Ep 111 — Making Room for Picture Books with Sarah Cordova

Your literacy block is full, your to-do list is longer, and somehow the day still ends with the feeling that the most important work got squeezed out. We’re joined by nationally recognized literacy specialist and author, Sarah Cordova to talk about a smarter, simpler path: using picture books as high-leverage mentor texts that support reading, writing, grammar, and culturally responsive teaching without adding “one more thing.”

Sarah shares how her pandemic-era Mentor Text Mondays connected teachers with authors and illustrators and sparked a bigger mission: save teacher time while giving students mirrors and windows that build identity, belonging, and empathy. We get specific about how she chooses books that fit a meaningful topic and also function as true mentor texts for craft, structure, language, and punctuation. She breaks down a key distinction many of us feel but rarely name: some books are perfect for read aloud, but not right for students to emulate in their writing.

We also tackle the pressure many schools feel around the science of reading and the unintended consequence of pushing writing to the margins. Sarah offers practical ways to “steal minutes back” during transitions, plus mini lesson tweaks that immediately tighten instruction: lead with explicit teaching, avoid early guessing-game questions, and make sure students leave the lesson with a clear plan for independent work.

If you want literacy instruction that is effective, efficient, and engaging, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more educators can keep it simple and stay intentional.

Sarah Cordova is a nationally recognized literacy consultant who supports elementary and middle school educators in implementing engaging, standards-aligned reading and writing practices. She holds a Master’s degree in Education from New York University and previously taught in the Smithtown School District. Sarah has presented at local, state, and national conferences, developed curriculum for Schoolwide, Inc., and served as an adjunct professor at Dowling College. A passionate advocate for inclusive literature, she promotes authentic representation in classrooms. She is the author of The Power of Picture Books in Student Identity: Writing Lessons That Empower, helping educators use books to foster identity, belonging, and strong writing.

Find Sarah at: 

• www.literacy-matters.net
• @LMReadWrite

This epsiode is sponsored by Literacy Matters. 

Transcript

Minimalist Educator Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Muziowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

On this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator podcast, we talk to Sarah Cordova, who is a literacy consultant, author, and huge fan of picture books in education. Her pinout pointer is to prep with purpose. Sarah Cordova is a nationally recognized literacy consultant who supports elementary and middle school educators in implementing engaging standards-aligned reading and writing practices. She holds a master's degree in education from New York University and previously taught in the Smith Down School District. Sarah has presented at local, state and national conferences, developed curriculum for schoolwriting, and served as an adjunct professor at Dallin College. A passionate advocate for inclusive literature, she provides authentic representation in classrooms. She is the author of The Power of Picture Books and Student Identity, writing lessons that empower, helping educators use books to foster identity, belonging, and strong writing. Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, Tammy and I are joined by Sarah Cordova. Welcome, Sarah. How are you today? Good. Thanks for having me, the both of you. We're very excited to have you here today, and we're going to talk all things literacy. Can't wait. I'm very excited.

