Richland Elementary Teacher Named Goyen Literacy Fellow

BY ROCCO PELLEGRINO

Becky Pallone, a first-grade teacher at Richland Elementary, was named a Goyen Literacy Fellow by the Goyen Foundation. The award is given to educators across the country for their evidence-based literacy teaching practices.

The foundation, led by Goyen Executive Director Kata Solow, awarded 11 other teachers with this same accolade from all over the US. The fellowship awards a stipend to the teachers who will then post their lessons in video format. This is designed to allow other educators to learn from the teachers selected.

Throughout Becky’s teaching career, she began to notice a common trend. Around 70% of her students had no trouble reading, but the other 30% just had a more challenging time learning to read. Over the years, the last part began to bother her because she wanted to know why it was harder. When her middle daughter started having similar reading issues in first grade, she wanted to make a change. She had heard of pieces of training from Bucks County IU, a special education school nearby, and she asked her boss if she could attend one of the sessions. When Becky went to one of them, she was shocked.

“Basically, I learned everything that I was doing, everything Quakertown taught me, everything I learned in undergrad, everything

I learned for my Master’s…” Becky said. “Was wrong. Here I was a certified reading specialist, and I was teaching the kids the ‘wrong way to read.’”

She learned that the 30% who had trouble reading would not be able to read at the expected level unless they were taught explicit systematic phonics. The purpose of this instruction is to “teach children sound-spelling relationships and how to use those relationships to read words.” It is a different type of teaching that Quakertown had not taught yet.

“It was a very sad time for me, but it was also good to know I was getting some answers.” Pallone, who was obviously passionate about her teaching, stated. “I went berserk. I started reading anything I could possibly get my hands on about dyslexia and the science of reading… I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about this.”

As she learned more and more, Becky began pushing for this type of education to be taught all over the district. She harped on the importance of the science of reading, and she was successful in her pitch. As of last year, all schools in Quakertown began including this in K-5 classrooms.

“Quakertown has come really far within the last couple years. We have an amazing reading specialist, Robbie Distefano…” Pallone said. “I can say confidently that my daughter is in the right spot.”

In effort to share her methods in her own classroom, Becky, a former Quakertown alum and Muhlenberg soccer star, began posting videos and photos to Twitter. She had around saw great success on social media with her daily posts. You can find her videos on Twitter @MrsPallone.

“Becky was not just our first fellow. She has also been somewhat of a reading teaching influencer.” Kata Solow said. “Professors from all around the world have reached out to her, and it has been really cool to see.”

Kata said she discovered Becky through Twitter, and that is what made her stand out in the application process for the fellowship in which 12 teachers were selected out of 150 applicants.

“She inspired the idea for the fellowship. I was watching these little snippets of her teaching and making this theory of reading come alive.” Solow explained. “So I thought, what would other teachers and schools learn through her? That helped create the whole idea (of the fellowship).”

The fellowship provides a monthly stipend to the selected teachers in exchange for blogs or videos of the lessons they use in their classrooms. Becky praised the foundation for the idea of the stipend as it encourages teachers to go the extra mile.

250 followers before applying for the Literacy Fellowship from the Goyen Foundation. When she was selected for the prestigious award, her following grew to 3,200. At first, her fellowship was supposed to last 8 weeks, but the foundation asked her to stay on as Pallone

The foundation’s goal is to “amplify the voices of students with learning differences —and support the work of teachers, scientists, and parents doing the same.” If you are interested in learning more about the foundation and the fellowship, go to www.goyen.io.