Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard the phrase “some kids are just poor spellers.” I’ve got both hands and feet raised over here. Children are not destined to be poor or great spellers. All children can grow in their spelling, but we have to make sure we are giving them the proper instruction…
Read Moreorthographic mapping
What’s Meaning Got To Do With It?
Do you have students who persistently misread small, high-frequency words such as: “he,” “I,” “of,” “gave,” “a,” “the,” “she,” “her,” “on” or “was”? This is quite common even if older students have had remediation for decoding difficulties and have improved their phonics knowledge and word reading skills. We could speculate about why. Maybe teachers do…
Read MoreCan Lucy Calkins’ changing views shift the way millions of children are taught to read?
The news has been spreading that Lucy Calkins, head of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP), has been learning about the science of reading and making changes to her guidance and widely used curricula. Throughout her career, she has often characterized phonics as ‘low-level’ work that should be minimized and has promoted top-down…
Read MoreHow we can help kids to self-teach themselves to read
Have you ever wondered how kids can read words they haven’t been taught to read? I recently came across the ‘Self Teaching Hypothesis’ Share,1955. This hypothesis explains how kids use the sounds/spellings they have been taught and apply them to figure out new words. What does this theory say? “According to this hypothesis, beginning readers…
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