Category · 319 articles
Spelling & Vocabulary
Knowledge of Language | Anchor Standards for Language
The key word in the Knowledge of Language Standard is apply. The somewhat ambiguous term, language, refers to the other five Standards in the Language Strand which encompass…
Assessment-based Re-teaching
Good teachers care more about learning than teaching. If you are willing to re-teach what you've already taught (and not yet taught) this year, check out…
Reading Intervention Program Politics 101
I've learned to take a friendly, but assertive stance with administrators regarding reading intervention programs. The article provides teachers with three practical ideas to apply political…
Digraphs and Diphthongs | Academic Language for Reading Instruction
When we simplify instruction, we create confusion for students later on. After all, phonics is all about sound-spellings.
Pre-teach before Reading Assessments
Good assessments catch students at their best. That's why it makes sense to pre-teach before teachers assess to help students retrieve prior knowledge and get the…
Consonant Blends for Big Kids
In most explicit, systematic phonics programs, the short vowels (our most predictable and consistent sound-spelling relationships are taught first, along with the most frequently occurring consonant…
Consonant Digraphs for Big Kids
s an MA reading specialist, I know that teachers get confused about consonant blends. Let me give you the definitions, a way to remember the difference,…
Consonant-Final e for Big Kids
Students find the silent final e to be a frustrating component of our English sound-spelling system. In particular, second-language learners struggle with both pronunciations and spellings of…