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I'm Meredith, a South Florida teacher who loves coffee and creating.

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creativitytothecore

Happy Friday, friends! A new student joined our c

Happy Friday, friends!
A new student joined our class today! 🐶

Today we practiced using certain colors to help us

Today we practiced using certain colors to help us organize our writing. 📝 Blue for the main idea (big wide sky), green for supporting ideas (trees reaching up to the sky), and yellow for the details (shine light on topic). Using a graphic organizer and color coding is so simple, sets kids up for success, and makes each intentional part of writing visible for students.💓

If there’s one thing LETRS volume 2 has taught me, it’s: support, support, support! Give students the support they need to be successful and then slowly pull those scaffolds away. I’ve always attempted to do this, but I now have very tangible ways to implement and assist students. 🙌🏼 Whether it’s color coding, sentence stems, high quality questioning, formats of various planners...I love that I can try them out whenever they fit into our units.

Nothing fancy or shiny. Just crayons and some paper. The important thing to remember, is that if we want students to be independent writers of an entire text, we need to start SMALL.❤️

#writinginstruction #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram

Sound walls are the talk of the town currently. Bu

Sound walls are the talk of the town currently. But who’s sound wall is it?

📢Make. It. THEIR. Sound. Wall.

As teachers, we can often get caught up on how something looks. Does it clutter the room, does it dampen my classroom theme, does that bookshelf look better here or there? (Speaking from experience 🤪) We must make sure that sound walls are used by students.

When using a sound wall daily, it doesn’t become wallpaper, or just another poster. It becomes the canvas. 🎨 Students learn to use it as a starting place for reading and spelling. But they must be allowed to touch it, interact with it. The canvas has to be painted in order to become a masterpiece. It isn’t untouchable by the artist.

Tips for getting kids to interact with a sound wall:
1) Include it in morning meeting or calendar - have kids point to sounds to mimic mouth placements together.
2) Encourage learners to walk up if they need a closer look. Allow them to bring papers and write while they’re at the wall.
3) Put your sound wall at their level. Keeping it low will help students to see and interact with each piece.
4) Add a full length mirror. Turn it sideways and hang it above the low sound wall. Students can use this to check mouth placement while writing and referencing the wall.

Thank you to @love.lit.joy who shared this picture of her sound wall below a bulletin board. ❤️

#soundwalls #soundwall #structuredliteracy #teacherspayteachers #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #scienceofreading

An analogy by Steve Dykstra *shared with permissio

An analogy by Steve Dykstra
*shared with permission*

“For the most part, we expect children will learn to read typically until we see clear evidence they might not. What if we flipped that around? What if we expected children would struggle to read until we saw clear evidence to the contrary? How would that change things?

Think of the swim test at the public pool. The lifeguards assume everyone is going to drown and no one should go in the deep end until you can prove that you swim well enough. They don't assume everyone is a swimmer. They assume everyone is a non-swimmer. Plenty of kids prove they can swim and they get to play in the deep end. The other kids get lessons. You don't have to prove you need lessons. You have to prove you don't.

Think of how that would change the screening process. We wouldn't be setting a low bar and passing every kid who got over it. We would be setting a high bar, releasing the few kids who got over it, and responding effectively to everyone else. We wouldn't respond the same way to every kid who went under the bar any more than the swim lesson would be the same for every child who didn't pass the swim test. Some kids are closer to being swimmers just like some kids are closer to being readers and we would respond differently to them than the kids who are afraid to get in the water or the kids who don't even know the alphabet.”

-Steve Dykstra

Please save and share if you agree. And follow @thereadingleague 🤍

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #scienceofreading #structuredliteracy #teachertraining #everystudenteveryday

Does anyone ever know what to do with their hands

Does anyone ever know what to do with their hands when posing?? I mean, really. I can teach children to read, but I do not know what to do with my hands during photos. Zero knowledge.

