Growing K-12 Readers and Thinkers

Growing K-12 Readers and Thinkers Welcome to this community!

Here, we are collectively elevating K–12 literacy systems, one whole-group block at a time 😅
✨ Staci Bain, Ed.D.
📘 Author Empowered to Teach & Lead • Structured Literacy • SoR
🎙️ Podcast
👇 Resources
🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

08/23/2026

I said it before it was popular to say it:

Vocabulary should never sit at the end of some instructional line—after phonemic awareness, phonics, syntax, and grammar.

That’s not how language—or literacy—works.

It ALL interconnects.

Sounds connect to print and carry meaning. Words carry meaning. Syntax and grammar connect words and ideas. These components interact as students learn to read, write, speak, and understand increasingly complex language.

We can explicitly teach the components without teaching them in isolation.

I’ve been saying this for years. I wrote about it in Part 1 of Empowered to Teach and Lead.

And when I said it publicly?

I was characterized as “whole language.” I was told to “stop harming children” and “peddle my nonsense elsewhere.”

And now?

Tim Shanahan has written about this broader idea. Education Week is discussing it too.

GOOD.

I want our field moving in this direction.
But there’s a bigger conversation here:

What happens when practitioners say something BEFORE the people in positions of power are saying it?

I spent my career in public education as a teacher, principal, and executive director. I earned my superintendent credential and doctorate. More than 90% of my first graders consistently ended the year reading on benchmark.

Today, I work alongside schools and districts strengthening Tier 1 instruction. When leaders tell me, “We’ve NEVER gotten these results before,” those outcomes deserve a place in the conversation.

Does that make me infallible? Of course not.

But being a practitioner doesn’t make me illegitimate, either.

So let’s ALL bring our receipts.

Bring the research. Bring the student outcomes. Bring the implementation evidence. Get into classrooms and actually TEACH.

Eventually, every idea has to meet the reality of an actual classroom.

Educators and their success are my North Star—not popularity, power, or following the crowd.

TEACHERS and LEADERS:

🔵 Teach the components explicitly.
🔵 Don’t isolate them.
🔵 Interconnect them.

I said it then. I wrote about it. I’m still modeling the integration of decoding x vocabulary inside schools today.

08/22/2026

When the state department comes to watch you read directly from the script and teach your 20 million Tier 1 small groups:

🐱: I shall now demonstrate reading from a script.

😂😂😂

The irony is WILD.

Even neuroscientist Dr. DJ Bolger, when he joined me on On the Road to Literacy Success, emphasized the importance of teacher agency in teaching.

Because teaching is not simply reading words from a page.

Teachers have to THINK.

Watch students.
Listen to their responses.
Notice confusion.
Adjust explanations.
Give feedback.
Change course when something isn’t working.

You know…

TEACH. 😭😂

And if your Tier 1 structure has you running approximately 47 small groups while simultaneously managing the rest of the classroom?

The cat would like a word. 🐱

Give teachers strong knowledge.

Give them strong instructional structures.

And then let the highly skilled human in the room use their brain and expertise.

FREE THE TEACHERS. 😂📚

Comment “NEWSLETTER” if you want to be part of our free community and get updates, podcast drops, and more.

💛 Staci Bain, Ed.D.

Host, On the Road to Literacy Success

Author of Empowered to Teach and Lead: Whole-Group Literacy Instruction Made Easy

Co-Founder | Educate America® LLC

🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

08/22/2026

NEW SUBSTACK ARTICLE!

The Math Isn’t Mathing: When Tier 1 Leaves Too Little Time to Teach

The popular and sweeping recommendation to deliver Tier 1 literacy instruction primarily through a small-group model is deeply flawed for a variety of reasons.

In this Substack, I’m focusing on four: lost instructional time, reduced opportunities to learn and receive feedback, the replacement of core instruction with intervention-style grouping, and the use of data to justify giving some students less access to grade-level learning.

You can keep reading this article over on my Substack.

Search for Dr. Staci Bain.

08/21/2026

THIS is our energy.

WE are winners.
WE are going to win.

That’s this community’s vibe.

WE have a 3-part solution.
WE know where we’re going.
And WE are moving forward.

WE teach. WE lead. WE monitor while we teach. WE adjust in the moment. WE keep getting better.

Winning around here means we are all rising—TOGETHER.

📚If your school still needs a Tier 1 solution, I wrote the book.

Empowered to Teach and Lead: Whole-Group Literacy Instruction Made Easy gives teachers and leaders a practical way to organize Tier 1 and get moving.

