Because not every child needs to practice sight words right now When you’re teaching reading at home, it’s easy to feel like you have to teach everything.Letters. Sounds. Sight words. Spelling rules. Fluency. Comprehension. But here’s the truth:Not every skill needs to be taught right now. The key to building reading skills that stick is…
Phonics practice doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective. If you’ve ever watched your students read “tap” as “pat” or write “slip” when they meant “flip,” you already know that hearing and working with sounds is one of the hardest things for early readers to master. That’s exactly why word chains and ladders belong…
Phonemic awareness is one of those skills that’s easy to overlook—especially when you’re short on time, juggling behavior, and trying to squeeze in a million things each day. But here’s the thing: just 5 minutes of consistent, targeted practice can have a big impact on your students’ reading growth. And you don’t need elaborate lessons…
Most struggling readers don’t need more guessing strategies or complicated routines.They just need short, focused fluency practice that actually sticks. That’s where fluency grids come in. These simple, no-fluff tools help students build speed and accuracy with words and phrases they already know, without the overwhelm of full texts or the pressure of a reading…
If your phonics block feels a little stale or you’re noticing gaps in decoding and spelling, phonogram cards might be the missing piece. Phonogram cards give students repeated, structured practice with sound-spelling connections. They’re simple to use, easy to prep, and work for every setting—from whole group to centers. Let’s walk through practical, no-fluff routines…
Phonemic awareness can feel like one of those things you should be doing more of, but it’s not always clear how to do it well, or where to fit it in. With so much to cover in a day, it’s easy to make small missteps that can slow down your students’ reading progress. The good…
A Guide for Teachers to Identify and Fix Reading Mistakes in Real Time Decoding is a key skill for early readers, but mistakes are part of the learning process. Some errors are small and self-corrected, while others reveal gaps in phonics knowledge that need attention. By paying close attention to the types of errors students…
How Teaching Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words Builds Stronger Readers When we think about teaching early reading skills, phonics and decoding often take center stage. While these are essential, there’s another powerful tool that helps students become stronger readers: morphology. Morphology is the study of word structure—how words are formed using prefixes, suffixes, and root…
Teaching students to recognize tricky words that don’t follow regular phonics rules can be a challenge. When words don’t play by the rules, they need extra attention to help them stick. That’s where the heart word method comes into play, and I have found that flashcards and slides are very handy. These mapped out cards…