Qualities of a quality reading teacher or tutor.

Seasoned, independent readers automatically process text by predicting, asking questions, connecting, visualizing, fixing mistakes, making inferences, analyzing, comparing, and responding to their own evaluation. These tasks are done without thinking, okay - now I'm going to connect this part of the story to my own life. This process is done because the story reminds you of an experience or something you once read elsewhere. You do not necessarily have to force yourself to vi

Do you have students in your class or homeschool room that lack expression, ignore punctuation, read so quickly (or slowly) that they're difficult to understand, or read laboriously* through a text? If so there are some quick and easy strategies that have proven to be effective that you can implement immediately. Self-Evaluations Readers need to know the criteria expected of them in order to master a concept. This is why rubrics are my BFF. It's one page that readers can refe

As soon as my kindergartner mastered phonics, we began her first grade year learning what it meant to be a fluent reader. I knew that direct fluency was necessary for all early readers, but it really became solidified in my mind when I heard my little reader read out loud. The more she read, the faster she read and the less coherent it became for her listeners. She knew the word and it seemed her little mouth couldn't keep up with her brain. It was time to slow the bus down a

Let's get down to the basics and what the research reveals about how to approach teaching a beginning reader to read. It's pretty simple, yet it is a daunting task. Phonics is the foundation that should not be skipped because research reveals that systematic phonics instruction is effective for beginning readers but also to prevent and fix issues readers can and do face. If you want to check out all the places where I've gathered this information be sure to look through each

Last week was rough. My youngest was sick twice and it was all I could do to stay on top of life much less blog posts. As a result, the scheduled "What the Research Reveals" post will have to wait. My goal is to publish it this week, but life with little people is interesting. Sometimes schedules are just thrown out the window for any number of reasons. For example, we were on the verge of being late for church yesterday because of a meltdown my four year-old-daughter had ove

Every language consists of symbols with each symbol representing a sound. In English these are known as letters or letter combinations. In short, that is phonics - "a method of teaching word recognition or decoding that emphasizes the sound-symbol (letter) relationships that exist in a language." (Rasinski & Padak, p.14) Phonics is seeing the symbol (i.e. B) and recognizing it as a letter that makes the sound /b/. Phonemic Awareness is the hearing of this sound. Students hear

You want an environment filled with reading material readers cannot wait to read. The goal is that you reader hears the sound that they're learning in literature. In the beginning of their phonics journey my goal is not mastery. It is simply introduction to the fact that letters represent a sound. At four my little reader is starting to recognize letters and numbers in her little world. ABC books are a big part of that journey! She makes her own ABC book (which I shared in la

My little girl is in Pre-K and does not want to do school most days. If I can get ten solid minutes on letters and numbers I'm absolutely thrilled. But here is the weird thing about her lack of desire to "work" on letters and numbers: if I ask her, "do you enjoy school?" she always says, "Yes!" I don't quite understand it, but since her older sister does school everyday (and most days are not a battle with her) she typically does one of the activities I set out for her withou

Our end goal as educators should be to create life-long learners. In order to accomplish this we must value the ability to read and write, because a persons ability to read and write define literacy. It is impossible to separate the two! As an educator I've pursued a literacy-based learning approach in all subject areas. Whether it's science, math, history, and even the arts, the possibilities are endless when reading and writing are at the core of the learning process. This

My teaching certification is in secondary English/Language Arts. Reading and writing is my specialty, especially with the 7-12 grade crowd. My favorite resources (for mom and teacher alike) will be offered in today's posts. I'm hopeful you get as much out of them as I do. I believe that individuals have the responsibility to learn as much as they can in their chosen field. This requires a library card, a budget for the material the library does not have, and time set aside ev

I'm going to approach this post as a Q&A session while giving the tools of my writer's (homeschool and tutoring students) favorite writing tools. These questions were asked by moms who needed help with their students writing and each of these products were successfully used to inspire early readers to write what they were learning! Should students learn to write while learning to read? Yes! Writing is proven to boost memory, therefore anyone under my tutelage must write their

When it comes to little minds we are to build a solid foundation in reading and writing. That is our primary goal. Otherwise, the sciences, history, math, and all other subject areas cannot thrive. You may be shaking your head, because you've had success with numbers but reading has been met with difficulty. Here is why I argue this case: in every subject, in every textbook there are text features and writing processes that enable a scientist (for example) to thrive as a self

What are you reading? I am thoroughly enjoying Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I knew I would learn from him, but it is above and beyond my expectations. If you want to be a writer, or if you want to teach or tutor writing (as I do) I recommend reading this book. Not only will you learn some valuable tools of the trade, but I think it'll be a book you'll enjoy as well. After reading it, I would encourage any aspiring author to pick it up and learn. The reaso

I spent years developing fluency lessons for junior high students struggling to read out loud. I applied those same principles to my tutoring sessions and in teaching my own little people to read. One of the ways I applied it was through the use of this notebook. I've spent the last year using it for my 1st grader and on multiple volunteers. All were successful, which is why I feel confident sharing this product with you. I believe in the following reading and writing process

First off I want to thank you for your patience during this time of our life! We've been in flux and limbo land for the month of July, moved to Kearney the second week of August, spent a week with no WiFi (which is always a blessing in disguise, but is also super frustrating when you're attempting to run an online business) and we are back to business as usual. A better way to say that might be, we are finding our new norm. One of the areas that I'm prepping for is our homesc

I recently read an interesting study where researchers interviewed a variety of students to find out what they said about what motivates them to read. The answer to this question convicted, intrigued, and wow'ed me as a mother and a teacher: "Who gets you interested in and excited about reading?" The most common answer was mother - not teacher, father, grandparents, older siblings, peers - the answer was that their mother influenced them most! To be sure there were children w

I completely agree with the argument, just let them read what they want! However, if your reader struggles reading, guidance is definitely needed for a few reasons, but consider this one: there is a direct correlation between the reading skills and the desire to read. If you do not accomplish something well, do you want to continue doing it? I know I don't, so when I think of their struggle in that light, I am all on fire to help them find something that will spark their inte

Imagine for a moment that you have played a few games of basketball with your friends. You're struggling to dribble and every time you try to shoot the ball you airball it. Your friends stop passing the ball to you and you've ceased to enjoy playing this game - believing that you're terrible and there is no getting better. That perception does nothing for your desire to play the game. However, if you go out daily with the mentality that you're going to work on dribbling, ask

Right now I'm preaching to the choir because we are in flux and limbo, with all of our things in boxes, living in my sisters home until my husband's last day of work and then we will move into a rental that we have not even found yet! Explaining all of that makes me feel all sorts of overwhelmed, but we are making it through the insanity that is our life right now and my children will survive without our own personal books and nooks. But I cannot stress enough the importance