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Assessments that are used to see not only where the kids are in learning but also to be used to tell if a district or school needs to be reformed.

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Testing, Testing | Linda Darling-Hammond | TEDxStanford

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Is the ability to read a text orally with speed, accuracy, expression, comprehension, and endurance

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One of the most significant barriers to fluent reading and good comprehension is lack of 'automaticity' - the ability to quickly and accurately identify letters, letter-sound correspondences and isolated words. Children who have not developed automaticity in decoding by the beginning of Year 2 are at risk for reading failure ( Berninger et al., 2006). In this blog I will talk about how you can help a child to achieve that vital automaticity.

What is Automaticity in Reading?

When we achieve automaticity in a skill, we no longer have to consciously think about each individual step in the process. Instead, we can do it without effort, sometimes even while consciously thinking about something else. We can activate or perform the skill quickly. Automatic skilled performance develops with extended practice after a high level of accuracy has been reached.

Do you remember when you were learning to drive a car? You had to think about every action you made. You probably drove slowly in order to be able to process simultaneous actions and information. After direct instruction and repeated, focused practice, it became possible to drive without consciously thinking about each action, even to 'have a quiet word' with the fighting kids in the back seat and drive, simultaneously!

Reading, like driving, is a complex process. It requires two key separate but inter-related skills - word identification and comprehension. In reading, automaticity is the ability to rapidly, effortlessly and accurately recognise or decode words. 'Expert' readers are able to decode words with minimal attention to the activity of decoding. There are few words they must sound out or closely examine, and they can instead accurately recognise words on sight. The 'L plate' or 'novice' reader usually lacks automaticity, often reading slowly, with effort, and often making errors.

Why is Automaticity so Important?

At any given time, we have a finite amount of cognitive energy to give to an activity or process. When we achieve automaticity in lower-level skills (e.g. word recognition), we free up working memory for more complex, higher-level skills (e.g. comprehension). The slower word identification is, the longer previously read letter-sound correspondences and words have to be held in working memory. Working memory may become overloaded by lack of automaticity.

Comprehension may be reduced, not because the reader is unable to understand the text but because too much cognitive energy has had to be put into decoding. Cognitive load is reduced as automaticity increases.

The faster text is processed, the easier it is to access meaning directly and integrate new information with prior knowledge. Consequently, automaticity has a very significant impact on reading comprehension.

Automaticity also plays a key role in the oral reading fluency which is required to effectively share the written word with an audience in the classroom, workplace, home etc. Given the importance of automaticity, educators should ensure that the novice reader develops automaticity at the letter, word, and text level to decrease cognitive load and increase comprehension.

How is automaticity different to fluency?

Automaticity is a prerequisite to fluency. Fluency requires not only automaticity and accuracy in word identification but also prosody (intonation, expression and phrasing) at the text level. For more information, have a look at my blog post on fluency.

What Are the Steps in Developing Automaticity in Reading?

It goes without saying that automaticity in any skill is the product of instruction and multiple practice opportunities.

These are the steps to developing automaticity:

1. Provide explicit systematic instruction

Explicit, systematic, highly structured, step-by-step, carefully sequenced, cumulative, multisensory instruction supports and develops automaticity. Implicit, incidental, haphazard instruction that involves only one sense (e.g. vision) and leaves out important steps does not. There is a plethora of research indicating that systematic synthetic phonics instruction is the most effective form of reading instruction for the novice reader. If you'd like to learn more, you can read these case studies from schools using Phonics Hero across the globe:

2. Develop accuracy in ALL key components of decoding

Accuracy is a prerequisite skill for automatic word recognition, therefore teachers must dedicate significant amounts of instructional time to developing accuracy in each of the following components of decoding:

1. Letter-sound correspondence (incorporating letter discrimination) (Letter level)

2. Blending skill (Word level)

3. Irregular word recognition (Word level)

4. Application of these skills in the reading of decodable text (Text level)

Accuracy is best achieved through appropriate instruction that begins at the student's point of need, followed by frequent (daily) focused practice with direct corrective feedback. 90-96% word recognition accuracy is equated with ability to read at instructional level, 97-100% word recognition accuracy with ability to read at independent level and less than 90% accuracy is equated with frustration level in reading.

3. Develop mastery in decoding

Skills and knowledge learned to the level of automaticity are better retained in long-term memory than skills and knowledge developed only to high accuracy. The goal, then, is mastery. 'Mastery' is defined as 'effective transfer of learning in authentic and worthy performance.' Students should not be considered proficient readers until they can read accurately and with comprehension. This is why accuracy in reading of words in isolation is an insufficient measure of automaticity in reading.

A novice reader may able to decode a passage of text, but if their working memory is devoted completely to decoding they won't be able to extract meaning from the text or visualise the given scene. And so the student must be given multiple opportunities to apply his/her decoding skills to the reading of decodable text and demonstrate comprehension of the text read.

4. Provide opportunities to overlearn

Practice should be continued beyond demonstration of mastery-a process called 'overlearning'. Just as a professional pianist doesn't stop practising a piece once it has been played correctly, a reader should not stop practise reading words once they are read correctly. The average reader needs to see a word 4-14 times before it can be read with automaticity. A struggling learner may need to see it 40 times. Extensive exposure to print is vital - the more reading a student does, the more often specific words are seen, the more automatically words will be recognised. The challenge, of course, is finding ways of making overlearning enjoyable.

Using Phonics Hero to Develop Automaticity

Explicit systematic instruction

The principles of systematic synthetic phonics instruction underpin all of Phonics Hero's products. The Phonics Lessons cover each of the 44 phonemes of English, using over 3,700 decodable words and 2,400 sentences with pronunciation videos, fluency drills and phonics games to give you the structure and resources to teach phonics explicitly and systematically.

The most commonly used representations of sounds are taught first. Students are taught how these sounds can be blended to form many words. They are moved through 'levels' of the alphabet code, from the simple to the complex, in a systematic way. Differentiation is provided to ensure that each student is working at the appropriate level.

Explore the Resources with a Teacher Account

Developing accuracy in decoding

The Phonics Hero lessons and games systematically teach students all aspects of decoding: letter-sound correspondence, blending and reading of both regular and irregular words. The Child Accounts contains 850 enjoyable skill-based games that encourage daily practice, at school and home, developing the accuracy needed for automaticity.

The games can be used for consolidation and revision in the classroom, by individual students or in a group with an interactive whiteboard. A Placement Test is provided to ensure that the correct starting point is chosen for each student. Errors are corrected sensitively and immediately. The performance of a student on each game is automatically recorded so that the teacher can monitor the accuracy level attained by a student in live reports. Pre- and Post- assessment paper-based tools are also provided to help the teacher determine accuracy levels.

Developing mastery in decoding

Once the student has demonstrated accuracy in blending sounds and reading isolated words, (s)he is then required to apply decoding skills to the reading of captions and sentences (by using the toggle to switch to sentences in Phonics Lessons and 'Step 6' of the Phonics Hero games). The student is asked to match captions/sentences with pictures or to complete a sentence to determine the student's level of comprehension.

Providing opportunity to overlearn

Phonics Hero's unique games are so attractive that students will want to play them over and over. There is no chance of the student getting bored because Phonics Hero only uses the same game, on average, 1.2 times. They are also incredibly varied thematically: monsters, princesses, animals, superheroes and more!

In addition, Phonics Hero offers 12 free phonic worksheets covering each skill for every level of the program - over 220 worksheets. It is also possible to buy packs that target specific phonemes e.g. the R-controlled Vowels Worksheet Activities.

Ideas for Additional Practice Opportunities

While most students who have struggled with reading are helped by systematic synthetic phonics instruction to become accurate decoders, the development of automaticity is crucial to for every child to become a fluent, efficient reader who has full comprehension - and enjoyment - of a text. I hope that you now are more aware of the steps you can take to help children develop that automaticity on their journey to become confident, skilled readers.

References

'Paths to Reading Comprehension in At-Risk Second-Grade Readers' Virginia Berninger et al, August 2006 Journal of Learning Disabilities 39(4):334-51

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Developing Automaticity in Reading | Phonics Hero

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Automaticity in reading is critical to becoming a skilled, fluent reader. Shirley Houston shares her top teaching tips to gain automaticity.

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Book leveling systems give teachers and parents a place to start choosing books for kiddos of different age ranges. The problem with them is when teachers either limit students to their grade level of reading or push too hard for a student to reach their ‘grade level.

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The ability to read with correct speed and inflection without making many mistakes.
The site I choose is not for learning to read but I liked his definition.

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Here's a story: Some time ago, I walked along the most beautiful part of this country, along the South Downs. It was spectacular - on the right: sea, miles away - on the left: English countryside at its best. On the way home, I walked close to the station at Amberley, where there was still an old signal box that housed a mechanical set of levers to make sure each train went on the right line. And it reminded me of something about our own beautiful craft: Prosody.

What is it?

I've always thought prosody is a lovely moment when we craft a song with a perfect combination of lyrics and music. And prosody is great, mostly because it enables us to paint a particular emotion with our song, which ultimately is what we try to achieve as songwriters.

But, taking this more in-depth, there are more things we have at our availability when we write a song than thinking about just the words and music. Prosody has two parts:

Now, if you're like me, this is probably too deep to spend too much time talking about anything with an 'ology' at the end of a word like that. But, for me as a songwriter, there are some things it can interest me in: my seven levers of prosody.

My seven levers

Looking at the two parts of prosody, there are seven different levers we can use as songwriters (and poets) like the signalman used to pull and push in his signal box:

1. Chunking - this is whether the syllables are in the right place at the right time in the music. Here's the rule for stresses ("DUM") and unstressed ("da") syllables in a 4/4 staff:

2. Emotion - what's the emotion in the lyric - well, that's where the melody needs to go (high or low)

3. Intonation - 3 T's - tonality, tonicity, and tone. This is all about sub-syllable parts in threes - a beginning, a middle and an end - then match to the melody, the emotion, as the chucking in 1.

4. Loudness/stress - production should fix this, often kept to the chorus.

5. Pitch - higher notes are normally for higher emotion and vice versa. Maybe keep some for the chorus too.

6. Rhythm (and rhyme) - similar to 1 above for rhythm. Rhyme keeps with the established rhyme scheme, except if there's no rhymes. Always choose emotion above a sucky rhyme.

7. Tempo - unless we're in classical or musical songs, it might be worth keeping to the beats per minute (BPM) constant. But there're no rules, just tools.

There are, in reality, more levers we can pull or push, we can talk about. But for me, these are the major ones.

How can we use these to ensure prosody in our songs?

Am I saying, to be a GRAMMY winner, we have to get a Ph.D. in linguistics? No! In reality, it's more about the craft than the science of how this works - it's about the art and emotion matching between our lyrics and music together.

For me, this is what I do:

1. Find the bumps - having drafted a song - both the lyric and the music - I listen to the complete song to see if there are any "bumps" in there, where the emotions don't seem to fit together.

2. Decide which to fix - listen to the bump zone and decide what would be better to fix - the lyric or the music. For me, it's a lot easier to fix the music because, for me, music is always there.

3. Fix and review - having fixed it, I listen to it now again with the new lyric or music, asking does it still cause a bump in the song? Do the music and lyric now match perfectly? If not, I go back and have another go.

This is normally not a re-write - just minor things. Things that make all the difference to make it a more powerful song. And, to be honest, if it needs a re-write, that would be fine by me because it's a lot cheaper to fix something in the writing room than in the studio where it's demoing.

Questions

Here are a few questions for you:

Could there be a bump somewhere in one of your songs?

If you found one and you've fixed it, what does it sound like without the bump now?

Is it more powerful because of it ironed out?

This is all about having a song that is packed with emotion the way you intended. Ultimately, it could mean the difference between getting your song cut rather than left unheard.

I hope this helps. And stay safe!

Simon Hawkins

www.simonhawkins.com

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Here's a story: Some time ago, I walked along the most beautiful part of this country, along the South Downs. It was spectacular - on the right: sea, miles away - on the left: English countryside at its best.

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Can be used as a starting point to figure out where a student is in their knowledge of vocabulary+

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The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test is designed to assess student reading levels throughout the course of their education. Aligned with state and national reading standards (Common Core Standards), these exams were created to determine overall reading ability, specifically in the areas of decoding, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The tests are user-friendly, and have long been considered one of the most favored and reliable among formal Reading Assessment exams. Normed against national standards, teachers are able to compare individual students and/or classes to groups of students at the same grade level across the United States. On a day-to-day, practical basis, the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests allow educators to assess their students' progress, form homogenous reading groups within a classroom, and keep parents informed as to their child's short and long-term progress by providing objective, quantitative data.

Pre-Reading (PR) and Beginning Reading (BR) Levels:

The first two Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test Levels are available in Pre-Reading (PR) Level, with Sub-Tests in Literacy Concepts, Oral-Language Concepts, Letter and Letter/Sound Correspondences, and Listening Comprehension, and Beginning Reading (BR) Level, with Sub-Tests in Initial Consonants and Clusters, Final Consonants and Clusters, Vowels, and Basic Story Words (sight words). These first two exams are available as paper and pencil versions only. These Test Levels take between 75 and 100 minutes to administer.

Early Independent Reading Levels 1 and 2

Early Independent Reading Levels 1 and 2 are designed to assess a student's level of early independent reading ability. This is the level at which they demonstrate fluent decoding and good comprehension without benefit of any teacher intervention. These levels generally coincide with students in First and Second Grade. Early Independent Levels include a test of Decoding, as well as Comprehension, and Word Knowledge. The Level 1 test takes 55 minutes, and the Level 2 test requires 75 minutes.

