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Category: Spelling

spelling strategy, spelling independence

Effective Spelling Instruction: Strategies That Build Independence

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📚 When people ask me for reading resources, I take

📚 When people ask me for reading resources, I take those recommendations seriously.

📚 I’m not going to recommend something just because it’s popular. I’m not going to recommend something because it has cute graphics. And I’m definitely not going to recommend something if it isn’t aligned with what we know from the research.

📚When it came to recommending a book for my best friend to help her almost four year old get started, I knew I was going to hand her "Teach Me To Read" from @littleliteracynook .

📚 What I love about it is that it doesn’t just give children activities to complete, it actually teaches parents how to teach.

📚 It includes clear language for introducing letter names and letter sounds, which is something many parent resources completely overlook.

📚 It also addresses both phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge, two foundational skills that are critical for early reading success.

📚 The spiral-bound format makes it easy to use, and the lessons are structured in a way that feels manageable for busy families.

📚 Most importantly, it takes concepts that can feel overwhelming and makes them accessible for parents without sacrificing what the research says matters.

💜 If you're looking for a resource to give your child a strong start before kindergarten, this is one of the few parent-friendly options I consistently feel good about recommending.

👇 Comment BESTIE below and I’ll DM you the link to the book I gave my best friend.

🚨 Why in the world are we asking teachers to follo

🚨 Why in the world are we asking teachers to follow a reading program with fidelity when the program itself has never been tested with fidelity?

📚 Most core reading programs are designed to be sold to as many schools, districts, and states as possible. They try to be everything for everyone.

😖The result? Programs become so overstuffed with lessons, routines, activities, extensions, interventions, assessments, and enrichment that completing everything is impossible within the school day.

📚 Then we turn around and tell teachers they're expected to follow every lesson, every routine, and every script exactly as written.

📚 Here's the problem: we rarely have research showing that the entire program, taught exactly as published, produces the outcomes being promised.

📚 We may have research supporting individual components. We may have research supporting specific instructional practices. But that's very different from having evidence that the entire package works as written.

📚 We also need to remember that these programs aren't typically written by a single author with a singular vision. Different grade levels, units, and components are often developed by different teams. Vertical alignment may be carefully planned, or it may not be as seamless as we assume.

📚 None of this means teachers should ignore their curriculum. It means we should stop treating curriculum like sacred texts and start treating them like instructional tools.

📚 Professional judgment matters. Knowing your students matters. Understanding the research matters.

👇 What's your district's expectation? Are teachers expected to follow the program word-for-word, or are they trusted to make instructional decisions? I'd love to know in the comments!!!!

#corereading #readingprogram #teachingreading #readingteacher

📚 Your textbook is not a sacred document. 👀 And I

📚 Your textbook is not a sacred document. 👀

And I know that might feel controversial in a world where teachers are constantly being told to follow the curriculum “with fidelity.”

But here’s the thing:
📚 Textbooks are tools.
🧠 Textbooks cannot think.
✨ And nothing is more powerful than a knowledgeable teacher who knows how to make instruction work for actual students.

🎧 In this week’s episode of Creating Readers, I’m talking about:
• Why so many core reading programs prioritize state compliance over learning
• The problem with “activating background knowledge” without ever building it
• Why all vocabulary words should NOT be taught equally
• What it really means to thoughtfully adapt a curriculum

💡 This episode is not about throwing programs in the trash.
It’s about becoming the kind of teacher who knows when to follow the program… and when to make adjustments for kids.

👇 Comment TEXTBOOK below and I’ll DM the link to listen on your favorite streaming platform!

📚 If you’re trying to figure out what to read next

📚 If you’re trying to figure out what to read next in the world of the science of reading, this post is for you.

Not just a random list of books.
The books I’d personally recommend based on the exact topics teachers ask me about most: vocabulary, comprehension, assessment, small groups, intervention, and more. ✨

Comment SUMMER and I’ll DM you the link! ☀️📖

✨ The easiest way to add vocabulary to your school

✨ The easiest way to add vocabulary to your school day? Make it visible.

