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Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.

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For a downloadable PDF click here. Summer 2016
By Carolyn D. Cowen

IDA infographics help make complex information easy to digest, remember, and share and are made for a wide audience-those new to dyslexia and related literacy/learning issues as well as the experts. Please share our infographics as well as our Fact Sheets to raise awareness about dyslexia and to help support the policy and practice changes needed to bring effective instruction (particularly in reading) to every child with dyslexia in every classroom across the nation.
Author's Note: You may need to zoom in to read small text.
Carolyn D. Cowen, Ed.M., is the Social Media Editor/Strategist for the International Dyslexia Association's Examiner. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Newgrange School, Ann Robinowitz Education Center, and Laurel School and on the Board of Directors for the Research Institute for Learning and Development. Carolyn is especially interested in creative ways nonprofits and movements can "power the mission with the message." Follow her on Twitter .

More infographics!

Good News! Most Reading Difficulties Can Be Resolved or Greatly Diminished (April 2016)

How Widespread Is Dyslexia? (February 2016)
Copyright © 2016 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be reprinted for the purpose of resale. Permission to republish this article is available from info@interdys.org.

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What Is Structured Literacy? - International Dyslexia Association

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AUTHOR * LITERACY EXPERT * CONSULTANT

LOUISA MOATS

Dr. Louisa Moats, Ed.D. is a nationally recognized authority on how children learn to read and why some fail to learn. Widely acclaimed as a researcher, speaker, consultant, and trainer, Moats developed the landmark professional development program LETRS for teachers and reading specialists and the scientifically based LANGUAGE! Live Reading Intervention for grades 5 - 12.

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AUTHOR LITERACY EXPERT CONSULTANT Louisa Moats, Ed.D. Dr. Louisa Moats is a nationally recognized authority on how children learn to read and why some fail to learn. Widely acclaimed as a researcher, speaker, consultant, and trainer, Moats developed the landmark professional development program LETRS for teachers and reading specialists and the scientifically based LANGUAGE!

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We specialize in partnering with schools and districts to build custom implementation support plans. Including planning, training, and ongoing support

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Take the first step toward achieving literacy success in your school or district. Champion change with LETRS!
Request a Sample

Teachers Matter

The most important factor in student success is the teacher. LETRS® ( Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) for K-5 educators is an investment in their literacy knowledge and professional practice. Teachers gain essential skills to master the fundamentals of literacy instruction to apply and transform student learning.
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LETRS is Remote Ready.

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Bridge the Gaps in Literacy Teacher Preparedness

Professional learning that comes from LETRS is relevant and applicable regardless of the literacy programs already in use within your state, district, or school. LETRS is designed to be the cornerstone of a multiyear, systemic literacy improvement initiative-backed by decades of research and proven success.

Flexible and Remote Ready Implementation

LETRS is offered in flexible implementation models to meet the specific needs of your teachers, district, or state.

Professional Learning to Support Your District

LETRS for Early Childhood Educators

Literacy professional learning for preK-K teachers that focuses on the foundational skills young students need before learning to read and write.

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Provides steps for facilitating change, developing comprehensive assessment plans, managing resources, assembling a school leadership team, and making data-based decisions.

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Each implementation support plan is individually crafted with school and/or district administrators to meet specific needs, including making explicit connections.

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Real-time, actionable, and customized consultative support helps educators develop an understanding of how to analyze and diagnose student skill deficits.

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Literacy solutions guided by LETRS' science of reading pedagogy, the Structured Literacy approach, and explicit teaching of sound-letter relationships for effective reading instruction.

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LETRS - Teacher Professional Development | Voyager Sopris Learning

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Take the first step toward achieving literacy success in your school or district. Champion change with LETRS! Request a Sample The most important factor in student success is the teacher. LETRS ® ( Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) for K-5 educators is an investment in their literacy knowledge and professional practice.

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What happened when schools used science to revamp how reading is taught

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About a dozen Pennsylvania school districts are teaching their youngest students how to read using a new understanding of the way the brain learns to decode words on the page, and educators say it's working for all kids, even those...

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See how LETRS® ( Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) educator training provides teachers with foundational literacy and language skills based on the science of reading. View the syllabus and learn how LETRS, authored by Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. Carol Tolman, helps educators teach all K-12 students to read
Literacy educators benefit from PD and teacher training that provides depth of knowledge; language and literacy skills; and practice to successfully address struggling K-12 students.

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See how LETRS ® ( Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) educator training provides teachers with foundational literacy and language skills based on the science of reading.

