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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.

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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!

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Corey Pollard Corey Pollard

The Art of Assessment - Guidelines for Scoring Open-Ended Responses

Assessment that drives instruction should be based on evidence-based practices.. To read and write effectively, we need to make connections between phonological processing, orthographic processing, and semantic processing. Our assessments should be designed to measure a student’s ability in each of these areas. However, measuring some of these areas is easier than others.

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Corey Pollard Corey Pollard

How to Measure Reading Fluency

Measuring reading fluency is an important step in understanding whether students are on track with their overall rate (speed) and accuracy in their reading. In this blog, we will share the exact process you can use to determine where your students’ reading fluency skills are at using norm-referenced measures and rubrics.

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Comprehension, Authentic Literature, How To Corey Pollard Comprehension, Authentic Literature, How To Corey Pollard

How to Create SOR-Aligned Lesson Plans for 3rd & 4th Grade Using Your Students Favorite Books

You may have heard that 3rd grade is the year where students transition from learning to read to reading to learn. But how exactly do we support that transition for students who are still working on the foundations?

Today, we’re sharing about how you can use your students’ favorite books to create evidence-based lesson plans that align with the Science of Reading so that your 3rd and 4th graders can begin to generalize those foundational skills to higher-level reading.

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Reading Comprehension Corey Pollard Reading Comprehension Corey Pollard

Teaching Reading Comprehension - Strategies for Inferences & Predictions

Do your students ever struggle to make appropriate inferences or predictions from a story or passage they've just heard or read?

If so, not to worry, this is a high-level concept! And, we’re here to share our explicit teaching strategy to help students begin to “take leaps” with information by making inferences and predictions. Keep reading to learn more!

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Mikayla Storey Mikayla Storey

Using Dingoes at Dinnertime in a SOR-Aligned Lesson

Have your students ever struggled to apply explicitly taught strategies to reading chapter books?

Have you ever struggled to keep your students motivated and engaged in your literacy instruction?

If so you are not alone!

One of the best strategies to help your students apply strategies while keeping them motivated and engaged is to build a structured and systematic SOR-aligned lesson and pair it with a chapter book.

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Research Mikayla Storey Research Mikayla Storey

Reading Is Hard - Understanding the Bases of Literacy

Over the last few decades, there has been a lot of research done that helps us understand the brain, how we learn to read, and how we, as educators, can best teach reading. This movement is known as the Science of Reading. 

This research has helped us recognize the necessary components of a reading & writing lesson, but, it can feel like a lot to dig through! In this blog, we discuss a few of the common research models and explain how they overlap to support truly effective reading (and writing!) instruction.

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Vocabulary Mikayla Storey Vocabulary Mikayla Storey

The Best Strategy to Develop Vocabulary Knowledge

When it comes to vocabulary instruction, rote memorization of definitions has been the go-to strategy for students for a looooooong time. While this flashcard strategy can be an effective way to learn new words, it ultimately isn't effective for long-term retention. We’ve found a strategy that can easily be incorporated into your existing literacy lessons to support vocabulary development and comprehension. Curious? Click here to learn more.

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Business Ascend SMARTER Intervention Business Ascend SMARTER Intervention

How to Make Extra Money as a Teacher This Summer

As the summer rolls near you may be thinking about ways to earn some extra money. The great news - you have an incredible skill set that is extremely valuable. Keep reading to learn more about how you can use your skill set to make extra money this summer!

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