Teaching Reading

If you teach in an elementary classroom or run a summer or after school program that teaches reading, you’ll want to listen up!  I’ve got a nine-issue series of a duplicate-able newsletter designed to help parents understand how to support teachers as they teach reading.  It’s called “The Parents’ Guide to Reading,” and it makes [...]

Here’s a teaching method that can be a life-saver for teachers working with struggling students, limited resources, or unmotivated pupils.  Language Experience is a broad term that basically means that each student’s own language is used as a basis for teaching reading and language arts skills.
The basic idea is this: If a student can put [...]

We don’t often think of it, but the season of caroling is wonderful for beginning readers.  Singing the familiar songs while looking at the words is a great way to reinforce early reading skills.  The words are often even broken up into syllables, since we sing one syllable for each note in general.  What a [...]

One way to help children learn phonics attributes and word analysis skills is through word sorts.  These activities will help with reading as well as spelling.  The basic premise is that words can be put into groups based on various phonetic attributes, such as a long or short vowel sound, number of syllables, type of [...]