When we look at the practice of teaching reading, there are two steps that we follow. Check out the blog to learn what these steps are and how to best combine the science/what the research tells us with your own data & experiences with students for the most effective SOR-based lessons.

We're going to share a potentially unpopular opinion...

Teaching reading IS NOT rocket science. 

While this is a popular expression, we’ve seen it impact the literacy field in a negative way. Keep reading to learn more about the problems with saying "teaching reading is rocket science.”

Have you ever thought to yourself - how in the world can I make this more engaging for my students?

If so, you are definitely not alone. Reading intervention is HARD for our students. We are asking them to complete tasks that have always felt difficult for them.

The good news - it’s easier than you might think to make lessons engaging for your students. Plus - when students are engaged, it’s more likely that they will learn the material. It’s a win-win!

The term “Science of Reading” has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. Today, we wanted to break down what the Science of Reading is and what its future holds.

First things first -

What is the Science of Reading?

The Science of Reading encompasses a comprehensive collection of research completed over many years by experts in the fields of education, psychology, neuroscience, language development, and more regarding how we learn to read.

There are three main pieces to your (and your students!) success. We refer to these key pieces as the “3 Ms” - Motivation, Method, Mindset. In order to be truly effective, you need all three. Keep reading to learn about what this looks like in literacy intervention.

Last spring, so many of us had to make an abrupt switch to online learning. It was expected that this transition be seamless, and for so many, it was quite the opposite of that. Let’s be honest, it was hard. We weren’t sure how we were going to make online learning effective, how to transition all materials to be used virtually, and the hardest part… we weren’t able to see our students in person anymore. It was tough. But, over time we were able to adapt. We came up with ways to transition materials to an online format and continued to hold our connections with our students even though we weren’t with them. We were finally starting to feel comfortable when everything changed again…

Games are a great way to differentiate your lessons to target specific skills with your students. Every week, we take data to see where our students are growing, where they consistently do well, and where they need extra support. When we find these holes and gaps, we supplement with a review game to target tricky skills.

This is a bold claim - we understand. But here’s the thing we’ve noticed after years of intervention work and years of working with hundreds of literacy interventionists.

The culture of literacy intervention has built up this idea that we have to be perfect to get started. This idea that if we don’t do everything just so …. our students will suffer. It’s led to this idea that there is a “perfect way” to implement effective literacy intervention.

So we asked our Intervention Insiders Community to give us feedback on what’s up with online intervention. And we received some really awesome questions. So we wanted to take this week to dive in and answer some of those questions.

Today - we wanted to share some of the physical materials we’re finding helpful in keeping our online sessions engaging. Now, most of our students are doing AMAZINGLY well at adapting to the online space.

While programs can and often will give suggested guidelines on where to start a student, how quickly to move through the program, and how to instruct the material, it is still your space to use clinical/professional judgement and to fill in concepts and review as needed. Trust your intuition - you know your students best!

We know that we have a massive reading gap for so many students…

Knowing what we know - we keep questioning -

Why do we have so many struggling students when the research is clear on what evidence-based practices MUST look like to support our struggling readers?

Ultimately, there are a LOT of potential answers and factors at play when we consider this question but for us, it really comes down to 3 major categories. And…because we always teach our students to use graphic organization strategies to make sense of and organize information, we felt compelled to do the same!

Summer is here and we are seeing that online instruction is becoming more and more “normal.” Schools are saying that they will continue online instruction or hybrid instruction through the fall. The reality is that we don’t know what the future will bring when it comes to school & intervention as we knew it.

While this change can be scary, we want you to know that if you can lean into that discomfort, you can THRIVE in online intervention - not just “survive until this summer.”

How’s it going? Hopefully you’re hanging in there with all the craziness going on in the world recently. Today, we wanted to share a quick tip with you on how you can take your reading intervention to the next level for students who need an extra push.

One of the most important things we’ve learned in our intervention time is that you can use ONE activity in a bunch of different ways to target individual student needs and to uplevel your intervention.

If you have been following us for a while, you know that we are super passionate about SLPs being a perfect fit to deliver literacy instruction. Their unique background lends itself so well to supporting students when it comes to reading and writing support. This week we want to spotlight an incredible SLP who has also been serving students through literacy instruction. Open to watch our video interview!

Today, we want to jump in here to walk through how you can instruct students even if you can’t meet with them live. As long as you have had some sort of computer and a program that will let you record your computer screen (we use Zoom to screen share and record videos), you can still create effective reading intervention lessons that allow you to track student progress. Read on for more information.

Today we wanted to talk about how to teach reading to students who are not able to interact on the screen with you. Our goal is always to have engaging and interactive sessions for our reading intervention students. However, there may be times where that just isn’t possible because they may be using a device that doesn’t have that functionality (such as a Google Chromebook), or you may be working from a system (such as Google Hangouts) that doesn’t allow students to control your screen.

Discover effective tips for transitioning Kindergarten reading lessons online. Split sessions into manageable pieces for young learners' attention spans. Keep lessons interactive with engaging games and activities. Communicate openly with families about challenges and adjustments. Learn more in our video tutorial!