Blending and Segmenting are crucial phonemic awareness skills for laying a solid foundation in our readers. Many studies have been done showing that students who have weak phonemic awareness skills may also have weak reading skills. Today we have some tips and tools for making teaching these two skills a bit easier for your students to learn. Rocks, hammers and… View Post
The BEST Back to School Books are on our mind as we are thinking about the new school year and getting our classrooms ready. Of course we have favorites, like The Recess Queen, but we like to add new books to our list. We held back and didn’t add that one, but it really is one of our favorites! Some… View Post
Science of Reading – Teacher Book Stack time is finally here! Even though it is summer and a time for teachers to recharge and relax, I have always enjoyed reading, sharpening my skills and planning for the next year. It fuels the teaching fire! We are going to introduce four professional teaching books and explain why each book is an… View Post
Free summer reading ideas! That’s right. School’s out (finally) but you don’t want your readers to stop reading. So we have some fun, free ideas to keep the learning happening and the brains to thinking! #1: Scholastic Summer Reading Program Scholastic has taken a lot of the work out for parents to get their kids to read during the summer…. View Post
It’s time to talk about the dreaded Summer Slide. Some believe the summer slide to be a myth. Some teachers believe it occurs more in developing readers. Either way, it IS real. When we don’t use our muscles for months at a time, they get weak. The muscles lose strength and can lose what gains had been previously made. Kids… View Post
You’ve almost made it to the end of quite the school year! That in itself is an accomplishment to make it through one of the most difficult school years ever. With all the changes over the past year, I am sure our classrooms need a bit more organization and care before we leave and we have 5 great tips to… View Post
The May Literacy Challenge is here and it is ready for your students! If you missed last month’s challenge and want to grab it for next year, you can find it here. Like our other monthly challenges, we have included reading and writing and other literacy activities to be completed. Because it is in digital format, students can work on… View Post
