word study

Back to School: Getting to Know Your Second and Third Grade Readers

Essential Assessments for Second and Third Grade Readers Second and third grade is where the ‘rubber meets the road,’ so to speak. Much of kindergarten and first grade reading instruction focuses on building phonological awareness skills and applying the alphabetic principle. Comprehension and vocabulary are addressed primarily through read aloud. In second and third grade, students are…

What is a Closed Syllable and Why is it Important?

Teaching beginning readers about the closed syllable is an important first step in reading success. Kindergarten, First Grade, and emergent readers benefit from lessons that include explicit, systematic instruction of the syllable type, both in isolation and in connected text (decodable readers).

Instruction | Phonics | Reading Intervention | Word Study

Making a Case for Word Study Instruction

Systematic, Sequential, Cumulative, Explicit Every year, we inevitably encounter students with a similar reading profile. These are the students who score within the independent range for comprehension. However, oral reading fluency scores tend to indicate a need for support. Closer examination of fluency will likely reveal decreased accuracy with minimal self-corrections. Rate, however, may falsely…