The Science of Reading demonstrates that small group instruction is an integral part of the literacy block. In this post, I share 3 tips to help make your small group instruction more manageable, meaningful, and effective. In my last post, I shared information about the science of reading, structured literacy, and small-group instruction. I explained why this instruction is so important, but I didn’t mention that it isn’t always easy to pull off.   Effective small-group instruction requires frequent assessment, regular shuffling of student grouping, careful lesson planning, and stron ..read more

In this post, I share information about the Science of Reading, structured literacy, and small-group instruction. I define each term and explain why small-group instruction is so important for students. Teaching children how to read is not always an easy task. Fortunately, we are teaching at a time when there is a lot of information about how children best learn to read. This information comes from the body of research referred to as the Science of Reading. Understanding the Science of Reading is important and makes our literacy instruction more effective.  What is the Science of Reading ..read more

This is the final post in a series on how to teach different phonics skills. In this post, I explain how to teach multisyllabic words. I answer the question “What are the 6 syllable types?” and explain how they help students read multisyllabic words. I share a FREE syllable types resource and finally, leave you with a FREE Multisyllabic Word list to support the phonics instruction in your classroom. As teachers, one of the most important jobs we have is to teach children how to read.  The Science of Reading has demonstrated that to do so successfully, we must provide our students with exp ..read more

In this post, I offer information about vowels and answer the question, “What is a diphthong?”. I offer tips for how to teach this phonics skill and provide a FREE variant vowel and diphthong word list.  Finally, I leave you with activities and resources you can use to teach your students diphthongs.  The Science of Reading tells us that for a student to become a successful reader, they need explicit and systematic phonics instruction and meaningful practice. To support your phonics instruction, I created a blog series that explains how to teach the different phonics skills.  In ..read more

In this post, I answer the question, “What are r-controlled vowels?”. I offer tips for how to teach this phonics skill and provide a FREE r-controlled vowels word list.  Finally, I leave you with activities and resources you can use to teach your students r-controlled vowels. The Science of Reading tells us that for a student to become a successful reader, they need explicit and systematic phonics instruction and meaningful practice. To support your phonics instruction, I created a blog series that explains how to teach the different phonics skills.  In earlier posts, I explained how ..read more

In this post, I explain the difference between consonant blends and consonant digraphs. I offer you tips for how to teach blends and digraphs and provide you with FREE blend and digraph word lists. Finally, I leave you with activities and resources you can use to help your students master blends and digraphs. The Science of Reading tells us that in order for a student to become a successful reader, we must provide them with explicit and systematic phonics instruction and meaningful practice. To help you with this task, I am creating a series of blog posts that explain how to teach th ..read more

In this post, I offer tips for teaching students phoneme-grapheme correspondence and explain how a sound wall can support this instruction. Then, I leave you with a free grapheme frequency chart that tells you what graphemes to teach for each phoneme.  One of the first literacy skills students develop is the ability to match the phonemes (speech sounds) they hear with the graphemes (letters and letter combinations) they see.  This skill is referred to as phoneme-grapheme correspondence and it is an essential skill for beginning readers.   A sound wall is an instructional to ..read more

In this post, I share tips to help students master the phonics skills you teach and offer you details about my new Yearlong Phonics Cumulative Review Resource for Kindergarten, first, and second-grade students. It is the perfect phonics activities resource for Science of Readiing-aligned morning work or any other time when you want to give your students meaningful phonics review.  In a structured literacy k-2 classroom, systematic phonics instruction is an integral part of our literacy instruction. Decades of research show us that English decoding skills are not intuitive and reading does ..read more

This is the second post in a series that explains how to set up a sound wall. This post focuses on the Consonant Sound Wall. I provide information about consonants, explain how to set up the consonant sound wall, and teach you why it is arranged in that way. Finally, I leave you with information and details about my new Sound Wall Course which teaches you how and why to use a sound wall in your classroom. Sound Walls are one of the most effective tools you can have in your classroom. They are aligned with the science of reading and provide students with the explicit instruction they need to be ..read more

This post is the first in a series that explains how to set up a sound wall. This post focuses on the Vowel Valley Sound Wall. I provide information about English vowels, explain how to set up the vowel valley, and teach you why it is set up in that way. Finally, I leave you with information and details about my new Sound Wall Course which teaches you how and why to use a sound wall in your classroom. The science of reading is changing the way we teach students to read.  One of the biggest instructional shifts I see is teachers taking down their A-Z word walls and replacing them with phon ..read more