Category Archives: Uncategorized

Decodable books are getting a lot of attention right now. Over the last few months, I’ve had many conversations with educators discussing the characteristics of decodables, and the merits of using them in early literacy instruction. I often find that … Continue reading →

This post is mostly covered on our website, but I wanted to create a blog post as well for those who may not follow both. After much deliberation in the spring, we made the decision to change the structure of … Continue reading →

I wanted to take a pause and share a little bit about my experiences over the last few months. Back in February 2021, we found that more and more sales were coming in for our decodable readers. Suddenly we found … Continue reading →

In this post, I have created a sample lesson plan to show how I would introduce a new concept in lesson format. The focus of this lesson is the introduction of the grapheme <-ck>, and where it is found (after … Continue reading →

Games and consolidation activities are super important for Structured Literacy. We really want to see students master a concept before moving on to the next concept. Games are a great way to provide this consolidation! Now that we are spending … Continue reading →

I’ve recently had a lot of colleagues reach out and request ideas for planning structured literacy lessons. There are many ways to organize lessons in a structured way. As mentioned in the introduction of this blog, structured literacy lessons include … Continue reading →

One key feature of Structured Literacy is the idea of developing a Scope and Sequence of instruction. Although it is important to be thoughtful about the order of introduction of concepts, I have learned (through my Orton Gillingham training and … Continue reading →

If you have students who are just at the beginning of their reading journey, blending practice is a must. Students need to learn how to blend sounds slowly together in order to read words. One way to practice this skill … Continue reading →

When teaching students about short vowels and closed syllables, it is important to include lessons on related spelling patterns. There are several patterns that are easy for students to learn, and can help their overall spelling. ‘ck’ Pattern Online Bingo … Continue reading →

If you are working with a student who is struggling to learn, retain and quickly recall letters and corresponding phonemes, multi-sensory materials can help. Here’s one way to do it. I make my own multi-sensory boards out of fluorescent light … Continue reading →

Once you have introduced a type of syllable, it is important to give students an opportunity to consolidate their understanding. The below activities can be done with any syllable types, but for demonstration purposes, we’ll focus on Closed Syllable examples. … Continue reading →

The first syllable type that I like to introduce is Closed Syllables. Before you introduce Closed Syllables, it is important that your students understand what a syllable is, what vowels are, and have knowledge of short and long vowel sounds. … Continue reading →

A syllable is a word, or part of a word, with 1 vowel sound. A simple trick to help students understand and count syllables is to put your hand under your jaw. Due to the fact that each syllable has … Continue reading →

It is important that readers know about vowels and how vowels are different from consonants. Merriam-Webster gives the following definition of a vowel: one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the … Continue reading →

So you have a struggling reader. Our normal first “go-to” is to complete a running record using an instructional text. A careful running record analysis can give you some clues as to where and how a student is struggling. One … Continue reading →