Sarah’s Path To Literacy Consulting

SPEAKER_02 2:05

But can you tell us a little bit about your journey to consultancy and your book and everything else? Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Sure. So I was a fourth grade teacher in New York for a number of years, and I always had a passion for literacy. It was always my favorite thing to teach. I tried my hardest to fake it through math and science. And I think I did a well enough job, good enough job. But I think it was very clear to me early on in my teaching career that I loved reading, I loved writing, loved language and grammar and pieces like that. And so then I had my son, who's going to be 21 this fall. And I was able to take some time off. In that time, I started rereading some of my favorite professional literature. I started, you know, listening to speakers and attending local conferences. And by the time my maternity leave was almost up, I decided that I was going to really focus on literacy and started my own consulting company. Within that time, I've grown it to there's four other incredibly talented, passionate, knowledgeable women who work with me. So any loss that I have that I had from my colleagues when I was in my own classroom, I've really been able to recapture with my team. And then right around the pandemic, I'd always known that time was the enemy of all teachers. Basically, the idea of your podcast. And so, you know, and when COVID happened and people were literally ripped out of their classrooms with no materials, I started thinking about, you know, what are ways that we can kind of make teachers feel great, give them a little boost. And I started this Zoom thing. I was fortunate enough to have incredible authors and illustrators when I sent out an email call to see if anyone would be willing to kind of zoom. We called it Mentor Text Mondays, Monday night at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I had this incredible response from award-winning authors and illustrators. And we would get on a Zoom as many teachers as I could find, and we would talk about their books and about their process and, you know, how they were inspired. And from that, I was able to make these connections with these incredible people and started thinking about how do we save time in our classroom. There's been a big push here in New York State for culturally responsive teaching. And I knew that teachers did not have any room left on their plate. There was no more time to add this other thing to all of the things they were already doing. And so the premise of my book is using culturally responsive text, these really important texts that can really give kids opportunities for mirrors and windows to see themselves, to see others, but to make it part of your everyday writing and grammar instruction. And so it's not another thing that they have to do. It's you're already using this to teach grammar and language. And it's also a book that touches upon all of these culturally responsive kinds of topics that are so important for our students to learn about. And so that was kind of the premise of the book to save time and to bring some new titles to teachers who, again, do not have the time to go to the library or to do research on their own. That's my favorite part of this job now, is as you can see, I get to read picture books all the time and study them. And so I was able to create this text for them that really, if you're a brand new teacher and you don't have writing curriculum, I was just listening to your uh episode with Patty McGee. And writing curriculum is really sparse these days. There's been such a push with the science of reading that I think writing is getting pushed even further and further back. And so the book

Mentor Text Mondays And The Book

SPEAKER_01 6:20

is really for people who have zero writing curriculum, you can use it as a year-long document to kind of teach mini lessons from the beginning of the writing process to the end. For people who already have an intact program, you can use them as supplemental lessons. It I really wanted to be flexible and give teachers as much choice and ownership as they could, but that's how it all came about.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

That sounds like an amazing journey. The the start with this at COVID, it was such a pinnacle time because that's kind of what teachers were doing. They were at least grabbing some books to read to their students. And so what a great launching point to to move into that. And so you had mentioned, you know, teachers don't have time to find the good quality literature to read to their students. And so, what was that process like for you? Because there are so many books out there, and that the library has really of good solid books has grown, which is great. But how did you, you know, kind of swimming out in this sea of all of these books, say like these are the top books that I would choose and and why?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I love this question so much. Anytime I get to talk about picture books, I'm very excited. So because I was tagging it to the idea of mirrors and windows, I knew initially I needed kind of like topics. And so there's 10 chapters in the book, and each chapter is a different topic that would fall under culturally responsive education. So one topic is about the dynamics of family. So I was able to say, okay, here are the books in my library. Let me look a little bit online and find, you know, eight to 10 books that again connect to this topic, tell a really important story, but also can be used as a mentor text for structure, for craft, for language, all of those pieces. So it became really like almost like a puzzle that I was trying to, it wasn't just about a book that fit the topic that fit the chapter. It was, okay, I have this book. It definitely checks off this box about loss and separation, but it's not a mentor text that I would necessarily use to teach writing. So an analogy that I use all the time, I always say that, you know, there's a difference between a read aloud and a mentor text. So I use the example of Patricia Polacco, who I think is one of our most, you know, influential writers, especially of picture books. And I say, you know, I would have great success doing a read aloud with a Patricia Polacco book in a third grade classroom, right? I can, we can do all the reading strategies with a Patricia Polacco book with eight-year-olds, but I would never use a Patricia Polacco book as a mentor text in a third-grade classroom because her language is too complicated. It's way too long to ask kids to emulate that at eight. And so I think part of it for me was it needed to be connected to that topic. It needed to have all of those structural craft language components, but it also needed to fit. And so, you know, each book in there is, you know, labeled with suggested grade levels. So they run from kindergarten to eighth grade. And I will say that even some of the more sophisticated picture books in there for eighth grade, like Klama Alexander books and Jaclyn Woodson, those really could be used in a high school setting. The language is so gorgeous. There's so many incredible opportunities for emulation. But it was a lot of trial and error trying to get pieces to fit all of those categories as I looked through them. And I think in, I know it's over 80 picture books are in the book because I remember writing the back notes. I don't remember the exact number, but it's it's over 80 books. And yeah, I say about writing this book because I had a number of rejections before I got to my publisher, which was a really great experience for me. And it, I think it was a great thing to bring to kids, also, that, you know, your first attempt is not necessarily going to be your most successful attempt. But I spent 20 months writing it. There was not a day, and I wonder if you all feel the same way about your book. There was not a day where I was not excited to come into my office and write and read picture books and figure out how this going to how this was going to make sense for teachers in a classroom. I think this book, it's almost like a culmination of all the passion and excitement that I had gathered in my classroom and my consulting world. And so it was really a joy to spend all that time, you know, flipping through picture books, post-iting them, and then creating this book for teachers in an attempt to make their jobs easier and more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

