Reading an EducationWeek post recently led me to dive deeper into how Reading Simplified is different from, and in my experience much more effective than, phonemic awareness programs such as Heggerty or Kilpatrick. I got lost in the study that supports EducationWeek’s assertion that
“researchers found that phonemic awareness instruction with letters led to bigger returns over a longer period of time…”1
“available evidence indicates that student reading and spelling outcomes are stronger when phonemic awareness instruction uses letters and words.” 2
After reading this paper, I found myself notching another win for the Switch It! activity from Reading Simplified that I have used successfully with my students for the past five years. Switch It! has given me a tool to explode reading growth in students with Dyslexia, ADHD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, and with English Language Learners, and students who were left behind in reading when their schools closed during COVID. From the first session of Switch It! students are using letters to practice phoneme manipulation – addition, deletion, substitution – and blending real words that they can use in their reading practice.
A typical Reading Simplified lesson opens with rereading a text from a prior lesson, then moves right into Switch It! When my students “play” Switch It! they use letter tiles to manipulate sound “switches” in words. To provide additional practice students say each sound while writing the word they have created. Finally, students blend and read the new word aloud. The Switch It! word lists allow me to provide explicit, systematic, sound-based instruction that I can target to my student’s ability level and area of need. Students are then primed to go on to other challenging tasks such as work on advanced phonics, spelling, and decoding and discussing a new text.
Want to know more about Reading Simplified? Here are links to Switch It! and Sort It!, the two Reading Simplified activities that are the backbone of my reading instruction.
Those of you who follow my posts know that I am a devotee of the Science of Reading. I have trained in the Institute for Mulit-Sensory Education (IMSE) Orton-Gillingham method, and I have also trained with Reading Simplified. In fact, I am a Reading Simplified Expert Teacher/Tutor. Because Reading Simplified is a newer program, I would like to take time in this post to explain the Reading Simplified methodology and how I teach using Reading Simplified.
The goal of Reading Simplified is to teach sound-based decoding strategies in order to get learners to grade level reading and fluency as quickly as possible. Reading Simplified was developed by Dr. Marnie Ginsberg and is based on the Targeted Reading Intervention she developed at University of North Carolina. The scope and sequence of Reading Simplified is provided in the Streamlined Pathway, and new skills build upon previously taught skills. Each lesson has three main sections: Re-reading for Fluency, Word Work, and Guided Oral Reading. All readings are selected to reinforce the sound-based decoding skills being taught or reviewed in the Word Work component of the lesson.
Beginning or struggling readers of any age benefit from the structured Reading Simplified approach, and many students learn to decode words within 12 weeks. While some students may take longer or need more targeted interventions, I have seen tremendous and rapid progress with students who I have found to be “stuck” in the IMSE Orton-Gillingham progression.
Teaching reading online presents its own set of challenges in engaging students and monitoring progress, but I have found the Reading Simplified program easy to adapt to online learning. Every component, from the initial Snapshot Assessment at intake to the Dynamic Assessment for Lesson Planning, to the Reading Development Tracker which I share with parents monthly, is designed to be used together to support ease of planning and targeting instruction to students’ most pressing needs.
What Do We Do In a Reading Simplified Lesson?
Re-Reading for Fluency
Lessons always begin with a quick check-in and presentation of our plan for the day. Then we dive into a re-read of our last lesson’s Guided Reading materials for at least a couple of pages. Re-reading is so important as a formative assessment of where the student needs additional support. Re-reading also allows the student to begin the lesson with a boost of confidence in experiencing the re-reading as easier than it was last time. Finally, as we often “buddy read” during this portion of the lesson, re-reading can allow me to model fluent reading to the student.
Word Work
Word Work is the heart of our Reading Simplified lesson. In Switch It students build and manipulate three to six sound words to practice sound based decoding and sound manipulation skills. Students also build flexible thinking skills used to decode unfamiliar words. Using the Reading Simplified Read It activity, students learn and practice the Blend as You Read strategy, also known as continuous blending. My students, especially those with working memory challenges, have really benefited from learning BAYR. Sort It is used to teach and practice advanced phonics concepts such as long vowels, r-controlled vowels, diphthongs, and word endings. Rather than learning spelling rules, which do take up a lot of working memory space, students learn by doing. They practice sorting words by sound and spelling patterns and learn to think flexibly about those words and common exceptions to learned patterns. Write It is a dictation activity and can be words, phrases, or sentences. Write It is used to support sound-symbol learning done in Read It and Sort It as well as to support reading comprehension.