Mature Reading (MR) Levels 3-10/12

Mature Reading Levels 3-10/12 specifically measures a student's overall reading ability in Grades 3 through 10/12, and this testing is divided into two sections that measure vocabulary knowledge and comprehension.

Adult Reading Level (AR)

Adult Reading Level (AR) is intended for use by colleges, vocational schools, potential employers, GED and Adult Education programs; this Level is intended to assess the overall reading ability of the adult reader.

Both the Mature Reading Levels 3-10/12 and the Adult Reading Level (AR) each take 55 minutes to administer.

The last three Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests are available as online examinations as well as paper and pencil versions. The publishers offer scoring at an additional cost, although directions for scoring by teachers and Reading Specialists are also offered with the purchase of the testing materials or a computer program.

Ordering Materials and Test Administration Inquiries

If you are interested in learning more about Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests or ordering materials, please visit the publisher's website.
By Polly Goltche, Reading Specialist

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What are the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests?

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The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test is designed to assess student reading levels throughout the course of their education. Aligned with state and national reading standards (Common Core Standards), these exams were created to determine overall reading ability, specifically in the areas of decoding, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.

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The sounds made by associated letters in language. These sounds are taught to children to help them decode the symbols (letters) on the page.

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HOW WHY Construction - Integration Model Tammy Edmondson Read 7271 University of West Georgia Fall 2017 Construction Integration Model 1. Introduction An extension of earlier work developed by Kintsch and van Dijk 1978 and 1983 Developed by Walter Kintsch in 1988 This theory Using

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reading a wide variety of texts to increase knowledge, vocabulary and understanding.

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Their study published in 1974, found that the brain does not process more than one thing at a time. Without automaticity, a person cannot go into the deeper reading or even comprehend a text.

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The knowledge that the alphabet represents sounds

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GOHREADING ~ The Alphabetic Principle ~ Foundations of Reading 90 Test ~ GOHACADEMY.COM

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the ability to hear and manipulate phonemes

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Phonics and Phonemic Awareness Activities for Kindergarten, First, & Second Grade!

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Knowing there are individual sounds in language

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44 sounds in the English language.

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Smallest meaning units into which a word can be divided. Both parts can be morphemes. (Catfish Cat and Fish)

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Gradual release model is very similar to scaffolding. The teacher leads the students in what she expects them to do, walks them through what they should do with group conversation and then she lets them go to do the activity on their own or in groups.

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Gradual Release Model for English classrooms sample lesson

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Designed by teachers for classroom decisions, several sources of information, strong link to curriculum and instruction. Valid for guiding and instruction, Profile reliability-strengths and weaknesses, sensitive to changes, and performance

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There's a term that has been floating among educators for some time, and it's called formative assessment. I've been asked by many teachers about formative assessment and how it can be used in their classrooms to improve their students' writing. In my next blog series, I'd like to share with you the what, why, and how of formative assessment. Let's start off with the basics first to get our feet wet. I'll dive into the nitty gritty for you in three more follow-up blog posts.

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is a planned process that provides information needed to adjust teaching and learning while they are still happening. It guides you in making decisions about future instruction and informs your students so they can adjust what they are currently doing.

What's the difference between formative and summative assessment?

Traditionally, you may have used assessments to measure how much your students know at a particular point in time, and whether or not your students are meeting state, district, or your own classroom standards. This is called summative assessment and it occurs at the end of learning. It's used to make judgments about your students' competence and can be used to collect formal grades.

Formative assessment is a process that happens throughout the learning. It is used to make adjustments by both yourself and your students so that learning goals can be met. It occurs before a summative assessment. Formative assessment data is not meant to be used to collect formal grades.

Let's take a look at what formative assessment IS and IS NOT.

What are the types of formative assessment?

These include:

Questioning/discussion

Quizzes

Homework

Observation of performance

Assignments

Projects

Written questions

Simulations

Conferencing

Peer or self assessments

Are you typically utilizing more of a summative assessment style or a formative assessment style? Stay tuned for my next blog post that explains why you should be using formative assessment in your classroom and how you can gather and use formative assessment data to improve your students' writing.

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There's a term that has been floating among educators for some time, and it's called formative assessment. I've been asked by many teachers about formative assessment and how it can be used in their classrooms to improve their students' writing. In my next blog series, I'd like to share with you the what, why, and how of formative assessment.

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Designed by experts for policymakers, Standalone, single indicator, Independent of curriculum and instruction__Predictive validity to other tests, total test reliability-one score stable over time and situations

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What are Summative Assessments | ELN Blog

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Summative assessment is a tool to evaluate the student's learning throughout the academic year or a program that they are pursuing. The learning is compared against a set standard or benchmark. These assessments mostly have a high point value or carry the most weightage in the overall grade.

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Tests the schools administer to check the progress of the students for the high stakes testing.

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After identifying a child who is behind, you check him every so often to see if he is catching up

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What is RTI/MTSS and How It Will Save You Time

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Immediate recognition of words without a need to decode. Allows the reader to focus on content.

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Hi friends! This week I am going to chat about automaticity, how to build it in word reading with our students, and tips and activities to support this learning.

What is Automaticity?

Automaticity is defined as fast, accurate, and effortless word identification at the single-word level. Although fluency involves reading words with automaticity and prosody at the phrase, sentence, and text level, accurate and automatic reading is needed to be a fluent reader.

It is the part of fluency practice where we focus on accurate and speedy word recognition. For this reason, words are read in isolation. This is only one part of fluency instruction, but is often an area where dyslexic and struggling readers need additional practice.

Students with dyslexia struggle with accurate and automatic reading at the word level. Automatic reading involves developing solid linkages between sounds and their letter representations, leading to fast and accurate retrieval and transfer of this letter-sound knowledge when reading known and unknown words. Research has shown that it is essential for struggling readers to have structured, systematic, and focused instruction when explicitly learning reading.

As teachers and dyslexia therapists, we need to be prescriptive and diagnostic in our approach, explicitly teaching phoneme-grapheme linkages which builds automaticity on the sound-letter level. We can take this knowledge and transfer it to word reading.

Working with onset and rime can be an effective way to build automaticity in word reading as phonemic awareness and orthographic mapping skills are developing. During onset and rime work, a student will change the beginning consonant sounds to build new words within a consistent ending rime, or chunk.

Let's take a look at exactly what onset and rime are defined as:

Onset- The letter or letters at the beginning of a word, not including the vowel.

Rime- The letters within a word from the vowel to the end of the word (-ack, -et, -ill, etc.).

Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist and researcher of language, was noted to have "eloquently remarked, 'Children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on'" (Wolf, 2008, p. 19).

Building Automaticity with Onset & Rime

Next, I'm sharing some simple and fun ways to build automaticity. Let me know if you use any of the following activities. I would love to hear your feedback.

First, you want to provide students with the opportunity to practice known phoneme-grapheme correspondence by choosing letter representations of sounds explicitly taught. Being strategic and systematic in the approach is necessary for our struggling readers. We want to make sure we are creating opportunities for multi-sensory practice in multiple ways.

Onset and rime flip books are an easy-to-make activity that reinforces learned phoneme-graphemes. Students can create these and practice reading the new word as they flip up the onset.

You can also use letter tiles to build phonemic awareness in connection to reading and spelling. Provide students with an index card and a rime. Then, have students make new words using letter tiles. This is an excellent opportunity to work on chaining within the construct of onset-rime. For example, have the student read the rime -ing, and ask them to add a sound to make the word ping. Then, change one sound to make the word sing, and so on. For additional practice, have students write the words in their spelling notebooks as they build them.

You can also make simple games to work on automaticity. Spin and read are always a hit with my students. For games like this, be sure to have students identify if a word they make is a real word or a nonsense word.

Some students will need to take a step back to allow us to move forward in our instruction. A student of mine struggled with the rapid automatic practice of reading words, so I took her back to onset and rime work in a multi-sensory way. We quickly took a strip of paper and added different onsets based on the sounds introduced. She could then slide the rime down the strip of paper and read the new words. Once she practiced with the blending strip, we were able to move to the automaticity charts. Finding ways to meet my students where they are and stretch their learning is one of my favorite things about teaching!

Activities to Practice Sounds

Providing students with activities to practice known sounds in word reading builds fluency and automaticity at the word-reading level. I created onset-rime reading charts for my students to help when they feel overwhelmed when encountering traditional word lists during intervention or in reading groups.

They have been a hit with my students! They love the colorful and engaging keyword and game-style format. We read for a set time, and then students count up the number of words they've read. My students love tracking their progress, and they end up reading so much more than they would have with a traditional list! They have such fun with these activities!

I created individual sets for my own use, and found that others were also interested in these activities. So now, I have the onset-rime packets available for purchase in my TpT store. Click each image to read more about each activity set that I created.

Each packet includes a teacher guide, progress monitoring form, keywords, and several levels within the set.

I've put together all five of the onset-rime packets into a bundle. Click here to see the additional packets that are included in the cost-saving bundle.

I appreciate your support! In honor of my birthday on May 1, I am having a birthday sale on my TpT shop! 🎈 Visit my shop on May 1, click here for the link, and grab some fun resources at a great price!

I hope you have found this post helpful and the tips beneficial. Leave a comment if you have any questions or are struggling with building automaticity with your students. I'd love to help!

Casey

The Dyslexia Classroom

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Bringing Reading Automaticity into Your Reading Lessons

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Hi friends! This week I am going to chat about automaticity, how to build it in word reading with our students, and tips and activities to support this learning. Automaticity is defined as fast, accurate, and effortless word identification at the single-word level.

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Frequently occurring words, many of which are odd balls that don’t the conventions of sounds and spelling.

Also, words that no longer need to be decoded by the reader.

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A kindergarten sight words list should focus on words that truly break the phonetic code. Very few words should be taught as sight words. An English dictionary might contain 250,000 words, yet in reading instruction, we only teach about 150 words as sight words. Many Kindergarten sight words lists are littered with phonetically regular words like "play," "see" and "teach." Though these words are common, they are phonetically regular and should not be taught as a sight words. Look for a Kindergarten sight words list that focuses on true sight words.

I review sight words every day and my student still isn't learning sight words

Ava reviewed sight words with her dad every day. Yet, she didn't retain sight words. It appeared as if she were almost blind to sight words. Ava's teacher was worried that Ava didn't retain even the top ten sight words. Though she was a bright, articulate, creative girl and didn't seem to have any memory deficits, words were different. They were a source of confusion and frustration. Ava was hardworking. She wanted to learn. She even focused when her dad brought out the sight word activities. Yet, every day she only recalled five of her sight words.

Her dad wondered: what is going on?

Systematic phonics instruction can improve sight word acquisition

Many students are like Ava. Students that struggle with sight words can perform well in reading. However, sight words alone will not boost these children to the next reading level. Kids like Ava need systematic, explicit phonics instruction.

Nearly every word has some phonetic regularity. Even sight words are somewhat regular. By definition, sight words break the phonetic code in some way. However, even sight words contain some aspect of the code. For example, the sight word "they" has the regular "th" component, "was" has the regular /w/ sound and "said" has both the regular /s/ and /d/ sounds. When a child knows the phonetic code, she can use her knowledge to access sight words.

Ava did learn sight words, but only after systematic phonics instruction. She finally acquired words on her kindergarten sight words list. When her dad showed her a word, she unlocked the piece of the code she could. The regular /th/ in "they," /s/ and /d/ in "said" and /w/ in "was" helped her unlock these words. She could finally use the phonetic code to break into sight words.

Kindergarten Sight words list & free printable sight word game

The following are some of the most common sight words for Kindergarteners. Nearly all of the words break the phonetic code in some way. A few phonetic words have been added so kids can read books before extensive phonics instruction. Scroll to the bottom of the blog for a free printable sight word game for Kindergartners.
Free Sight Word Game
If you'd like decodable books, check out The Printable Phonics Books Library

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A kindergarten sight words list should focus on words that truly break the phonetic code. Very few words should be taught as sight words. An English dictionary might contain 250,000 words, yet in reading instruction, we only teach about 150 words as sight words.

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Vowel sounds that pass through the larynx and the mouth without any obstruction (soft sounds)

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The Vowel Song: Long and Short Vowel Sounds | English Songs | Scratch Garden

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speech sound that passes through the larynx and is stopped somewhere in the mouth. (Hard sounds)

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Ending sound in the word starts with a vowel sound. Sm-ack ack is the rime

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The first consonant sound in a word. Sm-ack sm is the onset

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Morpheme that can’t stand alone to form a word.

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Additional (morpheme) added to the beginning of a root word that changes the meaning of the word.

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The most noticeable unit of sound

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an addition (morpheme) to the end of a root word that changes the meaning of the root.

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Base word to which a prefix or suffix attaches. The base (root) word can stand alone.

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Rimes that share the same spelling. They make word families. Cat, hat, sat, fat, flat are in the at word family.

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knowledge or concepts brought from other readings or life experiences of the reader

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Using prior knowledge is an essential strategy for reading comprehension.The more knowledge students have on a topic, the easier it will be for them to understand, and make connections to, new texts.Prior knowledge is also part of the building blocks for more difficult reading strategies, such as making inferences.

