Have you ever heard of word chains or word ladders? They are such an easy and low prep way to build in phoneme blending, segmenting and manipulation during your structured literacy small groups. What's the difference in word chains or word ladders? Well... there isn't a difference! Both ... read more
How to Effectively Use Decodable Readers
We've got a solid understanding of why we should be using decodable books to teach young readers - they can be aligned with the phonetic patterns you've taught and they help us teach students to attend to all letters in a word when reading instead of guessing at words. But, even when we know ... read more
How to Plan Small Group Structured Literacy with Pre-Readers
Is small group / structured literacy your jam? (You can be honest, we're all friends around here!). Once upon a time I honestly did not love planning small group reading because I wasn't sure what all to include, where to find resources, how to group my students, and the list goes on. Well my ... read more
Building Blocks of Reading: Fluency
Oh my y’all! This exploration of the building blocks of reading has certainly flown by. How are we already on the final post? Wait, it’s March?! Whaaaaa?? My goodness, 2021 is speeding by! We’re approaching the top of the hill friends! As we head toward the pinnacle of the building blocks ... read more
Building Blocks of Reading: Phonemic Awareness
Welcome back to the Building Blocks of Reading y’all! We began in January with rhyming and alliteration, then moved onto letter knowledge. We built upon that foundation with intermediate phonological awareness (complex challenges like sentence segmenting, syllables, onset and rime), and last week ... read more
