Emily Hanford

It's coming for every subject because direct and explicit instruction is the most effective way.

And so I'm really excited how Emily Hanford's gonna frame it.

Um-

Great

And then I found Teacher Twitter.

And the very first article I read was Emily Hanford in her own words.

And I was like, okay, that's it.

This is it.

but the ability to hear a story, the ability to comprehend some curiosity around vocabulary and language.

But yeah, you've got to make it all happen.

I remember when during the pandemic, there were some articles about kind of questioning the whole notion of what is school for, right? When all the schools were closed, it begged the question, what is school for? And Emily Hanford wrote a brilliant piece exactly saying what you said.

I think

And I haven't really heard of a lot of reading specialists at the high school level.

And I just started researching and I just started listening to Emily Hanford's podcast and every podcast and opened a Twitter account and started following anyone and everyone who had anything to do with adolescent literacy.

and started literally Googling what credential is this? Where do I, how do I do this? You know, I have my master's in special education and 20 years of experience, but I actually am lacking the knowledge that I need to identify the missing skills that my students have.

I did not know specifically what a phoneme was at that time.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Behind the Milestones, featuring your relatable and passionate Gen Z co-hosts, me, Emily, speech pathologist.

And me, Joey, occupational therapist.

Join us as we share entertaining, emotional, intriguing, and relatable questions and stories together on our show.

Let me start by taking you back.

I'm talking way back.

This is early primary school-aged Emily, me, watching how the teachers are teaching us how to read.

I very distinctly remember the teacher saying, "Look at the picture to help you read the word." And six, seven-year-old Emily was like, "But that's not reading." Let's fast-forward.

I'm at a uni lecture, and we're handed a book, except there weren't words in it or letters as we know it.

So I just started posting this and eventually coincidentally or serendipitously or, you know, whatever word you want to insert there.

Emily Hanford started really doing some research and really working on a new piece.

And she reached out to me.

I tell people all the time at first I got this message and I thought it was maybe just spam.