I want to share with you essential building blocks that can help your students move from letters to reading CVC words.  Before we begin, let’s start with some vocabulary we’ll use during these show notes today.

• Phonemic awareness - the ability to blend, segment, and manipulate phonemes.  This is oral and doesn’t involve letters or print.

• Phonemes - our smallest units of sound.

• Alphabetic principle - taking the sounds and connecting it to written letters.

The Checklist That Students Need Before Reading CVC Words

These foundational skills must be in place if we want to support our students efficiently.

• Letter name knowledge - They have to be able to look at the letter and know the name and sound of that letter.

• Automaticity - Simply knowing their sounds isn’t enough.  Students must be able to say their letter sounds automatically, which is what will help them blend and decode words.

• Phonemic awareness - blending and segmenting is critical for our students.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Anna Geiger:

• Author of Reach All Readers: Using the Science of Reading to Transform Your Literacy Instruction.

• Former teacher in 1st-4th grades.

• Currently serves educators through her website, www.themeasuredmom.com.

• Shares tons of hands-on lessons, thoughtful articles, and printable resources and has been doing so since 2013.

• Hosts a weekly podcast called Triple R Teaching and presents at various summits and conferences.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

Podcast #48 - Yearlong Phonics Pacing Guide

Show Notes

You guys - it’s here!  My Yearlong Phonics Pacing Guide for Grades K-2 is designed to help you plan and implement effective phonics instruction throughout the school year. Here,  we’ll share tips on how to make the most of this invaluable resource in your classroom.

• Ensure a smooth and successful school year by planning ahead.

• Benefits of planning ahead:

• You have organization and clear goals and timelines to keep you on track.

• You have consistency to ensure a logical progression of skills.

• You have flexibility because you’re able to see ahead and adjust the framework as needed.

• Start by mapping out your phonics instruction for the entire year.

• Use the pacing guide to outline your weekly goals and objectives.

• Doing so will help you stay organized and, best of all, reduce stress throughout the entire year.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Neena Saha:

• Neena earned her master’s degree in educational neuroscience from Columbia and has a PhD in special education from Vanderbilt.

• Her doctoral work on decoding resulted in a patent and her research can be found in journals like The Journal for Learning Disabilities and The Reading and Writing Interdisciplinary Journal.

• Upon graduating, Neena founded Elemeno, which helps bridge the research practice gap in early literacy.

• Meta Metrics acquired Elemeno and Neena joined their team to help build out early literacy products, tools, and services.

• Neena also continued the Reading Research Recap, which is a newsletter aimed at translating recent research into useful information for teachers.

• Currently, she’s exploring better ways of translating research for all.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

Scheduling literacy blocks and finding enough time in a day is an ever-present challenge in our classrooms.  How do we do it, and where do we start?  Today, we’ll go over some of the challenges we face, what to do about them, and how we can get in the time we need to teach literacy.

The Challenges of Literacy Blocks

• Not enough time

• Teachers are interrupted many times a day with student needs, broken copiers, announcements, and so on. There’s sometimes simply not enough time in our day to implement literacy blocks in the way we’d like.

• Overload of materials

• You may have a phonics program, fluency program, a comprehension program, etc.  All of these materials are simply too overwhelming.  And when we get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, what actually happens is that we don’t end up starting at all. 

• Over-adopting curriculum

• With the rise of the science of reading (yay!), many districts have adopted new curriculums.  Although the intention is good, this leads to an overwhelming amount of resources. When we over-adopt curriculum, start valuing quantity over quality.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Meghan Hein:

• Proudly been in education for 20 years with jobs as a 2nd grade teacher as well as a math coach.

• Eventually transitioned into a literacy intervention teacher and served there for 5 years.

• She’s now back in the classroom using the skills and knowledge she learned as a literacy interventionist.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

The Complexity of Letter Formation

• Letter formation is the foundation for literacy development. This is because practicing letter formation helps students with shapes and sounds of letters, which is important for foundational reading skills.  

• Students also need fine motor skills in order to accomplish appropriate letter formation.  Good letter formation needs good fine motor skills.

• Writing by hand engages the parts of the brain that enhance memory and learning.  When students are writing the letter and saying the sound, we’re helping them make the sounds stick.  

• One study found a significant correlation between letter recognition and handwriting fluency in students who were practicing their letter formation and had handwriting fluency.  This proves that children who practice writing letters become more familiar with their shapes and sounds.

• Another study showed that explicit instruction in letter formation is effective.  As educators, we need to guide students through the correct strokes, use correct visual aids, and even teach students chants so they can understand how to write each letter. 

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

The Birth of Alphabet Quest

• During the pandemic, I was asked to leave my literacy coaching role and teach kindergarten.  When I went back to the classroom, I discovered that we were in desperate need of speeding up and enriching how we learned our alphabet.

• My time in the classroom was what birthed a really fun and effective idea I had:  Alphabet Quest!  Alphabet Quest is the idea of teaching the alphabet in an intense, systematic (and faster) way. 

• I returned to my literacy coaching role and introduced Alphabet Quest to my co-workers.  

• Instead of teaching one letter a week and spending 26 weeks inside the alphabet, Alphabet Quest was designed for children to learn their alphabet and letter sounds in only 5 weeks’ time.  

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Melanie Brethour:

• Full-time elementary resource teacher in Montreal, Canada and also a parent to a child with severe dyslexia.

• Passionate about dyslexia and the science of reading, specifically supporting parents through navigating the dyslexia journey.

• Her son was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of nine.  This influenced her to learn more about dyslexia and how she could support both her son and her students.

• Founded Decoding Dyslexia Quebec, which raises awareness about dyslexia and gives support to educators and parents.

• Her passion resides in sharing resources and information for parents, teachers, and all educators so that those with dyslexia can feel supported.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE

All About Megan & Laura from Developing Readers Academy:

• Both taught in the same intervention room at a school in Minnesota.

• After looking at their end-of-the-year data, they realized their students simply were not making progress.

• Megan and Laura then went through LETRS and Orton Gillingham training to sharpen their skills.

• After that, they devoured every single SOR training and resource they could!

• When they implemented these practices, they instantly saw results in their intervention room.

• Megan and Laura wanted to ensure all kids were being given the resources that they need in order to be successful readers - not just the ones in their own small intervention room.

• So they started sharing ideas on Instagram and realized how fun it was to share structured literacy approaches and the magic of the science of reading.

• From there, Developing Readers Academy was born.

FULL SHOW NOTES HERE