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The more students know the more complicated spelling becomes. They begin to need to take into consideration not only sound and symbol correspondence, but the word’s morphology and part of speech. One potentially confusing concept is words that end in -ous or -us. Both endings are pronounced /ǝs/. So how do we know when to…
For students with dyslexia, composing a piece of writing can be incredibly challenging. Writing requires the orchestration of many complex tasks. Students must: This cognitive load can be overwhelming for our students. For teachers of structured literacy, time is our most precious commodity. Choosing how to spend our lesson time is a serious decision. Much…
It’s important to help our students build their morphological awareness, but how can we do this? By using controlled text! What is morphological awareness? Morphological awareness is the ability to recognize the smallest units of meaning in words. These units, or morphemes, may be prefixes, suffixes, base words, or roots. Looking for resources to help…
As students move on to more advanced concepts, certain spelling conventions don’t fit neatly into a clear-cut rule with a catchy turn of phrase. They are often particularly difficult for students to master. These concepts can also be challenging for teachers to explain clearly and concisely because of their complexity. In addition, unless someone has…
Although many schools avoid the word dyslexia, favoring “specific learning disability”, it is important to say the word dyslexia for a few key reasons. Using the word dyslexia helps to build a community of learners with similar difficulties. Saying the word dyslexia carries with it an understanding of the disability and the best practice intervention….
While the syllable types explain many spellings and pronunciations in English, we still come across some words that don’t quite work the way we expect them to. One of those is a group of words known as closed syllable exceptions. Let’s talk about teaching closed syllable exceptions! What are closed syllable exceptions? Closed syllable exceptions…
One of the most common patterns I see with students with dyslexia is difficulty with little words. They may get some of the more challenging content words, but then skip, substitute, or misread little words. Very often these are function words like the, or, and in. So do these types of errors matter? As teachers,…
Fatigue from dyslexia is a very real concern. Imagine the struggles of being someone who has dyslexia during just one day in the classroom. From the moment the learner enters the classroom in the morning, they are faced with one challenge after another. Let’s imagine a fourth-grade classroom. The student enters and typically has a…
The KPS or Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading were developed by the International Dyslexia Association in 2010 and revised in 2018. They represent a list of skills and knowledge necessary to teach literacy to all learners. The KPS help structured literacy educators in a variety of ways. The KPS are divided into five…