Education resources for parents and teachers
I'm often asked about where someone might find a master list of phonics rules or a phonics rules cheat sheet. I've put this post together so you have a place to find the most important phonics rules and patterns. Let's dive in! Note: In this post, letters written between slash marks represent sounds. For example: /sh/ represents the sound you hear at the beginning of the word chef. Letters written between small ... Read More
As I read new blog posts, articles, and white papers related to the science of reading, I will add the most useful articles to their respective categories. The blog posts and articles in this post are written by people I respect, but the articles are not the research itself (that's a future project). As you'll see, some of these authors have different perspectives on the application of the science of reading. I do ... Read More
To kick off this month, I'm hosting a giveaway for the fantastic book, 7 Mighty Moves, by Lindsay Kemeny. This is a wonderful book by a classroom teacher who made the switch from balanced to structured literacy after everything she knew didn't help her severely dyslexic son learn to read. The good news is that now he's thriving - thanks to what she learned and implemented. In the book, Lindsay shares 7 ... Read More
Invented spelling has always been a hot topic in the reading world. What exactly is it - and should you allow your students to use it?First things first. What is invented spelling?Invented spelling is when students spell words based on the phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge that they have, even if the word is not spelled conventionally.The above octopus, spelled "ODPS," was drawn by my now thirteen-year-old ... Read More
Welcome back to our spelling series! In this post we'll discuss spelling rules and which ones are worth teaching.First, I should note that I am talking about spelling, not reading rules. Some rules, like the FLOSS rule, make perfect sense when it comes to teaching spelling. But I don't think that we need to explicitly teach this rule for children to read words like hill, miss, and buzz. It's enough to demonstrate ... Read More
In this post we'll be looking at the six syllable types and considering the question: Should you teach them? What are the syllable types?Most written English syllables can be organized into six kinds of syllables (called syllable types) based on their spelling.Because every syllable has a single vowel phoneme (sound), the syllable types are defined by the location and/or spelling of the vowel phoneme.The chart below ... Read More
Welcome to the second post in my series about teaching spelling! Today we'll be diving deep into the structure of words as I answer this question:What do phonology, orthography, and morphology have to do with spelling?Sometimes my oldest son likes to take regular English words and pronounce them "correctly." For example, he'll say, "The word raining should really be pronounced /r/ /a/ /i/ /n/ /i/ /n/ /g/.I remember ... Read More
Welcome to the first post in my series about teaching spelling! How to teach spelling: Do's and don'tsLet's examine some "do's" and "don'ts" for teaching spelling in the primary grades.A scope and sequence tells you what to teach, and when. A quality scope and sequence orders skills from simple to more complex. DON'T create personalized spelling lists for each student - when you watch for words that students ... Read More
This is the final episode in our series about reading comprehension strategies! Let's talk summarizing.What does it mean to summarize a text?When you summarize a text, you give a brief statement of the main points.Why should students learn to summarize?Summarizing goes hand-in-hand with comprehension monitoring and is a powerful strategy for improving comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000).Students should start ... Read More
Welcome back to our series about reading comprehension strategies! What are reading comprehension strategies?First, let's review what reading comprehension strategies actually are. According to Shanahan et al (2010), comprehension strategies are deliberate mental actions to improve reading comprehension. In other words, you do something on purpose to help you understand the text.Teach comprehension strategies to ... Read More