Below are 8 ways you can teach and practice the using background knowledge reading strategy in your classroom

1. COLLABORATIVE CLASS VISUAL:
Having group/class discussions along with some kind of recording visual is a great way to access background knowledge before reading. You can switch up your visuals, as a basic KWL chart can only be engaging so many times.One great way to build background knowledge is to first draw a shape that represents what you are learning about on an anchor chart or on the white board.For example, when reading a book about ants, I would draw an ant with 3 large body parts.Each student gets a post it to record what they already know about ants in the first segment, questions they have in the second segment, and what they learn in third segment.I would then have some students share their post-its and then quickly go through any non-repeats we might have as part of a class discussion.

Another, even simpler, way to do this is to just have students fill in their background knowledge on the entire picture.After reading, we could go back to this visual with new information.I might place a post it on each of the legs of the ant with questions we have or new pieces of information that we learn.

2.BUILD ON SMALLER TOPICS WITHIN ONE BROAD TOPIC:
To continue building background knowledge in students, I find it effective to stick to texts on one broad topic.For example, after reading a text on ants I would focus on another insect.Bees would be the next insect I would read about as they have similarities to ants in how they work in a colony, etc.This helps students continue to build more knowledge and vocabulary, as well as make deeper connections.

3. CLASS GALLERY WALK:
This works especially well for a larger unit.The teacher chooses different sub-topics to write on chart paper along the wall.For example, if you were preparing for an insects unit you could write body parts, types of insects, fireflies, bees, etc.Each student gets to walk around with a marker (or pencil) and fill in information they already know about these sub-topics.A more organized way to do this is to have students rotate to each chart in groups of 3-4 students.They can choose one group member to write on the chart while discussing. You can also build off of this gallery walk throughout the unit or at the end, placing the charts back up on the walls for students to add information.

4. PICTURE WALK:
This simple activity works for texts that include visuals, such as photos or illustrations.As you reveal each page of a picture book, discuss background knowledge, student connections, and predictions they have as to what is happening or what the book is about.

5. DISPLAY STRATEGY VISUALS:
Reading strategy posters are such an important reference to have on the walls of a classroom filled with growing readers.One example of how to display these can be seen in the reading strategies word wall below. One strategy can be highlighted at a time in a larger anchor chart.

All of the information found in the anchor chart is also on a background knowledge bookmark that readers use independently.The back of the bookmark has a place for students to record how they use the strategy on sticky notes.

6. PROVIDE REALIA OR VISUALS & DISCUSS:
I especially like to do this with text heavy articles or books.I will find images about a topic and place them on a PowerPoint Presentation, but you could also print out visuals to discuss.This is especially helpful for ELLs.

Providing visuals and realia also lends itself to having students ask questions, so you could record questions that come up during the discussion.This helps set authentic purpose for reading, and you can refer back to the questions during and after reading.

7. FRONTLOAD WITH LOWER LEVELED TEXTS:
Along the same lines providing visuals, reading a picture book or text with a lower readability on a topic we are going to read a more difficult book on can be extremely beneficial in building background knowledge.Frontloading, or pre-teaching, information in guided reading groups can prepare students for reading a more challenging text in a whole class setting. This is also a very helpful strategy for reading with ELLs.

8. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE:
Beyond supporting students in accessing their prior knowledge on a topic, students then need to practice engaging in this strategy completely on their own. Graphic organizers are helpful for students to take ownership of their individual thinking and learning.

Another idea for a way that students can practice showing their thinking and visually see the importance of building background knowledge are through these background knowledge crafts.

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Teaching Students to Use Background Knowledge in the Elementary Reading Classroom

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Using prior knowledge is an essential strategy for reading comprehension.The more knowledge students have on a topic, the easier it will be for them to understand, and make connections to, new texts.Prior knowledge is also part of the building blocks for more difficult reading strategies, such as making inferences.

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,Knowledge of a specific field of study such as sciences and technology

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+Based loosely on Adlers concept on how to read a book. It engages different concepts while reading. First, an interactive read-aloud and then transfer to book clubs. In the groups, they divide the reading into four parts, 1. Looks for plot, characters, setting, and problem, 2. Inferring character traits and motives 3. Follow the author’s line of thinking to search for themes in the book, 4. Reflect on experiences and evaluate the characters and the author’s message. +

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Knowledge of text structure is vital to improving reading comprehension. While text structure knowledge is not strictly speaking a strategy, text structure knowledge gives rise to strategic thinking by guiding the reader's predictions and providing a scaffold for organizing, remembering and retelling information. From the first point in a novel, when the reader is sorting out characters, settings and goals, to the end point when the reader is grappling with theme, knowledge of text structure drives the reader's thinking. Read the White Paper

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Knowledge of text structure is vital to improving reading comprehension. While text structure knowledge is not strictly speaking a strategy, text structure knowledge gives rise to strategic thinking by guiding the reader's predictions and providing a scaffold for organizing, remembering and retelling information.

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Small groups working on a story or text together. To help each other to understand the different parts of the story being read from varying perspectives

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There is no activating of the kid’s prior knowledge of a text or going over vocabulary words. The students read the text cold and try to find the meaning. The text should be read more than once to gain all the insight it may have in its pages. This process can be tedious and unhelpful for struggling readers who have a hard time comprehending text. It has its place but should be used sparingly. +

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How to do a Close Reading - TeachLikeThis

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+Believes it is not possible to omit the reader experience from the reading of the story and that the readers will apply meaning to the story based on life experience and knowledge.+

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In reading about reader response theory, I came across two key features in which it all hinges upon: “1) the focus on readers’ psyc...

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+Taking what is learned from a chapter or a book and putting it into your own words to go over what you learned from the text. This hopefully helps the kids tell the fluff from what is necessary in a story

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Eventually, she was able to learn to fly,

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Stories and activities that go together in a unit of teaching  This can also be a way to join separate disciplines back together for further learning.

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Thematic Teaching and Center Organization

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Inspiration, resources, ideas, and freebies for elementary teachers.

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The scaffolded reading experience (SRE) 

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The scaffolded reading experience (SRE) 

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+Read with the children, go through small group guided reading, and then have the children read independently or in small group reading clubs.+

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Inference skills in the new cognitive domains are summarised as:

2d: make inferences from the text / explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text

Penny Slater's helpful article 'Reading Re-envisaged' explores the links between vocabulary knowledge and inference skills. Her conceptual model (pictured left) represents how inference skills rely on good knowledge and understanding of vocabulary. In her own words:

"...the model signifies the importance of vocabulary knowledge. If we consider each circle to be a moat which the children must cross before they are able to access the skills within the innermost circles, then we see clearly that they will not get very far if they do not understand the meanings on the words on the page. This chimes with what teachers are finding in their classrooms: lack of knowledge of vocabulary is a complete blocker. You can't make any inroads into comprehension without addressing this issue first."

So, another cognitive domain comes into play, one which children must be confident with if they are going to be able to make inferences:

2a: give / explain the meaning of words in context
This approach also explore the possibility that development of inference skills could be supported through the use of retrieval skills.
2b: retrieve and record information / identify key details from fiction and non-fiction

The theory that I have been trialing is that inference skills can be taught by first studying the vocabulary used and then retrieving relevant information before going on to make inferences about a text. If inference is 'a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning' then first a reader must be able to identify where the evidence is (retrieval) and before that the reader needs to understand the words used to present the evidence. In the model I propose (see right) the understanding of vocabulary is the foundation on which information retrieval is built, which in turn provides the support for making inferences.

The Practice

1. Decide on an inference question (2d); the question stems based on the 2016 KS2 reading test made available by Herts for Learning on their blog are really useful for this.
2. Begin to work backwards - work out where in the text the children need to go to locate useful evidence and ask a suitable retrieval question (2b).
3. Continue to work backwards - which words or phrases do the children need to understand in order to be able to understand the evidence then ask a careful vocabulary question (2a).
4. Once this process is complete (it may take a while at first), check that the 2a and 2b questions will adequately lead the children into answering the 2d question. If not, go back and tweak the questions.

For a more in-depth exploration of this technique, including examples of questions: http://thatboycanteach.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scaffolding-inference-trialling.html
Many of the examples from the blogpost are available for download here:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-11416437

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Scaffolding Inference (Quick Reference Guide)

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Inference skills in the new cognitive domains are summarised as: 2d: make inferences from the text / explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text Penny Slater's helpful article 'Reading Re-envisaged' explores the links between vocabulary knowledge and inference skills. Her conceptual model (pictured left) represents how inference skills rely on good knowledge and understanding of vocabulary.

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Web map of a story that connects ideas and concepts through the story. +

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Uses a book with several exerts from larger books (at least in the upper grades). These can be in any genre. The kids read three texts a week that do not really relate to one another but do teach a variety of skills. Extra readings may be provided by the teacher to form some kind of subject cohesion and further educate the students on a specific topic.
Basal methods utilize worksheets and other supplementary materials to help the teacher teach reading. These systems are known for having a strict vocabulary system.

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A basal?! You use a basal?!? This is one of the most common questions/emails I receive through blogging, and I have to admit it is something I was very nervous about when moving schools. I never student-taught in a classroom with a basal, and when teaching 5th grade I solely relied on the Common Core. There were plenty of times when I *wished* I had something to guide me, but I flew solo.

Moving schools/districts/grades over the summer, I still loosely say "I use a basal." In reality, our administration trusts us [teachers] and our ability to do what is best for students. In 1st grade, we use Reading Street (2013) as our scope and sequence (which has worked out very well). We do use the phonics, must-know words, spelling words, and some of the comprehension from the program but pull from other resources for writing, guided reading, and our Daily 5/small-group times.

I teach in a fairly affluent school, and our students are typically pretty high. With our student population there is a significant portion of Reading Street that does not work for us, as it's not challenging enough. Thankfully, we are blessed with the freedom to supplement. We completely skip the 'R' Unit at the beginning of the year, and we only pull the decodable readers for our lowest groups and ELLs (see them in the picture below). Right now, 2 of my 4 reading groups routinely use RS in small groups (my lowest group uses the yellow material - on grade level and my on-grade level group uses the blue material). In the other groups, I pull chapter books and nonfiction passages.

We are blessed with all of the Reading Street materials to pull from, and our materials take an entire cabinet, plus additional storage for the Readers and Writers Notebooks (which we rarely pull from because it's a book of 300 worksheets that lack rigor or interest. Once a week, I do try to pull the phonics practice page for morning work.) The bottom pull-out drawers hold our class-sets of basal readers: units R - 5...note I only pull 7 copies of each book each unit, as our reading block is structured in small groups and I would NEVER need 25 copies of the basal.

At the beginning of the year I pre-sorted our Leveled Readers by week putting the green, yellow, and blue readers together with a rubber band. Keeping all 3 books together makes them easy to grab and plan with. Over the summer, I want to use binder clips writing the Guided Reading Levels of each book on the binder clips.

We're also blessed with the Science Leveled Readers which are THE best part of Reading Street. I don't use them in conjunction with our reading program, but pull from it during Reading RtI. The texts are ridiculously interesting, packed full of nonfiction text features, and WAY more rigorous than their 'reading' leveled readers. I LOVE THESE TEXTS. To store these treasures I binder clip each set of 6 together, and tri-fold the coordinating graphic organizer, placing it inside the book. That way when I grab for the book next, I'll have the organizer ready without having to reprint it. Boom.

Using RS as a scope and sequence, our class Focus Wall highlights our learning targets for the week. It's not fancy, but it works (over the summer I have big plans to revamp this into a hands-on space that students can take ownership in). Our Focus Wall includes our comprehension, phonics, fluency, writing, and high-frequency words for the week. At the top of the board, I include the story sequence cards for the week. The string and clips are for displaying student work!

So, our schools has these Reading Street resources, and I use parts of them through Daily 5 rounds and guided reading. I do mentor-text mini-lessons whole group for 5-7 minutes in between Daily 5 rounds, so I do not touch the whole-group parts of Reading Street. (insert rant about the ineffectiveness of whole-group instruction) I do the bulk (85%) of my instruction in small groups through Guided Reading. My top 2 tips for making RS easy to work with in small groups - (1) set out the materials before groups begin, so as soon as students arrive they can begin working. (2) If you are going to use the basal (see below) go ahead and open the book to the right page. That way, you can just pass out the books when your ready and there is no need to waste 1.5 minutes of a 15 minute oration (i.e. 10% of your time) finding Pg. 135.

I do have my students to use a Leveled Reader as a warm-up or a phonics hunt. The problem with the leveled readers is even within the colors (green - below level, yellow - on level, blue - above level) the texts jump reading levels from week-to-week. One week a text will be a Level J, the next week it will be a Level G, and the following week a text will be a Level I. ALLOVERTHEPLACE. Our primary grades are blessed to have access to Reading A-Z, so we can pull just-right reading materials for our groups.

This does mean that many times sometimes my groups do not read the basal story for the week as it is not appropriate for the group (i.e. it's a GRL J and they are reading on a G). But when I can, I do try to pull the story for at least one day. To read more about how I structure our guided reading time, click here.

While students are not with me in Guided Reading, they make their Daily 5 choices - word work, listening to reading, read to self, work on writing, and Lexia.

In Word Work, students pull their Word Ring to work on their phonics skills. I created the word rings using words suggested by Reading Street. The green words (approaching grade-level) are the must-know and intervention words for each week, the yellow words (on-grade level) are the phonic-skills words, and the blue words (above grade level) are the enrichment words. You can read about our Word Work routine here and how we differentiate our centers here.

Throughout our Daily 5 block, our friends are also on the look-out for our grammar or phonics skill for the week to write a spotted word on our Word Collector. It's great to see our skills in action in REAL books, and helps me see student misconceptions about our skills. Read more about our Word Collector here.