I love this idea so much, Sarah. It's, you know, we know kids love listening to stories being read to them. So it's so powerful, just straight off the bat. It's such a powerful tool. Providing that context for the kids as well across different, you know, ages, different learning areas is really important as well. And then having that non-threatening window or mirror, as you say, for kids to really look at these different things. It's it's such a cool idea. I'm very excited. I feel like we might have to talk for a few hours, but no, we don't have time. We don't have time for that today. But thinking about how powerful this all is, Sarah, do you have a favorite book?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Oh, this is like ask me who your favorite child is. I know. I know. I will say, because I get asked this a lot. I will say if it's okay, I'd love to mention authors. Is that okay? Of course. I have I I felt this question might be coming. So I pulled like a few of my favorite books. They're sitting right here to

Choosing Mentor Texts That Fit

SPEAKER_01 12:40

the side. I will say that there's four people and they've collaborated a lot too, which I'm really, really lucky because I I get to kind of see them together. Is it okay if I hold up some books? Is that okay? Okay, so I will say anything, literally anything that Matt De LaPena writes, I am buying, I am using with children, and I am connecting to. So he writes picture books and he writes young adult. I think he's writing a middle grade novel right now, but he won the Caldecott in, sorry, he won the Newberry in 2016 for a picture book, which is very, very rare, last stop on Market Street. But I will say that this book, Home, which is written by Matt and illustrated by another one of my favorite authors and illustrators, Lauren Long, this book and its prequel, which is called Love, are two of my most favorite books. I come back to it over and over and over again for the language, for the message, for the structure, for the intentional use of punctuation. I've had opportunities twice to present with Matt at NCTE. And every time that I get to speak to him, his phrase is we get to nerd out because we talk about punctuation, Martin. I mean, like total nerds. So I would say Matt and Lauren are two of my favorites. And then my other two favorites, I have two men and two women. This book, it's very well loved. You can see Nothing in Common, written by Kate Hofler and illustrated by Karina Lucan, who's also Karina is an illustrator and an author. This book is about, and both of those are in my book. This book is about two kids who think they actually have nothing in common and they come to learn that they have something pretty special in common. I really gravitate, I think, towards books that just are brimming with possibilities. Again, with the efficiency piece, thinking about like these two books I could use for reading, for writing, for language. There is opportunities for social studies in both of these books. There's topics that connect to humanity, our world, our communities. And so, you know, I always say, like, I want teachers to be double and triple dipping into the same book. I think we've been sold a bill of goods that we need to use a different book for every subject that we're teaching. And we just don't have the time. But I do think, you know, the research part of it is it's it's tough to have the time to grab a stack full of books and go through them, you know, each one's 32 pages, and then think of all of the possibilities. And so again, I think that the work that I've done in this book compiling all of these possibilities kind of in one place. I wanted to be one of the things, one of the best compliments that people can say to me as a consultant is this is so practical. You're so practical. You know what it's like in a classroom. And I feel like that is one of the best compliments because that means that the information I'm sharing and my knowledge that I'm giving to them, they can take right back into the classroom the next day. It's not, you know, something in theory that sounds great, but how do I translate this in front of 27 fourth graders? It's really like take this, use it tomorrow. And so finding great books that have all of those possibilities where you can dip in again and again and again. That's kind of the thing that I love to do most. So that was a very long-winded answer of my favorite book. But there's so much to say about these authors and illustrators, it's it's hard to contain.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Yeah, no, for sure. And we can both relate. That's most definitely for sure. Teaching this way is my favorite way and the way that makes sense to teach literacy. Sadly, this year in a lot of the classrooms that I was coaching in, that's not what ELA looked like, especially at in the younger years. Can't say it's, you know, everywhere, but it was in a lot of the classrooms that I was in. And so when teachers feel, you know, they have that very rigid schedule and they have to do, you know, their Heggerty or their like whatever their phonics is and all those things, which have their value, obviously. But the the pressure to really focus on that, they they kind of forget about the other pieces because they either don't have time, they don't have the mental capacity, they're like the kids are done. So what do you say to teachers? And uh to my to us it might be obvious, but what do you say to teachers with you thinking about building in this approach, like weaving it into what they already do? So, like you said, it's not another thing to do, but it it makes sense for your kids and with what you're doing in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I think it's funny. I I think that time is absolutely the enemy, but I do think there is a lot, there are a lot of ways that we can save time in our day that we just might not recognize. You know, transitioning time, things like that. What you do with those first 10 to 15 minutes when kids are walking into your classroom, what you do with those five to 10 minutes as they're kind of coming back from recess. How are we packing up at the end of the day? I feel like there are ways to steal minutes back and read to kids. I mean, read aloud. I completely agree, Tammy. I think again, as we watch the pendulum switch and go back and forth again for the however many many times in in our field, and it will continue to do so. The science of reading is

