Wit & Wisdom, Geodes, and Really Great Reading Are a Winning Combination for Early Readers in Scottsbluff

Scottsbluff Public Schools (NE) adopted Wit & Wisdom® in the 2018–2019 school year, followed by Geodes® in the 2021–2022 school year. We sat down with the district’s ELA content area specialist, Jadie Beam, to talk about Scottsbluff’s experience implementing both programs alongside Really Great Reading® and the impact she has seen all three programs have on teaching and learning.

What did literacy instruction look like in Scottsbluff before Wit & Wisdom?

Before adopting Wit & Wisdom we used guided reading groups, and we really needed more of that knowledge-based instruction. So it was a big shift for us. When we first started Wit & Wisdom, we had been using Fundations for foundational skills for a year, but now we’ve transitioned to Really Great Reading and have had a lot of success in the last three years by changing that piece.

What has the difference been with Really Great Reading and why has that been working well?

I think Fundations is a great phonics program, but there wasn’t enough practice with connected text for our students. They were doing a lot of oral phonemic awareness, but it wasn’t transferring over to them actually reading. Really Great Reading has so much daily practice in connected text, and so we’ve seen more success with it.

What led to the decision to bring in Geodes?

We were missing that bridge in the middle: We were doing great with phonics instruction and great with that higher vocabulary in Wit & Wisdom, but we really needed to bridge it with books in students’ hands in those K–2 classrooms. They needed to have decodables, and we also needed to have Geodes so that students had strong connected texts for extra practice.

Did you notice any major differences in how Geodes worked together with Fundations versus Really Great Reading?

Click here for a closer look at the alignment between Geodes and Really Great Reading.

There are some guides out there on the alignment between Fundations and Geodes that helped us, but we really haven’t seen any problems after moving to Really Great Reading. Phonics skills come up in the scope and sequence of both foundational skills programs at about the same time. Teachers have had to look at the scope and sequence for Really Great Reading and Geodes and line them up and make sure they know what students are working on, but it’s really easy to do that. It hasn’t been a challenge.

Can you walk me through how your literacy block is structured?

In grades K–2 we have about 60 minutes for Wit & Wisdom, 40 minutes of phonics instruction, and 30 minutes of intervention time, or “target time” is what we call it, which is where we are utilizing Geodes. We introduce Geodes during core instruction but do all of the extra practice during target time.

We used to just do MTSS with our tier 2 and tier 3 kids, but now we do target time, and every kid gets it—we’ve had a lot more success in the last two years after making that shift. Our highest kids are soaring now. We’re diving deeper into Wit & Wisdom, doing more writing, and using the Geodes, which have really been great for our middle and highest target time groups.

How are you grouping students for target time?

We have FastBridge data and MAP data, so we use those two pieces of information, and the groups are flexible. We know, for example, that sometimes students just take off in grade 1. All the sudden, they can read. So we use data and change those target time groups as needed.

What does target time instruction look like for the different groups of students?

Our higher target time groups are sort of independent with the Geodes. We really want some time during the day that they’re reading independently and doing some of the comprehension. With the high group we’re trying to do a lot more writing, so we’re extending their writing with comprehension questions and also doing some free writing around the Geodes topics. And then a couple of my teachers are also doing some research around the books where the kids can get on their Chromebooks and research and learn more about the themes and topics. That’s just started in the last six months because it takes a little while to get it all going, but I think that’s what I’m excited about: the next phase and how we can really keep enriching those strong readers.

For our lower groups we do some pre-teaching of the words from the Inside Geodes® teachers guide, and we are actually doing phonics practice with those words that are introduced in the Geodes. We call it “word work” where we’re doing extra practice of the phonics skills we’re learning with those words before students are reading it in that connected text, which I think has been beneficial.

And then the middle group is considered “on track,” so we do a little bit of word work, but it’s more guided practice with the teacher. So the teacher might introduce the Geodes book and model it the first time, and then the students will read it independently. So they have a little bit of guided practice but not as much as that lowest group.