Thankful for @jemphotography68 and her amazing skills behind the lens. It was like a direct instruction lesson. 😂 I do (Jenna models what Meredith should do). We do (Meredith practices while Jenna watches and supports). You do (Meredith gives it a go). Without her, this would not have happened. So grateful!🤍

Stepping out of my comfort zone, taking some pictures, and bringing some more literacy goodness your way. In case you didn’t notice, my blog photo is from student teaching. 9 years ago. It’s about time...📚

...And at some point in the process, I learned to cross my arms for this picture.😆

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteach #iteachtoo #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #stepoutofyourcomfortzone

Have you signed up yet?🙌🏼 I never miss an o

I’ve chatted with many teachers recently about s

The Science of Reading is not only phonics.📢 S

The Science of Reading is not only phonics.📢

Scarborough’s Rope model and the Gough and Tumner’s Simple View of Reading show us that in order to have skilled reading comprehension, we must have strong word recognition and strong language comprehension. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s not a one or the other situation. This is not an option.

Although it is a fact that foundation skills MUST be the unbalanced focus in K-2 and with struggling readers, that does not mean that we ignore building language skills.❤️

Today’s LETRS training was an in-depth look and practice with planning and preparing a text before reading and anticipating the purpose, vocabulary, questions, and difficult language in the text. 🙌🏼 My biggest takeaway: planning is essential, but time consuming.⏰

🔎To be honest, I need to restructure my planning time and process to pay closer attention to all of these components in order to fully involve **multiple** elements of language into my daily instruction.

❤️When we know better, we do better. We are all learning and growing in this process. There’s ALWAYS room for growth.❤️

#structuredliteracy #languagecomprehension #readingcomprehension #alwaysalearner #knowbetterdobetter

Why use a sound wall? What is a sound wall? What i

When foundational skills instruction is given thro

When foundational skills instruction is given through systematic, sequential, teacher-led lessons, we will get the best results with the MOST students.

Foundation skills are an essential part of K-3 instruction. Foundational skills = phonological awareness, decoding, sight (immediate) word recognition.

BUT. Language comprehension needs to be taught as well. Students should be exposed to high-quality fiction and nonfiction books and learn through themes in order to gain knowledge about topics. They must discuss, collaborate, and build oral language. Language study (vocabulary, grammar, writing) must be taught.

If we focus too much or only on foundational skills, we tend to miss out on the big picture. We read for meaning. That is the point! Still, we have to build up to that. We cannot just assume students will get there. We need to scaffold them until they have the strong foundational skills needed to tackle texts on their own.

Phonics, comprehension skills, AND language study are essential. These must be taught together and work together to strengthen all learners. Research on this was conducted in 2003 by Foorman and Schatschneider. They looked at 55 public school classrooms of first and second graders. They found that students who were taught with a code-emphasis, tended to be better at reading comprehension skills than students who were taught with a meaning-emphasis at the end of second grade.

Moats & Tolman, 2019, Vol. 2, pg. 149 & 153

#foundationalskills #structuredliteracy #languagecomprehension #wordrecognition #orallanguage #englishlanguagearts #iteach #iteachtoo #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram

Do you teach syllable types?📚 Instruction in s

Do you teach syllable types?📚

Instruction in syllable division as a strategy for decoding multisyllabic words has been a great help to my second grader this year! 🙌🏼

It’s not a perfect science. You must be flexible and think about how patterns of letters work in English. BUT it’s a fabulous strategy for students to have so that they can attempt a word rather than skip over it. This leads to higher levels of comprehension while reading.💭

Last night, I attended a session from Kendore Learning hosted by Jessica Hasser. She discussed that knowledge of common consonant blends in English will help students to break apart words without all the extra labeling such as VC/CV, V/CV, VC/V, etc. ⭐️ Of course we still need to teach the common types that students come into contact with (Vowel-R, vowel team, closed, open, magic E, consonant+Le) but once they have that, looking for common blends can simplify the process.👍🏼

At the end of the day, the goal is to find the correct pronunciation of the syllables so that the auditory system recognizes it as a word, and then the student can put meaning to the printed sequence of letters.📚❤️

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #syllables #syllabledivision #structuredliteracy #structuredliteracyinstruction #scienceofreading