Favorite Picture Books To Reuse

SPEAKER_01 18:55

is what is occupying our brains, definitely administrators' brains. And there is this rush to kind of like catch up. And it feels similar to when I think the common core came out and there was like this huge push in many ways to kind of you know make things happen. I think the pendulum is starting to swing a little bit. There's a lot of studies coming out now that of course we need phonics. I don't think anyone was debating that we needed phonics at any point, but you know, whole language was definitely something different. And so I think as we kind of recognize that this is not an all or nothing thing with literacy, figuring out even if it is five minutes that you can find, even if it's five minutes just on Friday, to start reading picture books. And I would say, especially in the upper elementary and middle school classrooms, your read alouds do not need to be chapter books. This I think is a real misconception that in middle school we have to be reading chapter books all the time. I will tell you, if you read through home, if you read through nothing in common, if you read through a Kwame Alexander picture book, there is there are so many opportunities for close reading, for analyzing and annotating language. If you can just steal a little time, and I think what it comes down to is what do we prioritize in our classroom? Right. I I will say I think that a number of primary grade teachers, there is definitely a a push for making things look cute and creating projects around literacy instead of having the outcome of reading a book just being have a discussion, turn and talk with someone about, you know, here's a here's a copy of the text, highlight your favorite line. I think there are ways to respond to literacy, to write about literacy, to show that you understand a book in ways that don't require an entire project around it. And I think, I hope we are we are starting to realize like the most impactful instruction sometimes can be the most efficient, right? That sometimes being efficient is actually being effective. And so sealing some of those moments to read two pages of a picture book and you know, putting them up for display and looking at those words and annotating them together, having kids do that in pairs, it doesn't take that much time. And then the idea is hopefully the kids enjoy it, and you see that there's light bulbs going off from that five minute activity. It gives you, as the teacher, encouragement to say, wow, like that really went well. And maybe I'm going to put this two minutes every day so that I can get back to that. But I think, you know, there there are things that we are doing in our classrooms that I don't think need to be done as an assessment. Like for me, one of my biggest questions whenever I get pushback on, well, we don't have time, we don't have time. I'll look at what is going on during the day and I'll say, can you tell me why you are doing it? What is the purpose? And the purpose can't be because parents love it, because I've done it, I've done it every year. It really needs to be rooted in pedagogy. It needs to be rooted in, well, what are the standards that we're supposed to be teaching? I don't know that teachers have the time, the opportunity, the, you know, I don't know that we're talking about those things at staff meetings and in collegial circles. And so some of it is to kind of self-reflect and say, what am I doing all day long? Why am I doing it? And is there something that I should be doing more that would have a bigger impact over all? I don't, does that make sense?