For reviewing and practicing target skills, I rely on games that I have created on Wordwall. Wordwall allows me to completely customize each game to the target skill, and kids love these! We use Open the Box, Spin the Wheel, Matching, and other games to review and practice sound skills being taught. I have also used many games on the BOOM platform to provide continued practice on previously learned sound-symbol patterns.
Wordwall.net
Guided Oral Reading
The final component of our lesson is Guided Oral Reading, which is continued practice in the sound-symbol patterns presented in the Word Work component of the lesson. The most important component of Guided Oral Reading is trust. The student must trust that they will be asked to read a book that is challenging, but not too challenging, and that they will have my support along the way. I depend on decodable readers for Guided Oral Reading for beginning and struggling readers, and then as they become more skilled we transition into authentic texts such as Frog and Toad or Nate the Great (two of my favorites!). I have found some great decodables on EPIC!, Flyleaf, Phonicbooks, and Starfall, all of which are free for teachers. And of course, we follow with a few reading comprehension questions to allow me to do a quick assessment of student comprehension.
Wrapping It Up
Students are ready to go at the end of a 50-minute tutoring session, but we always take a few minutes to talk about what was easy, what was challenging, and what the student would like to read about next time. Right now the most common request is non-fiction about sharks! I am lucky to be able to find great non-fiction books at many levels on the EPIC! platform, and after careful preview I feel confident that I can provide the support to make the book a “just right” read for our next lesson.
Reading Simplified provides the scope and sequence for effective Tier 1 instruction, but where I find it is outstanding is in the Tier 3 instruction that I provide as a 1:1 tutor. Reading Simplified lessons are easily customizable to allow me to meet students right where they are and provide effective and rapid intervention. Moving a student to grade level reading fluency as quickly as possible is my goal, and Reading Simplified allows me to provide the targeted support students need to get there. Learn more about Reading Simplified by clicking on this link: Reading Simplified.
Students with dysgraphia generally have messy handwriting which may have one or more of the following characteristics:
Irregular spacing
Unevenly sized letters
Writing above or below the lines
Erratic pencil pressure
Poor spelling, omits letters or words
Capitalization errors, including mid-sentence caps
Frequent scratch-outs and erasures
Dysgraphia is a neurological challenge which affects the ability to write, often referred to as “an impairment of written expression.” Some students with dysgraphia have low muscle tone in their hands, arms, or core which makes handwriting physically taxing. Some students with dysgraphia expend so much mental energy in the formation of letters that they struggle to express their thoughts while writing. Some students with dysgraphia have working memory challenges or other brain differences that make associating letters (graphemes) with their corresponding sounds (phonemes) especially difficult.
With early diagnosis and intervention, students with dysgraphia can make significant improvements in their letter formation and written expression. Researchers have demonstrated that the areas of the brain that are active when writing are also active when reading, and students with dysgraphia usually also have impaired reading abilities (dyslexia). An official diagnosis can be made by a neuropsychologist, or a physical therapist can test for motor skills deficiencies. Teachers, tutors, or occupational therapists can implement structured interventions to help students overcome the challenges of dysgraphia.
If you are a parent or teacher of a student with dysgraphia, the following things may help:
Wiggling fingers, hand and arm stretching, or using a stress ball before and during handwriting activities
Provide an assortment of pencil grips, especially fat and cushy ones
Provide paper with raised lines such as that provided in the Handwriting Without Tears program
Provide or request accommodations such as reduced writing requirements, the use of graphic organizers, and oral answers or drawn responses to demonstrate knowledge
Utilize the services of a tutor or occupational therapist to provide 1:1 handwriting instruction using a researched based program such as HWOT or EBLI
What do I use in my teaching?
EBLI (Evidence Based Reading Instruction) provides a research-based handwriting remediation program which has been shown to improve student’s letter formation in as little as 2 weeks with 1:1 teacher support. Students compete against themselves to improve their time in writing the alphabet in order to increase automaticity in letter formation. Teachers use the remaining lesson time for formative assessment and 1:1 instruction in letter formation. The EBLI handwriting program can also be used as a whole class warm up, taking about 5 minutes each class period.
Another evidence-based handwriting instruction program that I have used, Handwriting Without Tears (HWOT), is often provided by Occupational Therapists to students with diagnosed dysgraphia, but it can also be used as a Tier 1 handwriting instruction program. The HWOT program assumes no handwriting knowledge and provides explicit instruction in formation of letters in groups by letter shape and placement on the lined paper. This is a program with a complete scope and sequence and can take up to a full academic year to complete. Handwriting Without Tears is sometimes referred to as the Wet…Dry…Try method.
