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Shannon and Mary chat with Mindful Teacher Rachel about the Schwa vowel sound and how to teach it to students.  She shares great stories from her classroom about teaching reading and all about her newly published book that can be used to introduce the Schwa to readers.   You'll want to listen in on this chat between reading teachers to get strategies and resources for working on the Schwa with your own reading students.


Episode Resources:

1. Rachel's book Schwa in 1st Grade on Amazon
2. Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide *Amazon affiliate link*
3. Tools4Teachers Schwa information
4. Phonics Hero The Schwa Explained and How to teach it
5. Literacy Nest: How to Teach Schwa Part 1
6. Literacy Nest: How to Teach Schwa Part 2
7. Keys to Literacy: Teaching Schwa in Unaccented Syllables
8. Five from Five: The Schwa
9. Lists of Multi-Syllable Words with Schwa from Reading Rockets
10. Schwa Words and Activities
11. Rachel on Instagram @mindfulteacherrachel
12. Rachel on Tiktok @teacherrachelsorsel

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Shannon and Mary chat about their favorite free and low cost literacy resources to use in reading lessons and tutoring sessions.   They share links to:  complete phonics curriculum resources that include scope and sequences, decodable texts, vocabulary lists and activities, phonics and phonemic awareness activities, and strategies for teaching comprehension.   Check out the links in the show notes to find resources to use with your own reading students.


Episode Resources:

1. our episode about favorite FCRR resources
2. Florida Center for Reading Research Student Center Activities
3. Open Source Phonics
4. Tools4Teaching (formerly West Virginia Phonics)
5. UFLI new reading resources (Univ. of Florida)
6. CKLA Curriculum Resources
7. Emily Gibbon's Literacy Nest -Also check out her podcast, TpT resources, and her Tuesday newsletter for tips!
8. The Measured Mom
9. This Reading Mama
10. Walpole & McKenna Open Up Resources
11. Academic Vocabulary Word Lists by Grade Level (Flocabulary)
12. Get More Vocabulary.com: Shades of Meaning
13. Reading Rockets: Semantic Gradients  
14. Edison Literacy
15. Readwritethink lessons
16. Flyleaf Publishing Decodables
17. Open Source Phonics Decodable Texts
18. Free passages according to Lexile (Read Works)
19. Jan Richardson's resources
20. Emily Gibbon's Word List Builder
21. ISME (Institute for Multi-Sensory Education) Digital Resources
22. Getting Reading to Read Phonemic Awareness activities *Amazon affiliate link*
23. How to Teach Spelling *Amazon affiliate link*
24. Handwriting Joke book *Amazon affiliate link*
25. Learning Ally Audiobook Solution
26. Recipe for Reading Success books
27. our Patreon site and details

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Mary and Shannon chat with Stephaney Jones-Vo about how to best support the reading needs of English Language Learners.    Stephaney describes the differences in needs of ESOL students at various levels and provides easy ideas for differentiation and scaffolding for students at different levels.   Stephaney shares how to understand the language load of class assignments and assessments, and this lens will help teachers view their own learning assignments in a fresh and supportive way for their students.


Episode Resources:

1. How Does the Science of Reading Apply to Teaching Multilingual Learners?
2. Podcast episode about SOR and ELL
3. Stephaney's book about Differentiation for ELLs *Amazon affiliate link*
4. Stephaney's book: Powerful Practices for Supporting English Learners *Amazon affiliate link*
5. Stephaney's book: Engaging English Learners Through Access to Standards *Amazon affiliate link*
6. WIDA Can Do Descriptors for various grade levels
7. WIDA Language Development Standards Framework (2020)
8. About the WIDA Access assessments
9. Reading Rockets:  What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners?
10. EdSource:  Why Phonics Instruction is not Enough for English Learners
11. What are BICS and CALP?
12. Academic Language and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know
13. Academic Vocabulary Word Lists by Grade Level (Flocabulary)
14. our Patreon site and details

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Shannon and Mary meet up after the summer hiatus to chat about going back to school.  They catch up on their personal activities from the summer and then share their instructional plans for the new school year in 2022-2023.


Episode Resources:

1. Shannon's Phonics Units
2. Decodable readers from Heggerty
3. Decodable readers from High Noon
4. Decodable readers from Geodes
5. Decodable readers from Flyleaf
6. Morpheme Magic from Deb Glaser
7. Mary's updated website
8. Van Cleave vocabulary resources
9. our Patreon site and details

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Shannon and Mary catch up on their teaching activities and personal lives during the past school year.  They share highlights from the past season and what is coming next in Season 5 and the 2022-2023 school year.

