If you have spent any time in science of reading circles, you have probably heard someone say that phonemic awareness should be done “in the dark.” Yet this message has created a tremendous amount of confusion for teachers. Some educators wonder whether they should avoid using letter tiles during phonemic awareness instruction. Others question whether…
Discover why students with dyslexia often struggle to transfer phonics skills independently—and how the science of learning and the Orton-Gillingham approach can help. Students often struggle to apply phonics skills independently because the skill has not yet become automatic, they have not practiced it across enough contexts, or the cognitive load of reading connected text…
Moving Beyond Comprehension for Empowerment As educators, we often hear that the primary goal of reading instruction is comprehension. After all, if a student can decode the text but fails to understand its meaning, what is the point? But I’d like to expand on this idea. I teach reading not just to have students comprehend…
In the world of early literacy education, there has long been a prevailing myth that young readers should start by learning to read and later transition to reading to learn. For decades, theories of children’s phases of reading acquisition oversimplified the process. So, the “learning to read” then “reading to learn” made sense. However, the…
Reading Wars With decades of research, experience, and intelligent conversations, how are we still “at war” when it comes to reading? First I will say that I operate under the assumption that ALL teachers go into education to help students learn. Educators go to school to learn pedagogy, instructional practices, and the current research to…
The Key to Unlocking Comprehension and Closing the Knowledge Gap I hope this blog post finds you all well and full of enthusiasm for another exciting year of teaching! Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to an enlightening new podcast called “Knowledge Matters” by Natalie Wexler, where she emphasizes the importance of building students’…
I am thrilled you are joining me to learn more about the science of reading. Our journey should not be one of confirming what we already know about reading or validating our experiences. Instead, consider what it would mean to change your approach to reading instruction based on scientific facts. “The purpose of learning isn’t to…
Orthographic mapping is a process and not a skill. There are instructional practices and skills that promote orthographic mapping.
Mark Seidenberg’s 2017 book, Language at the Speed of Light explains how human brains learn to read and how educational instructional practices can support this complex process. By highlighting the decades of the science of reading, Seidenberg explains the gap between the science and current educational practices. He also offers suggestions for how teachers can…
There are too many “wars” happening right now. Political wars, reading wars, vaccine wars, and actual wars. We are divided into groups with whom we agree on topics that are important and relevant to us. But how many of us act like a scientist and actually read the data, research, polls, and first-hand accounts from…
If you are curious about what happens in the brain when humans read, this is the book for you! I am not qualified to write a true book review (nor am I attempting to), but I hope to summarize some of the main topics in the book. What happens in the brain when we are…
For some people, saying the words, “I am wrong,” might be incredibly difficult. But for me, saying or thinking the words excite me. I am energized by learning something that contradicts what I previously thought. Is that odd to admit? As organizational psychologist, Adam Grant said in his podcast and in his new book, Think…