Mastermind Testimonials

Very easy to understand and a great breakdown.

As a secondary teacher, I’ve never taught syllables or vowel sounds. This was entirely new learning that I enjoyed.

I enjoyed this mix of in-person and individual learning. It provided me with a better understanding of how to teach foundational literacy (phonics) to middle schoolers. I feel better prepared and confident about how to approach this instruction for my struggling readers.
The asynchronous lessons were organized and allowed me to work on them as I had time. The content was beneficial and helped me understand how I can help struggling readers.

I am Candace B., and I am currently teaching first grade. Literacy Masterminds have helped me really hone in on the phonemic awareness and all of the arms of teaching literacy! I have a small group template that I can use and update weekly for individual students and my small groups. I felt supported by my facilitators and my team that I worked with! I learned quite a bit, including how the brain works when students are learning letters and sounds! I’ve been ignited!

The best thing about Literacy Masterminds is learning the science and the WHY behind everything we were learning. Having the tools and deliverables to immediately implement and do the work with our students has been so helpful. I would absolutely recommend Literacy Masterminds to a colleague who wanted to grow in their understanding and practice of teaching kids how to read!

I teach kindergarten, and my name is Ms. G. The best thing about the Literacy Mastermind is that it gave new light on how children learn and how best to promote success. I feel the knowledge learned will make a significant difference in the approaches going forth in our school community in teaching literacy. In talking about the class, I would let my colleagues know it is informative, inspiring, and beneficial because it demonstrates benefits we as educators can use to get our students reading. I give it two thumbs up!

I am a Literacy Coach for grades K-5 and have participated in two Literacy Masterminds PDs. The content has been so informative and relevant, and the presenters are engaging and knowledgeable. The facilitators do an amazing job connecting the material to experience, answering questions to clarify information, and creating opportunities for meaningful interactions between participants. The skills and resources I’ve acquired through participating in Literacy Masterminds have made an invaluable impact on the reading abilities of children in the classrooms I serve.

I just completed my second year as a third-grade ELA teacher, and Literacy Masterminds has been crucial to my professional development. With each session, I felt more prepared to teach my students. Thanks to Literacy Masterminds, I not only have a better understanding of how the brain learns to read, but also how to best foster this learning through my instruction.

I was reluctant at first and not excited about “another training,” BUT I will say I unexpectedly found it useful. As my days as an elementary school student a few years ago 😏… I do not remember how I actually learned to read words, and I struggle to help an 8th grader who only knew her ABCs this year. While it is not every student that needs this intensive intervention, it has helped her build confidence as she can read and spell better than she did in August. These skills can help students who struggle with grade-level ‘big’ words as well.
And also, as I was learning these basic reading skills, I found I was able to help my own 2nd grader with his homework as he was learning CLOSED and OPEN SYLLABLES LIKE I WAS!!!
It is basic literacy learning I didn’t know I needed. Thanks!

As someone who has always taught secondary, I found it very interesting to learn how to help students break down words into their syllable patterns for decoding. We have so many struggling readers; this will assist me in designing effective lessons to meet their needs.

My name is Aliyah and I am a 4th-grade teacher in Southeast D.C. I love how adaptable this program is and they actually listen to feedback and make changes almost immediately. I have been able to express concerns or interests and find it implemented in the following week’s lesson. This has been the most responsive program I have EVER done. This program has really helped me to build my skill set to teach phonics to upper elementary since there are huge learning gaps I see on a day-to-day basis. I feel way more confident now in my ability to teach and identify phonics gaps which my school did not support me in. I HIGHLY recommend this program to anyone looking to gain more insight about foundational learning skills and the Science of Reading as Literacy Masterminds (Hannah and Seema!!) have been God sends to me on my journey as a first-year in-person teacher. Thank you so much again and I look forward to taking more classes!

I’m just now trying to implement some of the strategies in my lesson and seeing some results.

It was more personable, being small. The information was given as a conversation vs. a lecture.

Gave new eyes on how I teach reading

I feel more confident working with teachers and building their understanding of the science of reading.

I really enjoyed the bite-size pieces from week to week. Each week built onto the one prior and I had enough time in between to practice and explore with students.

The decodable texts and weekly plan were SO SO great!

I love to use what I have learned in this PD with my students.

This session was helpful. The written lesson plan was clear, but the modifications we discussed are things that I want to try to make it even more accessible for all of my students. I have no suggested changes.

I liked the collaboration we did in sharing various ideas. I cannot think of changes I would recommend.

I liked brainstorming instructional ideas.

I got a feel for how I will introduce the lesson to my students and the flow of it.

I loved this session because it really felt responsive to what I am experiencing in real-time and what I need.

Really grateful for the opportunity to share my dilemmas and get feedback and suggestions on them to be solutions oriented.

I liked the opportunity to troubleshoot a real life situation and to connect with other participants.

I love the content around the importance of encoding. The article we read in the on-your-own learning was super interesting and helped prepare me to get the most out of the learning today.

It was knowledgeable to learn more about the “why” when it comes to spelling, as it really challenged the perspective I was introduced to when I first started at my school.

The sight word routine & practice was really helpful!

I really enjoy the practice piece. It was really helpful to jump right in, practice the skill, make mistakes with adults, and think through how to roll it out with students.

The session was good. It gave me an opportunity to practice what was taught.

