomaly, something else is going on. But now when we see other states that are using a similar comprehensive approach, right, it's not a cookie cutter initiative actually. It's not an effort that you're going to see the exact same thing, the exact same way in all states. But to know that states are adopting the key fundamental principles like Louisiana, like Indiana, like Tennessee, you know, other states, and they are seeing improvement from that. And that really does give me hope. And I am, you know, just really surprised and excited, right, that this has been in conversation for over a decade now. I'm always asked the question, like, do you think this momentum is going to die down, right? Yeah. And I'm like, well, it hasn't yet, right? And we're going to continue to do as best for kids. You know, I always want Mississippi to be at the top. But you know, when we think about our country, when we think about our nation, like this is really something that's impacting all of us, even if students are in another state, right? How well they're able to progress in life and their quality of life and how they're able to contribute back to society impacts us all. And so yes, I'm very excited to see that this momentum continues and that states are strengthening their policies. Even states that have adopted policies recently are going back to say, well, we could have done better here. And they are adopting additional policies to strengthen their overall efforts. So yes, it makes my heart happy. It's so encouraging, so encouraging. Yes. Well, Dr. Kimiana Burke, any closing thoughts? The last word is yours if you want to have it. Well, I think my last word will be that we are in this together and that change is hard, but necessary. If we're going to move forward as a country, as a nation and for our future. So I'll leave with that. Thank you so much for joining us. It's always a pleasure and thank you for the work that you're doing at Excel and Ed. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work. That was Dr. Kimiana Burke, senior policy fellow at Excel and Ed. Visit the show notes. for links to learn about the work of Dr. Burke and Excelin Ed. We also have links to a couple of the specific resources she mentioned, namely the Educator Preparation Program Literacy Policy Playbook, and the Advancing Adolescent Literacy Model Policy Document. This is the end of our four-part adolescent literacy miniseries. If you missed any of the earlier episodes, you can find them right now in the podcast feed. Of course, we'll continue to talk about ways to support this group of learners in upcoming episodes. And please check out our summer learning kit, which is filled with evidence-based strategies to strengthen your middle school literacy instruction. You can get a white paper, e-books, and more by visiting amplify.com/adolescentliteracybundle. Again, there's also a link in the show notes. Next time, I'll be joined by Dr. Sonia Cabell for a conversation about the research process, including some of my own research. So what did you find? Oh, I was waiting for you to add. [LAUGHTER] That's next time on Science of Reading the Podcast from Amplify. I'm Susan Lambert. Thank you so much for listening. Hey listeners, it's Susan here to put a new research brief on your radar. Amplifies end of year early literacy data just released, and findings suggest that year over year early literacy gains are flat for the first time since the pandemic. Get a clear picture of where students are at and help plan strong instruction for the year ahead by checking out the full report at amplify.com/end of year data. Again, get insights and recommendations now at amplify.com/end of year data.