We also use the Reading Street big books provided for each unit. For each unit, there are 2 big books. One of the books is a contrived phonics-based book but the second is a high-quality, real piece of literature....which is AWESOME! I love exploding my friends to REAL authors/illustrators - Peter Reynolds, Mem Fox, etc.

We use these big books in Word Work and Read to Self at the end of each unit. Our team creates a scavenger hunt with each book highlighting grammar and comprehension skills we've been working in the unit. It's perfect practice applying the skills, and they are timeless reads every 1st grader should enjoy.

A final component of Reading Street I regularly use is each unit's Grammar Jammer movie that's found on Pearson Success Net. These are fabulous videos and songs that coordinate with our week's grammar skill. From nouns to verbs to pronouns, we all love a little ditty to help us learn.

So, friends, this is what works for our 1st grade team from Reading Street. There are several parts we struggle using - fluency, writing, the weekly assessments, the unit assessments (ohmygoodness!), the focus on whole-group, and the stark difference in reading levels from week-to-week in texts. Thankfully, we can tweak and pull for these things. I am glad, though, to have a frame of reference - especially teaching 1st for the first time - and have a printed scope and sequence.

Please tell me, how do you using Reading Street? Are there any treasures in the program that I need to learn about this summer? If so, I'd love to hear what's working for you! 🙂

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Reading Street in 1st Grade - The Brown Bag Teacher

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A basal?! You use a basal?!? This is one of the most common questions/emails I receive through blogging, and I have to admit it is something I was very nervous about when moving schools. I never student-taught in a classroom with a basal, and when teaching 5th grade I solely relied on the Common Core....

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Comprehension is the goal of reading, and reading, listening, speaking, writing, and being read to must form the heart of the literacy curriculum. But for readers who have not yet mastered the code of written English, learning to read words—which includes phonics—plays an absolutely essential role

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Quality Questions for Reading Comprehension

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These comprehension strategies for successful reading help kids respond to stories by making connections, plausible predictions and formulating questions.

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Also known as temporary spelling learners use when beginning to use the knowledge of letters and sounds to write.

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I'm a literacy specialist and the mother of a kindergartner. Therefore, I pay close attention to my daughter's writing development. In less than a year's time, I've noticed my daughter has evolved from telling a story in pictures to telling a story with pictures and words. As a result, she uses invented spelling with many words when she writes.

The mom in me wants my child to spell words correctly. However, the educator in me realizes she's taking what she hears in speech and representing it in print. My daughter demonstrates what she knows about letter sounds and phonemic awareness when she invents the spelling of words. While she uses a word wall to help spell the "everywhere words" her class has learned, she makes her best attempt to represent the sounds she hears when she's spelling everything else on paper.

Invented spelling is an analytical process.

In the early 1970s, a researcher named Charles Read asserted that young children's attempts at spelling words were not displays of ignorance. Rather, they were windows into each child's word knowledge. Read coined the term "invented spelling," which refers to the way a child spells words that aren't stored in his/her memory phonetically. Earlier this year, Gene Oulette and Monique Sénéchal published a study on invented spelling. In it they state that "Allowing children to engage in the analytical process of invented spelling, followed by appropriate feedback, has been found to facilitate learning to read and spell, not hamper the process." That's right, we help students' future success as readers by giving them the freedom to invent their own spellings when they write.

We need to encourage risk-taking in our young writers.

Encouraging invented spelling allows children to take risks. We must praise emerging writers for their spelling attempts rather than punish them for not getting it right. Remember, invented spelling isn't an "anything goes" approach. Conversely, it's a necessary stage to develop the proficiency as a competent and confident writer.

As kids move on through the primary grades, it's important to teach them the difference between sloppy spelling (i.e., misspelling words they already know) and taking risks to try to spell new or less frequently used words. One way we can do this is by emphasizing using the most accurate spelling possible at all stages of the writing process rather than saving the fixing of spelling errors until they are polishing a piece for publication.

For a short while, invented spelling can be an appropriate strategy.

There is a point at which an invented spelling becomes a permanent misspelling. As children advance in school, we need to be observant about frequently misspelled words in children's writing. Diane Snowball and Faye Bolton state: "If a child is beyond the phonetic stage of spelling and consistently spells went as whent or they as thay, you probably need to step in, particularly if it is high-frequency words that are being misspelled." It will take practice and time to master the correct spelling of the word. But eventually, the correct spelling will become automatic.

In The Art of Teaching Writing, second edition, Lucy Calkins posits that "Our students need to realize that it's okay to make editorial errors as they write; all of us do, and then we correct them as we edit. Although it's important to teach our students to edit, probably the single most important thing we can do for their syntax, spelling, penmanship, and use of mechanics is to help them write often and with confidence."

Let's give our youngest writers the space they need to write with confidence.

Instead of worrying about conventional spelling, let's praise children for their spelling attempts. There will be plenty of time for them to master conventional spelling in the years to come. For now, let's put students on a path to success. Allow them to show us what they know about alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. Give them the freedom to invent their own spellings.

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Why Invented Spelling Matters - We Are Teachers

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A literacy specialist and mother of a kindergartner explains when and why invented spelling is OK on the path to literacy.

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copying down a child’s own words and having them read it (child-centered) This approach is best for ESL students as well as early readers.

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Reading aloud to a group while they see the words as you read them. Stopping on occasion to ask comprehension questions and possibly ask them to read after the story becomes familiar

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This program is very child centered. It utilizes real children's literature and focuses on reading to be able to learn how to read.

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Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabridge Uinervtisy, it deosn´t mttaer in waht oredr the ltters in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and l...

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is an environment that is rich with books, posters, and comfy places to explore books. A discussion area for meeting with the children where they become engaged for the day

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The Literacy Rich Classroom - The Kindergarten Connection

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In a literacy rich classroom (or home), children are surrounded by opportunities to see and interact with print. Although a print-rich environment takes many forms, it should all be interactive and meaningful to the students. Children who are immersed in print-rich environments tend to make the transition into actual reading and writing with ease.

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Small group reading activity. Everyone has a copy of the text to follow along with a pointer as reading.

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This concept allows children to act out what they have read. it gives them experience in speaking in front of a crowd and deepens their understanding of what they have read.

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6 Reasons to Use Reader’s Theatre in Your Classroom

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Reader’s theatre is defined as a group of readers who “perform” a grade-level text for an audience, usually without scenery, props, costumes, and most importantly, without the stress and pressure of students memorizing their lines.
Here are 6 reasons why you should be using reader’s theatre in your…

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Wide reading is a concept that stresses reading a variety of literature and articles for the purpose of deep reading.

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On a recent trip to Italy, we ate homemade pasta, pizza, and gelato daily. We tried all kinds of food and were always thinking about what our next meal would be. But we noticed something while we were in different restaurants: we would eat and leave while others who were there before us were taking their time slowly eating dinner. The Italians say it's "the American way" - we rush through our meals to get to the next thing while the next thing for the Italians is the meal. They eat bruschetta, sip wine, eat some cheese and crackers, sip wine, eat pasta, sip wine, eat some chicken or beef, sip wine, and finally eat tiramisu and have coffee. We were told a typical Italian dinner lasts 2-3 hours as opposed to our one hour dinner. Now, we wanted to have the Italian food experience, but we also had things to do and see. Time was of the essence. Did we enjoy our food any less before we ate more quickly?

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Reading can be like eating where readers typically fall into two categories: those who read deep and those who read wide. Deep readers take their time with texts savoring and enjoying the words, phrases, and passages of a few texts while wide readers move through works quickly enjoying a variety of books. I tend to read deep and wide depending on the book or the occasion. If I'm at the beach or pool, I will most likely not pick apart passages with a highlighter in hand (notice I say most likely because I have been known to have highlighters at the pool). I also read before bed to relax and unwind and do not want to think hard then. I do however, set aside time to read deep jotting notes and thinking through passages because this type of reading is often what changes me.

Both types are reading are necessary and beneficial. Here are some thoughts and ideas for each:
Reading Deep
Howard Jacobson in The Problem is the Reader from The Guardian claims, " Until people fall out of love with the screen, I don't know what will win them back to writing." I can testify first hand that screen time in adults and teens has made deep reading more difficult. I have noticed this in my own life over the past couple of years. Sustained concentration is harder due to notifications continuously popping up and our conditioned behavior of checking phones makes deep reading harder, but we must fight for deep reading.

If you want to read more deeply, try one or more of these suggestions:

How to Read a Book published on Farnam Street's site is an excellent primer for understanding the different levels of deep reading and the questions to ask at each level. I highly recommend this article for those wanting to be serious readers.

Read and reread small sections. Choose one paragraph or even one chapter to concentrate one and read no more. This takes discipline for wide readers but is worth the effort. I recently read the introduction to Girls Burn Brighter multiple times because it was so dense and rich. I would have missed so much if I had only read this once.

Choose a quiet area with no distractions. Deep reading is far more difficult in a public place or with the Braves on in the background. Find a quiet place and a time where you are not rushed; deep work cannot be rushed. (Side note: this also applies to writing as the hubs just turned on the radio in the next room, and I'm struggling to concentrate).

Take notes. The process of writing something down, even if you never refer back to your notes, helps to internalize thoughts. I would also encourage interaction with the text as opposed to simply underlining or highlighting a passage. Write why you chose to underline that particular section. Jot questions you may have in the margins. Think of deep reading as the reader having a conversation with the text rather than the text just telling the reader something.

Have a reread shelf. Rereading books is something that gets the shaft in today's society but holds so much value. Choose a few books that you will reread every few years over your lifetime. My reread shelf includes Don't Waste Your Life To Kill a Mockingbird My Utmost for His Highest Pride and Prejudice among others. Choose what books speak to you then reread them on a rotating basis.
Reading Wide
Articles circulate from time to time such as Reading Habits of the Most Successful Leaders that highlight people like Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates who are voracious readers devouring hundreds of pages daily. Sometimes these readers receive criticism for not going deep, but reading wide can expose people to a wide variety of thoughts and ideas.

If you want to read more widely, try one or more of these suggestions:

set goals by dividing books by pages for his Man Book Club. I also Set reading goals. Goals tend to move people forward and help focus and motivate the reader. I keep track of my reading on which is helpful for me. Set a goal that is a bit of a stretch but something realistic. I set yearly goals, and while I may not always reach them, I definitely read more than if I would not have set goals. I also set daily goals. When reading professional books, I set a goal of reading one chapter each day; this goal pushes me to finish as opposed to floundering around. I love how publish what I read quarterly to hold me accountable to my goals; accountability is a great tool!

Make reading a community venture. Join a book club whether it be in real life (shout out to my book club) or an online book club like #THEBOOKCHAT on Twitter. Both of these groups give me an outlet to discuss books and expose me to a wide variety of texts. I also ask friends to read with me from time to time especially when I'm reading professional books. Both Adrian Nester and Brian Sztabnik have read different books with me this way; we each read a chapter daily then leave our thoughts about the chapter on Voxer. This helps me stick to a reading schedule, and the shared experience of reading makes the book more enjoyable (even if I don't enjoy the book).

Give yourself permission to give up on books. Certainly you should stretch yourself in reading and push yourself to persevere through difficult texts, but sometimes breaking up with a book is just necessary. I advise people to give books a page for however old they are before deciding to break up. If a student is 14, she needs to read 14 pages before giving up on a book. I can cut a book lose at 52. This seems to be a good rule of thumb. As much as I wanted to read One Hundred Year of Solitude because everyone raves about it, I let it go earlier this summer and moved on to something else. Don't feel guilty; there are plenty of books to be read.

Read across genres. One of the beautiful aspects of reading wide is the exposure to different ideas and stories. This is what helps people grow in their thinking an ideas and gives insight into different perspectives. You do NOT have to agree with everything you read. I think we are living in a time where people are becoming more polarized because they only read things they know they will like or agree with, and failing to consider another point of view - whether you agree or not - can be dangerous. I read a variety of nonfiction, contemporary fiction, young adult, poetry, and classics on a regular basis but will also include an occasional graphic novel, science fiction, or a drama in order to stretch me. I devour lists of the most commonly read books and the best books of the __________ (fill in the season here) as well as ask people what they are reading.

I read both deep and wide and give my students opportunities to do both as well. I read deep because I need to slow down and think. I like not understanding a passage and rereading and thinking on it long enough to make meaning from it; this builds my confidence as a reader and helps me grow as a thinker. I also like to read wide because I enjoy getting lost in a plot or tied up with a character and not overanalyzing the journey they take me on. Wide reading is also like carbo loading for me as a writer; I am ingesting words and phrases so I have enough to convert into my own written works.
What suggestions would you add to reading deep and reading wide and/or what should I read next?

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On a recent trip to Italy, we ate homemade pasta, pizza, and gelato daily. We tried all kinds of food and were always thinking about what our next meal would be. But we noticed something while we were in different restaurants: we would eat and leave while others who were there before us were taking...

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In 1978 a Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, came up with a concept called Zone Proximal Development, he said this was very socially based but I do not quite grasp that part of the theory. In his concept he states that children have a learning zone. At one end the child can utilize independent learning, in the middle of this zone, the child can learn with assistance, on the extreme other side of this zone, a child cannot learn the material no matte how much help he receives. The material is jus beyond his capabilities.

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Text on the walls not just made professionally but also things that the teacher has made for the students

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When it comes to early literacy, it's not enough for young readers to just know how to decode words on a page. Foundational skills are important, but building knowledge is also an essential element of improving literacy.