Episode Resources:

1. Shannon's Phonics Units
2. Decodable readers from Heggerty
3. Decodable readers from High Noon
4. Decodable readers from Geodes
5. Decodable readers from Flyleaf
6. Morpheme Magic from Deb Glaser
7. our Morphology episode
8. our Wiley Blevins Scope and Sequence episode
9. our Nancy Young Differentiation episode
10. Mary's updated website
11. Van Cleave vocabulary resources
12. our Patreon site and details

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Shannon and Mary share some new understandings they've discovered about the differences between long and short vowels.  They chat about how they'll modify some phonics activities for students after discovering these new understandings.

Episode Resources:

1. The ABC's and All  Their Tricks by Margaret M. Bishop (*Amazon affiliate link)
2. our Season 1 episode about Short Vowels
3. our Season 1 episode about Long Vowels
4. our Season 4 episode about Sound Walls
5. Shannon's Long and Short Vowel Soccer game
6. Shannon's phonics units
7. FCRR Long and Short Vowel picture sort
8. FCRR Long and Short Vowel word sort

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Shannon and Mary chat with Nancy Young, the creator of the Ladder of Reading & Writing,  about differentiated instruction for readers at different levels.      [Note: Our podcast has explicit permission from Nancy Young to use her Ladder infographic image and information with our audience.]  In this episode we discuss the equitable need for differentiation, in order to "offer children what they need based on where they are."   Strategies, examples, and activities are shared for teachers to modify their literacy instruction based on the unique needs of their readers.

Episode Resources:

1. Nancy Young's website
2. Nancy's blog post about her updates to the Ladder
3. The Updated Ladder of Reading and Writing (in pdf form)
4. Nancy Young's Structured Literacy Primer
5. Ladder of Reading and Writing: Terms Defined
6. Permission request to use the Ladder of Reading and Writing
7. Resources from Nancy Young about the Ladder of Reading and Writing
8. Our episode from Season 4 about the Ladder's updates
9. Recording of Nancy Young's presentation about Differentiation 
10. Carol Connors' Differentiation research
11. Schoolwide Enrichment Model of Reading
12.  Curriculum Compacting
13. Secret Code Actions resource
14. Secret Code Actions free downloads
15. Vickie Gibson's Classroom Management resource

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Shannon chats with Sarah Rich, CEO of Just Right Reader, about her company that provides decodable readers to students, families, teachers, and schools.  Sarah and Shannon talk about how decodable texts are important for the right reading practice for students.   Sarah provides details about their mission to make reading fun and for students to learn to read with engaging decodables that are representative of students in America's schools.

Episode Resources:

1. Decodable Book Collection from Just Right Reader
2. Sample Decodables
3. about Just Right Reader
4. Family Literacy Boxes
5. Just Right Reader on Instagram
6. Just Right Reader on Facebook
7. Just Right Reader's Phonics Scope and Sequence
8. Decodable Books Explained
9. Choosing and Using Decodable Texts by Wiley Blevins (*Amazon affiliate link)

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Shannon and Mary chat with Christina Edmondson (@literacywithmrs.e) about implementing Sound Walls into your literacy classrooms.  Christina shares how Sound Walls compare to traditional word walls and provides ideas for using them with students in reading and writing.  She describes exactly how to set up your own Sound Wall and start using with your readers.

Episode Resources:

1. Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls (Reading Rockets)
2. Understanding the How and Why of Sound Walls (Tools4Reading)
3. Implementing a Sound Wall
4. Sound Wall Instruction and Template (Louisiana Literacy)
5. Timothy Shanahan: Should We Build a Word Wall or Not?
6. Sound Walls video (Pattan)
7. Putting Sound Walls to Practice
8. Word Walls, Sound Walls, What's the Difference?
9. Setting up a sound wall (Edutopia)
10. Uncovering the Logic of English (*Amazon affiliate link)
11. Christina's Instagram @literacywithmrs.e
12. Christina's TpT store

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Shannon and Mary chat about the recent debate in the science of reading community about whether phonemic awareness drills without letters are a worthwhile exercise for readers.  They describe activities they've done with struggling readers to build phonemic awareness, and they talk about the use of those activities as a part of Tier 1 reading instruction.

Episode Resources:

1. Research article 
2. Response from David Kilpatrick and others
3. Timothy Shanahan: RIP to Advanced Phonemic Awareness
4. I Think I was Wrong about Phonemic Awareness (a Teacher's perspective)
5. Heggerty Resources
6. Phonological Awareness Assessment
7. YouTube discussion about the topic among other reading teachers
8. Phonemic proficiency 
9. Reading Meetings with Mark and Molly
10. Getting Ready to Read by Jo Fitzpatrick (*Amazon affiliate link)
11. Equipped for Reading Success by David Kilpatrick (*Amazon affiliate link)
12. Shannon's Phonemic Awareness resources

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