As teachers, we’re bombarded with tests. Sometimes, it can feel like that’s all we’re doing with our kiddos….the irony is that we’re not even giving our kids the most important reading test of all! Most of the time, we’re diagnosing our kid’s reading level (or identifying reading problems) with comprehension-based assessments. While these tests are fine […]
So…you’ve got a Level A/B reader in your classroom, it’s the middle of the year, and you’re both stuck. You’ve tried every activity under the sun, and you’re giving them tons of repetition and using multi-sensory activities left and right. But they’re still at Level A/B…what should you do? One of the most common questions I […]
Did you know that over 100 years ago the first female physician in Italy laid the groundwork for what most preschool kids do in their classrooms today? Hands-on manipulatives? Yep! Small furniture for little bodies? Yep! A keen eye on development? Yep! These ideas and more can be traced to Dr. Maria Montessori, yet, unfortunately, many of […]
What’s the first step we should take when teaching someone to read? Most of you will probably assume its teaching the alphabet. However, the alphabet is NOT really the foundation of our written code works. The foundation is actually the alphabetic principle, which is the concept that our written language is a code for sounds.Words consists […]
The alphabet has done us wrong! 😉 I know this is shocking news to many of you but let me elaborate. The alphabet is not the REAL foundation of how we learn to read. In this blog post, I’m going to reveal exactly why the alphabet isn’t the best foundation for teaching young students to read. You’ll […]
Much of educational research is bunk. There I said it. And, yes, I’m a researcher. 😮 BUT… Some educational research transcends fads, small sample sizes, and over-drawn conclusions. Some educational research truly disseminates insightful conclusions based on multiple, diverse, long-ranging studies. John Hattie’s research is one such shining example. Across many years, Hattie has demonstrated, through meta-analytic studies, which educational intervention […]
Do you have a few struggling readers that have fallen behind the rest of the class? You may have a class of 20 great readers, but perhaps a few of them aren’t quite at the same level as the rest of the other students. The underlying source of their problem is likely that they have a […]
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again – decodable texts matter! Decodable texts focus on a specific part of the phonic code. They teach kids to blend as they read, rather than merely throwing out a random guess to get the word right. Decodable texts are important because they help kids learn phonics within […]
Did you know that one of the key elements we need to provide our beginning or struggling readers is a strong text selection? What we use to read with our students makes a heap of difference, and yet the importance of decodable texts is often overlooked. In this blog post, we investigate why decodable texts matter and […]
Vocabulary is key when it comes to expressing yourself clearly and communicating with clarity. You need an extensive vocabulary to improve comprehension and all areas of communication from speaking to reading, listening and writing. Research has shown that kids need to know 50,000 word families by the end of 12th grade. To reach this milestone, they […]