After a student has mastered letter formation, another tool I use is the handwriting exercises from The Writing Revolution by Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler. The Writing Revolution is a guide to using student writing to inform instruction in grammar and syntax, and this method of instruction makes writing “real” for students. Avoiding sentence diagramming or overuse of writing terminology, The Writing Revolution begins with instruction on how to write clear sentences that are engaging and informative. I am beginning to incorporate instruction from The Writing Revolution into my tutoring practice by having students complete sentence starters or frames using the model because, but, or so to assess their reading comprehension.
For students who have mastered sentence writing, The Writing Revolution instruction moves on to planning, writing, and revising paragraphs, and eventually into constructing essays and research papers. Students gain further understanding of content by expressing their thoughts in writing, and teachers may use student writing to assess their content mastery.
Please do not neglect handwriting instruction!
While it is tempting to accommodate handwriting challenges using alternative technology such as keyboarding or speech to text, the evidence is clear that striving readers benefit from the brain connections made while learning handwriting. Support handwriting development, and you will also support reading development. For a deep dive into this connection, see Brain research shows why handwriting should be taught in the computer age – James, Berninger.pdf (ldaustralia.org)
Thanks for taking time to further your understanding of dysgraphia. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can help!
What are your child’s superpowers? My friend Kelly Rogan, owner of Skool-ed.com, shared an article this week that brought me so much joy! According to a post by the World Economic Forum, People with dyslexia have ‘enhanced abilities’, according to a new study, people with dyslexia have a unique set of superpowers. Researchers at the University of Cambridge suggest that dyslexia should be regarded as a strength, not a disability, because the condition is linked to “enhanced abilities in areas like discovery, invention, and creativity.” Think about it… what we often think of as a deficit is actually a strength in the ability to adapt to a changing world!
Dyslexia is present in about one in five students, and it can be an inherited condition. People who are dyslexic generally have difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling. Research has shown that early structured literacy interventions, such as those provided by Orton-Gillingham based programs, is highly effective in retraining the brains of people with dyslexia so that reading, writing, and spelling become less of a challenge. Generally, educators look at dyslexia as a deficit, rather than as a set of unique strengths. Imagine if we could ease the challenges for students with dyslexia while at the same time enhancing their strengths.
Please get in touch if you would like to know more about services offered at Sand Dollar Tutoring. We specialize in strengths-based instruction for students with dyslexia, and we put relationships first. Let us help your child find their superpowers!
Dyscalculia involves trouble understanding what numbers mean or how to use numbers to solve math problems. Hallmarks of dyscalculia are weaknesses in subitizing (quickly identify the number of objects present) or in approximate number sense (which plate has more cookies?). It occurs when the brain’s centers for number sense, visual imaging, and language processing do not work properly or do not work together. Dyscalculia often co-occurs with other learning disabilities such as dyslexia or ADHD, further complicating the identification and support of students with dyscalculia. In an episode of The LDA Podcast entitled Dyscalculia: Causes, Consequences, and Creative Solutions, Dr. Anneke Schreuder, the founder of Math and Dyscalculia Services, talked about different ways to test for dyscalculia and the importance of early screening and intervention.
Most states do not have any mandatory Kindergarten or First Grade screening requirements for dyscalculia, and there is still not one widely used screening tool for early elementary students. However, Dr. Schreuder has used behavioral screening with infants as young as six months. Using a simple test, babies are shown a group of 1-3 objects. When objects are added or taken away, babies commonly respond to the change with eye movements and facial expressions. Math screeners are generally not offered in school until a student has fallen well behind their classmates, and Dr. Schreuder argues that because math learning is sequential – new learning builds upon prior learning – this “wait to fail” method makes it even more difficult for students to catch up to their peers. Even students who compensate by memorizing math facts find it hard to keep up by Third Grade when concepts like fractions are introduced. For students in Kindergarten and older, a free online numeracy screener is available from Numeracy Screener. This research-based screener developed by Dr. Daniel Ansari at the University of Western Ontario and takes about 5 minutes to administer. Dr. Schreuder offers a low-cost screener on her website Math and Dyscalculia Services.
The good news is that once dyscalculia is identified, there are research-based interventions that can help to retrain the brain. Practice subitizing is a common math warm-up activity in Kindergarten and early elementary classrooms. With practice, response times and accuracy improve in many students. Multisensory math instruction has also been shown to boost students’ understanding of the concept of number and how to use numbers to solve math problems. Using objects for counting, number lines, and drawn representation of math problems are some examples of multisensory math instruction. The Corwin Mathematics Recovery Book Series provides intensive instructional tools for early mathematics learning. The US Math Recovery Council has as its mission to connect research in mathematics education with practice, and their resources are invaluable to teachers of math in the early to middle grades.