Creating a literacy-rich environment in your classroom takes planning and forethought. It's possible to create space where students can work on basic skills while also being exposed to intentional, sequential, and rich content.

With this in mind, we've come up with ten essential elements to setting up a literacy-rich environment in your classroom:

Source Learning in Wonderland

Set up a classroom library.

Your classroom library should include a wide variety of genres and text types at different levels, including fiction and nonfiction books, magazines, and reference materials, as well as real-world reading materials such as pamphlets, postcards, catalogs, recipes, and menus.

Your collection should be broad enough that every student can find something to connect with and deep enough to meet the needs of all learners. Most importantly, it should be organized in a way that students understand and can follow.

Create content-specific book displays.

Create special displays (of high-interest books that are rotated frequently) to match content areas and expose students to different ideas and genres. Be sure to include fiction and non-fiction, as well as books at all levels matching your students' skills. Pull texts you already have in your classroom library and check out new ones at the school or public library. This area will be a place where your students can immerse themselves in the content area on which you are focusing.

Make use of practical reading materials.

Build your students' growing literacy skills with practical, everyday reading materials such as calendars and schedules. Make it a part of your morning routine to look at the calendar together. It won't take long for them to recognize the days of the week and months of the year, words they can use as building blocks to decode other words.

Go over the daily schedule together, using a pointer to read the words aloud together. Whenever you give oral directions during the day, make sure to also write them out on the board or doc-cam while you are speaking.

Source Blogging, Teaching and Second Grade...Oh My!

Create a gathering space.

Creating a space where you can spend time together in books is essential to build your students' literacy skills. One of the best ways to do this is through shared read-alouds. Students follow along on a screen as the teacher reads aloud from a projected text, allowing plenty of time for students to question, discuss and share ideas centered on the text. Carefully sequenced read-alouds with rich content (both fiction and nonfiction) and lots of support for robust discussion lead to greater understanding of both skills and content.

Try word walls.

Building students' knowledge and vocabulary while they are still learning to read is crucial for long-term success. Word walls are a great way to display and keep track of no-excuse words, content vocabulary, as well as rich and interesting language from fiction. Discover the words together and post them as part of your lessons. If students are allowed to participate in creating the wall, they will be much more likely to engage with it. Encourage students to incorporate these words into their speaking and writing.

Source 2happyteachers

Look for interesting visuals.

Get kids excited about what you're studying with intriguing photos, infographics, and art that build comprehension about the content area. For example, if you're studying the solar system, put up a colorful poster of the planets. If you're studying Native American culture, display various art objects such as rugs, pottery or clothing. The best displays will include labels and captions so students can connect the vocabulary to the visuals.

Incorporate anchor charts.

Anchor charts are a wonderful way to build understanding of both skills and content. They can be used for a wide range of diverse topics, including rhyming words, prefixes, handwriting, main idea, math concepts, KWL charts, and content area ranging from weather to insects. Additionally, co-creating an anchor chart with your students during a lesson will lead to greater engagement as students contribute their thoughts and ideas. In short, they are great tools to have in your arsenal of resources. https://www.pinterest.com/weareteachers/reading-anchor-charts-k-5/

Source WeAreTeacher/Pinterest

Include listening and speaking stations.

Listening to sound recordings of fiction and nonfiction provides a great model of fluency and introduces students to ideas in greater depth than they could manage at their reading level. In addition, when students follow along with a leveled book, the connection between the written and spoken word is deepened. To build speaking skills, let students use a digital recorder to practice their own reading, improving fluency.

Use technology wisely.

Use computers and tablets to engage your students in interactive games, stories, research sites, and videos. These can be fantastic tools for giving students individualized practice with vocabulary, decoding, and grammar. They are also a fun way to learn more and get excited about content areas you are focusing on. A few sites we really like include Storybird, Amplify, and Reading Rockets.

Don't forget the basics.

Provide space and materials for students to work on foundational skills such as phonemic awareness, spelling patterns, decoding with engaging decodable texts, writing mechanics and writing structure and processes on a daily basis. Examples of materials you could provide: white boards, chalk boards, games, puzzles, stamps, language photo cards, sorting trays, pocket charts and letter/word strips.

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Setting Up Your Literacy Area to Emphasize Skills AND Content

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When it comes to early literacy, it's not enough for young readers to just know how to decode words on a page. Foundational skills are important, but building knowledge is also an essential element of improving literacy. Creating a literacy-rich environment in your classroom takes planning and forethought.

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such as grades pizza parties, point systems etc. anything outside the direct reward of learning itself.

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Motivation is the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation is one of the essential aspects of HRM which is concerned with the process of inducing, inspiring, organizing, and stimulating employees to do the better job in the organization. The term is generally used for humans but, theoretically, it can also be used to describe the causes of animal behavior as well. Motivation activates people for better job performance and high productivity.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you enjoy it or find it interesting. Compare that to Dani, whose reason for running involves extrinsic motivation, or doing something for external rewards or to avoid negative consequences. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure. Intrinsic motivation has been studied by social and educational psychologists since the early 1970s. Research has found that it is usually associated with high educational achievement and enjoyment by students. Explanations of intrinsic motivation have been given in the context of Fritz Heider's attribution theory, Bandura's work on self-efficacy, and Deci and Ryan's cognitive evaluation theory (see self-determination theory). Students are likely to be intrinsically motivated if they:

attribute their educational results to internal factors that they can control (e.g. the amount of effort they put in),

believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (i.e. the results are not determined by luck),

are interested in mastering a topic, rather than just rote-learning to achieve good grades.

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the individual. It refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual.

Intrinsic motivation is derived from intangible factors. For example, someone who writes music for his own listening pleasure is relying on intrinsic motivation. A person who writes music to sell for profit is using extrinsic motivation.

Common extrinsic motivations are rewards like money and grades, coercion, and the threat of punishment. Competition is in general extrinsic because it encourages the performer to win and beat others, not to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of the activity. A crowd cheering on the individual and trophies are also extrinsic incentives.

Social psychological research has indicated that extrinsic rewards can lead to overjustification and a subsequent reduction in intrinsic motivation. In one study demonstrating this effect, children who expected to be (and were) rewarded with a ribbon and a gold star for drawing pictures spent less time playing with the drawing materials in subsequent observations than children who were assigned to an unexpected reward condition and to children who received no extrinsic reward.

Self-determination theory proposes that extrinsic motivation can be internalized by the individual if the task fits with their values and beliefs and therefore helps to fulfill their basic psychological needs.

Information Source:

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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation - Msrblog

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Motivation is the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation is one of the essential aspects of HRM which is concerned with the process of inducing, inspiring, organizing, and stimulating employees to do the better job in the organization.

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Internal rewards such as self-accomplishment, pride in learning or the success in finishing a goal.

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What is Intrinsic Motivation & How Does it Work?

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Intrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity for its inherent enjoyment rather than for some separable outcome. Find out how it works.

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Reading Motivation Question-naire (RMQ) 

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Reading Motivation Question-naire (RMQ) 

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questions to ask learners to see what they read, if they read, and why so that you know where they are in their learning and what the best way to motivate them to read.

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Widely used to evaluate texts for grade-level reading. The formula was developed by Rudolf Flesch in the 1940s to establish a better way to grade newspaper texts for readability. The Navy utilized it for the readability of instructional manuals and instructional texts. It uses an equation that takes into account the number of words, the number of sentences along with the number of syllables per word.

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Created in the late 1940s. It utilizes a list of over 3000 words that should be familiar to a 4th-grade student. The more words in a text from this list the easier it should be for a fourth grader to read and comprehend. Words outside the list add to the difficulty of the text. It is most useful for texts geared for 4th grade and above.

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Is used for the grading of texts up to fourth-grade level. It works like the Dale-Chall test.

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Text written for the purpose of showing beginning readers different phonics skills they have already been introduced to.

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The Lexile Framework for Reading - Lexile

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The Lexile frameworks for reading and listening help educators and parents match students to materials at the right level of difficulty.

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If a child is behind in reading skills they tend to stay behind.

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Does your child dislike reading? Would your child rather do chores than read a book? Does your child avoid reading whenever possible? When it's time for reading lessons, are there tears or grumpiness involved?

Children who dislike reading are usually struggling readers. Just as nonathletic people tend to avoid exercise, struggling readers tend to avoid books and everything else related to reading.

The Downward Spiral

Reading difficulties can be caused by many factors, including vision problems, learning differences such as dyslexia, or the lack of a solid phonics base. Whatever the cause, when a child has reading problems, it sets in motion a terrible downward spiral.

It makes sense: when your child dislikes reading, he doesn't get enough practice. Without practice, he doesn't develop automaticity, and reading becomes hard-which leads to even less practice.

The Upward Spiral

Conversely, when reading comes easily to a child, it sets in motion a wonderful upward spiral.

When reading is easy for a child, he usually likes to read - and because it's easy for him, he reads more. As a result, he develops automaticity, reading becomes even more pleasant, and he has excellent vocabulary growth. The upward spiral continues.

After several years, the gap between children who are on the "downward spiral" and children who are on the "upward spiral" can become quite large.

This Is the Matthew Effect

As it relates to reading, the Matthew effect refers to the idea that good readers read more, causing them to become even better readers. Conversely, poor readers shy away from reading, which has a negative impact on their growth in reading ability. This causes the gap between good readers and poor readers to widen.

The Matthew effect comes from a parable told by Jesus and recorded in Matthew 25:29. The idea behind the parable eventually worked its way into the maxim, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." The term Matthew effect was first used in the scientific field to explain how, when two scientists independently do the same work, the more prominent scientist often receives the credit for work done by the lesser known scientist. Later, cognitive science researcher Keith Stanovich ¹ applied the term Matthew effect to reading when he observed the effect that poor reading skills can have on all areas of a student's academic life.

Children who are good readers experience more success, and they are encouraged by that success to read more. As they become even more successful at reading, their vocabulary and comprehension grows, which often leads to greater success in all academic areas. On the other hand, readers who struggle at decoding are less likely to want to pick up a book. They get much less practice and fall behind - often way behind - their peers. They fall behind not only in reading and spelling, but also in other content areas such as history and science.

This chart shows how the gap between good readers and poor readers widens as time goes on.

How to Help Your Struggling Reader

The Matthew effect has such a strong negative impact on poor readers that the sooner you can intervene, the better. There are three ways you can help your reluctant reader, starting now:

1. Teach your child how to read using an explicit phonics method such as All About Reading. In Anna Gillingham's words, "go as fast as you can, but as slowly as you must."

2. Read aloud to your child every day. Hearing good literature will help your child develop vocabulary and comprehension, even while he is learning to read on his own.

3. Encourage reading outside of school. Help your student select books that are at the right reading level for him and contain topics that interest him.

Above all, don't get discouraged and don't give up. Reading affects all other academic areas, so it is important to get your child the help he needs. If your child is struggling, please know that we are here to help.

Do you have a child who avoids reading? Let us know in the comments below.

¹ Stanovich, Keith E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 360-407.

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Is the "Matthew Effect" Affecting Your Child's Desire to Read?

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Does your child dislike reading? Would your child rather do chores than read a book? Does your child avoid reading whenever possible? When it's time for reading lessons, are there tears or grumpiness involved? Children who dislike reading are usually struggling readers.

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A target word is in the middle of the graph. Students then add the definition in one corner, characteristics in another corner, examples in the third corner, and new examples in the 4th corner.+ It relies on teacher guidance.

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Page 7: Building Vocabulary and Conceptual Knowledge Using the Frayer Model

Within a unit of study are many vocabulary terms that students must learn. Within that list of terms are a few representing key concepts. For example, in a science unit about rocks, the terms in the table below are commonly taught.

Though students may learn these vocabulary terms independently, they still must understand the relationships between them and thus develop a deeper understanding of the main ideas. Within this vocabulary list, there are three terms that form the foundation for the entire unit: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, and metamorphic rocks. Because these terms are central to any substantial understanding of the chapter's content, teachers might need to spend more time making sure that students really grasp them. In cases like this, using a graphic organizer such as the Frayer Model can be helpful. When used appropriately, the Frayer Model allows teachers to incorporate the elements of vocabulary instruction discussed on previous pages (i.e., selecting words, explicitly defining and contextualizing the term, helping students actively process the word, providing multiple exposures to term).

Introducing and Teaching the Frayer Model

When they introduce this model, it is helpful for teachers to explain why it is useful for building vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. Then they can explicitly teach students what information should go in each section.
Click to enlarge Frayer Model
Click here to see a Frayer Model completed for one key concept in the science unit above: sedimentary rocks.
Frayer Model - Completed (Close this panel)
Initial instruction about the Frayer Model is heavily teacher-directed and requires teacher modeling. Teachers should demonstrate how to complete the graphic organizer by talking through what they are doing and how they are coming up with the information they enter into the different sections. Teachers should teach students how to use textbooks and other subject-matter materials to generate and discuss the information for each section.

The Frayer Model is not intended to be used as a worksheet for homework, something that would be no more effective than asking students to simply look up the definitions for a list of assigned words. Discussion is an important element of this practice. By filling out the Frayer Model with their classes, teachers help students to apply some of the practices discussed earlier in this module, such as contextualizing terms, actively processing information, and experiencing multiple exposures to terms.

For Your Information

It is not necessary to complete the entire Frayer Model in one lesson. Teachers may use the definition portion to first introduce a term to students. Then they can return to complete other sections of the organizer after students have built some conceptual knowledge by reading the text, seeing demonstrations, or working with associated content.
Click here for a pdf template of the Frayer Model for classroom use.
Examples of Frayer Models from Content Areas

Click on the links below for examples of completed Frayer Models.

