How Can Teachers Move From Balanced Literacy to Science-Based Reading Instruction?
Virginia Quinn-Mooney — Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works
About This Episode
In this episode of Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works, Gene Tavernetti talks with first-grade teacher and literacy advocate Virginia Quinn-Mooney about the Science of Reading, teacher learning, and the work of bringing research-backed instruction into classrooms. Virginia shares how the launch of Sold a Story helped prompt the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour, a community that connected teachers with influential literacy advocates and created space for honest professional learning.
The conversation explores classroom practice, teacher collaboration, advocacy, and the tension between evidence-informed instruction and the systems that resist meaningful change. Virginia and Gene return to a practical hope: teachers can model effective instruction every day and help more students experience the teaching they deserve.
What You’ll Learn
- How Sold a Story helped teachers begin reexamining literacy instruction.
- Why teacher communities and honest conversation matter for professional learning.
- What Virginia learned from hosting the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour.
- How classroom modeling and research-backed practice can influence students directly.
- Why implementation depends on leadership, accountability, and follow-through.
- How educators can keep working for better instruction even when systems move slowly.
Chapters
- 00:00 — Welcome to Better Teaching
- 01:05 — Introducing Virginia Quinn-Mooney
- 05:00 — The impact of Sold a Story
- 10:30 — Building the Science of Reading Virtual Happy Hour
- 17:00 — Teacher learning, advocacy, and community
- 25:00 — Bringing research-backed practice into classrooms
- 34:00 — What effective modeling looks like every day
- 43:00 — Systems, implementation, and the challenge of change
- 52:00 — Hope, persistence, and doing better for students
- 57:00 — Closing thoughts
Resources
Added/created/modified by Codex on 2026.11.04 00:00 on ombee.
