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5 Exciting Ways TO USE SIGHT WORD FLUENCY FLASHCARDS
Over 20,000 teachers use my sight word fluency flashcards to help their students with sight word practice! When I saw that number, my jaw dropped! It’s amazing to be making such an impact in classrooms all over and I am truly honored to be part of so many classrooms. And, teachers are so creative! Over…
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3 Steps to Incorporate Writing in Reading Lessons with Small Groups
Small group reading is such a HUGE part of literacy instruction. I often hear from teachers who are wondering what’s best to do in these small groups after they’ve read the text. My answer… reinforce phonics skills with writing! Reading and writing go hand in hand. Incorporating writing into your reading lessons reinforces these important skills!…
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Phonics-Based Sight Word Activities
For years, kids have been taught to memorize high-frequency sight words because they don’t follow phonics rules. I’m guilty of having done this, but changed my practices and learned how to really make sight words stick, using phonics. Now that we know that kids need to learn words by orthographically mapping them out (learn the…
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How to Teach New Sight Words (and make them stick)
Avoid these 2 big mistakes made when teaching sight words. Read how to teach sight words with 3 key elements to make them stick! Sight words improve fluency and comprehension, especially with beginning readers in kindergarten and first grade. #sightwords #highfrequencywords #sightwordinstruction
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Tips for Commonly-Confused Sight Words
Kids often mistake SAW for WAS and other similar words. Read these easy tips for how to teach commonly-confused sight words! Your kindergarten and first grade students will love these fun activities to help them master those hard-to-remember high-frequency words.
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Scrabble Magnetic Letters: Easy Ideas for a Word Work Center
It’s been fun and interesting having a kindergartner at home while teaching kindergarten! I especially love when I sing a song or read a book her teacher has read and she thinks I’m a sorcerer because I know it too. One of the best things about teaching the same grade level as your child is…
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Goal-Trackers: A System for Helping Students Set Goals
Give your students more ownership this year! Helping them set their own goals can be a powerful tool for improving academics, behavior, and effort. How can you Help Students Set Goals? Teaching students to set goals is a skill they will benefit from throughout their entire lives. Discuss the importance of setting goals and model…
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Student Goal-Setting
As teachers, we have benchmark goals for almost everything. “Students should be reading on ___ level by the end of ___ grade,” “Students should be reading ___ words per minute,” “…. know __ letters/ sounds by __” “…. know addition and subtraction facts to 10, 20….” These goals may be helpful to us as teachers,…
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Body-Spelling Sight Words
Multisensory Sight Word Practice High-frequency sight words are essential to gaining reading fluency. Want to know the best way to practice? Here are some key things to do to make sight words stick: In all of my years teaching and researching about sight word instruction, I’ve learned that when kids are engaged and using their…
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Teaching Different Learning Styles: Strategies for Reaching All Learners
This blog post about teaching different learning styles was originally written in 2018. It was updated in 2024 to reflect the latest available research. Ever have students zone out during some parts of a lesson, but stay alert during others? This may be attributed to their learning style or preference. We’ve all heard it: “Not…
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Word Wall. Not Wallpaper.
Ever read your students’ writing and see words that you’ve already covered misspelled? In fact, those words are on the word wall and students can easily look up to spell them correctly. So why don’t they?? This may be because often a word wall is just (dare I say it?) CLASS DECOR to kids. They…
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5 Ways to Teach Sight Words with Movement
Sight word fluency is so important, yet many kids struggle to build and retain a strong sight word vocabulary, despite a variety of approaches. Today, I want to share with you some really great tips on helping your students to master sight words! Have you tried incorporating movement into your sight word instruction? Movement is scientifically…