Keys to success when tutoring.🔑 ⭐️Plan in

Keys to success when tutoring.🔑

⭐️Plan in advance. Write a lesson plan every time. Be prepared. Share a digital Google Doc with parents so that they can see what was done and what is to come along with comments.
⭐️Prep every single sound, word, or sentence you want kids to write. Write those down before hand. Set yourself up for success.
⭐️Organize your sessions so they follow a format. Students feel comfortable when they know what to expect. This also helps you to determine which sections of the plan are difficult or lack student interest or attention.
⭐️Use a variety of materials. Nothing fancy necessary, but using a group of materials each time diversifies the tutoring time and keeps attention.
⭐️Be flexible. If a student needs a break or an activity change, then be prepared for that. Including lots of hands on items allows you to make activities into games in an instant. Freeze dance is also a great way to get wiggles out midsession or as a reward.
⭐️Fill the time with many activities. I’m an hour session, I usually do 9-10 activities. Each takes about 1-5 minutes. They all build on each other and relate to the same skill and goal. Using many short activities keeps engagement up and gives you the ability to switch gears immediately if something isn’t working as you’d hoped.
⭐️Keep a folder of finished and unfinished work for the student. Date everything. Students can practice from that folder at home and always have something to reread as fluency practice. Dating papers allows you to see progress over time and works well when schools want to see progress.

📚Do you tutor? What tips do you have? Leave them here!👇🏼

#tutoring #tutoringtips #readingtutor #structuredliteracy #iteach #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #soundwall

👋🏼Let's chat about the Language Comprehensio

👋🏼Let's chat about the Language Comprehension part of the Simple View of Reading:

Word Recognition✖️Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

📚Language comprehension has an initial focus on vocabulary and background knowledge. These are two strands of Scarborough's Rope that are very closely linked and interdependent. Vocabulary knowledge is shown in reading and listening (receptive vocabulary📖) and writing and speaking (expressive vocabulary📢).

"One of the most well-established findings of educational research is that reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge are highly correlated with one another, and that knowledge of individual word meanings accounts for as much as 50-60 percent of the variance in reading comprehension (Adlof & Perfetti, 2014; Stahl & Nagy, 2006). While the Reading Rope model indicates that other factors are also important in accounting for reading comprehension, 📣vocabulary is the most important single factor, once children have learned the alphabetic code."📣

⭐️Moats and Tolman explain that it is important to remember that sound, symbol, and sense are connected.⭐️ Great phonics instruction includes decoding and activities that explore word meaning. When we know a word well, we know all or most of the parts of the dimensions of the word's meaning. If we build a strong, well developed network of connections around each new word (swipe to see picture 3), the new word will be stored deeply and retrieved quickly.

👩‍🏫👨‍🏫Teachers can help to create these networks by focusing new word instruction on the following:
1️⃣Talk about pronunciation, spoken syllables, phonemes (sounds), morphemes (base words & affixes)
2️⃣Look for graphemes (spellings) or patterns/generalizations that you know
3️⃣Identify and talk about synonyms, antonyms, examples, categories.
4️⃣Bring connotations of words into discussion
5️⃣Talk about and describe multiple meanings in context

(Moats & Tolman, 2019, Volume 2, p. 6, 14)

#vocabulary #vocabularybuilding #vocabularywords #vocabularyinstruction #languagecomprehension #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading #iteach #iteachk #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers

The face you make when it’s time for your nightl

The face you make when it’s time for your nightly Heggerty brain workout. 🧠🏋️

#musictomyears #parentsupport #parentadvocacy #phonologicalawareness #phonemicawareness #heggerty #primethebrain #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading
*Shared with permission

The Science of Reading is not just phonics. I repe

The Science of Reading is not just phonics. I repeat, evidence based reading instruction does not mean we teach only phonics.⭐️

Drs. Moats and Tolman describe all components of effective reading instruction: phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and language comprehension. These 5 components have been front and center since the National Reading Panel report in 2000. We should look at our instruction and our curriculum with this lens. Are all 5 components present and prominent?💭

It is imperative to develop word recognition in order to support students reading comprehension as they grow to be independent readers. Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001) also shows that it’s imperative to build students’ language comprehension: background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures (syntax, semantics), verbal reasoning (inference, metaphor, etc.), and literacy knowledge (genres, print concepts, etc.).📚

We know from the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) that reading comprehension is the PRODUCT of word recognition and language comprehension. This means neither word recognition or language comprehension can be lacking if we want to achieve proficient reading comprehension.🙌🏼

Word recognition & language comprehension are dual goals, as Moats and Tolman stated. They should be strengthened together. While it is necessary to focus more time into phonics instruction in the early grades, a phonics only lens will never support this dual goal.