🔠If we want vocabulary growth to actually happen, words can’t disappear the moment the lesson ends. Students need multiple exposures across weeks and months, not just during that week’s story.

📋One of the simplest shifts I made was adding explicitly taught vocabulary words to a running list in my lesson plans. Every time I introduced a new word, it went into the notes section at the bottom of my plans.

👀Why? Because visibility changes awareness.

When I could SEE the words I had taught, I was more likely to intentionally:
📚 use them during instruction
💬 work them into conversations
✏️ encourage students to use them in speaking and writing
🔁 provide repeated exposure throughout the day

👀And students need that visibility too.

📈Try creating a simple classroom ABC vocabulary chart where you add your words from your weekly lessons. Each week, the list grows and grows, and because its in your lesson plans, you can more easily make sure you are all using them.

❎The goal isn’t just for students to recognize vocabulary words long enough to take a weekly test.
✅The goal is for those words to become part of their language.

👇How do you make vocabulary visible in your classroom? Tell me below, or tell me which of these strategies you’d love to try!

✨Has anybody else noticed that our reading blocks

✨Has anybody else noticed that our reading blocks are starting to look more and more like science and social studies blocks?

📚I remember when I first learned about content building programs, I was genuinely excited. I thought, “Wait… this is amazing. I can teach reading AND social studies at the same time.”

🧠But then I started looking closely at the units… and realized they didn’t actually line up with the science and social studies standards I was still responsible for teaching.

⏳So instead of replacing those blocks, it often just meant there was now even less time for them.

🌎And it made me start wondering something:
What if the answer isn’t putting more content into the reading block…
but helping science and social studies teachers teach their content through the lens of literacy?

🔍What if students were explicitly learning:
• Tier 3 vocabulary during science and social studies
• Text structures within those content areas
• How to read and navigate disciplinary texts
• How language changes depending on the subject

📖Because then background knowledge wouldn’t have to be built almost entirely during reading instruction.
Students would already be building it all day long.

💡I’m not saying we should stop using themes or knowledge-building in literacy instruction (You KNOW I talk about that all the time). And I’m definitely not saying reading teachers shouldn’t teach content.

🤍But I do think we have quietly shifted an enormous amount of responsibility for background knowledge onto the reading block, while simultaneously shrinking the actual time devoted to science and social studies.

✨Maybe “every teacher is a reading teacher” should also mean: every content teacher is equipped to teach the reading demands of their subject.

👍Like and share if you agree! Tell me below-would you be interested in a blog post about how we can teach science and social studies through the lens of reading? It's been ruminating in my head for a while, but wanted to guage interest first!

Some stories stay with you long after you finish t

Some stories stay with you long after you finish them. Outlander was one of those for me (and I'm not even finished with it so if you share spoilers in the comments I will not be okay.)

Seeing these costumes in person immediately took me back to the first moments I saw them on screen. The first time Claire stepped through the stones. The wedding. Paris. Culloden. All of it.

I can't tell you how many times I've watched the wedding episode or A. Malcolm. How much I've cried for these characters that were so well-developed they felt like a part of me.

I loved this exhibit far more than I could've expected. I even went back again. The artistry, the storytelling, the history woven into every detail… it felt like stepping back into a world that somehow changed me the first time I entered it.

I’m so grateful I got to experience it. Don't mind me, I'll just be touching every rock I can find from here on out, just in case. ❤️

#Outlander #outlanderstarz @jyfmuseums @outlander_starz

📚 What if our students knew the kind of informatio

📚 What if our students knew the kind of information they needed to get from a text, even before reading it?

🧠 When we teach text structure, we are teaching our students to actively anticipate specific kinds of information from the text.

✨ When students recognize:
• cause/effect
• compare/contrast
• sequence
• problem/solution
• descriptive structures
…they’re able to anticipate what information is coming next and comprehend more deeply.

💡 This is why explicit instruction with text structures matters so much, especially as students move into upper elementary and middle school informational reading.

📝 I created these text structure passages to make instruction simple, meaningful, and easy to implement during whole group, small group, or intervention.

💬 Comment “structure” and I’ll DM you the link!

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