The Connection Between Decoding and Encoding - Part 2

Hi, friends! Last week, I discussed the importance of connecting speech to print and how that relates to spelling instruction. Did you miss last week's post? Click here to read that first. In summary, we can think of reading and spelling as reciprocal skills. Reading, or decoding, is applying the sound-symbol relationships and successfully blending them to read a word. Spelling is the other side of the coin. It is the ability to segment words by individual sounds and use the correct sound-symbol correspondences in written form. 

This speech to print approach helps us connect the phonemes, sounds, to the grapheme, letter/s; the representation for each individual sound. While this may be a practice that many of us are familiar with in the early grades with single-syllable words, how does this apply to multisyllabic words? Let's explore this. 

How Does the Speech-to-Print Approach Assist in Spelling Multisyllabic Words?

Students need explicit instruction in strategies that...

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How are Reading and Spelling Connected?

Hi, friends! In this week's blog post, I'm chatting about the connection, and its importance, between reading and spelling. In many classrooms across the nation, reading and spelling are taught in isolation. This provides little connection between the two, when in reality, reading and spelling are reciprocal skills. 

Let's break this down a little bit. We can think of reading and spelling as being different sides of the same coin. Reading, or decoding, is applying the sound-symbol relationships and successfully blending them to read a word. Spelling, or encoding, is the ability to segment words by individual sounds and use the correct sound-symbol correspondences in written form. 

So, continuing with the coin analogy, let's look at each side of it as being reading on one side and spelling on the other.

Reading: Breaking Down the Decoding Process

We see a word in its written form.

We segment each phoneme (sound) within the word.

We then blend those sounds together to...

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Quick Guide for Cursive Instruction

handwriting Jul 21, 2021

Hi, friends. Recently, we chatted about the importance of understanding the four parts of a letter, including letter formation in print. This week, we will dive into cursive, which is always a favorite with students! 

Summer is a great time for handwriting practice. Explicitly teaching letter formation is a crucial part for automaticity in writing. Handwriting instruction should lead in the early grades and provide ample opportunities to practice explicitly taught letters. Further in this post, I explore some ways you can do this in your practice. 

Why is handwriting so important?

We know that the knowledge of letter names and fluency of letter naming in kindergarten are among the best predictors of later reading success (Catts et al., 2015). Handwriting helps students store letters as linguistic symbols. When students have the precise motor sequence for forming each letter, it is automated and recalled without conscious effort. This automaticity leaves mental energy for...

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Do You Know the 4 Properties of a Letter?

handwriting Jul 07, 2021

Hi, friends. Just this week, one of my middle schoolers was impressed with my handwriting and exclaimed. "Your handwriting is so pretty! How do you do that?"

Have your students ever asked you, "How can you write so quickly?" or "How can you write without looking at the letters?" These are questions that have been repeatedly asked by my students over the years, especially my older students who struggle with letter formation and handwriting fluency. 

When I think about how I learned to write letters, my mind goes back to my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Katz. We had half-day kindergarten that consisted of lots of direct teaching followed by hands-on application and practice that felt a lot like play. 

One of the activities she did with us to help with letter formation was to teach the letter strokes using verbal cues, skywriting, and, my favorite, circle writing. She used to have us form a circle where we would face our peer's back. She would then give us a sound. We would...

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What is an Auditory Drill, and How Do I Use It?

 

Hi, friends! This week, I'm going to share with you the most effective practice that I have used to help students solidify their sound-to-print knowledge. I have used this in every class that I have taught from PK-12th grade. It helps students map sounds to reliable letter correspondence. 

The auditory drill is a quick, 2-5 minute, portion of your daily lesson. Application builds with students over time as more and more phoneme-grapheme linkages are taught explicitly. You will add each explicitly taught phoneme-grapheme to your auditory drill moving from the most reliable letter-sound representations to the least. Next, I am going to walk you through the process of an auditory drill. 
 