I looked at what I am teaching in class and am seeing new ways to introduce concepts.

I can use everything that I learn and that we discuss immediately. I loved it!

Today was particularly helpful because of the planning time and feedback! I have a small group plan that I can use tomorrow.

It was very informational and giving time for practice and questions helped a lot.

The model was quick and helpful and prepared me to begin my own planning. I had a sufficient amount of time to plan and ask questions.

Having time to script out a lesson plan that I can use tomorrow with the kids was amazing. I was able to work through it and also ask questions along the way.

I love that the videos [from the course] can be implemented right away.

I’ve enjoyed this course and am looking forward to more with Literacy Masterminds!

We were a small group so the material was tailored to exactly what we needed. I appreciated having thought partners as I planned concretely for next week! I liked being able to take the resources that were given to us and think about how they will best work in the classrooms I serve.

This PD helped me think through fluency goal-setting and self-evaluations for my students. It was good to brainstorm ideas, but now I need to process them and decide on best ways to present to my students. Small group today, but excellent session, thanks!

I didn’t know all the final syllables, so it was helpful to see them all listed out. I’m realizing that final syllables show up often in Tier 3 HS content area vocab words, so these will likely be a high leverage item to use in vocab exercises.

It was interesting to brainstorm [lesson] modifications with another teacher.

Very informative about syllable types! Also useful to learn about the purposes for silent e (besides VCe) — I have taught some of those rules to students, but never presented all of them together like that and I feel like that information is critical for both decoding and encoding.

Really eye opening and SUPER helpful! Wow!

This was incredibly enlightening! I wish every teacher, no matter the grade level, had this kind of education.

This course is amazing if you’re looking for solid information about HOW to teach fluency, which I didn’t understand clearly prior to this course. It really gave me the time, space, resources, and confidence to get better at specific planning for student fluency. Also, Hannah and Seema are amazing! This course was a 10/10!

I now have a fluency routine to use.

This was a safe & warm environment to learn and grow as an educator and learner.

I enjoyed the time to read, collaborate, and start planning!

It was so helpful to brainstorm an alternative fluency routine for my schedule. I was able to think through some logistical things about how to make the routine more flexible!

I liked having the choice for what we were working on and how we would work (partners, independent, etc.) and the support from facilitators

This Literacy Mastermind PD helped me understand how to go deeper into planning for fluency with my students. The instructors provided solid research to explain the WHY, and then made the application really accessible for me to implement!

The quote that has really stuck with me about fluency is that students need two things to develop fluency — to hear fluent, modeled reading . . . and to practice that same passage. This helped me simplify my thinking about what we needed to plan. The fluency routine was a really effective way to show how we can go deeper into a text to support fluency.

I would strongly encourage my teaching colleagues to enroll in a Literacy Mastermind course. The instructors are motivating, in addition to knowledgeable. Further, while the content includes theory, it is also highly practical, enabling its quick and effective application in the classroom.”

This is a great opportunity for teachers to apply best practices in structured literacy and respond to their students’ needs in order to accelerate their reading growth!

I feel that the time is well spent. I am learning, but it is not stressful. I feel as though I can put things into my practice immediately!

Good refresher on concepts that weren’t explained to me in college. The approach was easy to understand and I’m confident I can teach this on my own.

Concrete examples that I can steal! Love it.

Another eye-opening week! I really enjoyed practicing how I would teach syllables to students!

I loved the practical lesson ideas, practice, and sharing with peers.

I loved learning evidence-based practices to improve my students’ learning fluency!

I’m very excited to apply the learning from today! Thank you!

It was really helpful to have a concrete plan about how to teach fluency when time is already scarce as it is. It truly makes me really excited and pumped to get started and move my kids along!

The time to adapt what we are learning about to our own specific circumstances was useful, as well as the support provided as we worked. It was helpful to troubleshoot who needs to be assessed and how to plan to fit those assessments in. The guiding questions were helpful because even though the time was short I was able jot down some concrete steps. I wish we had more time!

It allowed me to reflect on where I am as a decision maker right now for my students’ instruction. This means I’ll use next week to observe and gather more data. Then I can plan with my collaborating teachers. I wouldn’t change anything about this PD!

It was helpful to talk specifically with colleagues about their classroom experiences — seeing the learning put into action is inspiring!.

I think it was great to collaborate and give information, as well as gain new insight on how I can go about fluency.

I got valuable feedback. It pushed me to think more about fluency and how to encourage it more in my classes and across the school.

Great to connect with colleagues about real challenges and generate potential next steps in such a short amount of time.

I liked the structure of this PD and the time to collaborate.

We were a small group, so the material was tailored to exactly what we needed. I appreciated having thought partners as I planned concretely for next week! I liked being able to take the resources that were given to us and think about how they will best work in the classrooms I serve.

The feeling and energy in the room (particularly for a zoom meeting) was fantastic. I also really enjoyed the symbol reading. It really provided some great insight into what happens in the brain.

I liked the overview of how our brains decode. It was an easier explanation than what I have learned in the past.

Very clear explanation of the six syllable types and built importance for how this can be used for educators of 3rd grade +

Loved the introduction to syllable types as this is the type of learning I needed but never got, so thank you!

I think that the practice and the explicit focus of this PD is very valuable.

Loved the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues today about our goals and practical ways to apply this learning to the classroom.

Loved being able to talk things out with peers and share my suggestions.