Where have you seen students really develop and progress the most using Wit & Wisdom?

I think in their discourse and their writing and just seeing students taking on the challenge of doing both of those things. There’s been so much growth in the conversations they are having and how they are thinking outside the box. And then the vocabulary is another big piece; the rich vocabulary has been so helpful, and we’re seeing students using it in class and transferring that vocabulary over.

How have you used Geodes to help support vocabulary development?

“…We have seen vocabulary really increase in grades K–2 with Geodes and Wit & Wisdom, and that would be missing if we just did a phonics program like Really Great Reading in isolation.”

I think compared to other decodables Geodes are really strong in vocabulary. There are some words that we may have to pre-teach because students may not be able to decode them, but Geodes are not traditional decoding books where you see sentences like, “Sam on the hill,” they actually use rich vocabulary. So we have seen vocabulary really increase in grades K–2 with Geodes and Wit & Wisdom, and that would be missing if we just did a phonics program like Really Great Reading in isolation.

Do students have a favorite Geodes text or set?

Students love the Geodes. The books are so high interest, from the stories to the pictures—all of it. Kids enjoy them, and it really keeps kids engaged so that helps teachers also. They love that the themes match what they’ve been learning in Wit & Wisdom, and I think that’s the biggest part. I know there’s The Lakota and the Buffalo and stories like that in Level 2, Module 2, and it’s been fun, since we live on the Oregon Trail, we also have a national monument and museums out here and they come and show kids a buffalo skin and things like that. So to have some of those stories, the kids are like, “Oh my gosh, that’s like at the monument! That’s what a covered wagon is!” So the stories students can connect to have been the ones that they enjoy the most.

“The love of reading definitely comes through Geodes, and it doesn’t end with the story. There’s so much you can talk about and go beyond, and I think that’s thanks to the vocabulary. It makes a big difference.”

The other thing is that kindergarteners feel like they are reading. They have a book in their hands, and I think that’s important too. The love of reading definitely comes through Geodes, and it doesn’t end with the story. There’s so much you can talk about and go beyond, and I think that’s thanks to the vocabulary. It makes a big difference.

Do teachers in the upper elementary grades see an impact now that students have had Wit & Wisdom, Geodes, and Really Great Reading for multiple years?

They do. Our grades 3 and 4 teachers say that they don’t have to adapt and modify instruction as much because the majority of their kids can tackle and read the texts now. Or they say they aren’t having to read as much to students because students are able to read the materials or raise their hand and want to read them aloud. So we have been hearing some of that and with Really Great Reading in the lower grades now, I think we’ll see it even more in a couple of years.

“We focus on the growth we are seeing more than overall proficiency. We’re seeing it in classroom instruction, we’re seeing it on some of our benchmark assessments that we give three times per year, and we’re seeing it in growth for individual kids, which is really motivating to teachers.”

We’d like to see some more movement in our state test scores—there’s still a little bit of a disconnect there—but we are also 68 percent free and reduced-price lunch, so we are pretty at risk. We focus on the growth we are seeing more than overall proficiency. We’re seeing it in classroom instruction, we’re seeing it on some of our benchmark assessments that we give three times per year, and we’re seeing it in growth for individual kids, which is really motivating to teachers. We’ve also found that our high performing kids are scoring higher than they’ve ever scored and we have more kids above the 90th percentile than we’ve ever had. So we love that our high-performing kids now have the opportunity to go even deeper with these materials.

Ultimately, I think the biggest motivation for our teachers is that students love the modules and love the books. For teachers and as a district, the love of reading is just as important as an end of year test score, and we’re fortunate that our board feels that way too.

What are the major implementation challenges that teachers have faced?