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A hot topic in the field of beginning reading instruction these days is the use of classroom "walls." Word walls, sound walls, spelling walls, morphology walls - so many different kinds of walls! Understanding the difference among these options, and the different purposes for using them can be confusing. To help clear up some of this confusion, here are some brief descriptions and examples of different types of walls:

Vocabulary Word Wall:This kind of "wall" is a list of vocabulary terms that the teacher is teaching in-depth. The words on these lists should change frequently, sometimes with words added and taken off daily. The words are typically chosen because they support important concepts related to current subject area content and reading materials. Unusual words that students find interesting can also be included on a vocabulary word wall. The words might be in a single list, or they might be organized into categories. For essential words that teachers want students to really "own", they need to provide multiple exposures in real contexts to those words. As Beck and colleagues note (2002), students need "rich vocabulary instruction" that includes significant discussion in a content-rich environment that offers students an opportunity to have purposeful interaction with new vocabulary words. Showing an anchor chart with a list of key words serves as a reminder to students and teachers to use these words in context. Instructional suggestions for using this type of word wall are included The Key Vocabulary Routine. The examples below are from primary grade classrooms.

Morphology Wall: This kind of "wall" focuses on instruction related to word parts (morphemes, including prefixes, suffixes and roots or base words). The purpose of these walls is to build students' understanding that words are "constructed" by combining meaningful word parts, to help them build word families, and to learn common prefixes, suffixes, and roots/base words. A morphology wall can take different forms, as shown in the examples below.

Sound-Spelling Wall: This kind of "wall" includes cards that represent speech sounds (phonemes). For each sound, a picture is provided of a word that includes that sound - 44 in total that represent phonemes in spoken English. Spellings that represent a sound are listed under the picture. See the examples below - the one on the left uses the first sound in the word "cat" as the key word prompt for the sound /k/, and 3 spellings are listed underneath (c, k, ck). The cards are usually grouped by sound - i.e., the vowel sounds together and consonant sounds together. Typically, as the teacher focuses on a specific sound, they start by teaching the most common spelling(s) (grapheme) for that sound, which are shown on the card. Less common spellings can be added as they are taught. Sound-spelling walls help students spell words based on the sounds in a word - they listen for each sound in the word, find the picture prompt word related to that sound, and can then view the different options to spell that sound. These types of walls go hand in hand with structured literacy instruction that includes explicit instruction for sound-spelling correspondences, and blending and segmenting of phonemes to decode (read) and encode (spell). And, this type of instruction supports the development of the orthographic mapping process that enables students to become fluent readers by connecting the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings), and then storing connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as "sight vocabulary" or "sight words". A sound-spelling wall is often described as focused on the students' point of view because it uses a speech-to-print approach that focuses on how a word sounds. View the examples below.

Sound Articulation Wall: Sound articulation "walls" display pictures of students' mouths that show how the 44 sounds of spoken English are produced - i.e., the manner and place of articulation in the mouth. Often, these pictures are displayed alongside sound-spelling cards, to form a "wall" that covers both sound articulation and sound-spelling. The purpose of the pictures is to provide clues to students about what their mouth and tongues are doing when producing a sound. However, this type of wall will not be helpful if the teacher is not also providing explicit instruction about phoneme articulation, including helping students attend to the way their mouths look, feel and act. It also includes making sure that each sound is clearly pronounced without adding "extra sounds" - for example, making sure not to add an "uh" sound for the sound /b/, /t/, or /p/ (e.g., avoid saying /buh/, /tuh/, /puh/). The first example below shows just articulation pictures, the next examples show them combined with sound-spelling cards.

Traditional Alphabet Word Walls: These types of word walls have been found in classrooms for decades, despite not being very helpful in terms of supporting reading or spelling. With this kind of wall, words are listed under each letter of the alphabet based on the first letter of the word, typically high-frequency words. However, grouping words by their sounds instead of letters (i.e., sound-spelling walls) is much more effective. This is especially the case for words that start with a letter that does not match the sound in a word. Unless the student already knows how to read and spell the word, they will not be able to find it on the chart. For example, the word " the" would be listed under "T" but the first sound the student hears is /th/ not /t/. Another example is the word " knee ". It would be listed under "K" but the first sound the student hears is /n/, not /k/. This is why the speech-to-print approach in a sound-spelling wall is a more effective and useful kind of wall. View the example of a traditional alphabet word wall below.

Summary: Any type of word wall will not be useful if the teacher does not reference it on a regular basis. Also, vocabulary walls need to change words (i.e., weekly) and morphology walls need to be updated as new examples of words with suffixes and prefixes are encountered in reading. If walls are not used on a regular basis, they unfortunately will become nothing more than wall paper!
Additional Resources Related to Sound Spelling and Sound Walls:
Reference: Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. New York: The Guilford Press.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Word Walls, Sounds Walls: What's the difference? - Keys to Literacy

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A hot topic in the field of beginning reading instruction these days is the use of classroom "walls." Word walls, sound walls, spelling walls, morphology walls - so many different kinds of walls! Understanding the difference among these options, and the different purposes for using them can be confusing.

