...because every child deserves reading success.
Many parents have reached out to us with the question of, “How can I help my struggling reader at home?” You have probably heard ad infinitum, ‘be sure to read to your child.’ Reading to your child is lovely AND necessary for so many reasons. But, that’s a different topic. If you are reading this…
Decodable Texts are a Powerful Tool What’s the big deal about decodable texts? Approximately 20% of the population is prone to a language based learning disability. For these learners, reading does not come ‘naturally’. To meet with reading success, repeated opportunities to practice code are non-negotiable. Systematic, sequential, and cumulative practice with the alphabetic…
Phonemic Awareness: A Prerequisite for Reading Success What is phonemic awareness and why do young readers need to develop it? It is important to develop phonemic awareness in emergent readers because it is an oral language skill that includes a number of discrete skills: rhyming isolating beginning, middle, and ending sounds segmenting and blending phonemes…
Helping Students Make the Sound-to-Print Connection What is successive blending? Successive Blending is an instructional technique that provides a scaffold for students who are unable to sequence more than two sounds. For example, a student who would benefit from this technique might read the word “tag” as “tap”, “ag”, or “got”, among other possibilities. This…
Using the Components of Literacy as a Guide The framework for our blog is based upon The Cognitive Model created by Michael C. McKenna and Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl (2009). McKenna’s Cognitive Model provides a framework for targeted reading intervention that leads to stronger readers. The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. However, comprehension is…