The Process of the Auditory Drill

1. Provide students with explicit instruction of expectations.
2. Clearly say the sound (phoneme) in isolation while students look at the teacher's mouth for articulation production and mouth formation cues.
3. Students echo the sound (use...
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Building Fluency in Our Students

automaticty reading Jun 09, 2021
 

Hi, friends! I'm back this week chatting about a popular topic that I've been discussing with The Dyslexia Classroom Community over on Instagram. Many have reached out to me asking for strategies on building fluency. I asked the community if this is something that would be helpful, and the resounding answer was yes. In this post, I will be discussing what fluency is, how to build it, and providing you with resources to help. Reading fluency is essential to our students' success because research has found that developing it is one of the five pillars of reading instruction.

So, what is fluency?

Fluency is NOT the skill of reading fast! When we read fluently, we read words accurately and at a rate that allows proper expression, phrasing, and intonation. This ability to read well, or automatically, aids in deeper comprehension. 

When students struggle to read fluently, reading comprehension can be affected. This happens because the reader exerts a great deal of cognitive energy...

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Top Reason to Use an Explicit Instruction Model

reading May 19, 2021

Hi, friends! I'm going to start this week's blog post off in a slightly different direction than usual. Don't worry, I've got some great tips to also share with you this week.  

If you are like me, you get inspiration from design feeds and head straight to Target to purchase all the pretties. Don't you always love an excuse to browse Target's newest home decor?  

What happens, though, is that I get home with all of my goodies, and I'm not really sure what to do next. Then, I realize that I wasn't fully prepared to start decorating. 

Why? Well, because the foundational pieces in my home were not yet set or organized for me to even begin to think about decorating or taking a trip to Target. Did I mention that I have three little ones, three HUGE dogs, and a husband running around the house making it just a bit difficult to stay organized?

Anyway, what happens is that my pretty, new decor gets lost in the bigger picture of my home (or added to the pile of decor in my...

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Strategies for Teaching Continuous Blending

dyslexia sound production May 12, 2021
 

Hi, friends. This week, the blog post is going to be slightly different. I've included a short video that will help you with the subject matter I'm chatting about with you this week. 

Have you thought about how you can help students that know individual sounds but can't seem to put them together? Or, if they put them together, they drop sounds when blending? 

Teaching continuous blending is a great strategy to help students connect sounds with decoding. Students that struggle with holding individual speech sounds with their phonological memory benefit from this instruction. Next, let's talk a little about continuous blending.

What is Continuous Blending?

Continuous blending is when words are sounded out without stopping between sounds. I model this in the video. Reading requires that students connect individual sounds (phonemes) to produce a word. 

Why is this important? This is a skill needed for reading (decoding). You may find that some students need explicit...

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Creating a Dyslexia-Friendly Learning Environment

dyslexia resources May 05, 2021

Hi, friends! This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and today, I want to show my appreciation by having a sale on my teaching resources. In my teacher shop, I have dyslexia resources, printable letter tiles, blending boards, intervention resources, and more. Visit my resource shop to save today on tools to effectively support students with dyslexia. Click here to see the sale. I also have a free download that will add additional support in your classroom. Keep reading for how to access it. 

Though Teacher Appreciation Week comes once a year, it doesn't mean that they don't deserve appreciation all year long. Teachers work incredibly hard at creating welcoming environments for their students. We spend countless hours preparing the learning environment so that our students feel that they belong. Classrooms set the stage for learning. Students with learning differences should feel seen, understood, and represented in their learning environments.

A dyslexia-friendly learning...

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Bringing Reading Automaticity into Your Reading Lessons

automaticty reading Apr 28, 2021

Hi friends! This week I am going to chat about automaticity, how to build it in word reading with our students, and tips and activities to support this learning. 

What is Automaticity?

Automaticity is defined as fast, accurate, and effortless word identification at the single-word level. Although fluency involves reading words with automaticity and prosody at the phrase, sentence, and text level, accurate and automatic reading is needed to be a fluent reader. 

It is the part of fluency practice where we focus on accurate and speedy word recognition. For this reason, words are read in isolation. This is only one part of fluency instruction, but is often an area where dyslexic and struggling readers need additional practice. 

Students with dyslexia struggle with accurate and automatic reading at the word level. Automatic reading involves developing solid linkages between sounds and their letter representations, leading to fast and accurate retrieval and transfer of...

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