Guided Practice with the Frayer Model

Once students are familiar with using this graphic organizer, they are ready for guided practice. After they've discussed the definition as a group, teachers can guide students as they complete the characteristics, examples, and non-examples sections. Watch the video below to see how a math teacher guides her students to generate characteristics of the term dilation and to distinguish examples and non-examples of this word. During this process, students learn to relate dilation to previous lessons and to review their knowledge of other words as they deepen their understanding of the new term (time: 2:05).

Used with permission from the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, copyright © [2010].

Transcript: Guided Practice with the Frayer Model

Teacher: I would like for you to use these characteristics to determine if this slide I am going to show you is an example or a non-example of a dilation.

Narrator: The teacher incorporates technology, displaying figures and asks students to use interactive clickers to vote on whether the figures are examples or non-examples of dilations.

Teacher: I just asked you to "Vote A" if it was an example of a dilation or "B" if it was a non-example of a dilation, and here are our results. So most of you voted "B," which is a non-example. Raise your hand if you can tell me why it's a non-example. Nicole?

Nicole: Because the shapes are not similar.

Teacher: The shapes are not similar.

Nicole: Because it stretches horizontally but not vertically.

Teacher: Good!

Narrator: The teacher calls on students to explain how they use the characteristics of dilations recorded on their Frayer Model to make their decisions.

Teacher: We just voted that this image is an example of a dilation. Now I want to know who can tell me what type of dilation this is. Raise your hand if you can tell me. Anthony?

Anthony: Enlargement.

Teacher: It's an enlargement. Very good, yes! And how did you know that?

Anthony: It's greater than one.

Teacher: Okay, it's an enlargement because it has a scale factor greater than one. And I see that you're looking at your Frayer Model and the characteristics. What about the other characteristics? Do they apply?

Anthony: Yes

Teacher: Tell me which ones do.

Anthony: The figures are similar.

Teacher: The figures are similar. Good.

Anthony: The size changed but not the shape.

Teacher: Good! That's a true statement. The size did change but not the shape. What else, Anthony?

Anthony: The figure doesn't rotate or flip.

Teacher: Good. You're right. The orientation stays the same. The figure did not rotate or flip. So those characteristics fit into as to why this is a dilation.

Narrator: As the class discusses, the teacher adds examples and non-examples to the class Frayer Model. Next, the students will work with partners to practice creating examples and non-examples on their Frayer Models.
(Close this panel)
Independent Practice with the Frayer Model

Once students have sufficient experience with the Frayer Model, they should be able to complete sections in class without teacher guidance (i.e., independently, in pairs, or in small groups). When doing so, they should still be required to explain their rationale for the characteristics, examples, and non-examples they chose. It is helpful to ask students to show how they used information from their text or other curricular materials to complete sections. Click on the video to see how small groups of students explain how they came up with examples and non-examples for the vocabulary term dilations (time: 2:07).

Used with permission from the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, copyright © [2010].

Transcript: Independent Practice with the Frayer Model

Narrator: Eighth-grade students in Alma Perales' class have been using a Frayer Model to increase their understanding of math vocabulary and concepts. In this video, students practice creating examples and non-examples of dilations.

Student 1: So what shapes should we do?

Student 2: Rectangles.

Student 1: Rectangles.

Student 2: Yeah.

Student 1: Okay.

Student 2: We should do a smaller one, 1 x 2.

Student 1: 1 x 2. Make it bigger?

Student 2: Yeah, we should go to an enlargement.

Student 1: Enlargement? Okay.

Student 2: Yes, 2 x 4.

Student 1: Let's check the characteristics.

Student 2: The size changes but not the shape. A scale factor greater than one is an enlargement. The figure does not rotate or flip. A five...I mean a scale factor between zero and one, creates a reduct.

Student 2: My bad. The figures are similar so square, I mean rectangle and rectangle are similar and the size changes but not the shape, so...

Student 1: It's an enlargement.

Student 2: Yes. And then non-examples.

Student 1: What should we do on non-example? What shape?

Students 2 & 3: Rectangle.

Student 1: We keep that. And let's check the characteristics. The size changes but not the shape. This is a non-example, because it's not that. It's wrong.

Student 2: Yes, this is rectangle, and this is a square.

Student 1: Yes.

Student 2: It went from a rectangle to a square. That's why it's a non-example, because the shape changed.

Narrator: The teacher calls the class back together and gives students an opportunity to share their explanations of examples and non-examples. Later, she wraps up the lesson by restating the primary focus.

Teacher: Our main objective today was to generate similar figures using dilations, including enlargements and reductions. And we incorporated the Frayer Model to help build our understanding of the word dilation. And we will continue to use the Frayer Model to increase our understanding of other math concepts in this class.
(Close this panel)
Now listen as Deborah Reed talks about how much of the Frayer Model students can complete on their own (time: 2:50).

Deborah K. Reed, PhD
College of Education, University of Iowa
Director, Iowa Reading Research Center

/wp-content/uploads/module_media/sec_rdng_media/audio/sec_rdng_audio_page07_reed.mp3
View Transcript
Transcript: Deborah K. Reed, PhD

In terms of how much of the Frayer Model students should complete or which particular squares they could complete on their own, it depends on a few things. First of all, it depends on their understanding of the format and the function of the Frayer Model. The other thing it depends on is their familiarity with the content of what you're using the Frayer Model to address. If it's the first time that students are experiencing that target term that you're putting in the center of the Frayer Model, and you know that you haven't taught anything about this concept yet, I'm not sure how students would come up with the information in the squares all on their own. That would be the same thing as assigning the list of words on Monday that the students look up in the glossary or the dictionary and then we take the test on Friday. The purpose of the Frayer Model is to go deeper with the words. If you're using it to introduce for the first time, it's incumbent upon the teacher to provide the student-friendly definition. Kids don't have enough information yet to give you any sort of definition.

Now, you could be going through a text together in which the definition is somewhere embedded in that text, and so it might be a guided instructional activity where we find the definition embedded within this text that we could include on the Frayer Model. And then maybe later on in the reading we'll find some characteristics. So as we read we'll pull out these characteristics, and we'll put them into that square of the Frayer Model and then maybe later on, or while they're giving us characteristics perhaps, they'll also show us some examples of the application of it, and so as we read we'll find those and pull those out and put them onto the Frayer Model. If you've covered some instruction in this concept and you're using the Frayer Model as kind of a cumulative review of what they've learned then it's possible that students could complete more of the Frayer Model on their own, including the definition. By then they've built background knowledge, they've done some work, they've had these multiple exposures and different contexts, they've been discussing this in class, and so by then the expectation might be that they should be able to identify, or come up with the definition, be able to list all the important characteristics that will help us recognize this concept, and generate some examples and non-examples. That would be much later in the lesson. Earlier in the lesson, it would be much more teacher-directed.

In the next section of this module, you will learn about reading comprehension, another essential component for developing knowledge in content areas.

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IRIS | Page 7: Building Vocabulary and Conceptual Knowledge Using the Frayer Model

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Within a unit of study are many vocabulary terms that students must learn. Within that list of terms are a few representing key concepts. For example, in a science unit about rocks, the terms in the table below are commonly taught.

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Starts like scaffolding approach. First, the teacher models what she wants the students to do. Read the text ask clarifying questions, summarize the reading, and predict what is to come. When it is understood what is expected, the kids break into groups taking the lead from the teacher and read the text together using this strategy with the teacher monitoring and helping where needed,+

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Return to: ETAP 623 Spring 2020 (Zhang) | Olivia's Portfolio Page] | About Me

Welcome to my mini course on Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics.

Below is an overview on the course including the Purpose, a summary on the needs analysis for this course, the main Performance objectives, and a layout of each individual unit.

After reading over the summary of this course, if you are ready to begin learning click here

Purpose: The purpose of this course is to explore the idea of reciprocal teaching in mathematics, and the benefits it can have on your students to deepen their thinking process, begin to use protocols without assistance and facilitation, and to learn to speak to their work and the strategies they have chosen. Through this implementation, students will also begin to build their strategy 'tool box,' (as we will discuss in this mini-course) critically reflect on their work, ask themselves questions, and how to monitor their own progress.

This course will teach you to foster the use of 21st Century Skills in your classroom such as collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving. Through the use of reciprocal teaching students will learn the benefit of meaningful discussion with their peers, strengthen their problem solving skills, and to critically analyze their own work. Furthermore, the implementation of reciprocal teaching will allow for a more student centered classroom.. isn't that every teachers goal?!

Summary of Needs Analysis

Summarization of Survey and concluded intent of this course: While Reciprocal Teaching has been widely explored in Reading and Writing Curriculums there is much less information and resources about Reciprocal Teaching within mathematics and the benefit it can have on students. While working in a focus school, I have helped to develop a strong math supplemental math curriculum to what we are already using (Eureka) to foster students learning through collaboration with their classmates, problem solving, and true analysis of math problems. To better build my course I surveyed 35 Pre-K through Grade 12 teachers. The 35 teachers were asked a total of eight questions, the first 3 being a bit on their background in teaching, and the remainder on reciprocal teaching or other aspects of it. Concluding the survey it became apparent to me that there is a strong understanding of reciprocal teaching but very limited understanding of how to utilize it in mathematics and to make a classroom climate more student centered. The intent of this course after my needs analysis is to help teachers create an understanding of what Reciprocal Teaching is, the benefits it can have in their classrooms, and to help create activities that can reach all students, as well as the ways in which it can be rolled out to help address misconceptions of how difficult it can be when transitioning to a student centered classroom.

Performance Objectives

This course is intended to educate on the importance of incorporating 21st Century skills into the classroom to create responsible and problem-solving learners, and Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics is just the way to do so. After completing this course, learners will develop a complete full circle understanding they can take with them an incorporate in all subjects when adapted, but more specifically mathematics. Concluding this course, learners will:

Define Reciprocal Teaching and why it can be used as a very student centered approach.

Explain the importance of releasing the responsibility of learning onto the students.

Create and develop lessons and activities to help roll out reciprocal teaching in their classroom.

Define the major 21st Century skills being touched on with reciprocal teaching, and why each is important to instill in our students.

Have a plethora of resources to begin carrying reciprocal teaching into their classroom.

Prerequisites: An identified prerequisite skill needed for this mini-course is that the learning must have a good understanding of what a student centered classroom should look like.

Click any of the following unit links to visit that Units Section.

1) Explore the importance of a student centered classroom

2) Benefits of meaningful discussion

Unit 2: Key 21st Century Skills and their importance in the classroom.

1) Critical Thinking

2) Collaboration

3) Communication

4) Creativity

1) How Reciprocal Teaching is a great way to incorporate these 21st Century Skills

2) Gradually Releasing the Responsibility

Unit 4: Using Reciprocal Teaching in the Classroom.

1) Roles

2) Materials

3) Resources

4) Rolling it out

References and Resources

Applied Educational Systems, Inc. (n.d.). What Are the 4 C's of 21st Century Skills? Retrieved from https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-the-4-cs-of-21st-century-skills

Hunt, B. (2017, March 4). Using Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics. Retrieved April 2020, from https://prezi.com/uqu2gkqn0p7y/using-reciprocal-teaching-in-mathematics/

Lewis, B. (2019, October 16). Why Are Children Sorted Into Homogenous Groups in Education? Retrieved April 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/homogeneous-groups-in-educational-settings-2081647

Parent, L.. (2015, April 1). Reciprocal Teaching Math Lara Parent [Video]. Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vqe7laL5DE&t=6s

Ross, D. (2018, August 15). Empowering Our Students with 21st-Century Skills for Today. Retrieved from:
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/04/empowering-students-21st-century-skills/

Stauffer, B. (n.d.). What Are 21st Century Skills? Retrieved from:
https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills

Sweat, S. (2017, April 3). 21st Century Skills: The 4Cs [Video file]. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXT2STtm_54

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Return to: ETAP 623 Spring 2020 (Zhang) | Olivia's Portfolio Page] | About Me Welcome to my mini course on Reciprocal Teaching in Mathematics. Below is an overview on the course including the Purpose, a summary on the needs analysis for this course, the main Performance objectives, and a layout of each individual unit.

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way to organize a new word and relate it to things already known to help better understand the word.+

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What are Semantic Maps?

Like concept webs, semantic webs are visual organizers that help students structure information. Usually, semantic maps are slightly more complex than concept webs.

Semantic maps may be used for thousands of skills. Try these ideas:

character traits - Students list character traits. They can also list connections between characters.

vocabulary development - forms of the word, synonyms/antonyms, prefixes/suffixes, roots, shades of meaning

science and social studies topics

biographies

Grab these free handouts for this blog post to give Semantic Maps a try. This pdf contains 2 activities to try.

Often semantic maps branch from the center shape called a node to more specific concepts. From these secondary nodes, additional details may be added.

This is an example of a simple semantic map. Notice that it contains three levels of information. The first names the five types of vertebrates. The secondary level provides some basics that are unique to the classification. The third level provides examples . This map is included in the handout. See the link below.

Semantic maps work well at the beginning of a unit. Have learners brainstorm information. As the unit progresses, details may be added to the map.

Semantic maps are also a great summarizing tool.

Using sticky notes is an effective way to teach students how to create a semantic map.

1. Ask students to name information they learned after reading a specified text. [To simplify this explanation, I will use the example of Olympic sports.]

