Let us know if you’d like to stay connected with updates, information, and notifications of new content.
7+ Tools to Help YOU Make Learning to Read Easier for Students (Including a Lesson Template for Scaffolding Orthographic Mapping)
If you are a teacher or literacy interventionist struggling to: assess students in meaningful ways, provide more effective differentiated instruction, manage the diverse needs of your students with limited time, or find the instructional resources you need (like...
Looking for free decodable texts? We wrote one for you!
What could be more fun than thinking about pups? We really can’t think of much. Speaking of puppies, if you’re familiar with our book, Shifting the Balance, then you know that Chapter 6 is about finding “aligned” texts for students. Aligned texts are more than...
Wondering how to provide fun independent practice specific phonics concepts? Try this fun partner game!
Last week we offered seven ways to use our “Decodable Lists and Sentences” to supplement and support your phonics instruction. Based on the positive response from readers, we decided to add one more way to use these collections. Today's idea is focused specifically...
7 Ways to Use Our Decodable Word Lists and Sentences (Part 2)
Last week, we introduced you to our two sets of decodable word lists, and we even suggested you might want to organize them in a binder for easy access. And today, we share seven simple and practical ideas for using these two collections of word lists and sentences....
7 Ways to Use Our Decodable Word Lists and Sentences (Part 1)
Maybe you already knew about our Decodable Word Lists and Sentences. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you saw the lists and weren’t sure what to do with them. Whatever the case, we want to offer seven simple ways to use these resources to enhance your phonics instruction and...
Laying Language Track for the Word Reading Train
In Chapter 1 of Shifting the Balance, we untangle a widespread misunderstanding about reading comprehension. It is “Misunderstanding 4” in the chapter that is about language comprehension. Misunderstanding 4 goes like this, “Successful comprehension in beginning...
METANOIA . . .
We didn’t know this word a few weeks ago. But since we first became aware of it, we seem to be noticing it more and more. Maybe it’s because we’re immersed in thinking about children’s language development these days. Maybe it’s because we’re thinking a lot about...
Structure vs. Choice? Urgency vs. Joy?
We’ve been thinking lately about the opposing tensions in our lives and the ways these tensions often leave us longing for a perfect balance. The idea that our lives will be in perfect balance is, of course, absurd. Nevertheless, balance as an imprecise descriptor...
Making Learning to Decipher Easier – Rather than Harder – For Spies Everywhere
We think of offering brain-friendly phonics instruction as being a bit like saying, “Hey, would you like to learn to decipher a secret code? I can teach you.” So, this week, we thought it might be fun to take this secret code metaphor a bit further and offer an...
How do We Shift the Balance for 3-5 Students?
It has been almost a year since Shifting the Balance: Bringing the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom hit real and virtual bookshelves. We’ve been so moved by the robust response to this little book, to say the least. Quite honestly, what started...
Hold the Vision. Trust the Process.
You may already know how much we LOVE the New Year with its fresh start and promise. But, even by the time calendar turns over to February, we can sometimes find ourselves fatiguing and starting to lose sight of our vision. It’s often easier for us to set big...
If You Take a Speech-to-Print Approach
If you approach learning to read and write as a speech-to-print -rather than as a print-to-speech - process, . . . . . . then you will want to start by making sure children have strong oral language. And if you are going to build children’s oral language, . . . . ....
The Power of Re-Work
Ahh, the little prefix RE- ! Small but mighty! We’re believers in fresh starts and REvised approaches. We’re advocates of taking stock and REevaluating. And in both our personal and professional lives, January has been a time of RE- for us. REflecting on how we have...
Are You Ready for Some Good News? It’s Here . . .
It’s exciting when the little people we support start to know and recite some letter names and their associated sounds in response to seeing those little black marks on a page. But the problem is . . . ...we’ve all known children who know LOTS, if not ALL, of the...
A Little Fun with Phon- Words
Phonics? Phonological awareness? Phonemic awareness? What’s the difference, really? And how can you keep all these phon- words straight? Well, confusion about the phon- words is created not only because they sound alike, but also because there is a...
Six Suggestions for Seamless Oral Language Development
What’s oral language development got to do with reading, anyway? Well, it turns out . . . a whole lot. As we explain in Chapter 1 of Shifting the Balance, reading comprehension doesn’t begin with reading; it begins with comprehension of spoken language. And...
Helping Children Remodel Their Brains for Reading
Kari’s husband, John, likes to save scraps of wood and other building materials. Sometimes he buys new stuff . . . but, boy does he get excited when he can repurpose something he already has on hand, using it in a new and useful way. In the same way that John loves...
3 Things That Can Make Interpreting Research Tricky
Perhaps you are thinking about that second (or third or fourth) cup of coffee you have in the morning. Maybe you are wondering if coffee is really good for you after all. So, you decide to get on the internet and do a bit of reading to find out what the research...
Let us know if you’d like to stay connected with updates, information, and notifications of new content.