"This collection of  Phonemic Awareness Progress Records includes four different tools to help you gather information about the phonemic awareness development of individual students. The data you collect will help you make intentional decisions about phonemic awareness instruction. The tools can capture data from either informal observation or more formal practice sessions, including individual and group options."

Are you ready for a more intentional approach to phonemic awareness instruction?  In this ready-to-use instructional resource, we offer word lists and language prompts to support cohesive phonemic awareness skills development, as described in Chapter 3 of Shifting the Balance. The guide is organized sequentially to align with the skills progression offered in Shifting the Balance, moving from stepping stone skills to the power skills of blending, segmenting, adding, deleting, and substituting/changing phonemes."

"Are you looking for support in delivering explicit phonics instruction?  We’ve built this planning template for you. When paired with a research-informed plan for which skills will be taught in which order (scope and sequence), this tool can help you design high-quality whole group or small group phonics instruction. The framework flexibly support either two or three days of instruction on a specific focus skill.  The download also includes the planning template plus guidance to make planning for each of the components efficient and effective."

"Reading comprehension doesn’t start with reading. It starts with oral language comprehension. So, being intentional and strategic about helping young children develop oral language is an essential step toward positioning them for later reading success. Dialogic conversation can serve as a cornerstone to oral language development in the classroom and is described  in Chapter 1 of Shifting the Balance, “Rethinking How Reading Comprehension Begins.”

This tool is designed to help you teach children to use visual information as a starting point for problem-solving words, relying on meaning and structure for cross-checking. This routine promotes orthographic mapping and the accumulation of orthographic knowledge while also supporting reading for meaning. 

"We’ve breathed fresh life into a familiar tool, helping you to think deeply about not only if students are using visual information, but how and at what position in the word. For more information about how to make a shift from miscue analysis to decoding analysis, check out Chapter 5 of Shifting the Balance, “Reinventing the Ways We Use MSV (3 Cueing Systems).”  

You will notice we have renamed the form DECODING ANALYSIS, rather than MISCUE analysis, to help clarify the idea that ALL errors are essentially decoding errors, and in every error there is an opportunity to ask ourselves, ‘What decoding skills could have helped the child navigate this word?”

"Sound-Spellings Chart 1 is designed for children in the earliest stages of reading development. It features the most common phonemes for 26 single-letter graphemes, and presents one key word association that demonstrates that spelling. The chart includes short vowel sounds only and intentionally uses key words that are highly decodable for beginning readers."

"Sound-Spelling Frieze Cards Set 1 features the same 26 consonant and short vowel sounds as the Sound-Spellings Set 1, including the short vowel sounds and highly decodable key words. The frieze cards are in a downloadable, full color PDF ready for printing on 8.5 X 11 paper or card stock. These sound-spellings in full-page format are designed to be read from a distance when displayed in the classroom or used in instruction."

"In this video, Set 1: First Sounds, we share pronunciations for the most common sounds for each letter of the alphabet. What’s important about the way the sounds are pronounced in this video is that these pronunciations make it easier, rather than harder, for students to blend sounds together. You will notice that continuous sounds are held out in this video and the extra sounds–which are easy to inadvertently add in the form of a schwa–are eliminated (when possible) or minimized."

"In this comprehensive resource, we provide a collection of short vowel word lists to support phonics instruction and ongoing formative assessment. The resource includes lists of simple CVC words for every short vowel sound. It also houses lists of words that combine single syllable short vowel words with consonant blends and consonant digraphs. Finally, each section ends with a collection of decodable sentences that correlate with each skill.  You can download the PDF, print the pages front-to-back, three-hole punch, and place in a binder, creating a go-to reference at your fingertips."

"In this comprehensive resource, we provide a collection of word lists for the most common long vowel spelling patterns to support phonics instruction and ongoing formative assessment. The tool is organized by long vowel sound, and includes word lists for each of the most common spelling patterns for that long sound.  Each section also contains a collection of corresponding decodable sentences. We suggest you download the PDF, print the pages front-to-back, three-hole punch, and place in a binder, creating a go-to reference you’ll want to keep close at hand. "

"We put together this collection of more than 100 word chain lists to help you leverage the power of minimal contrast word comparisons for building phonemic awareness and phonics skills. This ready-to-go collection of word chains is organized by skill progression. Couple them with sound markers, magnetic letters, or white boards to engage students and meet them where they are as readers."

"Are you wondering which sight words have the most power for young readers? This is a list of the 109 sight words that comprise 50% of the words found in children’s texts. What’s more, the first 13 represent powerful little words that make up 25% of the words in children’s texts."

Morphology lessons? What do they look like? How are they different from explicit vocabulary lessons? In this Morphology Lesson Planning Template, we give you a step-by-step approach for helping students learn to look within words for morpheme clues. In combination with our Lesson Plan for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction, this lesson will get you on your way to helping students develop word power by leveraging strategies and word networks to lock in the meaning of new words."

Are you wondering how to ensure explicit vocabulary instruction is both engaging and impactful? In our Lesson Plan for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction, we draw on decades of research on what makes vocabulary learning easier for the brain. This lesson structure helps you plan explicit lessons on targeted words. Broken down into four simple steps, our template supports you in developing kid-friendly definitions, guiding analysis of word structures, clarifying contextual use of the word, and connecting the new word to established word networks."

Are you looking for a ready-to-use resource to help you partner with colleagues to invest in intentional morphology instruction across the grade levels? In this ready-to-use instructional resource, we offer a suggested scope and sequence as one pathway to systematically teach morphemes across the upper elementary years to boost both word recognition and language comprehension."

"If you are wondering what a simple but brain-friendly scope and sequence might like for phonics or word study, we have a Phonics Skills Progression for you dig into. In this planning tool, we provide an abbreviated example of a typical skills progression beginning with the most foundational skills at the base and building upward to the skills necessary to read complex multisyllabic words. The tool also includes example words as you climb up skills progression."

"Wondering how to help students write big words with greater accuracy and automaticity? In this tool, we provide a step-by-step routine to help students write big words, aligning sounds and spellings across the whole word. This brain-friendly approach to learning to write big words will allow your students to become more independent and successful."

"Fluency is definitely more than speed! If you’re looking for a simple self-assessment tool to help students track their reading fluency progress and set goals, we hope you find this one helpful. In our Fluency Self-Assessment Tool, we prompt students to think about the components of fluent reading so they can reflect on what they’re doing well already and how they can stretch themselves. This ready-to-use tool can help students take ownership of their fluency growth across practice sessions, mapping their progress as they go."