2. Assign an article about the Olympic Games for students to read. Write 'Olympic Sports' on a sticky note and place it on the board. After reading, ask students to name an Olympic sport. As students name each sport, write each sport on a sticky note. Stick these on the board around the title 'Olympic Sports.' Continue until you have approximately a dozen sports.

3. Next, write 'Summer' and 'Winter' on two sticky notes. Place these on opposite sides of the title. Ask students to categorize all the sticky notes that are on the board into games played in the summer or winter. Move the sticky notes with the individual sport next to the correct category 'Summer' or 'Winter'.

4. On the next level, break the summer sports into categories - types of swimming, types of cycling... Next break the winter sports into subcategories - types of skiing, types of skating... Just as before, organize the sticky notes on the board around the appropriate subcategory.

5. Finally, have students name famous athletes for each sport.

By using sticky notes that can be manipulated, students really get a feel for how this method really helps organize the information.

Grab these free handouts for this blog post to give Semantic Maps a try. This pdf contains 2 activities to try.

Thisincludes two activities. The first is the 'Vertebrate' example from the post. The second is Marquette and Joliet's trip down the Mississippi River. The handout includes "Marquette in Iowa" from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans. Students map the information in the story using the map found in the resource. Answer keys are provided for both maps.

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Semantic Maps - A Teaching Strategy - Book Units Teacher

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What are Semantic Maps? Like concept webs, semantic webs are visual organizers that help students structure information. Usually, semantic maps are

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using the words in sentences that are known to figure out the meaning of the unknown word as well as graphs and pictures to determine text meaning.

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New readers can get really frustrated when they come across words they don't recognize. After all, no one wants to stop and look words up in the dictionary constantly. Some kids just skip past them, but then they may miss the meaning of the sentence. That's why helping kids understand how to use context is so important. These context clues anchor charts make the process a little easier.

1. Look For Clues

A smart reader knows how to look for clues in the words around the unknown word. We love the use of magnifying glasses to remind kids to be on the lookout!

Learn more: Crafting Connections

2. Word Detective

Looking for context clues turns students into word detectives. Don't want to draw a detective yourself? Find the best free teacher clip art here.

Learn more: TeachStarter

3. Types of Context Clues

This simple chart lays out four basic ways readers can look for clues in the surrounding text when they encounter an unknown word. It's easy enough for any teacher to make, and students can help you find examples to include.

Learn more: Bilingual By The Beach/Pinterest

4. Follow the LEADS

A good word detective follows the LEADS: logic, examples, antonyms, definitions, and synonyms. This acronym is easy for kids to remember, especially in conjunction with the idea of clues.

Learn more: Upper Elementary Snapshots

5. Simple Context Clues

Younger students may benefit from a simpler approach to context clues. Their reading may include pictures to help them decipher new words.

Learn more: Mrs. Bates-Thomas

6. Nonsense Words

Nonsense words are a terrific way to help kids understand context clues. Many teachers like using books like Baloney (Henry P.) to introduce the concept to kids.

Learn more: Missing Tooth Grins

7. Context Clues Steps

Context clues anchor charts like this one give students a series of concrete steps they can take when they come across an unknown word.

Learn more: ELA Anchor Charts

8. Look Around and Examine

This chart reminds kids that they can find clues in the word itself or in the other words around it. It also underscores the important point: "Don't skip that word until you understand the message of the sentence!"

Learn more: Teaching With a Mountain View

9. Context Clues Chart

This chart breaks down different types of context clues, with both explanations and examples. It includes "signal words" that can help kids identify clues.

Learn more: Book Units Teacher

10. Interactive Context Clues Chart

The best context clues anchor charts are those that teachers can use interactively along with their students. This one is a blown-up version of a worksheet students can complete as they read. Buy both at the link or design your own.

Learn more: One Stop Teacher Shop

11. Using Context Clues

Here's another interactive anchor chart. This one's meant to be used with sticky notes, so it is reusable year after year.

Learn more: Margaret Mortimer/Pinterest

12. Text Detectives

This spin on the "word detectives" chart includes hints to look for signal words and look to pictures for additional help.

Learn more: Abby/Pinterest

13. Make DEALS

There are a variety of acronyms for finding context clues. DEALS stands for Definitions, Examples, Antonyms, Logic, and Synonyms.

Learn more: The Teacher Next Door

14. IDEAS

Here's one last acronym to try: IDEAS. We also like the questions at the top: "Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?"

Learn more: Astute Hoot

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14 Context Clues Anchor Charts For the Classroom

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New readers can get really frustrated when they come across words they don't recognize. After all, no one wants to stop and look words up in the dictionary constantly. Some kids just skip past them, but then they may miss the meaning of the sentence.

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An interactive activity to help build vocabulary. The students can be incorporated in finding a new word of the day by taking turns finding a new word, learning what it means, and presenting it to the class.

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So what's all the hype about Word of the Week? It comes down to the simplicity of the idea and more importantly the huge impact it can make in expanding your students' vocabulary as well as improving reading and writing.

Vocabulary is a critical factor in the development of reading skills and comprehension. Unfortunately, not every student comes to school with an adequate level of vocabulary knowledge to support reading success. The more words your students know, the easier it will be for them to read and understand what they have read.

As we know, reading and writing skills are closely linked and each helps improve the other. Introducing your students to challenging words through Word of the Week can help to increase your students' confidence to use sophisticated language in their writing and begin to understand the power of words.

If Word of the Week is something that you would like to try in your classroom, read on to access our Word of the Week teaching resources and information that you need...

Word of the Week PowerPoints - Foundation Year to Year 6

We have created a Word of the Week PowerPoint for each Primary School year level. Each presentation includes teacher notes, 40 slides and activities that introduce new vocabulary. Each slide includes:

a new word

the definition of the word

an example sentence, showing the word being used in context

a question or activity for the students to discuss

words that are similar or relate to.

The vocabulary chosen for each year group has been carefully selected by our talented team of Resource Content Producers. There is a steady progression in the difficulty of the words across the year levels and the presentations for lower years include illustrations to support comprehension.

Word of the Week Flip Books

Our new Word of the Week Flip Books are a great addition to our Word of the Day/Week Collection. They are a brilliant alternative if you have limited access to an interactive whiteboard and a great addition to a Word of the Week classroom display. There's a flip book for each year level.

We recommend giving these flip books justice by printing them in a larger size. You can either bind the flip book or punch holes at the top and use card rings or keyrings to hang your flip book.

Word of the Week for Lower Years

For lower years, Word of the Week should be all about getting your students excited about learning new vocabulary, having fun and exploring new words through play and discussion.
Word of the Week activities for lower years should include:

brainstorming other words that have a similar meaning

putting the world into real-world context

making connections between words and the lives of your students

exploring new vocabulary through movement, drama and actions

games

music.

Movement, Drama and Actions.

Can you imagine the buzz in the classroom when you ask your students to show you what sort of actions a beast would make?

Here are some other examples of how you and your students can explore new vocabulary through movement and drama:

Word of the Week: giggle - What does your giggle sound like? How is your giggle different from your friends? Can you giggle like them?

Word of the Week: paddle - What action would you use to paddle?

Word of the Week: dance - What is your favourite dance move? Where did you learn it?

Remember that Word of the Week is all about loving language and having fun, especially for lower years.

Word of the Week Poster

For upper years, we have created a Word of the Week Poster that includes a variety of tasks to give context and meaning to a new challenging word. It is ideal to use as a whole class vocabulary activity or as part of your English Group Activities.

The teaching resource encourages students to deconstruct the word, identify it's meaning and to use the word in a written context. This activity works very well as an English Group Activity or a whole class activity. You can easily support less confident students by encouraging them to work with a partner.

Word of The Week Homework Activity

Word of the Week provides a great opportunity for meaningful homework activities. Here are some ideas that you might like to include as part of your homework matrix:

Create a Word of the Week poster to illustrate it's meaning.

Find and cut out examples of Word of the Week found in newspapers or magazines.

Use word of the week in a conversation with your family and explain what it means to an adult.

Write a synonym for Word of the Week.

Find Word of the Week in a dictionary. Record the dictionary definition.

Word of the Week Roll a Dice Activity

Rolling dice is a great way to generate six different activities related to your Word of the Week. Use our Dice Roller Widget to take this activity to the next level.

When using the Dice Roller Widget, you could either roll 1 die for the whole class or roll up to five dice to assign different tasks to different groups. Simply roll the dice and ask your students to complete the corresponding activity. For example:

Roll 1 - Write your word in a sentence.
Roll 2 - Draw a picture to express the word.
Roll 3 - Write a newspaper headline that includes the word.
Roll 4 - Write the definition of the word.
Roll 5 - Find the Scrabble score of your word.
Roll 6 - Count the number of vowels and consonants in your word.

For independent fast finisher activity, allow your students to collect a die and work through the tasks, rolling the die until all six tasks have been completed.

Word Tile Total Activity

Your kids will love building your Word of the Week with these Giant Letter Tiles. They are available to download in Giant Uppercase Letter Tiles or Giant Lowercase Letter Tiles.

Word Tile Totals

If you are looking for a more structured task why not try our Word Tile Total Activity? This teaching resource encourages students to think mathematically while developing their spelling skills. It can also be used as one of your English Groups Activities or fast finisher activity to revise and revisit challenging vocabulary from Word of the Week.

Each week, encourage the students to spell out Word of the Week using the word tiles and to calculate the word score for the word. When you have recorded ten words, challenge your students to calculate their overall word tile total!

Word of The Week Revision

Remember that children need to be exposed to new vocabulary multiple times before they understand it. A great way to do this is to use your Word of the Week and revisit it daily by using our Word of the Day Spinner.

Simply add your Word of the Week or create a list of words that your students have learned so far and press spin for instant activities. You can even customise the activities by selecting from lower, middle or upper years activities.

Spin activities for middle years include:

using the word in a compound sentence

writing 3 clues which would help someone to guess the word

writing a list of synonyms for the word

writing a list of antonyms for the word

brainstorming a list of other words related to the word

...and lots more!

Whole School Initiative

Be that person who is brave enough to suggest a Word of The Week whole school initiative. Just think of the huge impact that you could create and the positive difference that you could make by expanding the vocabulary of the students across all year groups.

This is one of the easiest whole school initiatives to implement because everything you need is there at the click of a download button. All you need to do is provide each year group coordinator with the Word of the Week PowerPoint and the corresponding Word of the Week Flip Book! All your colleagues need to do is commit to sharing the word of the week on Monday morning and following it up with a few fun activities.

Big Words for Little Geniuses
By Sue Patterson, James Patterson, Pan Hsinping

Ages: 4-7
Published: 4th September 2017
Hardcover available atBooktopia
eBook Edition on iBooks and Google Play, Kindle edition on Amazon

This New York Times bestselling picture book is a fun book to share with your students. For each letter of the alphabet, a sophisticated word and its definition is given. Your students will love to learn this adventurous vocabulary. You might even have some trouble reading some of these words! But hey, there presents another learning experience as you model how to sound out tricky words and decode them! Here's one for you...

Arachibutyrophobia (Ah-RACK-ee-byoo-tee-ro-FO-bee-ya)
Arachibutyrophobia is the alarming fear of peanut butter sticking to the top of your mouth!

Research suggests that vocabulary is enormously important to children's development and you as their teacher can make a huge impact on your students' vocabulary knowledge. A wide knowledge of vocabulary improves all areas of communication - listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Word of the Week is a quick and easy way to make a massive difference to your students' futures.

Don't hesitate, just do it. Try Word of the Week in your classroom and spread the word.

We love hearing from you and getting a sneak peek into your classroom!
Share your photos on Instagram #teachstarter

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Word of the Week | Expanding Vocabulary in the Classroom

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So what's all the hype about Word of the Week? It comes down to the simplicity of the idea and more importantly the huge impact it can make in expanding your students' vocabulary as well as improving reading and writing. Vocabulary is a critical factor in the development of reading skills and comprehension.

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Fiction covers many genre in reading. There can be historical fiction, romance, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and drama.
There is usually something to appeal to every reader. These genre also help a child to empathize with a character and learn about different life experiences through the pages of a book.

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Informational texts have a different setup than fictional texts. Understanding these set-ups can help students understand the text and make them better able to identify the main point of the text. The compositions of informational text are as follows:
1.  Description

2. Sequence

3. Chronological order

4. Compare and Contrast

5. Cause and Effect

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As teachers, when we see a student struggling with what we think may be dyslexia, we immediately want to help. But understanding what's going on with a student's language-based learning disability isn't simple. Dyslexia takes different forms, and what works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another.

We asked Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D., lead developer of the new Test of Integrated Language & Literacy Skills (TILLS) and professor emerita in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Western Michigan University, to share her best tips for understanding students who have dyslexia, plus techniques for supporting them in the classroom.

1. Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability.

It's not a vision problem. It's not about intelligence. It certainly isn't about laziness. It affects the way the brain processes written and spoken language. Nelson says people with dyslexia have trouble mapping letters onto sounds and vice versa. Students with dyslexia usually have a hard time reading, but they can also struggle with spelling, writing and even pronouncing words.

Nelson notes the two key components of reading-word structure knowledge and language comprehension-and makes these points: "Word decoding without comprehension isn't reading" and "Making up meaning without accurate word decoding is not reading." She says, "If either one of those pieces is defective, it's not going to work." Nelson explains that children with classical dyslexia generally have good language comprehension skills when they're listening. It's when they're reading, she says, that these students struggle with word structure knowledge, which affects their ability to decode and spell, and it may also interfere with their ability to understand what they read.

