The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

What if elementary teachers approached the subject of Language Arts as if it was a competitive sport? Just think of it. Every K-8 teacher would be part of a coaching staff charged with developing players’ language arts knowledge and skills. In this analogy, the playbook contains plays designed to help each team member achieve literacy success, which is the ultimate goal of the game! The knowledge and skills learned by each team member will grow into great competence, and every time these competencies are used to practice or compete, confidence will grow.

Every coach has a secret book of plays, right? Wouldn’t you want to know the secret strategies from the coach’s playbook? Over the next few weeks, we plan to give you a sneak peek at the playbook and a checklist for each play, including vocabulary, grammar, composition, and writing for all purposes. You will be able to use the checklist to ensure that your special team executes each play with competence and confidence.

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The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

What if elementary teachers approached the subject of Language Arts as if it was a competitive sport? Just think of it. Every K-8 teacher would be part of a coaching staff charged with developing players’ language arts knowledge and skills. In this analogy, the playbook contains plays designed to help each team member achieve literacy success, which is the ultimate goal of the game! The knowledge and skills learned by each team member will grow into great competence, and every time these competencies are used to practice or compete, confidence will grow.

Every coach has a secret book of plays, right? Wouldn’t you want to know the secret strategies from the coach’s playbook? Over the next few weeks, we plan to give you a sneak peek at the playbook and a checklist for each play, including vocabulary, grammar, composition, and writing for all purposes. You will be able to use the checklist to ensure that your special team executes each play with competence and confidence.

Read More

The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

The Playbook of Literary Success, Part 1: Vocabulary

What if elementary teachers approached the subject of Language Arts as if it was a competitive sport? Just think of it. Every K-8 teacher would be part of a coaching staff charged with developing players’ language arts knowledge and skills. In this analogy, the playbook contains plays designed to help each team member achieve literacy success, which is the ultimate goal of the game! The knowledge and skills learned by each team member will grow into great competence, and every time these competencies are used to practice or compete, confidence will grow.

Every coach has a secret book of plays, right? Wouldn’t you want to know the secret strategies from the coach’s playbook? Over the next few weeks, we plan to give you a sneak peek at the playbook and a checklist for each play, including vocabulary, grammar, composition, and writing for all purposes. You will be able to use the checklist to ensure that your special team executes each play with competence and confidence.

Read More

More Than the ABCs: The Consonant S

More Than the ABCs: The Consonant S

Welcome back! In a previous post, I showed you how to help students own the alphabet as more than just the ABCs. Each symbol or letter is a picture of sound. Our job is to teach kids how to attach the sound or sounds that each symbol represents. I introduced to you the three sounds of Vowel Aa. As promised, I will be teaching you about a consonant next…the Consonant Ss. Again, like last time, I print both the capital and lowercase letter Ss so that you won’t forget to make it a point to teach the sounds that way. Unlike the vowels, consonants stop

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Micro-comprehension: A Foundation of Words

Micro-comprehension: A Foundation of Words

In an earlier blog post, I pointed out that early reading might best focus on micro-comprehension strategies before exploring the macro-comprehension kinds of questions that are found in most reading programs. But why? To start with, a reader won’t have clear macro-comprehension without clear micro-comprehension. A deep and wide vocabulary makes the micro-comprehension much more accurate!

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What is microcomprehension?

What is microcomprehension?

I read some information today about what’s missing in reading comprehension instruction, and the research that was provided jumped off of the page for me! I had to get used to some new terminology, but it all made perfect sense!

The article stated that the latest research in early literacy found that there is an extra step between decoding and comprehension that most of us don’t know about. They even had a name for the missing skill: microcomprehension.

In a nutshell, microcomprehension is

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