What are blends and digraphs? And what’s the best way to teach them? These are very common questions I get all the time. Many students really struggle with consonant blends and consonant digraphs, and some teachers are even confused about them In this post, I’m talking all about consonant blends, consonant digraphs, how to teach…
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…
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….
Do you struggle with teaching CVC words to your students? Or are you looking for new and different ways to teach the CVC pattern? In this blog post, you will learn what a CVC word is, how to teach them, plus download my FREE CVC words list to help you plan your activities. What is…
Since I have written about the science of reading, heart words, and explicit phonics instruction, so many of you have reached out and asked, “so how do I set up my literacy block and work with students in small groups?” I know it can be overwhelming learning that what you’ve been doing needs to change,…
If you’re looking for effective high frequency word instruction, then the Heart Word Method is exactly what you want. This method will transform your sight word instruction and your students will thank you for it. Read on to find out what heart words are, how to teach them, and why you should be teaching high…
The science of reading is a body of research from the last 40 years that has led to evidence-based reading instruction and recommendations for teaching reading. This research has shown that reading is not natural and needs to be explicitly taught in a systematic way for many students to become fluent readers. Read on to…
Last up in my series of long vowel sounds, I’m sharing tips and tricks to teach long u words! Because there are two ways to pronounce long u, it is the most complex of long vowel sounds to teach. I’m going to break down each of the eight ways to spell the long u sound,…
Long e words are quite tricky to teach because there are so many different ways to spell the long e sound and there aren’t any rules or generalizations. With long e spellings, students must practice and be exposed to the words until they have mastered them. I’m going to break down each of the eight…