For Educate’s elite Tier 1 Ambassador™ train-the-trainers?

I made something even BETTER than a literacy playbook.

🔥 I wrote you a Tier 1 Ambassador SLAYBOOK™. Make sure you have it printed out so you can refer to it. It’s inside the portal.

Here, we aren’t gathering people to sit around and talk about changing Tier 1.

We’re supporting the people who are inside schools DOING compelling, collective Tier 1 work every single day.

🏆 WE are winners.
🏆 WE are going to win.

💛 Staci Bain, Ed.D.

Author of Empowered to Teach and Lead: Whole-Group Literacy Instruction Made Easy

Host of On the Road to Literacy Success Podcast

Co-Founder | Educate America® LLC

Former LETRS National Facilitator | Teacher | Principal | Executive Director

Founding President, The Reading League Washington

🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

08/21/2026

THE MATH ISN’T MATHING. 🧮

We have a 90-minute Tier 1 literacy block.

And in many schools, teachers have been told or expected to spend 60 of those 90 minutes facilitating small groups.

Let’s do the math.

If students rotate through four 15-minute groups, each student gets approximately:

15 minutes with the teacher.

FIFTEEN.

Meanwhile, we need to teach children to read, write, spell, comprehend, build vocabulary and knowledge, develop fluency, understand increasingly complex language, and engage with grade-level text.

In 15 minutes?

The math isn’t mathing.

And I’ve watched this with my own eyes: phenomenal teachers trying to make an impossible instructional equation work.

Then we add MORE.

More materials.
More programs.
More assessments.
More digital tools.
More requirements.

At some point, we have to look at the equation itself.

What if we stopped asking teachers to divide themselves—and their instructional minutes—into increasingly smaller pieces?

We CAN take back our schools.

We CAN simplify.

We CAN strategically organize what we already have so instruction builds WITHIN each grade level and ACROSS K–5.

It takes Tier 1 clarity, cohesion, and coherence.

And THAT gives teachers something incredibly valuable back:

TIME and SPACE TO TEACH.

I wrote a book with an actual SOLUTION so you and your teammates don’t have to keep guessing.

📖 See Chapter 4 of Empowered to Teach and Lead.

The math CAN math. We just have to change the equation. 🏎️💨

💛 Staci Bain, Ed.D.
Co-Founder | Educate America® LLC
🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

08/21/2026

We have the materials. In fact, we have TOO MUCH stuff.

For years, schools and districts have been told, encouraged, or mandated to add more.

Another program. Another resource. Another assessment. Another digital tool. Another requirement.

I’ve watched it happen with my own eyes.

And here we are.

The opportunity now? Take back our schools and simplify.

Instead of adding more, let’s organize what we already have into a K–5 Tier 1 system that strategically builds WITHIN and ACROSS grade levels.

Within each grade: What do students need to learn? What materials support that learning? What can we streamline or stop doing?

Across K–5: What are we building in kindergarten? How does first grade build upon it? What gets added, removed, or becomes more sophisticated as students move through the grades?

That’s clarity, cohesion, and coherence.

We don’t have to throw everything away and start over.

We CAN simplify the work.
We CAN align the work.
We CAN connect the work.

And then let teachers TEACH.

I wrote a book with an actual SOLUTION so you and your teammates don’t have to keep guessing.

📖 See Chapter 4 of Empowered to Teach and Lead.

Let’s take back our schools and make Tier 1 make sense again.

💛 Staci Bain, Ed.D.
Co-Founder | Educate America® LLC
🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

Educate America® LLC is small, family-owned, self-funded, and accepts no private-equity investment, advertising, sponsorships, or affiliate revenue.

08/20/2026

Even when wrong…😂

Like, share, follow if you are tired of it all and just want to teach students to read and write well. Same.

Together for teachers, leaders, students, and our communities—

💛 Staci Bain, Ed.D.

Author of Empowered to Teach and Lead: Whole-Group Literacy Instruction Made Easy

Host of On the Road to Literacy Success Podcast

Co-Founder | Educate America® LLC

Creator of K–12 Tier 1 Frameworks®, Tier 1 Roadmap Courses®, Hot Take Hub™, and Tier 1 Ambassador (Train-the-Trainer Program)

Former LETRS National Facilitator | Teacher | Principal | Executive Director

Founding President, The Reading League Washington

🌎 GoodHumansEducate.com

Important Note: Educate America® LLC is a small, family-owned and operated company that continues to be self-funded.

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