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Choosing Keywords for Letter Sounds with an alphabet chart on left

Choosing the Right Keywords for Letter Sounds Instruction

Finding the right keyword to use as a reference for supporting students as you are teaching letter sounds is very important. Many letter sounds resources and alphabet lines include pictures or keywords that actually make letter sound learning more difficult. You might be thinking you can just use any word that begins with that letter. In some cases, you are right. We can teach students the sound for “B” is connected to ball or bat

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Text says "The Comparison Corner Phonemes vs. Graphemes vs. Morphemes with images of letter tiles representing graphemes around it

The Comparison Corner: What are Phonemes Graphemes & Morphemes?

There is so much terminology to learn and understand in teaching, and especially in literacy instruction. If you’re taking a deep dive into the Science of Reading, it can even feel overwhelming. One of the goals I have with my Comparison Corner series is to take some of the vocabulary and terminology that are commonly confused and explain them in an easy-to-digest format. Next up in the series is a look at one of the

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Text says "The Comparison Corner Blends vs. Digraphs with images of letter tiles representing blends and digraphs around it

The Comparison Corner: What are Blends and Digraphs and How Should we Teach Them?

Blends and digraphs are two phonics terms that I’ve seen commonly confused. The confusion seems to stem from the fact the fact most include two consonants together. However, the difference between them comes from the number of phonemes those letters represents. It’s the number of phonemes that makes teaching both correctly so important. Let’s take a look at blends and digraphs and instructional implications based on their differences. What are Blends? Blends are clusters of

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"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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Getting Started with the Science of Reading: What is the Frayer Model text on the left with a printed Frayer model on colored cardstock on the right

Frayer Model for Vocabulary Instruction – Getting Started with SoR

Vocabulary is a significant predictor of overall reading comprehension and student performance, even as young as kindergarten. Vocabulary instruction, while not talked about as much as other literacy components, should be an intentional component of our day. A lot of our students’ word knowledge and vocabulary is learned without our explicit instruction. But, explicit vocabulary instruction must be present in our classrooms. In my The 3 Tiers of Vocabulary post, I walked through each of the

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