Instructional strategies and teacher tips - Tales from Outside the Classroom

"What is Continuous Blending" text on the left with an image of continuous blending slides on an ipad on the right

Continuous Blending: An Effective Scaffold for Supporting Decoding

Do you have students that struggle to blend words together after saying each sound? Do they say a different word? Or reverse letters in initial and final position? This struggle is not too uncommon, especially for students with weak phonological working memory, or those still developing in phonemic awareness skills. Students in the partial alphabetic and full alphabetic phase of reading may also display these behaviors. Thankfully, continuous blending, or connected phonation, is a great

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Text reads "Getting Started with the Science of Reading: What is Structured Literacy" on the left with a tray with colored letter tiles on the right.

What is Structured Literacy? Getting Started with SoR

Structured literacy is what’s at the forefront of elementary education topics right now. There’s been a growing push for improving our reading instruction and results for students, especially those with dyslexia and other reading challenges. The focus has been on ensuring all children learn to read. My post discussing the need for phonics instruction dives into this topic more. Structured literacy has many of the same components of other literacy programs, but the shift is

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5 encoding ideas for building spelling skills text beside an image of writing the two syllable word "upset" on dry erase index cards.

5 Encoding Ideas to Practice Phonics and Build Spelling Skills

For some students, depending on their phase of reading development, and each student’s unique characteristics, it can take a long time before a word is orthographically mapped and stored in their long-term memory. To support orthographic mapping, students need many exposures and repetitions with words to build the needed connections for automatic word reading and writing. I firmly believe in building students’ long term word identification skills with a focus on encoding, or writing the words.

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Tracking Student Data in Google Sheeets: Video Tutorials & Student Data Tracker Templates

Student Data Trackers in Google Sheets

It can be difficult, at times, to keep track of all of your instructional data, especially with so many subjects during our day. Especially if your school district, or school, doesn’t have a data system. Google Sheets is a great tool to keep track of student data for ongoing formative assessments, as well as diagnostic assessments. Having your assessment data accessible also makes it easy to use data to drive classroom instruction, or intervention. Once

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The Best Free or Affordable Diagnostic Phonics Assessments

As a classroom teacher, reading interventionist, and member of my school’s leadership team, I have seen the need for diagnostic phonics assessments in elementary schools. These phonics tests identify students’ current phonics proficiencies to determine those in need of intervention as well as student placement for small group instruction. I believe every student should have grade level instruction, regardless of the grade level or student ability. However, I also believe that every student should also

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Hi! I’m Tessa!

I’ve spent the last 15 years teaching in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, and working beside elementary classrooms as an instructional coach and resource support. I’m passionate about math, literacy, and finding ways to make teachers’ days easier. I share from my experiences both in and out of the elementary classroom. Read more About Me.

Continuous Blending: An Effective Scaffold for Supporting Decoding

What is Structured Literacy? Getting Started with SoR