Wit & Wisdom is a hard program to navigate with that productive struggle, so a lot of times teachers want to step in and help students or read more than the students are because the texts might be challenging. So I have to help teachers balance that and say, “Okay, but what part can they read on their own,” and help them build from there. I think teachers who have taught the curriculum for more years are better at that, but for new teachers it’s harder.

When I got here, I think the key was letting teachers be honest about what was working and what wasn’t working, instead of just saying, “You need to be on this module or on this lesson.” The first module of Wit & Wisdom took longer in some of our schools than others, and I was okay with that because it was what that group of kids needed, and we always picked the pace up by the end of the year. Letting teachers have the time to learn the program and not feel so rigid to a pacing guide and giving teachers the grace to know when to slow down and when to go faster was a careful balance to strike early on, but it was an important mindset shift.

The really cool part is that some of our teachers have taught the curriculum for long enough now that they are really making it their own. In grade 4 they have a module about the heart, and our students actually go to the hospital and get caps and pretend like they’re doctors and have strawberries that they cut into. Grade 5 does a wax museum of different book characters. Grade 1 has a Cinderella ball at the end of the year that they invite parents to. In year one it would have been hard to do some of those things and doing them would have taken away from really learning the program and how to teach it the right way, but once you’ve taught the program for a year or two personalities can come out more and more. It’s really neat to see the little things that are happening that we can start to move district wide.

What professional learning have you invested in and leaned on throughout implementation?

We’ve really focused on doing a little at a time and coming back to PLCs [professional learning communities]. So we’d have PLCs each month where we’d go through a lesson arc so teachers would see what’s coming and what the end goal was. Then teachers would go teach, and we’d come back as grade levels and talk about what went well, what didn’t go well, and what we needed to change for the next module. I think that helped keep it from feeling overwhelming.

We have also done PD [professional development] with Great Minds and continue to do that. We did some initial stand-up PD and some classroom observations, and we continue to invest in PD each year, whether that’s a specific session or a Great Minds staff member coming to work with me in our PLCs. Ongoing PD is so critical with this program. We also have four staff members—two classroom teachers and two principals who used to be classroom teachers—within our district who train our new teachers. They work with Great Minds and get all the new training and updates, and they bring that back to us. I think to be successful people need to put that money into PD and make sure you have some internal leaders.

What are your priorities going forward and what advice do you have for other educators?

I think our priority now is just really fine-tuning our implementation and working on scaffolding for our English learners and special education students. I think teachers have taught Wit & Wisdom long enough that we could do a better job of that: We’re teaching all of the modules, now how can we make it better for all kids? I’d love to spend more PD time on that.

“…Really ask teachers to be honest about what’s going well and what isn’t…I think success is about not being afraid to say, ‘It’s not working, how do we need to tweak it,’ without just throwing everything away.”

In terms of advice, I would say, “Go slow.” Know that you aren’t going to be an expert in these resources overnight. Wit & Wisdom is a hard program, so do your PD and really stick to that year after year. Don’t just buy the curriculum, put it in classrooms, and then never talk about it. Build the capacity of in-house trainers or lead teachers who are experts and can really guide and help others. And really ask teachers to be honest about what’s going well and what isn’t. Then, when something isn’t going well, problem solve and talk about a solution to make it better. I think success is about not being afraid to say, “It’s not working, how do we need to tweak it,” without just throwing everything away.

And then the last piece from the district lens is, we have five elementary schools, and I think sometimes when we do an implementation, we think everywhere should look identical, but we really have different needs at every building. So in the last couple of years, we’ve really stepped back and said, “With this group of students, what can implementation look like? And with this other group of students, what could it look like?” I think at the district level we have to be patient and look at the data from each individual building and make decisions based off of that. Maybe schedules need to look a little bit different, or how we allocate our time to Really Great Reading or Wit & Wisdom needs to be different, or we need to change how we are using Geodes in our more at-risk buildings. We are using data to drive instruction at each grade level and each building more than we have in the past, and I think that’s been helpful.