Below are links to additional information and resources which I have found helpful in understanding dyscalculia and in teaching students about early numeracy. Please get in touch if you would like additional support on your child’s math journey.
Teachers use the summer months to catch up on reading and podcasts that help us better serve our students. One of the podcasts I am catching up on this summer is Science of Reading: The Podcast from Amplify Education. In an episode from December 2021, Susan Lambert talks to 10th grader Hadyn Fleming about his experiences growing up with dyslexia. Hadyn currently lives and attends high school in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He is in Honors Biology and Honors English classes, and he loves US History. He is a self-proclaimed gym rat who plays on the football team, throws shot put, discus, and hammer, and loves to ski. He has moved around the US and Mexico with his family, and says of them, “We are adventurers!” Hadyn’s confidence and charisma are absolutely contagious!
But life hasn’t always been easy for Hadyn. Like many people with dyslexia, Hadyn had a sense early on that something wasn’t right. The words in simple books that his friends had mastered looked like scribbles. A teachers comment, “God, you are so stupid,” was absolutely crushing. Hadyn became depressed; he felt stuck and insecure. Hadyn was lucky that his parents were able to locate help for him. When he was 10 he attended Rocky Mountain Camp, a 5-week summer program where he learned that he was not alone in his struggle. Hadyn worked with a 1:1 tutor who provided explicit reading and writing instruction. After working for up to six hours each day, campers were able to participate in outdoor activities such as kayaking and hiking. Hadyn felt for the first time that “I have a lot of potential if I learn to use it correctly.” Following Rocky Mountain Camp, Hadyn attended Vertical Skills Academy for two years. There he continued to work hard to read and write and build his confidence. Hadyn was later diagnosed with ADHD and admits that when his medication wears off it is hard to stay on track or find the right words to express himself. Hadyn admits that he feels very lucky to have a supportive family that helped him identify his dyslexia early and had the resources to help him close the gap.
When asked to describe his dyslexia, Hadyn said that it is like an obstacle course, and that every time a teacher asks a question he has to go through the course again. This is in every subject. Like in an obstacle course, Hadyn gets bumped and bruised through it all. Hadyn has learned to advocate for what he needs to make it through the course, especially additional time for tasks or tests and the use of audio books. Hadyn says he can now read just fine, but like other dyslexics the cognitive demands of reading interfere with his comprehension. Using audio books allows Hadyn to use his mental energy to understand and remember what he reads and to fully participate in class discussions.
In graduate school I was introduced to the challenges of Twice-Exceptional (2e) Learners. These students have learning disabilities, like Hadyn. They also have exceptional intelligence, like Hadyn. The combination means that 2e students are acutely aware of their disabilities, but that their giftedness masks their struggles. These students are not lazy or dumb. They require teachers who will look beyond behaviors to find the underlying cause of the student’s struggle and provide the appropriate intervention. If you are interested in more information about 2e Learners, I highly recommend the book Teaching Twice Exceptional Learners in Today’s Classroom by Emily Kircher-Morris. I turn to this book each time I encounter a new student to remind me of the importance of meeting these students where they are and providing interventions designed to support their unique needs.
Hadyn’s goal is to be an aeronautical engineer. He wants to try one or two AP classes next year, and he plans to apply to Harvard University. While most of us really cannot understand how difficult academic work is for Hadyn, we can support Hadyn and other students like him by giving them the opportunity to be great. We will not be disappointed!
If you know of a student who would benefit from working with an experienced educator of Twice Exceptional Learners, please get in touch via my website, Sand Dollar Tutoring, for more information about private tutoring in the areas of reading, writing, and executive function skills.
Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates
If you know me, or if you have read my previous posts, you know that I love everything about teaching kids to read. The biggest challenge I have faced as a teacher and tutor is the frustration kids feel when reading is really, really hard for them. So hard that they begin to dislike books, writing, and pretty much everything to do with literacy. They feel so defeated, even by the beginning of second grade, and who can blame them, really?
I was excited to learn about the book Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates. Both Burkins and Yates are passionate literacy educators with deep backgrounds in Balanced Literacy theory and practice. Burkins and Yates took on the difficult task of diving into the Science of Reading and reconciling their new knowledge with their expertise in Balanced Literacy classrooms. There is tension in K-2 classrooms between time spent in conversation or learning from books read aloud to build student listening comprehension skills, and time spent building reading comprehension skills by students doing the hard work of reading text. The authors argue that both are essential to growing accomplished readers. With a few modifications – The Six Shifts – we can use what we have learned from the Science of Reading to inform our literacy instruction without losing the joy and depth of learning found in the best Balanced Literacy classrooms.
