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There’s so much to reading, from fluency to comprehension, and vocabulary. Motivating readers isn’t always an easy task. Check out these tips and tricks, like using decodable text, to get your learners excited about reading!
When someone says poetry, my immediate image is classical poetry forms such as sonnets. But I also have fond memories of reading Shel Silverstein poems or writing structured poetry forms like haiku when I was a child. Often, poetry is not one of the things people think of when they think of challenged readers. However,…
If there is one thing Orton-Gillingham teachers can never have enough of, it is decodable text. Finding books that are highly decodable, engaging for our students and suitable for a wide variety of ages is challenging. Differences in scopes and sequences further complicate matters. However, there are some resources that I turn to again and…
There are a variety of reasons why students struggle to develop reading and writing skills, and many of these students need explicit instruction in foundational skills such as phonics for decoding and spelling, automatic fluent reading skills, and basic text structures. However, the ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend, which is why teachers can’t…
Many teachers are familiar with decoding strategies that may emphasize the use of picture clues, meaning, and self-monitoring. Sometimes these decoding activities are even given cute nicknames to help students remember. While we want students to monitor our students and their reading for accuracy to make sure it makes sense, often these kinds of decoding…
Please welcome, Lorna Wooldridge as my guest blogger! In a recent blog I wrote for the Orton-Gillingham Online Academy (OGOA) on “The National Reading Panel and The Big Five”, I explained what exactly “The Big Five” are, and why they are so important for reading. I plan to blog extensively about each one…
If you have a child or students who struggles with reading comprehension, there are a number of reasons why this is happening. These include: weak decoding due to poor phonological awareness skills that have compounded over the years and impacted a child’s ability to make meaning of text weak fluency skills poor vocabulary development due…
Soon after introducing the first vowel teams, the need to discuss homophones rears its head. This can be challenging for struggling readers during Orton-Gillingham lesson plans, especially English Language Learners. What’s the difference between a homonym and a homophone? Homonyms and homophones are frequently confused and the words are used interchangeably, but there is actually…
This post contains a referral link and affiliate link. We know that part of becoming a successful reader and writer is building and utilizing a rich vocabulary. Parents can begin helping their children do just that starting when they are babies. Reading, singing and talking every single day to your little ones will lay…
Last Spring, I received an email from Mindy Bramer, an educational consultant for PaTTAN, (Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network). The state of Pennsylvania had just become one of the first states to initiate a ground-breaking, dyslexia pilot program that was backed by state legislation. “Act 69 of 2014, the Dyslexia and Early…