On Your Way with Dr. Christina Williams

When I was teaching second grade, one of my students said, “Dr. Williams, last year we sang this song, and I want our class to sign it too.” Boy, am I glad I listened to him! That song was such a powerful tool to end our days together. It’s sung to the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down” and it goes: What did you learn in school today? School today. School today. What did you learn in school t...

Morphology is the study of forms of words. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning within words. That dinky little s at the end of the word dogs is a morpheme because it demonstrates that there is more than one dog. It does not simply represent the sound /s/. That s holds meaning. Words can, literally, morph into other forms with the addition (or deletion) of letters and letter combinations th...

Comparing words can be an effective way to focus attention on subtle differences in word meanings. Even words we use often can be nuanced in ways we don’t fully recognize until we compare and/or contrast them with other words having similar meanings. In this podcast, we’re going to explore a variety of ways to compare word meanings in such a way that (hopefully) inspires us to closely consider our...

Yes! Today we’re going to talk about employing a Dynamic Dictionary in your teaching space. If you are writing with kids, a dynamic dictionary may be just what you’ve been looking for to move your students from using “safe, easy-to-spell, dime-a-dozen words” to using more sophisticated vocabulary words that better convey what your writers are trying to say. In part one of this mini-series, we disc...

This episode takes Dynamic Dictionary one step further.  Listen to this to solidify your understanding of the Dynamic Dictionary Podcast. 

Vocabulary Explicit Call and Response Instruction In this episode, Dr. Christy explains why it is so important to have Vocabulary Explicit Call and Response instruction in your classroom.  She gives you step by step instructions on how to implement Vocubulary Instruction. 

Conferencing Notes Blank Most teachers, without even thinking much about it, require early elementary students to read anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes a day for “homework." But is that good practice? Dr. Christina Williams shares why teachers should not require families to read at home for homework. When families read because a teacher assigns it, it makes the reading a drudgery—a task we do becaus...

Every parent in my school community knows about sight words. They may be called star words, snap words, or something else, but we know what they are. Early childhood classrooms feature from 25 to more than 100 words students must know on sight by the end of the school year. That\'s not a problem-the fluent reading of words. The problem can be in how those words are taught. Does your child say  the...

Reading to your kids is so very important. Even with high stakes tests hanging over my shoulders, as a classroom teacher I invest the time to read aloud to my students every single day because I believe that it is the best way to promote a love for books*. But reading aloud offers so much more! It’s a perfect time to: discuss unfamiliar words ~vocabulary share/compare what you’re imagining in your...

Today, in the Science of Reading community, lots of teachers are questioning how to most effectively equip children to become skilled writers. We’ve been learning a lot about the essentials when teaching kids to read, and now teachers are wondering about what scientific research says when it comes to early childhood writing instruction. Many schools had adopted “the writers’ workshop approach” a w...

www.bookbums.com  This podcast introduces the philosophy behind tidy handwriting and how to help your students achieve handwriting skills.  Coming soon, Handwriting video workshop. 

#5/Friday, Phonemic Awareness Podcast: Stretching Out Words to Hear Each Sound   Now, we are going to say words without stretching them out at all. We will simply clearly say a word. The children will then be challenged to slowly stretch the words out, enunciating each individual sound or phoneme.    Note: This practice will help kids to determine which sounds they hear in words. This is an import...

#4/Thursday, Phonemic Awareness Podcast: Sound Switching   BUILDING BLOCK #5- Elision of Sounds in Words   When children can manipulate sounds in words, they are better equipped to read and spell well. In the next couple of lessons, we’ll take off the first sound and determine what word remains, and then we’ll take off the final sound and determine what word remains. Again, children will practice...

3/Wednesday, Phonemic Awareness Podcast - Listen Well & Catch My Mistake   Following, you’ll find some common songs, refrains, or items in categories. Your students will try to figure out what doesn’t belong. In my classes, when I tried to fit all these phonemic awareness lessons into one hour (Oh my . . .), I saved this one for the end when the kids were getting a bit worn out. It always got...

The English language is a code-based language. For us, that simply means that we have symbols, or letters, that represent sounds, or phonemes. For now, we’re just going to focus on and play with beginning and ending sounds in words (not, necessarily, including the vowel). As you work to heighten your children’s awareness of beginning and ending sounds through playful, foundation-building interacti...

#1/Monday, Phonemic Awareness Podcast: Rhyming Words   One fun way to build your students’ phonemic awareness is to read books with strong rhyming patterns. Words that rhyme are words that have the same sounds from the final vowel (a, e, i, o, or u) on. Actually, those are considered perfect rhymes. If you listen to music in most any genre, you recognize that many lyricists also use imperfect rhym...

We all want to be the most effective teachers and parents we can be. We want to provide our students and our kids with everything they need to be successful in the classroom and beyond, but sometimes we get so involved with all those to-do’s of daily life that we get bogged down and take our eyes off of the essentials--the things that really make a difference for good. Sometimes we all need redire...

In the On Your Way with Dr. Christina Williams posdcast this week, you will learn a bit about Howard Glasser's book Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach.  The approach helps children come to respect themselves because their caregivers speak aloud what their kids are doing and name what those actions reveal about the child's greatness.  When kids respect themselves, they co...

On Your Way Hosted by Dr. Christina Williams is now available. This episode is sponsored by the Foundations for Literacy instructional tools for teachers. It’s everything you need to launch your private tutoring businesses— just as big or small as you wish. You can significantly add to your income while you’re refining your craft as an educator who’s using the science of reading to help struggling...