A Teacher-to-Teacher Approach to Professional Development

An innovative fellowship program spotlights the practices of effective literacy teachers

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When seeking guidance on classroom practice, teachers—understandably—tend to trust other teachers the most. An innovative fellowship program connects teachers with one another to provide concrete examples of what effective literacy instruction looks like.

A small philanthropy called the Goyen Foundation sponsors the program, now in its third year. For each cohort, the foundation selects 12 to 14 educators who are skilled in systematically teaching foundational reading skills while simultaneously building the knowledge that enables reading comprehension.

The Goyen Literacy Fellows document their own classroom practice, mostly through videos that are posted on social media platforms like X/Twitter and Facebook. They also interact with other educators who may have heard about “structured literacy” but aren’t sure what it means or how it’s done.

“Hundreds of thousands of educators are taking to social media to ask for videos from exemplar classrooms,” Kata Solow, executive director of the foundation, said in an email, “because they’re not getting them from their districts or publishers, and we’re attempting to meet that demand and fill that void.”

Some fellows also write blog posts that appear on the foundation’s website. In addition, fellows meet regularly with their cohort to exchange ideas and learn from one another. Each fellow receives an annual stipend of $2,000. (Disclosure: I have made a financial contribution to support the fellowship.)

Connecting with Other Teachers

“It’s amazing,” says Laura Stam, a second-grade teacher in Wyoming who is a member of the current cohort. She thought the fellowship would involve “just making some videos, and that’s cool.” But she discovered that it was also about “the connections, the networking, the people it’s helping.”

That applies both to connections with other fellows and to interactions with the broader community on social media, Stam says. “I live in a town of 3,000 people,” she says, “and I only interact with about 20 other teachers. So making these networks is very important to me—being able to connect with people all over the country, and being able to pull from other teachers, even if they’re teaching other grade levels.”

Fellows who live in less remote places also appreciate the ability to connect with others. Becky Pallone, a kindergarten teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was part of the first Goyen cohort, says her Twitter following has grown from 200 to just under 5,000. She’s interacted not only with teachers across the U.S. but even with “a bunch from Australia” and some from Great Britain. Returning to social media after a hiatus from posting, she was greeted with enthusiastic comments like, “You’re back!”

“People are just so happy to see this in action,” she says, “and to think, ‘I can do this.’” Stam has had a similar experience, with people telling her they love what she shares online.

Lauren Proffitt—a fourth-grade teacher in Reno, Nevada, who was a fellow last year—says she got great ideas for classroom practices from other fellows during their meetings, which take place on Sunday evenings every three weeks or so. For example, she picked up suggestions for building reading fluency and using AI to help create “readers’ theater” scripts or prompts that help students write about and review material they’ve covered.

“I would hear about something in a meeting,” she says, “and then be able to apply it the next day in my classroom.” The fellowship, she adds, was “a good way not to become stagnant” in her classroom practice.

Reading books about education is important, the Goyen fellows told me, but there’s something both accessible and powerful about watching another teacher in the classroom. Stam points out that the videos are relatively quick to watch—and free.

While the U.S. education system spends billions on professional development for teachers, those efforts have been found largely ineffective. The theory behind the Goyen fellowship is that teachers can seek out the kind of support they’re curious about or feel they need and actually see it in action. If they have questions about a video, they can interact on social media with the fellow who recorded it. The fellow might send them resources they can use—and be able to relate to their uncertainty.

Stam recalls a teacher who sent her a message on Facebook with so many questions that Stam suggested they arrange to talk via Zoom (by coincidence, the teacher turned out to also live in Wyoming). Stam reassured the teacher that this kind of literacy instruction was doable. “This is where I was four years ago,” she recalls telling her.

The fellows might be using different curricula, but they have a common understanding of what is needed to enable students to become fully literate. They might demonstrate how to teach vocabulary words like crop and past to kindergartners, as Pallone does in these videos, or how to use explicit writing instruction to reinforce second-graders’ knowledge of the ancient Indus civilization, as Stam does here.

Different Paths to Effective Literacy Instruction

All three of the fellows I spoke with took a different path to gaining that understanding. Pallone was trained in “balanced literacy,” which often doesn’t provide the systematic phonics instruction many children need—and doesn’t prioritize knowledge-building. The school where she teaches used to take that approach too.

But when her second child entered first grade and struggled with reading, Pallone signed up for LETRS training, which focuses on explicit instruction in foundational reading skills. “After the first module, I was crying,” she recalls. “I had a master’s degree in reading, and I’d never learned any of this.”

Gradually, through her own research, she learned more—including about the importance of building knowledge—and helped bring about change in her district. In her own classroom, she found her kindergartners were fascinated by units on topics in social studies and science from a curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts, or CKLA.

“They became obsessed,” she says, and parents were reporting that their children were coming home talking excitedly about what they’d learned. She adds, “I might have this kid who’s never left Quakertown”—the Philadelphia suburb where she teaches—“and I get a chance to show them the world.”

Stam, in Wyoming, started her journey as a parent. To enhance her children’s education, she started what she called “car school” during their 30-minute commute, using units from CKLA. She also learned about foundational reading skills through her own reading. Eventually she too took LETRS training and is now a trainer herself.

Now, as a second-grade teacher, she’s using CKLA in her classroom, with students who come from a mix of socioeconomic backgrounds. “It’s amazing what kids can do,” she says. “They can have discussions about Ancient Greece or China or India, and also about American history. It’s just effortless for them, because they have so much knowledge.”

Proffitt, in Reno, started out as a middle and high school math teacher, even though her training was in elementary education. When she took a job as a third-grade teacher in a high-poverty district school, she says, “I realized how wholly unprepared I was to make that shift.” Ninety percent of her students couldn’t read because they hadn’t had effective phonics instruction, and she wasn’t equipped to provide it.

Connecting Literacy to the Science of Learning

Proffitt now teaches fourth grade at a charter school, Doral Academy of Northern Nevada, which uses a knowledge-building curriculum called EL Education. In addition, the school provides systematic phonics instruction and explicit writing instruction embedded in curriculum content. It also implements instructional principles grounded in the science of learning, or cognitive science.

Proffitt says she has learned a lot at Doral Academy about concepts like retrieval practice, which requires students to recall information they have learned but may have slightly forgotten. That helps ensure they retain the information and can draw on it in the future, boosting their reading comprehension—and their learning in general.

Although she’s no longer a Goyen fellow herself, Proffitt has stayed on to help Solow administer the fellowship. Proffitt has become, Solow says, “our resident cognitive-science expert,” leading discussions in monthly meetings and providing resources to the fellows. Teachers rarely learn how to align their instruction with principles supported by cognitive science during their training.

Proffitt has learned a lot at her current school that she feels enables her teaching to be effective. But she remembers what it felt like at her previous school, with a class full of third graders who couldn’t read.

“I felt like I was alone and I was failing kids,” she says, “and I was desperately seeking connection and resources.”

For Proffitt, and for other Goyen fellows, the fellowship is a way of giving other educators an opportunity to find those connections and resources—and enable students to fulfill their true potential.

Applications for the fourth cohort of Goyen Literacy Fellows are open now. Click these links to apply, nominate one or more exceptional teachers, or read more about the program. Questions? Contact Kata Solow at kata.solow@goyen.io.