What is the difference between the common cueing strategy animals (e.g., Lips the Fish, Skippy the Frog and Eagle Eyes) and Astute Hoot’s Reading Animal Helpers?  There is a tremendous difference! While the cueing systems approach has been used since the 1960s, it has been proven to be flawed. Cueing guides children to use guessing strategies rather than decoding and phonics skills to read unfamiliar words, which impedes their progress. For more information about the issues with this model, read the article “At a Loss for Words: How a Flawed Idea is Teaching Millions of Kids to be Poor Re ..read more

The wait is finally over! We are delighted to announce the launch of our newly updated website and blog, www.astutehoot.com, a comprehensive resource to spark enthusiasm for learning. Astute Hoot features…. A cast of lovable animal teachers: Each animal helper has a unique feature, accompanying poem, and hands-on tools that are used to teach children specific standards-based strategies or skills. Meet them here! Engaging curriculum: Our supplemental resources include multisensory games, graphic organizers and centers which have been field-tested and refined in various early childhood classro ..read more

Is Christmas craziness taking over your classroom? As a veteran teacher, I’ve tried every behavior management trick and technique to calm holiday chaos that predictably arrives every year around December 1 and found limited success. These three weeks should be full of fun and learning, but for years they left me exasperated and exhausted. I decided to take back control with Reindeer in the Room, a customizable, effective behavior management plan I created based upon Elf on the Shelf.  It’s made a tremendous difference in my classroom and I’m excited to share this idea with other teachers ..read more

Love or hate it, virtual learning has become our new reality. As a reading interventionist and kindergarten teacher, this has been a difficult and daunting shift for us as we wholeheartedly believe in multi-modal, hands-on instruction. One of our biggest challenges has been keeping young children engaged and motivated during virtual learning. It is important for us to find balance between screen time and authentic, hands-on learning. Here are our top 4 ways we’ve enhanced virtual learning for our students: Make virtual learning concepts concrete: We anchor abstract virtual concepts, such as r ..read more

“Reggie the Rhyming Raccoon is my name. Learning to rhyme is my game! When words rhyme, they have the same ending sound– You can hear this in the words ground and found. I’ll teach you to hear and find the rhyme. With my help, you’ll rhyme on your own in no time!” Reggie the Rhyming Raccoon is one of our early childhood literacy animal helpers. Reggie helps students recognize and produce rhyming words through the use of engaging, hands-on literacy centers. WHAT is rhyming? A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in the final syllables; words that sound the same or similar in their endi ..read more

“Hi, I’m Leroy the Letter Lynx.           I’ll help you name letters quick as a wink! Alphabet letters are all around. My job is to teach you their names, shapes and sounds. I’ll teach you capital letters and lowercase too. I can’t wait to get started with you!” Leroy the Letter Lynx is one of our early childhood literacy animal helpers. Leroy helps students identify letters and sounds through the use of engaging, hands-on literacy centers. WHAT is letter naming? Instruction of letter naming and letter sounds are both essential skills for deco ..read more

As both an educator and a parent, I understand that distance learning can be difficult, especially when teaching reading.  Our multi-sensory retelling activity is engaging and requires no prep–it’s perfect for distance learning! Plus it’s FREE right now: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Retell-Strategy-Unit-Distance-Learning-1742591 What is retelling? Retelling is the process in which a child reads or listens to a story and then summarizes it in his own words including the beginning, middle and ending. Retelling helps students develop a sense of story structure and become more ..read more

Like many other educators, I’ve been missing my students greatly and have been trying to wrap my head around providing quality specialized intervention instruction during distance learning and remote instruction. Most of my students have goals in the area of reading fluency. During the school year we used a variety of strategies to increase their fluency. One of our most effective strategies was Repeated Reading. In the Repeated Reading strategy, students read the same short passage of text several times, improving with each time they read. Repeated Reading has been shown to improve decoding a ..read more

When learning how to read and spell, children respond best to hands-on strategies.  What better way to practice sight words than to use materials that will engage the visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and auditory senses. These are great activities for at-home learning and practice. Here is a list of my students’ and my own boys’ favorite ways to practice sight words and spelling. 1.  Sand or Salt Trays:  Put a small amount of sand or salt in a shallow container. Students use their pointer fingers to trace word in the sand/salt. Shaving cream can also be used on cookie sheets or tra ..read more

FREE TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONING UNIT! “Hey, I’m Quinn the Questioning Quail; use me when you read. Questions are the way to get the information you need. Good readers ask questions to help them understand; They read the text to find the answers—that’s a smart plan.” Quinn the Questioning Quail is one our comprehension strategy animals in Hazel’s Reading Roost. Quinn supports students in asking and answering questions while reading. Read more about Quinn’s strategy below…WHAT is questioning? Efficient readers continually form questions before, during, and after reading to assist in compreh ..read more