I'm sure we've all been there… in the middle of a lesson and our student says, "but I already know this!" 

Can you relate?  

As we work through the sound drill, it is important that we understand why this task is important and be able to explain to our students why it is a necessary part of our lesson. Keep reading to learn more!

To teach, or not to teach phonological awareness…this is the question (especially because research seems to be ever-changing in this area)!!

Check out this blog for answers to understand its importance, target specific skills, and integrate PA seamlessly into your lessons. Explore why phonological awareness matters for all ages and how to make it feel cohesive.

Phoneme segmenting is essential to spelling success. In order to spell a word (especially an unfamiliar one!) we first need to identify what sounds we hear. Keep reading to learn more about the importance of phoneme segmenting and how you can incorporate this instruction into your lessons!

Can you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Can your students? 

In all seriousness, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious isn't the most functional word to spell – but as students progress academically, they do need to be able to break down long words for reading and spelling. Keep reading to learn why syllable segmenting is necessary and how to incorporate this instruction into your lessons!

Phoneme isolation is a critical skill in both reading and spelling. 

It helps us sequence the sounds we hear when we sound words out. It allows us to differentiate between things like stop and spot. It can help students recognize their errors in spelling, too.

Improve spelling accuracy with phoneme isolation! Learn why it's crucial for reading and spelling success. Discover practical strategies and activities to support sound isolation in our blog.

Do your students ever mix up certain sounds? Maybe they mispronounce words, like calling milk "melk" or they spell "met" as "net." 

Enhance your students' auditory discrimination skills for better pronunciation and spelling! Explore why this skill is crucial for reading and spelling accuracy. Get practical tips and resources to support auditory discrimination in this blog.

Phonological awareness skills are often taught to support reading and spelling. But…did you know that some PA skills can directly support reading comprehension as well?

Discover how sentence segmenting enhances literacy skills beyond spelling and reading. Learn how to improve memory, comprehension, and writing structure.

Say this word without the first sound…

Say this word backward.

Change the last sound in this word…

Are phoneme manipulation skills really necessary?

In short, yes. Keep reading to learn more!

Raise your hand if you've ever told a student to "sound it out" when they were reading.

We imagine just about everyone's hand went up just then. And if this isn't something you've said to students, it's incredibly likely they've heard it from someone else.

But how exactly do we teach students to do this? Do we need to teach students to do this? Keep reading for answers to all of your phoneme blending questions!

You might be wondering when it would be important to teach syllable blending. Is this a skill students even need?

The answer to that question is yes. This is a skill that students, in fact, need. But there are specific times when teaching this skill will be most important. Keep reading to learn more!

You may be wondering if teaching students to rhyme is really necessary. Recently, research has been mixed on whether or not we should be targeting this skill in our instruction.

The argument here is that it isn't necessary to teach because it doesn't directly translate to reading in the same way blending does.

So…should we be teaching rhyming? Keep reading to find out.

Following the Science of Reading requires many lesson components we should be including in our literacy instruction.

Between explicitly teaching the 5 Core Components of Literacy, targeting student needs, tracking data, and pulling review activities - it can definitely feel like a lot!

But here’s the thing, research-based instruction that aligns with the Science of Reading does not have to be hard. All you need is a clear framework you can use to plan your lessons in alignment with research-based principles so that you know you are covering everything you need without it feeling super overwhelming!

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.

How many times have you heard someone (or yourself) say, "but the research says [insert an excerpt from an article here]" to validate an approach or strategy?

We get this, it's entirely well-intentioned and honestly good in many ways BUT there's a better way to validate our approach and strategy in our literacy instruction.

Instead of using "the research says…" we should be using our own experiences, our own students, and our data to be driving us. Keep reading to learn more.

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.”

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of the reading wars. 

This “battle” has been a long-standing argument between whole-language and phonics-based instruction. Over the last few decades (as more research has been done as a part of the Science of Reading movement), we have seen the pendulum swing back and forth and back again between these two reading approaches. 

So… how do we know which is "right?" Keep reading to learn more about these two approaches and which is a fit for your students.

We’re so glad you’re here. Now over the last month, we’ve been talking all about how to use the Science of Reading and effective reading instruction strategies to support students with varying needs. We’ve talked about supporting students who are reading on grade level, supporting students who struggle with decoding and word recognition, we’ve talked about supporting students who struggle with comprehension, and today we’re going to talk about our last group of students, students who struggle with word recognition and comprehension. Click through to learn more!

In order to be a successful reader, students have to be able to understand what they are reading - not just sound out the words. Keep reading to learn how to use SOR to support students that struggle with comprehension.