Phonemic Awareness The other day, my 13-year-old sports son fan and I had a short but confusing discussion. I knew he was looking at a sports-something on Instagram, and it was the first day of NBA free agency. “Mom, what does resigned mean?” I explained to him that it means to quit, as in quitting…
Matthew Effect | Matthew Principle Ask any Special Education Advocate, and I bet they all will tell you that they have a huge chunk of clients that are in 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade. I can remember periods of time when all my clients fit into that category. Coincidence? Unfortunately, no. It’s the Matthew Effect….
Fry’s First 100 Words I recently provided you all with some of the Dolch sight words and some activities to go along with the Dolch list. But, actually, there is more than one frequently used list of sight words. Another one is called Fry’s First 100 Words. You may recognize some of this list as…
Story Map Graphic Organizer Most people have read a book, and then went to see the movie. Or, saw the movie and then went back and read the book, right? Chances are, that is a book that you can recall with more detail that other books you have read. Because it was a multisensory approach…
What is a Frayer Model? A FRAYER MODEL is a graphic organizer that helps students clarify the meaning of vocabulary words they encounter while listening, reading, and viewing texts. They can be used before reading to activate background knowledge, during reading to monitor vocabulary, or after reading to assess vocabulary. The Frayer Model is a…
Martin Luther King, Jr: I Have a Dream. MLK Day can be fun, serious, educational and thoughtful. Here are activities and projects for kids to make the day memorable, including “I have a dream speech” activities. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I…
Elkonin Boxes for Phonemic Awareness Just the other day, an advocate friend of mine was in an IEP meeting with a young-ish School Psychologist. And, this person said during the meeting that “you can’t test for dyslexia until the child is in 3rd grade.” It amazes me that myths and misconceptions like this are still…
30 Book Challenge My son hates to read. Nope, no dyslexia or ADHD. He’s actually several years ahead in all of his reading skills. My niece, who is the same age, she always has her nose in a book. I did too, as a kid. I want my son to enjoy reading. I have purchased…
Dolch Sight Words In 1936, Edward William Dolch published his list of what he called “Sight Words.” Dolch, an advocate of the ‘whole word reading’ approach, argued that his list of 220 words were used in up to 75% of all school texts, libraries, newspapers and magazines. This is why I made sure to point…
AR Reading Levels The other day I did a post on the OG Approach and I thought that talking about AR Reading Levels would be a good complement to that. Because, in my experience, AR is great and useful tool. However, much like Orton Gillingham, it is misunderstood and misused. I think Accelerated Reader is…
Reading: IEP Goals & Strategies Ways to improve Reading Comprehension: Use Visuals. Answer Questions. Predicting. Summarizing/Retelling. Identifying parts of story/text. Make a connection. Active readers. See below for further explanation, as well as links to assessments and other valuable information. If you are here, please make sure that you also read the blog posts about…
Reading Programs “How do I get Wilson Reading Program added to my child’s IEP?” That’s a question that comes up a lot in the Facebook group. And several reading programs come up in the discussion. So how do you know? What reading program will help your child? This is one area of IEPs where I…