unknown 23:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

The preach hands are telling me that it does. Absolutely. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah, no, it's so true for us to really, yeah, go back and think about the purpose behind why we're doing what we're doing. For sure. It's such an important moment. Now you mentioned earlier about mini lessons, and I know you have this revised approach to it. So I'd love you to tell us a little bit about that. But just to clarify, my understanding of a mini lesson is it's very short, sharp, one teaching point. Keep it really, really clear, really, really consistent, repeat the teaching point over and over again. Maybe use a mentor text so you can see how the authors do it before kids go off and do their independent practice. Is that the old version? Are we uh doing something new and improved?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

No, I I think there's two things when I talk about mini lessons. First of all, yes to everything you just said, 100%. I think those kind of the modeling piece, the reinforcement of the teaching piece, the one idea a day. Kids cannot write an entire memoir in a sitting. And sometimes that's why we're disappointed because we're asking them to do way too much in way too short of a period of time. But I think there are two things that perhaps make my idea of a mini lesson a little bit different or yeah, slightly kind of different from I guess what the typical architecture of a mini lesson would be. So one of the things that I think is really, really important, and I try to get this across to every teacher and every administrator, because what

Stealing Minutes For Read Alouds

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I'm about to say, I think administrators sometimes are telling us differently. So one thing that I will say to teachers is when you start off your mini lesson, you are always going to tell the students, today I'm going to teach you this. There should not be a yesterday we worked on this. What do you think we're going to do today? Does anybody have an idea of what it's called when you do blank? There is a time and place for questioning. And this is kind of the conversation that I have with administrators. There's a time and place for questioning. It is not in the first 15 seconds of your mini lesson, right? We don't do this in math. We never say to them, can anyone tell me what we're going to work on today? And we just tell them today we're working on adding numbers with common denominators. But we have this thing with ELA that we're constantly, for those of you who are of a certain generation, like KWLing, right? Like these KWL charts where it was like, let's get every question needs to be answered. This is the whole idea of this is it is explicit instruction, which means I am going to tell you what we are working on today. So I always say, do not. It is a kiss of death to start off your mini lesson by saying, What do you think we're going to do today? They're nine. Most of us have master's degrees, right? So asking a nine-year-old to hypothesize who doesn't remember what they ate for lunch when they come in for recess, asking them to think about their background knowledge, what we might be doing today, it's a waste of time. And what ends up happening is typically you have three kids that put their hands up, they're all off base, but now the rest of the class has heard these three inappropriate, completely disconnected ideas. And then you rein it in and you go, Actually, today what I'm going to teach you is this. So now we've wasted three minutes. And I know in the outside world, three minutes might not be a lot of time, but in teaching, 180 seconds is an eternity. So one thing is we do not ask questions in our mini lesson until we are at the guided practice part. And our kids will know that it's their turn to kind of talk and give their opinion because I literally say in every mini lesson, now it's your turn to try this. Up until then, for those of you who've seen Dirty Dancing, it's like, this is my dancing space. This is your dancing space. The first eight minutes or so of my 10 to 15 minute mini-lesson, it's just me. It's me kind of pouring in information, connecting it, of course, to what we've done in the past. But I need to be able to get things out to kids in a very clear, consistent way. And I can't do that if their hands are constantly going up and I am constantly deferring to them for answers. I will say, with that in mind, though, I think there is a difference between, you know, I can't talk at kids for eight minutes straight, but I'm acutely aware of that. So instead of asking questions during that first eight minutes or so, I'm saying things like, has anyone here ever had a really exciting experience that they had with a family member? Because today we're going to write about really exciting times that we had with a family member, something like that. Give me a thumbs up if you've ever experienced that. So I'm able to connect with them and engage them without having them with what a first grade teacher said in one of my one of my staff development sessions with them, without them hijacking a lesson. Because that's really what they're doing. The kiss of death is when you say to like a six-year-old, does this have to do with writing? I say you have your hand up. Does this have to do with writing? And then of course the six-year-old doesn't even know what that means. They go, okay, what what what is it? It has to do with writing. What is it? And they go, my cat's birthday is today. I mean, it had like it never has to do with writing. Like, don't fool yourself into thinking that a six-year-old knows what they're doing. So that's the that's the first thing that I would say about my approach to mini lessons that's different. Like, stop with the questioning, keep engaging them, but you're there to teach. You have limited time in that architecture, in those four parts. Like use it as efficiently and effectively as you can. The second part that I would say with mini lessons is that when kids leave you, when the lesson is over, I would say part of your guided practice when it is their turn, that guided practice in some way, whether it's thinking about it in their head, whether it's sketching something out, whether it's writing a few sentences, kids need to leave that mini lesson with a plan. So if it's turn and talk to somebody and tell them about the topic that you're really excited to write about today, they're turned talking about it. Or if it's, you know, out of the three leads that I showed you today for personal narrative, which one are you going to try first when you get back to your

