Route2Reading

All About Melanie Brethour: Full-time elementary resource teacher in Montreal, Canada and also a parent to a child with severe dyslexia. Passionate about dyslexia and the science of reading, specifically supporting parents through navigating the dyslexia journey. Her son was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of nine.  This influenced her to learn more about dyslexia and how she could support both...

All About Megan & Laura from Developing Readers Academy: Both taught in the same intervention room at a school in Minnesota. After looking at their end-of-the-year data, they realized their students simply were not making progress. Megan and Laura then went through LETRS and Orton Gillingham training to sharpen their skills. After that, they devoured every single SOR training and resource they cou...

All About Jake Daggett: Began teaching in 2015 and mostly has taught in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms. Recently took a new role as Foundational Literacy Director at a school in Milwaukee. Loves sharing ideas about the science of reading, especially about how we can make it fun and engaging for students. Focuses on the rhythm and movement in literacy classrooms. FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Wiley Blevins: Author, travel-lover, and expert in all things literacy. Comes from a history of grandparents who were illiterate - books were not a part of his everyday life.  It was these limitations that encouraged him to perform well in school and learn to read. When he began teaching, he didn't know how to teach reading, so he had to do his own mini studies in his classroom. This led...

Full Show Notes Here   All About Dr. Stollar: Former Vice President for Professional Learning at Acadience Learning Inc. Part-time assistant professor in the online Reading Science Program at Mount St. Joseph University. Founding member of a national alliance for supporting reading science in higher education. Support educators to learn about and implement the science of reading. Consults and help...

Let's talk assessments and get straight to the point: We can't have meaningful, effective instruction without assessments.  If instruction is the sail of a boat, assessments are the winds that drive and guide it.  Before we can teach effectively, we need to know the needs of our students as well as their capabilities. Let's chat! Assessments are important because they: identify strengths and weakn...

The Importance of Phonics Instruction Phonics instruction, which teaches the relationship between sounds and letters, is a fundamental component of reading development. To ensure effective phonics instruction, teachers must follow a well-designed scope and sequence. When it comes to choosing or creating a phonics scope and sequence, there are many things we should consider.    In this blog post, w...

In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Heather O'Donnell Former special education teacher who worked with kids with autism Dyslexia practitioner through Wilson Reading System Structured literacy dyslexia interventionist Started tutoring practice called New Paltz Multisensory in September 2018 Works with students not only with dyslexia but also with kids with special needs, autism, an...

Even though I'm now a literacy coach, I too have been caught teaching with leveled readers!  In my first-grade classroom, when my students came across an unknown word, I'd have them guess by looking at the picture or skipping the word.   I was creating a classroom full of great guessers - not great readers.  But as we always say here at Literacy Edventures - when you know better, you do better! I...

            Congrats!  You've got students who can decode words effectively.  This is half of the battle!  Now for the other half: Are they efficient yet?  This second part can take an ample amount of time, and students need plenty of practice building fluency.  Fluency is so important because it bridges the gap from decoding to comprehension, especially in the foundational years.  For our kinderg...

Wouldn't it be wonderful that as soon as students knew their letter sounds and could blend phonemes, blending CVC words would be a breeze?  We can dream, can't we!?  Sometimes it's not always that simple. We still need to explicitly teach them how to put all of the reading pieces together.  CVC instruction still needs to be systematic, logical, practiced in whole group and small group, and needs t...

These days, we're often told what not to do while teaching reading, but what we're often lacking is what we should replace those "don't do" activities with.  Well,  I have a list of don'ts that are accompanied by a list of do's when it comes to specifically teaching letter sounds Full Show Notes Here More of What You Need: Check out my other two podcasts that compliment this one and give you more...

  I don't know about you, but teaching blends can be tricky. Blends (also known as consonant blends) are two or three consonant sounds that appear together in a word without any vowel sounds in between. These are words like flip, stop, strip, help, desk and spring. When students begin learning blends, they struggle to hear both sounds at the beginning or at the end. They often leave out the second...

"Phonics instruction should be an essential component of a comprehensive reading program to ensure that children develop strong foundational skills necessary for reading success."  -National Reading Panel Report The Role of Phonics Instruction Phonics instruction plays a crucial role in developing strong reading skills in young learners. By teaching the relationship between sounds and letters, we...

Meet Chrissy Beltran Check her out! Website: Buzzing with Ms. B Instagram: buzzingwithmsb YouTube: Buzzing with Ms. B Podcast: Buzzing with Ms. B: The Coaching Podcast Courses: Instructional Coaching Courses   Three Moves Literacy Coaches Should Make at the Beginning of the Year The beginning of the year can be tough - there's lots to do, lots of overwhelm, and the tasks ahead seem daunting.  But...

Recap:  In today's podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Julia Lindsey, author of Reading Above the Fray. Julia is a literacy expert and reading researcher. In this episode, she helps us bust some common myths about decodables. Full show notes here.    

Meet Kaylee McCaslin: Currently teaching second grade in Washington 9th year of teaching Our very own Literacy Edventures member! Reach out to her!: kaylee.kinsey@gmail.com   We love to feature all kinds of people here on the LE Podcast, and we feel that teachers who are still in the classroom are so important to hear from because they're in the trenches with us.  Today, we're chatting with Kaylee...

Show Notes:  Michelle Sullivan, a literacy coach in New Jersey talks with listeners all about background knowledge. She shares what it is, why it's important, and five ways we can easily implement it in our classrooms. See full show notes here.

Meet Lindsay Kemeny: Currently teaching first grade Once a kinder teacher who taught balanced literacy, she went on a quest to find out what it really meant to teach reading when her son was diagnosed with dyslexia and depression. Author of Seven Mighty Moves Check her out! Website:  Lindsay Kemeny Podcast:  Literacy Talks Instagram: lindsaykemeny Facebook: Teaching with Lindsay Kemeny Book: Seven...

Full Show Notes Here: Automaticity of letter names and sounds is important because letter-sound correspondences are the foundation to phonics and decoding.  So the quicker they are, the faster they can decode.  When we help students connect the letters and sounds and help them both master and be automatic, we're giving them a strong reading foundation.

One common question that's always asked when talking about the science of reading is, "Where do I start my instruction?  What do my students need?"  The answer lies in assessments .   Four aspects to keep in mind when choosing assessments: Each assessment serves a different purpose.   The assessments we are using need to be closely linked to our instruction and should be the driving force behind o...

Dictation and its Importance: What Is Dictation: Dictation is an activity that provides students the opportunity to spell phonics patterns that they are currently focusing on, as well as the opportunity to practice previously-taught skills. What it Is Important:  When students practice dictation, they're connecting sound to symbol.  Many studies show that when students practice these letter-sound...

Full Show Notes Here The other day, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the one and only Sarah Paul, the mastermind behind Sarah's Teaching Snippets.  She's a current reading interventionist for K-3rd and a prior first-grade teacher.  As with many of the experts on my podcast, she too was a balanced literacy teacher who found that her students were struggling to read and wasn't sure why.  So,...

Savannah Campbell shares all about the importance of cumulative review! Full Show Notes Here Cumulative Review: Cumulative review is simply giving children enough practice in the skills that we have taught them, so they are able to read to automaticity. We do a great job teaching the "skills" from day to day, but what we don't do is give them multiple opportunities to practice. Automaticity is a p...

Many of us hear the words "science of reading" and automatically assume it's just about phonics.  While phonics is an essential part of learning to read - it's not the only thing.  Let's take a look at how phonics is related to another very important aspect of reading: comprehension. Full Show Notes Here   Additional Resources & References: Resources: Comprehension Visuals Mystery Words Phonics Ac...