Science-based literacy resources and articles

for families, educators and schools

Search by Category:

Writing Mikayla Storey Writing Mikayla Storey

How to Support Your Students with Writing

Do you have students who struggle with writing?

Maybe they struggle to come up with ideas and just stare at their paper. Maybe they have a difficult time organizing their thoughts or using a clear introduction and conclusion. Or perhaps they forget to edit their work for things like capitalization and spelling.

Wherever in the writing process they struggle, one thing is for sure - writing can be tricky!

That’s why we’ve implemented this 3 step writing process. Keep reading to learn more.

Read More
Spelling Guest User Spelling Guest User

How to Support Spelling - Scoop Spelling Strategy

We are so excited to share this resource with you today! Scoop Spelling changed my life! This strategy brought such relief to my students who struggled to spell multi-syllable words correctly and instantly boosted their confidence! This strategy is so simple to use!

First, make sure that your students are solid on syllabication; what syllables are and how to count them. This knowledge is the key to Scoop Spelling. If a student knows or can hear how a word breaks apart into syllables, then they can Scoop Spell!

Read More
Spelling Corey Pollard Spelling Corey Pollard

How to Teach Spelling

Alright friends, many of you have been asking us this question and we’re excited to share exactly how we teach spelling to our struggling readers and writers!

Here’s the truth - spelling is tricky!

And it’s usually one of the last abilities to fully progress for our struggling students. We tell students and parents that we expect growth to evolve in phases. We typically start at the sound level (making sure that students can associate sounds to letters), then we move up to the syllable level, then to the word level, phrase level, sentence level, and then finally the passage level.

Read More
Phonological Awareness, Differentiation Corey Pollard Phonological Awareness, Differentiation Corey Pollard

How to Differentiate Phonological Awareness Instruction - Intervention Tip of the Week

Phonological awareness is one of those tasks that many feel is a skill that only primary teachers need to address.

However, for many students who struggle to read or spell with accuracy - a phonological processing issue is at the heart of it.

This means that we need to be explicitly teaching phonological awareness skills until they’re mastered. Now that being said - we need to be thoughtful and strategic in HOW we are doing this.

Check out this week’s intervention tip of the week to learn about how we differentiate for

Read More
Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention

How to Teach the au/aw Spelling Rule

Now, if you have been working with us for a while, you’ll know that we LOVE teaching with key images and phrases to help anchor skills for a student. For au/aw, we use the phrase “Yawn, I have to do the laundry.” This helps our struggling readers and spellers remember the rule. Keep reading for more tips, tricks and activities surrounding the au/aw vowel team.

Read More
Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention

How to Teach the OW Spelling Rule

We use the key phrase “Snow Plow” to teach this phonogram because “ow” has two sounds - /O/ like in snow, and /ow/ like in plow. Read on for teaching tips, tricks and activities!

Read More
Phonics Mikayla Storey Phonics Mikayla Storey

How to Teach the OU Spelling Rule

OU has two sounds. To help our students remember these sounds, we use the key phrase “Trout Soup” because it can say /ow/ like in trout and /oo/ like in soup. The visual of fish soup is one the students don’t forget very easily! Keep reading for more tips, tricks and vowel team activities!

Read More
Phonics Mikayla Storey Phonics Mikayla Storey

How to Teach the oi/oy Spelling Rule

We use both “oi” and “oy” to make the /oi/ sound (think of the words “boy” and “foil”). When that sound comes in the middle of a word, we use “oi.” If it comes at the end of the word, we will use “oy.” Keep reading to learn more about how we teach our students all about this vowel team!

Read More
Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention

How to Teach the ee/ey Spelling Rule

With so many ways to get long E sound, we wanted to show you how we teach the ‘ee’ and ‘ey’ vowel teams. Open to read about our approach and grab our ee/ey center activities.

Read More
Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention Phonics Ascend SMARTER Intervention

How to Teach the ai/ay Spelling Rule

Both “ai” and “ay” say the long A sound. We use “ai” in the middle of the word (think rain, pail, train, mail) and “ay” at the end of the word (play, stay, day, May).

Read More
Spelling, Phonics Mikayla Storey Spelling, Phonics Mikayla Storey

Why the Auditory Drill is a Crucial Part of your Lesson

So often, I meet or talk to an interventionist who is leaving out one of the most critical parts of their lesson. Usually, it is because it only takes a few minutes, is similar to other pieces of the lesson, and just gets overlooked. This is doing such a disservice to our students, because without this crucial aspect, their reading intervention is not building a strong enough foundation. This critical piece is the Auditory Drill.

Read More
Phonics, Spelling Corey Pollard Phonics, Spelling Corey Pollard

Consonant LE Syllables - The Reading and Spelling Rules No One Ever Taught You

Here we are with our last syllable type! If you’ve been with us since the beginning of this series you’re all caught up on the crazy reading and spelling rules you may have never heard of - we certainly hadn’t. If you missed learning about all the spelling rules with the other syllable types - go back and check them out!

Read More