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteach #iteachtoo #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading #wordrecognition #languagecomprehension

If you’ve been following along this year, you pr

If you’ve been following along this year, you probably know that I homeschool for a family. I teach 2 siblings each day, full time.❤️

Well, this morning I walked into a classroom decorated with hearts and pink post it’s. They found all the pink and red books and put them up on the display shelves.📚

And...drumroll please...they made this hilarious shirt for me. Before to the word “Academy”, they wrote their last name. 😂 So now we have a legit one room school house. And I’m the ONLY teacher...soooo apparently I win Teacher of the Year at this school.😝

I’m still laughing, and my heart is full. Enjoying all the humor in this crazy year.
Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteach #iteachtoo #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #soundwall

Drawing attention to the syllables, onset and rime

Drawing attention to the syllables, onset and rime, or phonemes in words is extremely helpful when students are learning to orthographically map words AND when they are learning new vocabulary words. It helps the brain form a connection between the spoken word, and the printed word.🗣

We’re working on -EST in words, but I wanted to increase the difficulty by focusing on meaning a bit more. I chose words that had -est as the rime or word family unit. I also chose words that contained the suffix -est at the end of a base word.📚

Each time I said a word, they would repeat the word. I would give a sentence and then students would segment it into either onset and rime or into syllables, depending on the length of the word.🤍

If the word had an onset and the rime -est, they would quickly notice that the onset was not a word on its own (n - est). BUT, if the word had an onset and a longer rime (f - astest), we would try to divide it by syllables instead (fast - est). We would ask ourselves if the base word (fast) was a real word. If they said yes, we talked about how -est changes the meaning of that word and how it is a suffix.⭐️

We would look at our T chart and decide if it should be written on the “rime unit” side or the “suffix” side. I carefully chose base words with a variety of endings so that we could practice doubling the final consonant (biggest), changing y to i (happiest), and dropping one e (largest). We did this entire activity guided and with manipulatives, talking through each word together.📝

#speechtoprint #phonologicalawareness #phonemicawareness #spellinginstruction #wordstudy #structuredliteracy #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachtoo #iteachfirst #iteachsecond

Teensy post-its make everyone’s day.📝 Word s

Teensy post-its make everyone’s day.📝

Word sorts are a great way to practice new skills, review previous ones, or a combination of both! Here we reviewed many phonics patterns while working on syllable types.🔍

I like using word sorts when students do not have to write because it creates more time for me question. I’m constantly asking questions and providing clarifications. Students answer aloud and explain their thinking. I often think aloud with them to model how to analyze certain tricky words. Soon, they’re able to think aloud on their own which builds a deeper understanding.💭

Sort from Flyleaf decodable homework handouts (free online) which are provided for every digital decodable that they have.

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteach #iteachtoo #wordsorts #phonicsfun #phonicspatterns #syllabletypes #structuredliteracy #flyleaf

Flyleaf has the most beautiful and engaging decoda

Flyleaf has the most beautiful and engaging decodable readers.📚

We love switching between their nonfiction and fiction decodables. The pictures and illustrations are beautiful. The fiction books have great story lines. The nonfiction books are so informative and fun! They have tons of real pictures and text features.🙌🏼

They are free online, but cannot be printed. There are weekly handouts supplies for each book. They include handwriting practice, orthographic mapping, syllable division, reading comprehension with text evidence, and essay prompts. My students do some of this work as independent work throughout the week.✏️

Swipe to watch my first grade reader.⭐️

#iteachtoo #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachfirst #iteachk #iteachsecond #structuredliteracy #decodablereaders #scienceofreadinginstruction

Teaching reading IS rocket science (thanks, Dr. Lo

Teaching reading IS rocket science (thanks, Dr. Louisa Moats!) but curling your hair doesn’t have to be. 📚😂

I know this isn’t reading or teaching related. I’m also not a fashion blogger. 🤪 BUT the gram needs to share this tip. Thanks to my friend @ally.applegate, I can do this more often because it’s speedy and it works!

I have THICK long hair. If I want to curl it, it could take 30 minutes! And it won’t hold longer than a few hours to a day. I have two littles (as you can hear in the background), so that doesn’t work. But this hack! This makes it doable in just 7 minutes!!! SEVEN! 🙌🏼

It’s the little things. That is all. ❤️

And don’t worry. I won’t change from sharing reading tips to sharing beauty tips. Just this one.😝

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