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Lexia Learning Systems https://www.lexialearning.com/Assets/img/logo.svg 1984 978-405-6232 info@lexialearning.com 300 Baker Avenue, Suite 320 Concord MA 01742 USA

Michigan LETRS®
Science of Reading
Professional Learning Course

Empowering Michigan educators to improve student literacy through evidence-based professional learning

As part of Public Act 144 of 2022, the Michigan Department of Education is excited to extend the science of reading professional learning initiative.

The Michigan LETRS Science of Reading Professional Learning Course will provide sustained and job-embedded professional learning about the science of reading, at no cost to educators. These impactful courses are based on Lexia's LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) for elementary educators, LETRS for Administrators, and LETRS for Early Childhood Educators

Who is eligible to register?

Any Michigan pre-K-6 educator currently teaching in any Michigan public school or public charter school (Select Register for LETRS to sign up.)

Pre-K-12 SPED endorsed teachers (Select Register for LETRS to sign up.)

Elementary administrators, those in leadership roles, and district-level administrators (Select Register for LETRS for Administrators to sign up.)

Literacy coaches (Select Register for LETRS Accelerated Cohort to sign up.)

What are the course dates?

LETRS® is accredited by the International Dyslexia Association®

One Michigan District's LETRS Journey

The Michigan LETRS Science of Reading Professional Learning Course is part of the state's comprehensive plan to apply millions of dollars in federal relief to improve student literacy. The LETRS course of study gives teachers the skills they need to teach language and literacy to every student, even those with reading challenges like dyslexia.

Participation is on a first-come, first-served basis so reserve your seat now. Participants will earn valuable CEUs or PLUs!

What is LETRS?

Developed by Dr. Louisa Moats and leaders in the field of literacy, LETRS teaches the skills needed to master the foundation and fundamentals of reading and writing instruction-phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and written language.

LETRS professional learning for elementary educators is an investment in teachers' literacy knowledge and professional practice. Teachers gain essential knowledge to master the fundamentals of literacy instruction required to transform student learning.

LETRS for Early Childhood Educators professional learning provides deep knowledge of literacy instruction for the youngest learners. The more children know about language and literacy before they begin kindergarten and first grade, the better equipped they are to succeed in literacy learning and beyond.

LETRS for Administrators equips instructional leaders to create systems and structures in their schools and districts to achieve high levels of academic performance and growth in literacy.

Rané Garcia

Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Michigan Department of Education

Shelly Proebstle

Michigan Department of Education

Kimberly St. Martin, Ph.D.

Assistant Director, Michigan's MTSS

Technical Assistance Center

"Teachers are the most important factor in student success. Informed teachers can explain language to students, including sounds, spellings, and word meanings that might be confusing. They use lessons based on reading science and understand the process of learning to read and write. Research proves it. Science matters."

Louisa Moats, Ed.D., Author of LETRS

Resources

A host of resources related to LETRS, the science of reading, and Structured Literacy is available to give you additional insight.

How Can We Help?

State Contact

Kellie Flaminio

Early Literacy Grant Coordinator

Office of Educational Supports
Michigan Department of Education

Lexia Contacts

Brandie Turner

State Professional Learning Solutions Account Executive

Jamie Bouchelle

LETRS State Success Manager

A Cambium Learning® Group Brand

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LETRS professional learning for Michigan Pre-K-3 educators!

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Empowering Michigan educators to improve student literacy through evidence-based professional learning As part of Public Act 144 of 2022,...

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LETRS Training Grant

Section 35a(10) of FY 22 State School Aid Act allocates $4,000,000 to MDE to administer and provide training of, in partnership with Lexia® Learning, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) (grades K-3), or LETRS for Early Childhood Educators (LETRS EC) (Pre-K) to interested pre-K-3 educators.

GRANT APPLICATION

If you are a pre-K-3 educator interested in participating in LETRS training, please fill out the Google registration form.

For more information about LETRS, please visit Lexia's Michigan LETRS Science of Reading Professional Learning Course website.

MDE Grant Contact:

Please direct all inquiries to MDE-LETRS@michigan.gov.

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Michigan Department of Education - Section 35a(10) of FY 22 State School Aid Act allocates $4,000,000 to MDE to administer and provide training of, in partnership with Lexia® Learning, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) (grades K-3), or LETRS for Early Childhood Educators (LETRS EC) (Pre-K) to interested pre-K-3 educators.