Mini Lessons Without The Early Questions

SPEAKER_01 30:15

seat? That's something that has a plan so that one, I can get them out of that area, right? Our rug or wherever we're we're gathering. And it's not a stampede. Because as soon as you have a stampede of 27 kids, the last thing they're talking about is writing. So I'll say those of you who are trying the lead today, that is a setting lead. Get up, go back to your seats. Those of you who are trying the dialogue lead today, now it's your turn. Get up, dialogue lead. I'm constantly, like Christine said, reinforcing these ideas in their head. Getting them out of that area with intention, with that plan also eliminates kids hanging around on the rug and going, what are we doing? I don't know what I'm doing. What am I supposed to? And I'm not saying you're not going to have some of those kids. But if we are intentional with during this guided practice, you're going to come up with a plan today that you will work on when you get back to your seat. That I think is something that really kind of now they have this idea in their head. They are more independent, hopefully, and they can start to work immediately rather than waiting on a line to talk to me or, you know, messing around with their notebook because they don't know what they're doing. So those I would say would be the two major things that I think I try to convey to teachers that this is a really important way to save time, to be more intentional, and you know, that will give our students greater success in many, many ways. So I think those are, you know, the mini lesson is a tried and true kind of thing. It's just a gradual response of gradual release of responsibility. But I've tried to like hone it a little bit, again, for efficiency purposes.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Which makes so much sense. And just thinking of all the classrooms I was in this year, just the I don't even want to say misuse of times because I worked with a lot of new teachers and they just don't have the practice know it yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so what you're saying is so like it makes me think of, you know, in my later years of teaching when I had these things really down versus when I didn't in the beginning. But like you, that intentional use of time with, you know, just having a couple pages of read aloud or making sure they know what they're doing when they head back to their seat really reduces that lag time, which is I saw so much of that this year, honestly. And it was like, let's really rein the kids in and use your time more efficiently. You said so many things today that we could just talk on about for a really long time. Um we try to keep our episodes to about 30 minutes and we're we're kind of already at that point. So to wrap up the show, Sarah, we always ask our guests for a pared-down pointer. It could be something that you mentioned in the conversation today, or it might be something new that you want to add. But what would you give our listeners as your pared-down pointer?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I I think I would come back to prep with purpose. Really, really thinking about what do I want my students to take away from this lesson, almost work backwards, and then how do I get there efficiently, effectively, and an engaging way? It's like the three E's, right? We want to be effective, we want to be efficient, and we have to be engaging. But I think planning with purpose really allows us to cut

Plans, Purpose, And Closing Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 33:45

out some of the things that maybe we don't need to do. Maybe we want to do them, but I don't know that we need to do them. And I think it just makes us more intentional in what, in what we do. And, you know, I think that is the key. Intention and purpose are the keys in this, in this profession. So yeah, I hope that I hope that works.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Thank you so much, Sarah. You said so many, yeah, so many valuable nuggets today. I can't wait for our listeners to have a listen and let us know what they think. And thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Thank you for having me. It was lovely talking with the two of you. This episode was brought to you by Literacy Matters, staff development and literacy consulting, making literacy instruction effective, efficient, and engaging. Find out more at literacy-matters.net.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.