...because every child deserves reading success.
For many beginning and struggling readers who need to strengthen phonological awareness, instructional scaffolds are a necessity. In our previous post, we answered a lot of questions about instructional scaffolds. In this post, we delve more deeply into specific scaffolds used to strengthen phonological awareness. What is Phonological Awareness? Phonological Awareness is an auditory skill….
What are instructional scaffolds? Instructional scaffolds are temporary tools that help students move from what they already know to what they cannot yet do on their own. Think of them as you would training wheels. A child may be able to ride a tricycle, but just doesn’t have the balance yet to ride a bicycle….
We are often asked, “At what skill or mastery level should I stop using decodable texts?” The answer varies based on each student. Before we jump into the answer, there are some basic understandings that must be addressed as to WHY the use of decodable texts in beginning and struggling readers is non-negotiable. Six Basic…
The best way to use decodable running records, or any progress monitoring tool for that matter, is to use the results to inform instruction. We urge educators to move beyond the pass/fail mentality. Educators are diagnosticians. We must approach every assessment through that lens, and ask ourselves, “What does this tell me about what this…
An r-controlled vowel refers to a specific syllable pattern. Syllables that contain the r-controlled vowel pattern have one vowel that is immediately followed by an r. The r changes the sound of the vowel so that the vowel makes neither the short sound nor the long sound. What are the sounds of an r-controlled vowel?…
The open syllable is a great way to introduce beginning readers to the long vowel sound as it appears in print. Hopefully, you’ve continued to work on Phonemic Awareness with a variety of vowel sounds so when students begin to connect the sound to print, they will have had previous exposure to the long vowel…