In most urban areas, a public bus ride can be a solitary experience. Most people don’t talk to each other. Many disappear into their headphones. Children go unnoticed. But when four young boys from blue montessori got on the bus for a field trip in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington D.C., their habits of curiosity, self-discipline, and trust made it different.

In an era of education technology, learning apps, and sophisticated reading programs, Margaret McDonald's most powerful insight about teaching reading is straightforward: "The priorities are the basics. Keeping it simple. Making sure it's something we can sustain."

What Kate Lechner and Sarah Tupper have built at Indigo Montessori, a Wildflower school in Baltimore, Maryland, isn't a revolutionary reading program. It's something harder to replicate: a school structured to give every child what good reading instruction has always required – consistent 1:1 lessons and real time to read.