The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English, and it’s one of the trickiest to teach, especially when it comes to spelling. This post covers what the schwa is and how I teach it, and it includes a list of schwa words sorted by vowel. What is a schwa? The schwa is an…
When a student gets to a long word like napkin or robot, dividing it into syllables turns one big word into two small parts they already know how to read. Below are the 6 syllable division rules I teach, with an example for each and a quick reference chart. I also share the routine I…
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 cover says “Short A.” You flip to page 2 and find ship and was. Is that book decodable? It depends on what your students have been taught. If they’ve learned the digraph sh and they know was as a heart word, yes. If they haven’t, that “decodable” book has two words on one page…
CVC words are the first real decoding win for most students, and having a good list on hand makes planning much faster. The full list is below, sorted by short vowel, along with the activities I use to teach the pattern. CVC stands for consonant-vowel-consonant, like cat and mop. The vowel says its short sound…
Phoneme segmentation is a foundational skill for reading and writing. It’s important to start teaching phoneme segmentation skills early so children can develop this skill before it becomes more difficult to learn. Mastering phoneme segmentation helps readers break apart sounds in a word, blend them together, and read! Here are five activities you can do…