2. Dyslexia is hereditary and lifelong.

Dyslexia is not a phase or something you outgrow-although it may appear differently at different points in development. Often, a child's diagnosis will trigger parents to realize that they too have dyslexia. Their children's symptoms are all too familiar. "It's lifelong, and they will always expend more effort, but that doesn't mean people with dyslexia can't learn-or that they can't enjoy reading," says Nelson.

Even after helping identify dyslexia in their students, a teacher's job continues to be important, says Nelson. Educators have the role of helping their students cope with the challenges they will continue to face daily in the classroom. "One of the symptoms of dyslexia is having trouble hearing speech sounds in words. That's a very teachable skill-even for kids with dyslexia," Nelson explains. "They just need clear, direct instruction to develop phoneme awareness."

3. Dyslexia is more common than many people think.

The International Dyslexia Association estimates that as many as 15 to 20 percent of people have some symptoms of dyslexia, such as trouble with reading, spelling and writing, or mixing up similar words. It affects people from all types of backgrounds too. Of the 13 or 14 percent of school-age children who have a condition that qualifies them for special education services, 7 percent are diagnosed with a learning disability. And 85 percent of those children have a primary learning disability in reading and language processing.

"Some people worry that dyslexia is a problem of only the privileged," says Nelson, adding, "It's true that dyslexia is probably under-identified in children with lower socioeconomic status because they face so many other academic challenges that the specific reading deficit gets lost. Plus it may be more difficult to identify dyslexia among children when English isn't their first language since most of our tools are designed to detect language and literacy problems among children who have been learning English since they were born."

Nelson recommends providing explicit instruction in sound-letter associations to all students (e.g., teach them to identifying word parts like -ed and -ing) and in reading, decoding and spelling. She says that all children can benefit from this type of instruction, especially in the early grades, and that those children, including those from diverse backgrounds, who struggle to learn despite this instruction may have dyslexia.

4. Before school starts, dyslexia may not be obvious.

When bright students continue to make the same mistakes over several days, and they can't seem to make a connection between sounds and letters, a red flag often goes up for teachers. Nelson emphasizes that teachers have a very important role because they're on the front lines when it comes to identifying dyslexia. She says teachers should follow their gut when it comes to screening students for dyslexia. When you see them struggling to remember sound-symbol combinations, Nelson advises, it's time to take action. Children are generally diagnosed when they learn to read, in kindergarten or first grade, but if you suspect dyslexia in older students, it's still a good idea to request assessment since the condition sometimes isn't identified until much later, and early identification and treatment can make a big difference.

5. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.

Some children who have reading, decoding and spelling problems consistent with dyslexia may not actually have dyslexia. "There are other language problems that can cause trouble with reading that also deserve attention in school," says Nelson. Educational teams can use tools like the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS), of which Nelson was the lead developer, to help figure out what individual students with language or literacy problems need to succeed in your class.

Nelson also recommends that teachers involve parents, and even students with dyslexia themselves, in making plans for academic success. The Student Language Scale (SLS), a short 12-question screener, can be used with the TILLS as a tool that teachers can fill out themselves and also send home for parents and students to fill out before parent-teacher conferences. "This input about how parents and students feel about their literacy and language skills can be very helpful to teachers," says Nelson.

6. It isn't as simple as it may seem.

If children can decode words, but their comprehension isn't there, they're technically not reading, says Nelson. Students need not only to figure out what words say but also what they mean. This is where classroom tools like audiobooks can really help kids. Listening to others read can build vocabulary, word knowledge and familiarity with the complex syntax of written language. Nelson cautions, however, that if you offer a student the opportunity to listen instead of read, you should first check to be sure that the child doesn't also have a problem with listening comprehension. She says you should also make sure that the student has help to improve the reading, decoding and spelling skills that are impaired in dyslexia, and she adds, "Remember, students will only get better with good instruction and practice, so be sure to help them find something they enjoy and can read independently for at least a portion of every day."

7. For students with dyslexia, some words and activities are harder than others.

The words children with dyslexia find most confusing may not be the ones you'd think. Often it's the short, common words that seem easy to most students-such as from, of, the, to, for, what, that, where, who, and how -that are tricky for students with dyslexia. Sometimes when students with dyslexia see a list of these seemingly basic words on a test, they just freeze up, says Nelson, so it's helpful to teach them to pay attention to the letter-pattern cues that make these words different from one another. They also may need to be encouraged to try multiple pronunciations of long and complex words in later grades because they may have trouble initially putting the accent on the right syllable or saying the vowels correctly.

In the classroom, also try to avoid putting a student with dyslexia on the spot to read aloud in a round-robin situation, which can be particularly embarrassing. A better option is to have the whole class read in unison, suggests Nelson. These choral readings model fluent reading and give students with dyslexia an opportunity to join their peers.

While Nelson doesn't advocate for old-fashioned, round-robin readings where individual students are put on the spot, she does say it's important for teachers, especially those working with young children, to listen to their students read aloud on their own from time to time. Some children with dyslexia are very good at hiding their disability in a group setting, so it's not until you sit down one-on-one to listen to your students read aloud that you'll notice a problem.

Nelson also recommends following up with a brainstorming activity after reading selected passages as a way to emphasize the importance of active comprehension and inferring meaning when its not explicitly stated. "If there is not just one right answer, more students may be actively involved," says Nelson. "This develops critical-thinking skills, which may be a strength for students with dyslexia."

8. Use accommodations wisely but sparingly.

Tasks that become automatic and fast for most people can take a lot of extra effort and time for people with dyslexia, so many children with dyslexia need extra time to do their assignments, says Nelson. It may also help to assign fewer problems so homework doesn't become nightmarish. Some students have an easier time with comprehension when they hear you read instructions aloud, or they may comprehend more by listening to an audiobook instead of reading from a physical book, because auditory memory may be affected along with reading. When giving instructions orally, Nelson says it helps to write key information, such as page numbers and problem numbers to be completed, on the board.

"Use accommodations wisely but sparingly," suggests Nelson. For instance, if someone else always reads for and scribes for a student with dyslexia, the student may become increasingly dependent on others. In addition to using accommodations, Nelson recommends that students with dyslexia receive direct, explicit instruction by someone who has keen knowledge of dyslexia and that they are encouraged to read on their own for intervals that get longer as they age. She says this should be material that the student helps to identify and that is fun and rewarding.

Nelson also points out, "People with dyslexia can have wonderful ideas but may need encouragement to write them down." She says teachers should tell students with dyslexia to compose their ideas freely, without getting bogged down by sentence structure, word forms and spelling. Then you can encourage students to go back and proofread to fix these mistakes and to use tools, such a spell checkers. "Reading and writing must become highly integrated activities," says Nelson, "not separate ones."

9. Strategies that work with students with dyslexia help all students.

Try universal strategies to help all students pay attention to the structure of words, sounds and patterns, which Dr. Nelson says can also be especially useful to students with dyslexia. In early grades, ask the class to say a word slowly and pay attention to how the individual sounds feel in their mouths and sound in their ears and brains, so they can write the letters that make those sounds. Then go backwards by starting with a series of letters and then saying the sounds they make. As students get better, swap out letters and remove those sounds and substitute others. Use nonsense words at first to teach the code. Make it a game. Then use real words, suggests Nelson. In later grades, help the class focus on the structure of complex words related to math and science, such as Greek and Latin morphemes in words like geology. You can model how to break words into parts (syllables and morphemes) and spell one part at a time with words such as trigonometry and geometry, or hypertension and hypotension.

10. Giving encouragement to students with dyslexia can truly make their day.

"When children are having trouble with everyday things, it's easy to be so focused on their errors that we lose the fact they made a brilliant statement or wrote a story with funny moments," says Nelson. "Start by saying, 'You made me laugh' or 'You brought a tear to my eye.' Getting praise can make all the difference in how much students reveal about themselves or how hard they try." As students experience failure, they may act like they don't care or say school is boring. They don't want to reveal that they're struggling. "Find the things they can do well," says Nelson, "and they will be more likely to try some of the harder things and seek help when they need it."

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10 Things About Dyslexia Every Teacher Needs to Know - WeAreTeachers

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As teachers, when we see a student struggling with what we think may be dyslexia, we immediately want to help. But understanding what's going on with a student's language-based learning disability isn't simple. Dyslexia takes different forms, and what works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another.

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Dr. Maryanne Wolf at the 2017 Burnett Seminar at UNC-Chapel Hill

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A teacher shares her experiences in intervening for students.

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As a child learns to read, it is not uncommon for that child to experience some struggle. Learning to read is complex and somewhat lengthy process, so it is typical for most students to struggle a little. But what about the child who continues to struggle in reading? Who is frustrated and responds to reading with anxiety? It could be the first signs of a reading disability.
*Guest post by Sarah from Stay at Home Educator
When I was teaching third grade, I had a student who was very behind in reading. Very, very behind. All her data (and I collected a lot of it) suggested she ranked in the bottom 7% of my class and the bottom 5% of the entire third grade at my school. Despite all the intervention I could offer she just wasn't making progress like my other struggling readers were.

I decided to investigate a little further by talking with the teacher she'd had in second grade, who reported the same things I had been seeing. Looking more closely at the data, this poor child's graph lines were practically horizontal. She had made negligible growth over the last year, and that was problematic.

So, I filled out the mountains of paperwork and took my concerns to the IEP board...where they were promptly dismissed. You see, yes, this little girl had made such minimal gain it could hardly be considered as such, but she was also an English Language Learner. She was originally from South Korea and English was her second language, so the IEP board sent me on my way with a gentle pat on the head.

But I knew in the heart this was not a second language problem. This little one had been living in the same house in our town since she and her family moved to the United States five years prior. She spoke English well, albeit sometimes making very strange connections between concepts, and both of her parents spoke English as fluently as me. No, I could not chock this up to a second language issue.

But, what choice did I have? I kept more data and I worked even harder with her small group and I sent home specialized homework in reading that was designed just for her. I continued to keep notes and data, and finally did my own in-depth assessment to try to identify where the problem lay.

And I went back to the IEP board. This time, three months later, they took me seriously and her parents consented to have her evaluated.

Sure enough, the struggle this little girl had been experiencing in learning to read was not related to the fact the her first language was Korean, it was related to the fact that her brain just wasn't making the connections as easily as her peers, or at all.

She had a reading disability.

This little girl finally started receiving the services she needed, but what I would have given to know what I do now about identifying reading disabilities.

Reading Disability Defined

A reading disability is a type of learning disability wherein a child struggles and shows extreme difficulty in learning how to read resulting primarily from neurological factors. A reading disability is sometimes referred to as a reading disorder or "reading impaired."

Recent research suggests that structural or functional problems within the brain may be the culprit for reading disabilities, but the truth is, like other learning disabilities, the absolute cause for reading disorders is unknown. What the evidence does tell us is that children who have a reading disability have a much harder time identifying and sequencing phonemes and making associations within context than their peers. While other students in their classes continue to progress, these children tend to flat line.

Three Types of Reading Disabilities

Researchers have identified three types of reading disorders.

1. Phonological deficit - suggestinga core problem in the phonological processing system of oral language.

2. Processing speed deficit - affecting speed and accuracy of printed word recognition (problems in fluency)

3. Comprehension deficit - often coinciding with the first two types of problems, but specifically found in children with social-linguistic disabilities (e.g., autism spectrum), poor vocabularies, generalized language learning disorders, and learning difficulties that affect abstract reasoning and logical thinking.

Signs of a Reading Disability

There are several signs to look for that help identify if a child does indeed have a reading disorder. Some are basic learning habits, such as the following:

Other signs of a reading disability are related more closely to the act and process of reading. They fall under the more general categories of decoding, comprehension, and retention difficulties. Signs of a reading disability may include the following:

consistent difficulty sounding out words and recognizing words out of context

confusion between letters and the sounds they represent

slow reading rate when reading aloud (reading word-by-word)

lack of expression while reading

ignoring punctuation while reading

confusion about the meaning of words and sentences

inability to connect concepts and ideas within a passage

omission of, or glossing over, detail

difficulty identifying significant information from details

high distractibility during reading

trouble remembering or summarizing what is read

difficulty connecting what is read to prior knowledge

difficulty applying content of a text to personal experiences

inability to view content from different of new perspectives

What to Do if You Suspect a Reading Disability

If you have gone through the checklist and feel like your child or student may have a reading disorder, here's what to do next.

1. Learn about the symptoms of reading disorders.

2. Keep a journal (aka data) of behaviors associated with said sympotoms and their frequency.

3. Follow your school's protocol for learning concerns.

4. Discuss your concerns with your child's teacher and pediatrician.

5. Get a formal evaluation.

6. Meet with IEP board to discuss results and write up a plan.

7. Explore more ways to help the child learn to read.

Thinking back to the little girl in my third-grade class, I didn't suspect she had a reading disability, per say. I just knew something was not right. I knew there was something blocking her from making progress in reading because there was not other reason for her not to be making the same kind of gains as her peers. I wish I had had a checklist like those above to help me clarify the behaviors I was seeing in her reading.

More Learning to Read
14 Things You Should Know About Reading Readiness 5 Things Every Teacher Should Know About Teaching Reading (The Kindergarten Connection)

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22 Telltale Signs of a Reading Disability

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As a child learns to read, it is not uncommon for that child to experience some struggle. Learning to read is complex and somewhat lengthy process, so it is typical for most students to struggle a little. But what about the child who continues to struggle in reading?