Reading scaffolds are a great way to provide that extra layer of support for students who may struggle to access grade level text. As teachers, we want to see all our students reach grade level expectations and beyond. But the hard reality is so many of our students come to us well behind that benchmark. Regardless of where students comes in at, it’s the expectation of us, the teacher, to help that student access grade level content. But how do you do that?  Readers experiencing grade level difficulties often miss out on grade level content because they are unable to access it independent ..read more

If you’re anything like me, thinking about how to structure your reading block is exciting. It’s my favorite time of day. Every summer I find myself daydreaming about the next year… how do I want to structure the reading block? What will I focus on in my small groups? What routines do I want to implement during the whole group? Thinking about how to structure your reading block with the science of reading in mind, however, can be daunting if new to the task. Reflecting back on how I once answered the above questions, back before my world was flipped upside down with the science of reading, it ..read more

Sentence level comprehension Sentence level comprehension. The phrase in and of itself seems so simple. Yet it is a concept I found myself not explicitly teaching. I took for granted the power and importance of the sentence and often jumped straight into the paragraph or the whole text. When I started understanding the research behind the development of a sentence and language comprehension, I realized the errors of my ways. I began to see many of my students who struggled to comprehend, when brought back to the sentence level, often had deficits in understanding the function of words within a ..read more

Understanding vocabulary words. A key component of a student’s ability to comprehend the larger text. As teachers we spend so much time with vocabulary words: explicitly teaching them to students, working on frayer models together, creating language rich environments in which our students get an opportunity to use their vocabulary words in context. But if you’re only teaching the vocabulary words that appear in the teaching manuals that go with your story of the week, then students are missing a huge sector of vocabulary words they will need to be successful on those dreaded state tests. Stude ..read more

Summer time! The perfect time to spend far too much time & money surfing around amazon swooning after all the things. Just finishing up my tenth year teaching myself, I have spent the last decade of my life finding all the things during these beautiful summer months. Some of the purchases I’ve made from my teacher amazon wishlist were totally worth the hype. And others… not so much. So in this blog post I will walk you through some of my can’t live withouts and those I probably didn’t need.    Flexible Seats on your Teacher Amazon Wishlist Years ago, I transitioned to flexible se ..read more

how to create a lesson plan on phonics for your guided reading instruction If you’re a reading teacher, you understand the importance and the *magic* that can come from small group instruction. Time spent at my small guided reading table is the most precious of the day. It is where I see the most growth and academic gains. It is where I watch students’ lightbulbs click. I can watch them become readers right before my eyes.  However, for the past 10 years, I’ve wasted some of those precious minutes during small group because I didn’t fully understand the science behind how students learn h ..read more

The internet is full sight word lists promoting all sorts of words that children have to memorize in order progress as “being readers.” For the longest time I bought into this notion they had to be memorized. They are common words that show up in our language all the time. Therefore, they must be important for students to be able to read. I would do flashcards at the beginning of small groups, have students quickly recall the word, with little success. Some students would eventually start to memorize them and some wouldn’t. I never really had a strategy on the next steps when the memorization ..read more

  It’s one of my favorite things as a classroom reading teacher:  A student is showing me they have mastered short and long vowels. They have a good sense of r-controlled vowels. They’ve got all their consonant sounds, blends, and digraphs. The sight words are clicking. And all signs are pointing towards two syllable words! Resources, strategies, and the cutest centers seem abundant in lower elementary school. But as students hit these more advanced reading skills, the resources and information seem to dissipate. As a reading teacher, I felt confident in these first fundamental skill ..read more

  Digital word work activities are one of those happy takeaways from the global pandemic we’ve endured over the past two years. And there just aren’t that many happy takeaways I can think of. Which gives all the more reason to celebrate the world of digital word work.  Much like millions of educators, when I was suddenly sprung from the classroom into my basement to continue the same job, with no resources and no training on what that might look like, I panicked. This left so many feelings of juxtaposition of what I was being asked to do vs what I actually felt capable of doing. Thi ..read more

Interested in the science of reading vocabulary instruction? In this post, I will give you 5 vocabulary activities that your students can work on during whole group instruction, small reading groups, or independently that align with the science of reading. Picture this, teachers. You’re sitting down to listen to a child read. The child shows great decoding skills. Seems to be an excellent word caller. Fluency appears to be pretty good. There might even be some good expressions. The child finishes reading the passage. You ask this child to tell you what they’ve read about. You then receive blan ..read more