The Blog
Want to know how the Science of Reading applies to your classroom? Keep reading to discover what the research suggests, and how we should teach phonics and phonemic awareness to help all students learn to read.

- Phonics, Resources
There’s nothing quite like a game to take worn-out and wound-up children and bring them back to center. There have been days where I could see that my typical lesson was not going to work, because my kids didn’t have enough gas left in their tank to make it through. It doesn’t happen often, but on those days I give

- Phonics, Resources
You know I love decodables. One of my first blog posts was about why they are important and the difference between leveled and decodable readers. Not all decodables are created equal, and I don’t use the same ones for all my students. So today, we’re going to talk about my favorite decodables for specific purposes. I’m talking favorite for beginning

- Phonics, Science of Reading
Before becoming Orton-Gillingham trained, I rarely reviewed. I “taught” my spelling features for the week and then expected my children to magically remember those rules forever. I was still using leveled texts, so there was no review of skills in connected text. I knew I needed to do more, but I didn’t know how to make it all fit into

- Phonics, Resources
I’ve talked a lot about word chains, but realized I’ve never dug deeply into why they are important and very explicitly explain the steps to take. So today, I’m diving deep into why and how, without extra fluff. (Look, I’m even keeping the intro short so this doesn’t become one of those recipe blogs that tells you the entire history

- Phonics, Resources
I think Teachers Pay Teachers is great (biased, I know). But honestly? I think it can also be terrible for someone who doesn’t know what they are looking for. There are a LOT of, let’s just say questionable, resources out there. If someone were just looking for Science of Reading resources, they might run across something that isn’t aligned with

- Fluency, Phonics
I was the queen of running records. You should see the composition books I had where I took a running record on every child in all of my groups almost weekly. I didn’t need a form, I didn’t need any fancy technology. All I needed was a book, a kid, and my notebook. I was so proud of my

- Phonics
As I entered the Science of Reading world, I heard a lot about how people were ditching spelling tests. When I was in the classroom, I had between 4 and 5 different “word study” groups, and each group had a spelling test on Friday. So that meant I spent over an hour each Friday testing children on their words. When

- Phonics
I love teaching children how to read. I enjoy teaching in general, but teaching phonics is just SO. MUCH. FUN. So today, I want to talk about 10 different ways I practice a phonics skill with kids. Each activity is something I do with my kiddos, and all of them are meaningful ways to practice reading and writing. I am

- Phonics, Reading Research, Science of Reading
In my last post, we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this—how does it look in practice? In it’s simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print. Today, I want to talk about a variety

- Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Reading Research
The term orthographic mapping slipped around my head for a year before I felt I could finally grab it and understand. If I struggled to master the concept, I thought others may too. So today, I want to break down orthographic mapping in a way that won’t leave you banging your head against the keyboard. Hopefully. What is orthographic mapping?