I knew it. Just before I was about launch into bummer mode, I was reminded of one reason it’s impossible to stay bummed for long: A Harriett Janetos Substack post landed in my inbox.
For those who don’t know, HJ is a reading specialist and former high school English teacher. She knows reading (literacy more broadly) inside and out; from the learning to the teaching; what precedes the nuts and bolts of literacy to the worlds those nuts and bolts, if well-deployed, can take you.
If you want to learn about teaching children to read; the hows, whys, and wherefores; the challenges, thrills, joys, and frustrations (hint: usually from not the kids); English speakers, English Learners, everything in between and of every variety … I suggest you hop over to her Substack. (And if you like whole books, check hers out, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense.)
Harriett provides a graduate program’s worth of knowledge. For free. Willingly and joyfully. Ok, sometimes a little irascibly, but really… who could blame her? (Read some of the comments. 🙄)
You can start with her latest post, linked above. Be warned: It’s long. It’s thoughtful. Don’t go expecting an easy bottom line you can saunter away with. Many concepts, ideas, and facts. Lots of cross references, each worth linking to. Packed, but I mean STUFFED, with information, knowledge, insight, and wisdom that only comes from deep experience in the real world of teaching children and complemented by an undying thirst for learning beyond the confines of her own classroom.
California is in the middle of an election for superintendent of public instruction. The state has a wealth of resources, but also a wealth of issues, reading policies and reading achievement among them. If the next superintendent were to ask my advice (ha!), I’d say email HJ immediately and make her the state’s reading czar.
She’ll probably refuse, because her calling is to the children in her school, and she’s not a political person. But at least the state supe should regularly and routinely seek her advice and counsel. It’s just not fair that only the children she teaches get the benefit of all she knows.
***
I went back to my email archive—which is shamefully bulging, but this case vindicates the bulge—and discovered I am a week away from HJ’s and my 5th anniversary. On May 23, 2021, we exchanged our first emails. Since then, literally thousands more, despite never meeting in person and only having a couple of zoom chats (one of them posted here).
Happy anniversary, Harriett.
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