Consonant blends and digraphs trip up a lot of students, and honestly a fair number of teachers too. The difference matters: in a blend you hear every sound, and in a digraph two letters make one new sound. Below you’ll find the full lists of both, with example words, along with how and when to…
If you’re looking for spelling strategies to help struggling learners then keep reading. In this post, I share my favorite effective multisensory spelling strategies that help with any kind of spelling list. These spelling strategies have been very successful with struggling learners because they integrate multiple senses and provide several options for the information to…
Did you know that the schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in the English language? And despite this, it is a tricky sound to teach, especially when it comes to spelling. In this post, I break down the schwa sound so you can confidently teach your students all about the schwa! What is…
Are you confused about how to divide words into syllables? Or maybe you’re not sure exactly how to teach your students the syllable division rules. It can be tricky, but with a few simple rules, you’ll be able to do it like a pro. In this blog post, we will discuss the most common ways…
When it comes to teaching reading, phonics is definitely one of the most important aspects. But what’s the difference between phonics, phonemic awareness, and phonological awareness? And what do each of these terms mean for your students? This guide will break it all down for you! What Is Phonological Awareness? Phonological awareness is the ability…
Did you know that silent e does more than just make the previous vowel say its name? In fact, a final silent e has 6 other jobs in addition to this! I didn’t know about these other jobs but once I learned, it made so much sense. Hopefully, this overview helps you understand the other…
There are so many strategies that we learn to teach reading comprehension but in this post, I share my favorite visualizing reading strategy that helps struggling readers improve their reading comprehension: visualization with structure words. This visualizing reading strategy is the foundation of the extremely successful reading program Lindamood-Bell Visualizing & Verbalizing. It is the…
Orthographic mapping is the process where children learn to recognize each letter of the alphabet and how each letter represents one sound. It’s how words become sight words. In this post, you’ll learn about how orthographic mapping develops, and how to use phoneme grapheme mapping in your literacy instruction to develop students’ orthographic mapping skills….
The debate over whether to use decodable books or leveled books has really been firing up lately. Opinions are polarized with many teachers totally ditching leveled readers and others staying away from “boring” decodable texts. So what should you use? Which one is better to use? Well, the truth is that they are both good…