In Chapter 1 I was reminded of the importance of oral language in the K-2 classroom, whether it be making space for interesting conversation, expanding on student ideas, introducing and using interesting words, or providing engaging interactive read alouds. The authors cite a study by Adlof, Catts, and Little (2006) in which by eighth grade “nearly all of the reading comprehension differences between readers can be attributed not to differences in decoding but to differences in listening comprehension.” Burkins and Yates chose three areas for a deeper dive – the use of interesting words, the interactive read aloud, and dialogic conversations – and provided multiple suggestions for classroom implementation in each area.
In Chapters 2 and 3, Burkins and Yates explored the science behind phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. Our brains are wired to understand and manipulate sounds, but our brains are not wired to attach letters to those sounds. Good literacy teachers know that phonemic awareness and then phonics must be taught intentionally and practiced daily in order to ground our students in the sound-letter skills that are the basis of fluent reading. The authors provided 5 High Leverage Instructional Routines for Phonemic Awareness which can be taught in mini-lessons or incorporated into daily work. Because phonemic awareness is taught auditorily, there is minimal preparation. Elkonin boxes, chips, and picture cards for sound sorts are easily located or created in K-2 classrooms. In Chapter 3, the authors discussed the importance of a strong scope and sequence and provided examples of activities and word lists for phonics skill learning and review. Decodable word lists and sentences for short vowels, blends, digraphs, and long vowels, as well as a lesson plan template are available as Free Downloads at The Six Shifts. Templates for progress monitoring of students’ phonemic awareness and phonics skills essential to planning instruction are also provided as Free Downloads.
In Chapter 4, the authors discussed the importance of orthographic mapping in high-frequency word instruction to cement those words into students’ long-term memories – not by rote memorization but by taking those words apart by sound, by spelling, and by alignment to other known words. New to me was Burkins and Yates discussion of lexical quality, or how much a reader knows about a word. Lexical quality grows each time a reader encounters a word, and ideally every word will become a sight word. Researchers generally agree that for most readers it takes about ten encounters to learn a new word, but students with reading challenges may take many more. The authors provided a method for prioritizing high-frequency word instruction and routines for orthographic mapping and practice throughout the day.
In Chapter 5 Burkins and Yates turned the Three Cueing System on its head. They advocated a shift to using print as the first strategy for word solving, followed by meaning and structure to cross check, and emphasized eyes on print time to grow reading skill. Then, in Chapter 6, they gave guidelines for choosing quality texts for striving readers. If a patterned text is to be used to support background knowledge or to appeal to student interest, it should also be viewed as an opportunity to practice orthographic mapping on a few unknown words in the text. Teacher guidance in selecting aligned texts is crucial, and student choice in trade literature to be “read” via picture or other support is best practice. Time for both is important to at once engage and challenge striving readers.
I share the concerns of Burkins and Yates that the readers who are so often left behind are those who are children of color or who come from marginalized communities. These students deserve intensive phonemic awareness and phonics instruction to catch up to their peers, and they need to be engaged by having their diverse cultures and interests represented in the literature they experience. They, most of all, need to have the important role of listening comprehension, foundational in the Balanced Literacy classroom, not be abandoned in our rush to the Science of Reading. Like Burkins and Yates, we must build the bridge between Balanced Literacy and the Science of Reading in order to serve the needs of all of our students.
Would you like to know more about how I might help your striving reader succeed? Visit Sand Dollar Tutoring to learn more about me and about the services I offer, including Orton-Gillingham and Reading Simplified private tutoring sessions.
Great teachers not only meet students’ educational needs. By building positive relationships with students, teachers also meet students’ needs for safety, security, love, and belonging. Students whose needs are met in these areas develop positive self-esteem and grow as learners and community members.
Do you know of a teacher who puts relationships first? Please take a moment at the close of this school year to let them know how much you appreciate them and encourage your child to do so too!
Are you looking for a tutor for summer or fall? At Sand Dollar Tutoring, we put relationships first!
Even just 2-3 hours a week of quality instruction can prevent the Summer Slide! Evidence-based reading instruction using Orton-Gillingham or Reading Simplified methods can not only prevent the summer slide, but they can accelerate your child’s growth over the summer months. The key is to connect with an instructor who is well-qualified and who also is a good fit for your child. Looking for someone who is experienced, compassionate, and committed to helping your child accelerate their learning over the summer? To find out more, click below.
Sand Dollar Tutoring 